I'm winding up this little series
and I'm praying about what text to preach next going into the
fall. We started out in First Corinthians
before service looking at the instruction for head coverings.
Now, I'm not here to preach against head coverings. I'm just want
you to understand that that is one of the text that is used
in such a way sometimes where people get so convicted over
that particular instruction that they miss the theological principle
behind it. And they realize they don't realize that it's actually
not a commandment in the sense that applies to all churches,
but it's a commandment that applies to the people of Corinth in relation
to the theological truth that Paul is trying to teach, which
is the crisis ahead of all things. Christ is the head of his church
and marriage is a display of the gospel, a display of the
church in a temporal place. Marriage is a temporal picture.
It's temporary. It's a temporal picture of the
eternal glory of the gospel. So as husband and wife relate
in the picture, so is the church in Christ related forever. That's
why he goes beyond to say that just because women should cover
their head. And then he asked, do you not know, do you not discern
among yourselves that this is true, that culture tells you
that women shouldn't go around with their head shaved and that
men should not cover their heads when they pray? Don't you know
that culture tells you that? Because it's an outward sign
of an inward issue, that they're sort of bucking the system of
traditions in that sense. And I want to be careful how
I say that. But as for you, a woman has hair
because her hair is her glory, it covers her head. So she needs
to cover the glory because her husband is her glory. The word
husband, the Greek word is andros, which means head. So you see
the principle there. But yet there are entire movements
of denominations who make it a principle to teach that head
coverings are an absolute and that if we do not use them, that
we're living in rebellion to God's word. But we misunderstand
that. Now, we have the grace to discern it might be best for
us. Let's practice that. But we don't do that at Grace
Truth Church. But if you so feel led, then that's fine. Just don't
impart that leading to the church as a whole. And please don't
divide and leave over it. That's a sin in itself. Turn
to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. I cannot put titles on my sermons
until weeks later that they actually make sense. It's very difficult
to. I mean, how do you entitle sermons? You know, first Thessalonians
five. That'd be a good sermon title.
Verse 19 through 22. Maybe it's about the truth of
prophecy. Why don't we say what else could it be? Having discernment. Learning what prophecy is, I
don't know. I just say, hear ye the word
of the Lord and let's see what God's going to do with it. But
I'll tell you why I'm teaching this very thing, because I believe
that there's several things I won't number them, because sometimes
I number incorrectly and do more or less. People get irritated.
Your outline was wrong. What outline? So I'm going to
say there are many things that are problematic within the church
today with among the people of God in this country. and several
key areas that this text would speak to. Let's look at the text.
1 Thessalonians 5, 19-22. And it reads, command, do not
quench the Spirit. Verse 20, do not despise prophecies,
but test everything and hold fast what is good. Verse 22,
abstain from every form of evil. Now, in an attempt not to do
that, which I'm going to preach against today, I want you to
understand that is a thought from a larger thought from a
larger thought from a larger thought. So what I mean by that,
that's a very small phrase and several small commands that are
related to the whole of the argument of this preceding structure,
preceding words that's related to the whole of the argument
for the last four chapters of the entire letter to the Thessalonians. So we have to keep in mind that
what Paul is trying to do here is help these Thessalonians see
that there has been people among them, church members, let's just
say it like that, who have come and said, y'all missed the day
of the resurrection. You missed the second coming.
It's long gone. You've missed it. And Paul is trying to tell them,
look, you have not missed it for this is what it will be like.
This is what it will be like. And so encourage one another
just as you're doing and wait on the Lord for those who are
dead in their graves will be raised to life. Those who are
alive will rise to meet him in the air. So Christ is going to
come and take his people out of the grave. Don't worry about
that. Don't worry about that. You're not going to miss it and
wonder, did I miss it? It's not possible for you to
wake up and have missed the second coming. It's just not. That's
what Paul is trying to help them see, because there were a lot of Christians
among them who had been told by other people among the church
that this has already taken place. And so there became a faction.
There became this division amongst the Christians of Thessalonica,
who, by the way, were absolutely superb in their testimony and
witness, absolutely superb in their doctrine. And there was
no there's no Condemnation at all that Paul gives them. Paul
says, you have got such a witness and a testimony that when we
went into the town surrounding you, that people who knew you
said, I want to know what it is that changed them. So we don't
believe in what we call a relational evangelism. We don't believe
in what would call, you know, behavioristic or moral gospel. But I tell you, the gospel truth
without right righteousness and without practice is worthless. Because for the most part, people
had rather see professing Christians live in sin than live in righteousness,
because it makes them feel good about their lives. So the point now, and do not
quench the spirit, this is the will of the Lord for you, your
sanctification. Admonish the idle. Encourage
the fainthearted. Help the weak. Be patient with
them. Also, Paul's just saying, OK, I've got to finish this letter
up. There's things I want you to continue to do in the faith.
And so I'm just going to list a bunch of them. See that no
one repays evil with evil, anyone evil for evil, but always seek
to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks
in all circumstances, for this is the will of God and Christ
Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit. So
this, though it's related, it's not specifically building to
the argument that Paul's saying. But what Paul is saying is to
continue to do good, continue to end the way. And one of the
things that is very key to the argument of the whole letter,
especially in the sense of this coming of the Lord. Is that you
need not quench the spirit because you've been here's why. Imagine
being amongst the brethren, the sisters, and all of a sudden
somebody, hey, I read this in the Bible, and this is what Jesus,
and I'm quoting this as an example now, this is a soundbite that
gets you in trouble. Jesus isn't really divine. He's just sort
of human. You know, what if somebody said that? You'd be like, warning,
warning, warning. You know, you'd have this little
warning that goes off. And at the same time, another
brother standing in the same circle might tell you about the
power of grace and how awesome it is and how unworthy we are
that God and His infinite love has given us favor in Christ
Jesus. Say, yeah, that's good. But what happened is you're so
scared you're going to get bad teaching that you despise all
teaching. I don't want to hear it. I don't
want to hear it. I'm going to close my mind off,
my ears off. I'm going to be an island unto myself and I'm
going to teach and learn. And I don't want to hear anybody
else but my pastor and what he has to say about it. And he very
well could be wrong. That's where you have to have
a discernment. That's where you have to have judgment on your own.
