CHAPTER SEVEN

More about the Greater Gifts

A Word of Knowledge

THE BIBLE is full of instances where a man of God was likely to be deceived, and needed to be told the facts of the case by the Spirit of God. Thus Ahijah was warned about the visit of Jeroboam's wife (1 Kings 14:5), and Elisha was shown Gehazi's treachery and dismissed him, who then took up service in the King's court (2 Kings 5:20-27; 8:4). And in Acts 5:1-9, God saved the early Church from the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira which was calculated to destroy the beautiful atmosphere of sincerity in which it began. The awful effect of such deception is exposed in the next chapter, when the Grecians were suspicious of the financial integrity even of those who managed the Church affairs!

By such gifts the King of Israel was saved from the attacks of the King of Syria, when Elisha was able to tell him about the disposition of the Syrian armies (2 Kings 6:9), and Noah and his family were saved from destruction by the Flood (Genesis 6:17), combined with the accompanying Word of Wisdom, which enabled them to build an Ark which would be able to survive the catastrophe. Again, it was a word of knowledge which enabled Daniel to tell King Nebuchadnezzar his dream, and thus laid the foundation of his subsequent conversion (Daniel 2:29, 30, 47; 4:1-3) and saved the lives of Daniel and his companions.