1. Do not quench the Spirit

Transcription

1 Gospel Shaped Church (17) Do Not Put Out the Spirit s Fire In these closing verses there are a lot of one line instructions, around 15 little instructions depending how ones divides it up. I will cover most of them in a few weeks, but this morning I want to zoom in on verses since these few verses very much coincide with what we ve been exploring midweek this month. Paul writes; Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Within these couple of lines there are five commands: two negative commands warning against cynicism, & three positive commands around weighing what we experience & hear when it comes to spiritual fire & spiritual gifts. Paul s negative commands are to do with not being cynical towards spiritual fire & prophecies, Paul s positive commands are to do with how we test these things. Christians are neither to be cynical or gullible when it comes to spiritual fire & spiritual gifts, we are to be positive & discerning when it come it comes to these things. 1. Do not quench the Spirit Paul writes; Do not quench the Spirit Don t put out the Spirit s fire (GWT), Never damp the fire of the Spirit (JBP), Do not smother the Holy Spirit (LB). Paul is giving a command here do not... Do not stand there with your damp towel ready to throw it on the first bit of spiritual passion or enthusiasm you see. This is not to be our posture or instinct. We are not to be nervous & over cautious about spiritual fire so we at the ready to run over & stamp out any sign of spiritual fire in case it gets out of hand. True there are times when churches do get out of hand but there are more times when churches don t really get going because there are too many damp clothes waiting to be thrown. The word of God is telling us to get rid of our damp towels things morning. Paul is not telling us to ere on the side of caution here. Our default should not be the damp towel. If we are to be cautious in any direction according to this command it is that we do not quench the Spirit. If there was ever a church whose enthusiasm for spiritual gifts needed some quenching it would have been Corinth. Yet Paul did no such thing! Paul s instruction to the Corinthians is no damp towel on spiritual gifts, he did not write with the intention of stamping out spiritual fire. No his clear intension is to explain the nature & purpose of spiritual gifts so Christians learn how to handle the fire of the Spirit & mature in exercising spiritual gifts for the common good. So the fire can keep burning & more effectively fulfil the purpose for which the Spirit ignited it. We do not want to quench the Spirit s fire but we do want to mature in how we handle what he ignites in our hearts & gatherings. Not so we can put a dampener on it but so that we can keep it burning. Where the Spirit is he burns. We need the fire of the Holy Spirit, we need everything he ignites if we are to make a difference in our location & generation. The Holy Spirit is a fire starter not a fire quencher. He sets hearts on fire... he s the one who strikes the match that ignites spiritual revival... It s never his fault when things

2 get out of hand nor is it his fault when the fire gets put out. It s ours for not being mature enough to handle it or for being so uptight we stamp out any sign of life. I think the Spirit s fire can be quenched by both these weaknesses... I think it can be smothered by charismania as well as being stamped out by cessationism. In light of this our responsibility is never to be the spiritual fire brigade, nor is it our job to be the pyromaniac. Our responsibility is simply to depend on him, to tend what he ignites, to fan it into full flame & to channel it for the common good. We are not fire stompers or fire starters but we are fire tenders for the glory of God & common good. 2. Do not despise prophecies Paul commands Do not despise prophecies. This is one way the Spirit s fire can be put out, by despising prophecies. By despising what has been given for our upbuidling, encouragement & consolation. This, like all spiritual gifts, is a gift which can really help us until we see the Lord face to face. Prophecy can be despised by those who do not see the need for it today. This gift along with other spiritual gifts gets set up as a competitor to Scripture instead of being viewed as a complement to Scripture. It is Scripture that commands us to; Pursue love, and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophecy. To despise prophecy then is also to despise what Scripture commands us to eagerly desire. Now when we are being told; Do not despise prophecy what is it exactly we are being to not to despise. F. F. Bruce defined prophecy this way; Prophetic ministry is the deceleration of the mind of God in the power of the Spirit with a special bearing on the current situation. Or as Sam Storms puts it; Prophecy is the speaking forth in merely human words of something God has spontaneously brought to mind. (We ll look at definition more in the final part of our midweek series. Here we are simply told not to despise it.) None of the revelatory gifts like prophecy are about giving us extra revelation about God himself beyond what he reveals in Scripture. No revelatory gifts reveal things about people or situations or give immediate direction regarding something or someone. So we are not talking about revelation in the sense of an angel appearing & giving us extra details about heaven or the gospel that aren t in the Bible. No it is more like the word of knowledge Jesus had about the woman at the well which complements what Scripture teaches about God being an all-knowing God. In this way gifts like prophecy help highlight that the God of the Bible is alive & active & is who he says he is. He is all-knowing, he is all-powerful, he is all-loving, he is near, he is involved & interested in our lives, he has not left us or forsaken us & he does manifest himself among his people. Spiritual gifts are God showing, revealing & disclosing his active presence among us God showing us he is real, near & at work. God is no passive observer or mute idol; he is the great initiator, mover & participant among us by the manifestation of the Spirit. To quench the Spirit s fire & to despise prophecy is to quench & despise his immediate activity & participation amongst us.