That's where you, as a prophet of God, also must understand
prophecy. And so this is what's happening.
And so when Paul says, do not quench the spirit, he's actually
telling them, do not quench the spirit in despising prophecies. Now, here I have to come and
say. That what's happening. Is that when we hear that word
in verse 20, do not despise prophecies, what we're hearing in our American
culture. is some wack, crazy, futuristic
utterance. We're thinking differently than
what Paul is meaning. Why? Because the people who like
to use the word prophet and prophecy and prophetic today are nowhere
near the Word of God. Ever. They hold the Bible, but
they don't know the Bible. They teach the Bible, but they
treacherously twist it. And so when we think prophecy,
what we're thinking is we're thinking somebody jumps up in
the middle of service and goes and then everything jumps crazy
and all of a sudden somebody passes out, another person throws
up, another person faints and then somebody else runs and everybody's
just in chaos. And we call that the movement
of the spirit of God. That's not God. And prophecy is not when somebody
stands up and says, I tie my bowtie, you tie my bowtie and
slap me in the head and then start to tell you what the word
of the Lord just said. Oh, God just told me I had a vision. God told me that's not prophecy,
that's Satanism. And I hate to say it like that,
it's very cut to the chase, but I'm not preaching about that
today, so I'm going to use my fallacious rhetoric to tell you
it's bad and you can go prove yourself right. But hopefully
we'll understand why, because the understanding of what prophecy
is says, do not despise prophecies. So Paul is telling these people
who are Christians, just like us, not to despise prophecies,
because in doing so, we quench the Holy Spirit of God. Now,
let me talk to you a minute about that. The Holy Spirit of God
is given to every individual who is born of God. The Holy
Spirit of God enters into the dead heart of a dead person.
When I say dead, I mean spiritually dead in such a way that if he
does not come in and renew, that person cannot receive Christ
and have faith to believe. So we believe regeneration. is
preceding faith. We are Baptist, and that's what
we've always believed for 400 years or better, that regeneration
precedes faith. And I know that that's a backroom
argument. But for the sake of it being
true or not is irrelevant to the realization of what happens
here in this text. But what I want you to see is
that the spirit is the giver of life. And if the spirit is
the giver of life and the spirit is also the ceiling of the church,
the spirit is that which sustains the church. So that which God
saves, God keeps. We like to call it once saved,
always saved. Well, you know what? You either
are or you're not. You're not saved now forever. You're saved
or you're not saved. And so if you're not saved, repent,
believe the gospel, trust in the fullness of who God says
he is through Jesus Christ, who died to take your place in the
judgment of God and therefore by faith be alive. And we don't
come to this. We don't come to this weird baptism
of the Spirit, feeling of the stuff. But what we do understand
about the Spirit is that that is how we're born again. Whether
your faith effects it or whether the Spirit brings faith is irrelevant
to the argument of Paul at Thessalonians. The Spirit of God is the power
of God. It is the mover. It is the one
who, though I with my natural mouth can read the words of Christ,
only the Spirit of God in you can give you ears to hear it.
Only the Spirit of God in you can give you eyes to see it.
Only the Spirit of God in you, moving in you, recreating you,
can give you a heart to hold to the highest affections of
the gospel so that Jesus, not as just your Savior, but as your
satisfactory savoring of all things. So the Spirit of God
is actively, powerfully at work in the church. But we don't understand
how. There'd be a good series to look
at the work of the Holy Spirit. Better, though, let's just teach
the Bible, and then in doing that, we teach the work of the
Holy Spirit. Because here, we need to understand
that discernment That means discriminating that which we hear, realizing
what is good and not good, seeing what is right and wrong, seeing
black from white, darkness from goodness, you know, things of
that nature. It is evident among the people of God. Prophecy is
evident among the people of God because the fire of the Holy
Spirit burns within us in a massively powerful way. Well, I'll tell
you, talking about the work of the Holy Spirit and being filled
with the Holy Spirit, which is the command of Paul and a prayer
of Paul, what does he say to the Ephesians? I pray that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God in that same letter to
the Ephesians. He says, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled
with the Holy Spirit. It's a command. So in other words,
filled and satisfied and fully enveloped and fully committed
and fully believing and fully understanding and fully receiving
and fully moving in the power of God through his spirit. God's
spirit is the power at work within us. It is the power at work that
raised Christ from the dead and is the power at work within us
to hold us into his presence until that day when he comes
to take us. This is this is something we just don't deal with a lot.
And the world at large wants to see some manifestation of
the Spirit. And a lot of times they try to
say it this way, that prophecy is the manifestation of the Spirit.
It is, but they misunderstand prophecy. Prophecy in the Old
Testament is when the person whom God had
appointed to be his mouthhouse would receive from the Lord with
clear thought They didn't pass out, wake up in a slobber pool.
He just, the Lord spoke clearly. They didn't have to go on a trance.
They didn't have to go on some seance. It was not like that. Clear,
orderly, truth. Period. And they would say, God
would say, go tell these people this. And they would sometimes
write it down. And then we have the prophets
of the Old Testament. And sometimes they would just go. to remind
them of what God had already written down through other prophets.
Is that not the way it worked? And so then the prophet would
come in here and say, Thus saith the Lord God Almighty, if you
do not repent, I will take you out. If you do not look to me
as your glory, but yet you continue to do what you do in sin, you
continue to live for yourself, you continue to live in disobedience,
you will suffer judgment. Is that not the beginning and
the foundations of even what we understand in the gospel?
But I, the Lord God, said I will redeem you. What does He say
to Israel through the prophet Ezekiel? You're wicked, you're
losers, you're sinful, you hate me, you've defamed me, but because
I am a God, Who loves you, I'm going to save you in spite of
you. And I'm going to build you back up and make you great so
that my name would be famed. Though you have to be famed.
I will make you who are dead and bones alive. And I will breathe
life. And how did that work? He preached. He preached to the bones. They
stood up. He preached to the bones. Flesh came upon them.
He preached to the bones and life went into them. That is
a picture of what the gospel does. That is prophesying. Prophesy
means to preach. Prophesy means to teach that
which the Lord has said. And in the New Testament, it's
not new. It's not different prophecy.
It's the same prophecy that's already been given. Peter says,
we've not devised creative plans, we've not devised these stories,
but we've seen clearly the prophets of old have brought us here.
And so we hold fast to that which we already know has come, and
behold, we saw it, and not just me, but five hundred of us at
one time saw Christ retransfigured, glorified as he ascended into
heaven. And he told us, go make disciples
of all nations. How? Let me play with words a
minute. Prophesying to them. How did
Jesus say that? Teaching them to obey everything
that I've commanded you. So what does it mean to quench
the spirit? If the spirit is at work in prophecy
and prophecy is teaching the Bible, then what does it mean
to quench? It means to put it out, put the
fire out. If there's a fire burning and
we spray water on it, it smokes. And sometimes if it's a big enough
fire and you put water on it, it smokes the whole city up.
And then they call the fire department over to your house because they
think the entire neighborhood's on fire. Happened. And then two days later, such
a big fire, even though I had wet it with hundreds of gallons of
water, it still was burning, but it was quenched. It was doused. It wasn't a raging inferno. It
wasn't fully at work. So Paul's saying don't quench
the Spirit. Don't put the Spirit away. Do not despise or put down
prophecy because it is the work of the Spirit. In 2 Timothy 1.6,
Paul says, for this reason I remind you, listen to these words, to
fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying
on of my hands. He's saying, Timothy, don't let the Holy Spirit,
don't put water on the work of the fire that I put inside of
you or that God's put inside of you. Don't let it go out. But fan into flame. What do you
do when the fire starts to go out of you? You blow on it with a
little bit of oxygen at the right time. It just gets it going. You see, the presence of God
is His Holy Spirit. The presence of God among His
people is His power, which is His Spirit. Therefore, to quench
the Holy Spirit of God is to put water on or to put down or
to restrict or worse, to deny the power of God raging beautifully
and powerfully among His people. And in some sense, I would like
to say that quenching the Holy Spirit of God is to deny the
presence and the purpose of God with his people. Quenching the
Holy Spirit of God is denied the presence and purpose of God
with his people. It's like we get, and that's why you people
ask the question, how are so many churches so apostate? Because
they put the Spirit of God away years ago, evidenced by the fact
that the Word of God is not there to be found. They find copies
of the scriptures, but the Word is not preached, the Word is
not lived, the Word is not learned, and the Word, surely because
of that, is not loved. So the devil in the pulpit then
would do what? He would engage prophecy or the
question of the spirit in relation to prophecy as this crazy outward
sign of what we heard as a prophetic utterance or an untethered, uncontrollable
expression that seems more like fits of epilepsy rather than
teaching. Friends, this is a lie. Prophecy
is clear, focused, and purposed order in a manner which God operates
through His Spirit to hear and to understand His Word, which
in turn means what? To know Him in a deeper way.
What does the Scripture teach us? The Scripture says to know
His grace, to learn the depths of the knowledge of His grace,
to have revelation of His grace. We see all these things. To know
Him as truth. Jesus prays in time. I'm going
to send a comforter and he will teach you. He will give evidence
that I am true. That's prophecy. The Spirit of
God works to unite his people and to sanctify his people as
they're prepared for his glory, to stand before him through the
work and the word of Jesus Christ. So to dampen the work of God,
to quench the Spirit of God is to dampen the work of God through
the gospel, is to put the gospel away. I want you to see how simplistic
this is. To quench the Holy Spirit of God by despising prophecy
means that you don't want to hear the Bible taught. except
by specific things, people or circumstances and that you're
not willing to expressly, specifically, expressly interact with the brothers
and sisters of a fellowship so that they can sharpen you. Because
believe it or not, no matter how many things you've got after
your name and initials doesn't mean you know squat about how
God's grace is effective in your life right now. Myself included. And sometimes it takes a 10 year
old to come up and say, This is what God's Word says, and
you go, oh, wow, that's tight. That was hard. And they're just sharing. They
had no idea they were speaking as a prophet. We should understand that God's
immutability expresses Himself as unchangeable. Therefore, God
surely and always, listen, responds and acts according to his nature
and to his purpose. And he is always active. So,
the Spirit of God is always working and the church would do well
to understand how he works and to what end he works. Especially
in the nature of prophecy. Prophecy, then. is for our good. According to Paul here in Thessalonians,
prophecy is for our good. Do good to all people so that we would be sanctified. Look at verse 23. Now may the
God of peace Himself sanctify you completely and may your whole
spirit and soul be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. See, that's
prophecy in itself. God will do that which He started. He will finish that which He
began. He will sustain that which He created. He will do it. How
is it done? How are we sanctified? Well,
yeah, we sanctify through suffering. We understand the Scripture teaches
that. So if I'm in pain, I start to worship more? No. When I'm
in pain and the Word of God ministers to me. Without the Word of God,
there's no ministry. Without the gospel of peace,
there's no peace. But the gospel is for lost folks.
No, it's not. It's the power of God unto salvation and unto
sanctification. Salvation is just the beginning.