3 Another way in which prophecy can be despised, & we pick up on this by noticing prophecy may have been despised in Corinth since tongues seems to have been the gift everyone wanted. Paul s correction highlights how prophecy is actually more beneficial in a public church gathering. 3. Test everything, hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Here are some ways we can test prophecy. Firstly, is it in line with Scripture? The Bible is our final authority, our completely reliable prophetic message (2 Pet 1:19 NIV). All prophecies must be tested by it for we cannot assume any prophecy as completely reliable. As Paul writes to the Corinthians; For we know in part and we prophesy in part... Some struggle with this asking; How can God, who is infallible, reveal something that is fallible? The answer is he can t & doesn t. The problem is not with the revelation but with the communicator - his or her perception, interpretation & application is not as reliable as God s immediate revelation. Sometimes it also depends on the person s maturity in handling such things... But this is not only true of prophecy but also of expository preaching & teaching. The Bible is infallible but the Bible teacher is not. So should we conclude that expository teaching is of no value today? After finishing on the second coming & rapture verses I began preparing for this & one of the first things I read was this READ QUOTATION FROM SAM STORMS. Hence the whole need for Paul s words here; test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Secondly, is the person bringing the prophecy credible? Are they producing good fruit (Matt 7:15-20)? Are they living a life consistent with biblical Christianity? Are they willing to follow the instructions regarding very gift they are exercising (1 Cor. 14:29-33)? Are they accountable to God s Word & the Church? A prophet, or the one who is prophesying, is subject to the elders of the gathering they are in like everyone else. The NT doesn t say; Be subject to the prophets, but rather, Be subject to the elders (1 Pet 5:5; Heb 13:17). Paul went from city to city to ordain or appoint elders not prophets. Now some elders will be prophetically gifted no doubt & that it good, but that alone does not qualify them for local church oversight. Elders are to be able to teach, not necessarily able to prophesy. This in no way devalues prophecy & elders/pastors should not despise it, this simply puts it in the context of local church life. All this helps us when it comes to testing. Is the one prophesying accountable, humble, willing to submit, is he or she willing to allow their words to be weighed & how do they respond when people don t take all they says as thus says the Lord? Look at Paul s instruction to prophesying in a church gathering in 1 Corinthians 14:29-33; Let two or three prophets speak and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to prophets, For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. This teaches us something about the nature of spiritual gifts like prophecy & how it should be conducted. The

4 spirit of a prophet is subject to the prophet. Meaning the one speaking has control over what comes from his mouth. A word is dropped into his spirit by the Holy Spirit, but he decides if he should share it, when he should share it, how he should share it & when he should stop sharing. The very fact the one speaking can stop to let another speak indicates this. Prophecy is not an uncontrollable urge that explodes out of our mouths before we know it, it s not something which we have no control over. No we are in control of how & when we share the revelation God has given us, we are able to exercise discernment. Growing in this gift means also growing in sensitivity to what the Spirit is doing around us as well as in us & as we mature in these things we learn how & when to connect what God is revealing to us to the lives, gathering or situation around us. So it s not just about being aware of what God might be saying, it s also being aware of timing & the nature of the particular context we re in... Will I disrupt something God is already doing if I share this right now? Have there already been two or three people sharing a revelation? For me I compare it to leading worship, I don t keep my eyes closed all the time, I look around to see if people are still engaged with God, will I move into the next song, will I leave room for prayer & spiritual gifts, do people look ready for the word? It s not just about where I m at as a worshipper it s about what God is doing in the congregation. We need similar sensitivity when it comes to spiritual gifts & spiritual fire. Thirdly, does the prophecy encourage & building up? Paul tells us very plainly the purpose of prophecy is in 1 Corinthians 14:3; the one who prophecies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Is the the effect the prophecy is having? Or later in the chapter Paul writes; But if all prophecy, & an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secret of his heart are disclosed, & so, falling on his face, he will worship & declare that God is really among you. So does is have the effect of encouragement etc, or does it have the effect of igniting worship in & making God real to unbelievers. Knowing the specific purpose & power of NT prophecy also helps us in testing. Now with all that said I need to also highlight an emphasis in the Greek. It is positive! In other words when Paul writes testing everything he is not saying test with a view to spotting what is false but test with a view to approving what is genuine. The verb to test means to test with a view to approval we are looking for the real thing, we do not have a fault finding mentality when it comes to these things. We are on a treasure hunt, not a heresy hunt. We have to ask where our heart is at if we are looking for faults. How could such gifts mature & flourish under such cynical & negative testing. No we are testing with a view to finding the genuine. Our heart is positive in our testing. Hence Paul s command to; hold fast what is good. We re looking for something good that we can grab hold off & when we find it we take it as treasure from the hand of God himself. So we are to be positive in our discernment. At the same time we are to Abstain from every form of evil. The idea here is that in the context of this positive testing, of this looking for the genuine, we find things in no way align with Scripture or that it takes

5 us beyond it &therefore away from God we are to stay away. We are to distance ourselves from it. Literally we are to hold ourselves aloof from it. If is contradicts Scripture, if the fruit is bad or if the character of the one prophesying is bad... hold yourself aloof, keep your distance, abstain. Greg Haslam writes in his book Moving in the Prophetic, a book which really encourages us to be positive about prophecy; Even in churches where prophetic gifts are encouraged & fostered, they are robbed of power if the church leadership lacks confidence & experience to pastor, weigh & discern them appropriately. Much slips by in our churches without accurate weighing, correction, affirmation or admonition; & this is a sign that we are not living the mindful, reflective & discerning lives of true disciples. Sometimes even the plainly ridiculous or dangerous is accepted without question. There is often high cringe factor in many churches, & it is one of the major stumbling blocks that frequently keep both sensible believers & unbelievers away from our meetings. The bizarre things we do & say inevitably turn them off. When this happens, people cease to take us seriously or listen to what we say and so we dishonour our call to be God s prophetic people in the world. So here is the balance from someone who couldn t have written a more positive & informed book about prophecy. When is works as it should, like all spiritual gifts it is evidence of the Risen Lord among us & with us by his Spirit...