It's the starting mark. It's the trigger. Boom! You don't stand there and look
around. Yeah, I'm in a race. No, you've lost. You're not running
squat. You're not even getting near the finish line. You're
just standing around. You haven't even crossed the finish. You
heard the gun and you're standing there. Move! Run! Run! Run! And so the gospel starts there
and then continues forever. So the gospel is the power of
God to sustain you as you run the race. He's the wind in your
sails, the shoes on your feet. Why do you think the image of
Ephesians chapter 6 says the gospel of peace on your feet? Blessed are those who preach
the gospel, who are equipped with the gospel of peace on their
feet. Because they're shoes. The gospel
is how we walk in the power of God. It is the good news that
God has saved us and sustains us and will never fail us. It carries us along. Well, there's four things I want
you to see out of Scripture. When all this stuff comes together,
it means that prophecy is very active in our church and among
the people of God. But as prophecy is active, we
must have discernment and test it against the Word of God alone. That's why we hold so fast to
the The pillars of Protestantism. What is that? That's after we
know the Reformation and the Catholic Church through the years
became corrupt. And we know what Calvin and Luther
had to say about this very issue. Matter of fact, their commentary
on 1 Thessalonians 5.19 is pretty cutting. I couldn't preach what
they said. Because they not only preached it correctly, then they
applied it to whom it was applied to in their day. They wrote names. It was a little bitter. So if I started doing that, I'd
be in trouble. But I tell you, it's that important, not to say
that we should, but it's that important to understand that
we as Protestants, we stand on the pillars of the Reformation.
One of them being Sola Scriptura, being the Word of God alone,
gives us all that we need to know about God, about Christ,
about grace, about His glory, about His plan for redemption,
so that all prophecy, all teaching, all understanding, if it is not
in line with the Word of God, it is not the Word of God. So four things. Every believer
has an opportunity for prophecy. And this is two things in one,
but I don't want to have 15 points and every believer has a command
to discernment. So let's put it in a simple way.
Every believer is to prophesy with discernment and have discernment. Every believer. First Corinthians
14, verse 31. There's some in verse 29 and
some other places there. And I want to be careful. It
could very well be a pretext if we're not careful. But I want
you to see this. Listen to the words of Paul. For you can all
prophesy one by one so that all may learn and that all may be
encouraged and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets.
Now, let me tell you what's happening there. What's not happening there
is it's saying that the order of service is that I had some
people tell me this a few years ago when we first started Grace
Fruit Church, says I think the better option for the church
is that we all get in a big room and the men stand around with
their Bibles and one person starts and then another man takes a
turn and we just get through when we get through. You ladies
who have ever waited on your men to stop talking in the back,
how long is that going to last? How beneficial is that going
to be? So I would say as we gather to
learn the word of God, we have opportunity to hear. We have
opportunity to respond. But then as we gather and live
life together, we have opportunity to prophesy together. We have
opportunity to discuss these things. That's why it's so frustrating
for me when I see people who supposedly love the Lord. And
yet they're never in the word of God and they wonder why they
don't have anything to talk about and concerning. Because you can't
go from what you got last week and be excited about it today.
It goes away. Just like gas in your car. Leave
it running, it'll eventually run out. Even though it'll run
a lot longer than it'll drive, it'll run out. You've got to
put more gas in it. You've got to put the Word of
God in every day. Even if it's a small, minute,
just minimalistic, I need something. I don't want you to look at the
word of God like that, please. But if that's all you got, that's
all you got. You think an addict hate this
metaphor, but it works, you think an addict cares how much drug
they get at once? No, just the taste. How come
our tenacity and our affection for God and his word, therefore,
his word is not that vigorous? Because we probably don't want
out of it. All Christians are indelt and
dwelt by the Holy Spirit. So therefore, all Christians
are empowered by his spirit to obey the commands, to teach,
to preach, to pray, to grow, to discern, etc. Let me tell
you what I'm not saying here and what Paul is not saying to
Thessalonians nor the Corinthians. He's not saying you should hold
the office of prophet because we understand the office of prophet
is over in that sense, but it's not in that sense. But we have
the what? Opportunity as prophets. We're
the prophets of God. Stop. We're priests, but we're
not interceding for anybody in any official capacity. But we
have, we're a royal priesthood. Why? Because we're all part of
the body of Christ who is our priest. Our great high priest. And we're not saying that there's
an office of prophet and that pastors shouldn't be pastors.
There's a definite office of the shepherd, of the elder, overseer,
presbyteros, pastor. And there's an office of deacon.
And they have specific functions within the church. But it doesn't
supersede the command and the approach of God to the Holy Spirit
for all the church to be active in the ministry. What do we see
in Ephesians chapter 4? That the Word of God and the
ministry of the Word for the evangelists and the prophets
and the pastors and the teachers are to what? Equip the saints
for the work of ministry. And ministry comes completely
through the teaching of the Word of God. How are we supposed to
help each other? How are we supposed to help the
world? if we can't share our faith. So every believer should be a
prophet, should exercise prophecy, and every believer has a command
to be discerning. Secondly, we see in this scripture that the
Holy Spirit is at work. The Holy Spirit is at work. So
because of this, what does it say? Do not quench the Spirit.
So if it's the work of the Spirit, then the Spirit's the one doing
it, right? So if the Spirit of God is doing it, then we don't
quench the Spirit of God, we don't put down the Spirit of
God. It's not like this, but it reminds
me of when Jesus tells the Pharisees, how dare you blaspheme the Holy
Spirit. I guess the difference would
be if somebody's teaching the Word of God and we just have this disdain
about it, we don't want to hear from them. And let me give you
an example of how that works. When has that ever worked? Well,
I sit in a meeting about five years ago, six years ago now,
with a person who was under my counsel for about a year and
a half, and he was growing, had called a ministry, and one of
the fellow elder brothers, who was not necessarily very public,
you know what I mean? You've got people like me who
are up here all the time, and you've got other people like
Brother Dave who, he's never preached a sermon, per se. And
so, this elder was sort of like that. wise and sound and focused. And he met with me one day with
this other brother. And he sat there and he was wiser
than I was. Still is. And he began to instruct
this brother in things. And as he heard him speak, he
saw things about his life that was troubling. And he said, brother,
I want you to consider this. And he began to just from memory
quote the Bible and just quote God's Word to him and say these
things. And this guy looked across the
table and said, buddy, let me tell you something. I don't know you.
He said, this is my pastor, and you may be a pastor too, but
I don't know you. You don't have that relationship with me to
tell me this. And I looked at the brother and
I said, well, let me tell you this. I said, just last week in my office,
you sat there and you told me just how amazingly God worked
to the preaching of John MacArthur in a particular issue in your
life. I said, you subjected yourself to the teaching of John MacArthur,
who you have never met, and you will not subject yourself to
the teaching of this man who prays for you in tears every day. That's quenching the Holy Spirit.
That's despising prophecy. And whether it be an elder in
the church or the janitor, you should listen to it when the
word of God is spoken to your ears. If it's a child from the
nursery that comes up there and tells you about the glory of
God in the heaven, you should be subject to the word of God,
for it is not we who are the authority. It is he who is the
authority and he preaches over us through the mouths of babes.
See how that works. So we're careful. But you know
the biggest hindrance to the Holy Spirit of God through prophecy
is pride, isn't it? I don't want to hear that. How
dare you tell me what to do? I haven't told you to do anything.
God did. God did. I love you. We'll walk together
and I'll have my foot dragging in some dirt over here and you'll
have your foot dragging between the two of us and I can clean
our feet off. But God has spoken. So we should be teaching. We
should be prophesying. That's what it means to teach.
To teach what? To teach God's Word. To teach
the words of Christ. To teach and counsel and instruct
in righteousness. Not everybody's called to the
office of pastor, but everybody's called to the office of prophet
or to the place of being a prophet in that they should teach the
Word of God. Be very careful. I'm not talking about the office
of prophet. is witnessing or proclaiming
God, not just God's Word, God as truth, not foretelling or
getting another word, but prophecy is the Spirit of God teaching
all about Himself who is true through others. What does John say in 1 John,
chapter 4 specifically? To test the spirits. Chapter
three and before he talks about what the Antichrist, who have
already in the world, who are already in the world, who say
what? That Jesus is not the Christ. He did not come from God. So
what does that mean? Is that a specific thing that
if somebody says those specific words that they are true? No,
but anybody can say them. Well, if they can't say those
words, they mean they're not true. You could go there, but
it's deeper than that. Surely that someone who's a true
prophet of God can confess that Jesus is the Christ and he is
from the Father. He is God. So someone who refuses that surely
is anti-Christ, but it goes deeper than that. Anti-Christ according
to John are those who what? Falsely prophesy about Christ. They falsely teach about who
God is, about who Christ is. They falsely misinterpret the
Word of God and they do it in such a way that it becomes divisive
in the church. The true prophet is the one who
teaches truly about God through Christ. John's words are a warning. John's words are warnings to
measure the words that you hear. Measure the words that are taught,
not the witching words that produce so-called prophets. Prophets
of the Old Testament proclaim the word of God directly from
God. There's no difference today, except that the New Testament
prophets are those who proclaim the words of God directly from
God through the apostles and the prophets. So if we are prophesying,
we are teaching what the Bible teaches. And there is no outside
prophecy, there is no new revelation, there is no nothing else to get. The apostles teach us and we
teach others, the apostles. Now let me give you an understanding
just as a caveat. are those who are compelled by
the Holy Spirit of God and called out to oversee the prophecy of
the church. To make it their full call. That's
what they do. They've given up everything else
that they might oversee for the protection and the unity and
the perfection of the prophecy. Because as I teach, you all will
teach each other. And as you teach me, I'll teach
you again. You think it's a one-way street,
it's not. And Brother Jesse, of all people,
can testify to the fact that it is very, very, very difficult
to work all week and really be in the Word of God like he mentioned.
It's tough. You do it, but it's tough. It'd
be better to just float into heaven every day. Sunday night
and come back down when you're supposed to teach. Nobody could
bother you or call you or the cards would break down. Nothing
would happen. You didn't have to go to work. You didn't have
to do this. You didn't have to do that. And you'd just spend all eternity,
except when you needed to teach, just soaking up the Word of God.
One day. One day. We will forever learn
at the feet of our Savior. Thirdly, I want you to understand that all
prophecy must be according to the Word
of God and its commands concerning these things. Do not quench the
Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but
test everything. And then hold fast what is good
from that which you test. And then abstain from every form
of evil. So do not despise, but discern. Discern what you hear as it's
taught. Discern what you listen to. Discern what you see. You see here kids, young people. Discern what you put in your
mind and in your eyes and in your ears. Discern what you put
in your body and what you think about and what you meditate on.
Because if you are a child of God, you need to put in godly
things. Because the world will swallow
you and you will look back and be choked to death. Know the Word yourself, or you
will have no place to discern anything. They keep changing
money in this country. The new hundreds, when I was
first handed one, I'm like, dang, not taking that. That looks like
some kind of a Play-Doh money you'd roll out. That is weird. You've got digits and holograms. They've changed it about five
times in the last 15 years. Just when you get used to what
one looks like, they change it again. And they change it again. Well, how do the people at the
bank know? Well, they got these pins they can sort of ride on
and know. But I'll tell you this. It's
just like when you're holding coins and you're just sort of
looking through a bunch of coins and you're pulling out the silver.
You can look at a bunch of coins and pick the silver out like
it's a different color. You can look at it. You can look
at it and if you can't and if it's so hard that you can't really
tell, just drop it on the table. You can hear it. You know what
the real sounds like. So that when that when the when
the alloy money or the coins hit the table, it doesn't sound
right, doesn't ring. It doesn't feel the same in your
hands, the texture. So you can know it. How do you
know the word of God that you hear is true? Because you handle
the truth so much that when the garbage comes along, you go,
whoa, what is that? It's not when you love on a puppy.
Puppies are soft, you know? You love on a puppy, you love
on the puppy, you love on the mama. She comes in the room and
you go to pet her and she goes, oh, bristle pad. She was soft
yesterday, but now she has a puppy. Now we have a puppy that's softer.
So in comparison, that's really not something I want to pet anymore.
Isn't that the way it is? It's relative. to the amount
of time you spend learning truth. So what are some common errors
of prophesying? I think one of the errors is
this. People take a literal rather
than a literarily interpretation of the Bible. What does that
mean? In other words, they take it literal rather than reading
it as literature. They understand they'll take
Proverbs and say, the Bible says not to do this, but it's not
a command. It's a poem. And so the truth
of this part has to go with the truth of this part that gives
you the full expression of what Solomon was trying to say. Or
like in First Corinthians, where we see the head coverings. Well, it says there, yeah, but
for what purpose? Why? What was it there for? So we have to understand the
literature because God has chosen to use syntax and language to
communicate his truth to us. We can't be ignorant of language. Why do you think Pentecost had
to take place so that the doing of Babel could be undone by the
gospel? Secondly, there's some errors
in prophesying when people apply idioms and expressions as proof
text. Judge not lest you be judged. For the same measure in which
you've judged, you shall be judged. How many have ever heard that
text used when you started to talk to someone about sin in
their lives? If I don't have enough toes and fingers to hold
up a number of times, I've heard it and it's a good, I love it.
I expect it. And when it doesn't happen, I'm
sort of sad because I love to teach people how to understand the
scripture. Sometimes I look, let me show
you what that's really talking about, which is like that little
passage or for God. So love the world. Okay. What does that mean? There's
an expression there. Love the world. So in this way,
so loved. It doesn't say so much. It says
love so, love so, how so? By giving the Son. All things are permissible. Even
that in the text is a Stoic saying that Paul's making fun of. You
say all things are permissible, but I say not all things are
beneficial. Do that which is beneficial.
So he commands you to do which is good for you. It's not an
option. It is an option. Obedience is
a choice. But if we're born again, it's
what we want. For John says the law of God is not burdensome
to the believer. Thirdly, there's an area of prophecy by ignoring
plain, understandable exhortations as they are not normal for today.
Give me an example. Well, do not be drunk with wine. but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Or as Paul told young Timothy, take a little bit of wine for
your stomach. And I'm going to tell you, you thought I was going
to come in the antithesis of that, didn't you? You thought I was going
to tell you something that we was told not to do, that we are actually
doing. I can find many examples of that,
but let me give you this example. How many times have you ever
been part of a local church who forbids the use of alcohol? Forbids
it. Because they say the vine of
the New Testament was not fermented. That is the biggest bunch of
hogwash that has ever been perpetrated by legalists. If the vine of
Jesus' first miracle was not fermented, then the Bible is
a lie. You have chosen to bring out
the best wine. And usually the best wine comes
out first, and when everybody's drunk because of that, you bring
out the cheap wine that doesn't really work. That's what Luke,
I mean, John chapter 2 says. That's why. But the Bible disregards,
not disregards, the Bible disallows drunkenness because it's a window
to debauchery. It's a window to the flesh to
take over. And honestly, it's a window to
spiritual war that you don't want in your life. But what do
we do? It's a plain, normal exhortation.
Don't get drunk. Not don't drink. But if you don't
want to drink, please don't. I don't. Four, error of prophesying
is pasting obvious unique applications in scripture to the whole church. Go back to the idea about head
coverings. It's a unique application to the people of Corinth. He
never even mentioned it to the people of Ephesus or the people
of Thessalonica. He never mentioned it at all
ever again. But he did teach the same theological principle
in understanding that Christ is the head of the church. To
the Ephesians, he did it through the picture of marriage. He did
it through the picture of marriage to the Corinthians by changing
their garments. Because their garments, from
a cultural standpoint, was a display of their glory. And there also
was no marriage in Corinth. There was no such thing. There
was no word in the vocabulary. They did not know what it meant.
And they're thinking, What is it? He just sort of grabbed you
a woman or grabbed you a husband and went to it. Now we're one. There's no bond, no legalities
there. Fifthly, we have an error in
prophecy when we egocentrically dictate one's own culture as
the measure of interpretation. Now what does that mean? That
means when we sit there, we're so thinking about ourself and
our little town and our little life and our little community
and our culture and our government That we don't even, that we interpret
scripture as though when we think about the first church, we think
about people just like us in Tunis, hanging out in a room
like this, sitting around listening. Did not happen. It was not like
that. Especially in Greek culture. It just was not there. As a matter
of fact, you did not take the public into the back of your
house. It was unheard of. It was uncanny. It was uncouth. You didn't do it. Another area is pretexting. That's
like Philippians 4, 13, where I can do all things through Christ
who gives me strength. That means we take that little bit of text
out, sort of similar to the idioms and expressions of pretext, but
pretext is we take that out and we go, see, I can jump off a
mountain because Jesus gives me strength. I can go start a
big company because Jesus gives me strength. I can go fly to
the moon with a rocket up my hiney because Jesus gives me
strength. I can make that home run. I can
win that game. That's where your Moses is. I
can beat that boxer because Jesus gives me strength. Well, Jesus
gives you strength, I guess, but that's not what Paul was
talking about. Paul was talking about financial stability and
gifts given to him by the Philippians while he was in prison, rotting
because the Word of God was not bound, though he was bound. And
he has had much and he has had little. He prefers little, for
Christ strengthens him to be able to handle nothing. and still
do the ministry. That's what I'm talking about.
So we can still say Christ did it, but don't pretext it. Don't
take it out. And the three final errors that we have in prophesying
is ignorance. We just don't know what we're
talking about because we haven't looked. It's just like this rapture movie
I saw coming out lately. Really? Wow. This lightbulb came
out. He sucked everybody up and I think, this is just absurd.
The Bible teaches that. Trucks and planes are crashing
and everybody's freaking out. Where did this come from? Well,
it's about 150 years old. Where does it come from? But
we're just ignorant. We take it as truth. And there
we go. Is it something to divide over?
Not really. Just don't make it the main thing.
Have fun with it. But don't make it a main thing.
I'd rather go a little deeper than that with it, in a sense,
but that's just ignorance, not knowing. We don't know. I was
taught that. I was taught certain things. Absence from Scripture is an
error in prophesying. We're not in it, but we got,
well, we got our little belt buckle with our bullet, you know,
like cowboys used to have back in the day before they had magazines.
They had little bullet belts. We got our little bullet belt
on. And if we're really spiritual, we've got the bullet belt and
the bullet cross belts. And if we're crazy, we might
have the bullet headband. We've got bullets in it, and
we're ready. People are feeling bad, Philippians 4.13. They don't
feel love, John 3.16. Double those. That's being...
I don't know. That's baptized in spirit. You
give it twice. You see what I mean? And we're
just, we're abstinent. We've got, we've got our little
bullet rack. We've got our little first aid
kit. We've got our reference in the back of our Bible. Woo,
look at that. I need to go. Okay. Somebody's depressed. Somebody's
scared of the devil. Greater is he that is in you
than he that is in the world. And there's nothing wrong with these
resources, but that's not, that's being absent of the Bible. That's
where a lot of children start. That's good. It's not. But you're
not in the Word. And therefore you don't know
how to answer the issues of life. And number nine, the last thing
I'll say about errors in prophesying is obstinance. Being obstinate toward Scripture. I don't want to go there. And
you might think, who is like that? A lot of people are like
that. It may not be among our fellowship, but it may be. And
I'll tell you where I see it most in the world is in the leaders
of churches and their children. I see pastors, kids, including
my own. All of my children have gone
through or will go through, sorry to say it, a season of obstinacy
toward the Word of God. Why? Because they equate God's
Word with Daddy. And if Daddy wants me to do it,
to heck with it. And sometimes we might have those
issues. We might have these hang-ups where We have bad experiences
in church, or bad experiences with a church member, or bad
experiences with family, and the Bible is at the root of it.
Well, don't blame God for people's attitudes. So we're to test everything.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, 29, let two or three prophets
speak, and let the other prophets weigh what is said. What does
he mean by that? The church members. That when we're gathered together,
and when we're talking, And it's also a rule for us, too, that
we ought not to be the conversation carrier. That's hard for preachers. We just think we're supposed
to talk all the time. Sometimes we do well to listen and learn. And how do we do that? We test
everything and we clean out the bad and hold to the good. Because
even in one breath, we can see bad prophecy and good prophecy.
So let's work on what is good and right and move with it while
correcting what is bad. Gently, with patience. It may
take time for people to get through their deal. Somebody sent me
a link this morning about a particular pastor who's national. And in
February and March, he was in the news about his $16 million
estate, the house he just built. And he's got this big campaign
about humility and giving to the poor and how we don't need
to be poor stewards. And I'm like, your house is worth
more than your city. I mean, you know, this dude raised
the... We're all guilty of it. We're
all guilty of it to some degree. We just don't have that kind
of money, so we can't prove it. But what did I do? He sent it
to me in a public forum, and I privately sent him a message.
Hey, read these articles. FYI. Discern what is good. Do away with what is bad. Not that you shouldn't read that
guy, but I certainly wouldn't want to share it. Prophets here are in action,
not office. They're prophesying by their
actions. They're not prophets in their office. So all Christians
have a priestly prophetic responsibility. There's an issue of discernment,
before I get to the last point, I promise it won't take long,
of prophecy and teaching. Two things. When we discern,
when we test what is good, when we test what we hear, we do not
go beyond Scripture in understanding. 1 Corinthians 4, 6, Paul says,
I have applied all these things to myself and to Apollos for
your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go
beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up
in favor of one against another. And secondly, we not only do
not go beyond scripture and understanding, but we do not or in application,
but we do not, excuse me, interpretation, but we do not go beyond scripture
and application. We hold fast to what is good. And verse 22 is a kicker abstain
from every form of evil. So we do away with that. So the
Bible, when we hear the Bible taught from anyone, if it applies
to our life, then we hold fast to that application and we walk
in it. And friends who prophesy, all
of us should. Friends who teach and correct
and rebuke and train in righteousness, we are not to be looking for
this cloud of repentance and this storm of tearing clothes
and wailing and throwing ourselves off cliffs. We should give it
and let God do it. And those of you with children
know what it's like. Mommy, somebody just hit me. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do, chop
their head off? You putting a finger in a pencil sharpener? You better
say you're sorry. You better mean it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I don't believe you. That's a pretty good penetrating tool
there, isn't it? Especially an electric pencil sharpener. But we give the Word and we let
God deal with it. We let people do it. It may take
some people five seconds. It may take people five years
to come around to understand that what they are and what they've
done and their attitudes toward certain things have... We don't
need to try to correct people's behavior. We need to teach people
the Gospel. Finally, prophecy and or teaching
of God's Word is measured by its application. In other
words, when we hear prophecy, it's not just to learn something.
It's so that something in us will change. The Word of God
is not for us just to be heavy, but holy. Make sense? We're not supposed to just walk
around with all the answers. We're supposed to walk around
living them. We're supposed to look like Christ is transforming
our lives. And so we're to measure what
we hear because application is really where it sits. And I'll
tell you that prophesying is more about application than anything.
For example, you see your buddy coming out of some store that's
unfit for human inhabitants. In other words, the things that
that store sells, even though they went in there for a diet
Pepsi, I mean, why do adult material stores sell drinks in the first
place? I don't know that they do, but you know what I'm talking
about. Down on the interstate, almost in Savannah, there's a
gas station. I stopped in one day, almost out of gas, went
inside to pay for my gas, came back out, drove down to the next
stop. Because, I mean, I was just inundated with all the mess,
the adult material that's in there. I'm like, I'm not going
in there. And I heard somebody say, yeah, I always stop right
there. And I said, have you ever noticed all that garbage? And the people
who are going to the back room, you go, I'm thinking this is
not, this is not where Christians need to be coming out of. You'll
preach down there and do whatever, but that's your business. I just
want to let you know what the Lord showed me. And what you
do is your business. You want to bug us there, that's
fine. I'm going to start a movement. I'm going to put up a website,
a Facebook page. Anti-Exxon. It's Triple Exxon or whatever. But we measure for reasons. One
is for its character, because the character of teaching is
related to the work of God. For Paul says in 1 Corinthians
3, each one's work will become manifest. For the day of judgment
will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and
the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. Do
you realize the work we do is saying to the world, this is
the work of God? And of that which we teach, and
how we receive that teaching, from others is not, if we don't
test it and make sure that the character of it is God's word,
then we are actually going to ascribe to God that which God
did not do. And I will tell you that's in
some sense, blessings. Secondly, we measure because. The teaching is revelation of
the person, the work of God within them. So if I teach you something,
I am actually saying this is what God teaches. And if I'm
teaching correctly, then it's a revelation of how God's working.
If I'm teaching incorrectly, it's not. So we need to test
it. Let a person examine himself,
then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. We look
inwardly and then we look outward. Finally, we need to test the
truth. We need to test prophecy for
its motive and the work of God against the wrong motive. Matthew 7, 15, Jesus says, Beware
the false prophets. who come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their
fruits. Do you see the fruits? Are grapes gathered from thorns
or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good
fruit, and the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree
cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown
into the fire, thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
So are we testing the motive of the teaching? Are we testing
our motives for the teaching? Holding fast to what is good
requires abstaining from all kinds of evil. This includes learning God's
Word and living God's Word. So what does it mean for us? It means that each of us is to
discern what we hear. We're to discern what we see
others do as well as our own thoughts and actions. We are
revealing Christ and either we're revealing him truthfully or we're
lying about who he is. After all, we are the work of
God created in Christ Jesus. Secondly, we are to teach others
God's word and how it applies to our lives collectively and
practice prophecy according to the apostles' teaching. while
measuring our own teaching accordingly. In other words, if I say the
Bible teaches that we should vote this way, or the Bible teaches
that we should act this way, or the Bible teaches we should
care or think this way, then the Bible better teach it, either
explicitly or by principle. I'll give you an example. I thought
about even preaching on this issue, the immigration issue. Whether the laws of our country
prohibit what's happening in immigration or not, the laws
of grace warrant an absolutely established and affection worth
living for and dying for in the sake of those people who are
suffering. What does that mean? That means no matter how illegal
it is for somebody to come and seek refuge, Christians help
them. What did we do when INS came
to our church in California? We slammed the door in their
face. I want to see your records. What records? You're not coming in here and
cleaning the house in my church. Because it was because of immigrants
that we got the gospel to begin with. Now I'm not saying that
there's a political side to things. I'm just saying that it doesn't
trump the gospel. And there's some good messages
on that. I'll post them on our Facebook page. We reject the mythological ideas
that God's Word teaches superfluous happenings or manifestations
apart from order. We're to understand that God
has clearly given truth in Jesus Christ. We should understand
that if we're not in the study of God's Word, we're unfit to
expound or share it, much less help people apply it to their
lives. In fact, when we're not in the Word of God, we're quenching
the Holy Spirit of God by abstinence of the Word of God, and we're
living in harm toward the body that we are a part of. And finally, I want you to see an
application that prophecy at its root is the gospel of Jesus
Christ. The teaching of God's Word is
always the gospel. All of it, all the time. And
so there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So as we learn the word and see it apply to our lives, even when
others don't see it our way, we don't condemn them either. Friends, there's a lot of things
that I could generally speak on and then specifically speak
on concerning this text. But for a matter of letting the
Lord do that which He will, I'll just remain silent on those issues.
But I'll give you the areas in which they stand. Areas of political
correctness. Areas of justice. Areas of churchmanship
and church growth and purpose. Areas of social media. Areas
of citizenry. Things like this. Well, we live
in a world today that there is a that there is a opportunity
to get your voice heard. The question is, are people hearing
Christ or are they hearing your flesh, our flesh? And that goes
from our pulpits to our pens, to our pen wrists. Is it Christ
that people see in our thoughts and actions? We need to discern
if God's Word is teaching such things. And we need to be about
teaching others, not that we have this line that we must stand
upon, but that we have a Savior who stood on a cross who could
save us from our sin. Let's pray. Lord, give us wisdom. Give us discernment. Help us
to see Just how silly we are at times. How wrong we are. How broken we are. How in need
of You we are. Help us be patient with our brothers
and sisters in the faith. Help us to understand that though
we're trying to be patient and wait for them to grow up, we
may very well be the infants. Help us to see it. Help us to
pray more than we ponder. Help us to trust in You instead
of ourselves. Lord, would You make us a great
people? Would You make the Church of Jesus Christ of all nations
rise and be noticed so that Your name would be famed? Lord, would You put in us a powerful
burning of Your Holy Spirit, a filling, Father, that cannot
be put out? that our hunger for your word
and our prophecy toward the world and toward each other would grow
richly and deeply and perform all that you purposed it for
it to do. Father, teach us to pray. Teach us to trust in you. We pray these things in Christ's
name. Amen.