[0:00] So, 1 Thessalonians, we are in a section of passage that's found in chapter 5, and I think for the sake of context, to make sure that we know the neighboring verses and the neighboring context of this passage, it would be important to start where Paul's flow of thought began.
[0:24] And not at chapter 1, verse 1, but at chapter 5, verse 12. So, if you can join with me for the reading of God's word, and we will start in verse 12 of chapter 5.
[0:38] It says, This is the word of the Lord.
[1:45] Thanks be to God. Isn't it nice to come out of this hectic week at times and come to something that is true? This is an anticipated moment in time and that I spent the week diligently preparing for.
[2:03] And we have spent the last several weeks studying and looking through the pages of scripture. And specifically, like a couple weeks ago, we had discussed about why the church gathers.
[2:23] Why we're called in this way, in this manner, for this assembly. Why we do all of this. And one of the reasons we concluded and what we alluded to was that this is the framework that God had in mind of marking a public declaration of who his people are.
[2:43] And that this is noticeable as people who have been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. And within that framework, the church is identified publicly.
[2:54] It's their public expression. It's far from private. Just me and Jesus and we're good. It's not closed off from society. But the church exists to proclaim and display the glory of God very brightly and vibrantly.
[3:12] And where the people of God are there, the church will be. And it is through the gathering of the church that God is glorified. And by that manner of our corporate worship, the world is a witness and the world gives glory to God.
[3:29] So today we're going to continue to build on the last series of commands that I just read upon in verse 12. And conclude what we began as we opened up God's word last week.
[3:43] We took one verse last week and expounded upon it. And boy, it wrecked me last week as I was reflecting upon it. I barely got through the message last week as well.
[3:55] It was quite jarring in a sense of studying God's word and being changed by it. So as a reminder of what we spoke about last week, if you were tuned in on the live stream or you missed it, we critically examined the quenching and the fanning of the person of the Holy Spirit, the fire of the Holy Spirit, and how that happens in our lives.
[4:19] And in short, believers who pray without ceasing, who are thankful, are those who fan the flame of God. Those are the people who fan that flame of the person of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
[4:34] However, we saw on the other end, however, those who refuse to the leading of the person of the Holy Spirit in their lives are quenching him.
[4:48] They're grieving him deeply by our insistent no in our lives of following his lead. And we say no by manner of our lives, of how we walk.
[5:01] And these commands that we just read within the whole context is a good indication and a good evaluation upon how we're doing. Today, we enter into the last series of commands.
[5:14] There's been a bunch of exhortations, and now we get into sort of prohibitions here. And these all, the exhortations, the prohibitions, everything is sort of hinging upon this aspect in verse 19 of quenching the Holy Spirit.
[5:32] We see in verse 19, it says, do not quench the Spirit. And then continues. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything.
[5:44] Hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil in verse 22 as it continues. And so I said it last week, and I'm going to say it again, that it goes without saying at times that discussions regarding things within the prophetic realm is sometimes quite a prickly issue.
[6:06] But the Bible doesn't make it a prickly issue much. We just have to trust his word and trust his ways in order to take what he has given to us and revealed to us and be assured that we are protecting and guarding it and living our lives accordingly.
[6:23] And so this is especially a prickly issue around our area. We live in a very highly Catholic area and a highly charismatic and Pentecostal area. And so this is sometimes an offensive sort of topic, and people get really up in arms about it, of the influx of charismatic and Pentecostal beliefs.
[6:43] But, you know, our area loves and almost misses the mark at times, I believe, when they love hearing, like, well, the apostle so-and-so is coming into town.
[6:57] And, you know, this is the moment we've been waiting for. And anything that is said and spoken about from that pulpit and from that person is accepted without any testing, is accepted as if it's gold and if it's inspired and we should have a loose-leaf Bible attached to these pages.
[7:16] And then if you test or you question apostles so-and-so, we'll call him Apostle Bob. I don't know any Apostle Bobs. I know some apostles around the area that say that they are apostles.
[7:27] But the moment you question or test them, you're either in sin or you're booted. You're either in sin because you're questioning such an authoritative figure or you get booted from their presence or their church.
[7:42] And B.B. Warfield actually comments on the importance of testing. He says the most prevalent danger in the practice of accepting prophetic words as a message that must not be questioned or in any way put to the test.
[7:58] The true biblical pattern is that the people of God must discern whatever purports to be a message from God. And so here we are in a passage that's very prickly.
[8:11] I know exactly many of our stories from the past and, you know, teachers and apostles have weaponized not to quench the Holy Spirit as if you testing them is quenching the Holy Spirit.
[8:25] And I know the abuses that we've been through. I know that that these exist. So I know that this is kind of a touchy subject. But we have to submit ourselves to the word of God today and explain and expound upon that because this is good for us.
[8:42] This is the nourishment we need. And so as we continue today in this passage of Scripture, I am assured beyond a doubt, beyond a doubt, we will be better equipped to have a balanced approach to distinguish prophetic ministry today.
[9:00] How to define clearly what the Bible calls true and false. And how we are collectively called to test any claim being the word of God and especially how to do so.
[9:14] Failing to do so, we would be found guilty of quenching the Holy Spirit. However, if we do this well, we can only be assured that the fire of the Holy Spirit will burn brightly for the world to see.
[9:29] So let's begin our time today with the first section of passage. And I'm going to split this up into three different points. And the first two points are sort of going to be a compare and contrast.
[9:43] And I'd like us to look at this, kind of like view this as looking through a window. And through that window, you see Paul, Silas, and Timothy in Thessalonica.
[9:57] It's like a weird, you know, Wizard of Oz moment where you're looking out the window and you know, it's just a different realm. I want us to look through a window and see their context.
[10:09] See the people, see the situations. And Paul says here, do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophecies. I probably lost people at even putting progressive revelation because that's kind of like a seminary sort of term and theological term.
[10:31] So let me explain what that means a little bit. And I believe that these words will be important in how you read scripture and how we understand it. Because an orthodox doctrine that evangelicals have long held to is the belief in progressive revelation.
[10:49] That God did not reveal himself fully and, you know, every instance about him at one certain time. But it was more like a piecemeal, a portion by portion to different people groups and different times in history.
[11:04] As Hebrews 1.1 says, long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. And so biblical theology is another big term.
[11:17] But these terms are important, church. It's another term that captures the themes from the garden. Captures the themes to the kings, the times of the kings and to the times of Jesus.
[11:28] That biblical theology is sort of that fiber that connects through. And you see the progression that God has been doing. And it's far from cherry picking and saying that the Levitical order is still intact.
[11:41] And get the bulls, get the calves. And we're going to, you know, have a nice little cookout here to pardon our sin. So biblical theology traces that progress of Revelation.
[11:56] Noting that revelation concerning himself that God has given in particular era or through a particular writer. So one commentator said God's self-disclosure was not as advanced to Noah.
[12:11] So if we're talking about progressive revelation, you can acknowledge that God's revelation to Noah and Abraham was not the same as it was to Elijah or Isaiah.
[12:22] An earlier book of the New Testament, such as James, reflects a more primitive view of the church than other books later that were written as like the pastoral epistles.
[12:36] And what I'm trying to capture here is looking through that window of context, looking at Paul's day, seeing Paul, Timothy, and Silas all out there in Thessalonica.
[12:47] Much has changed in the landscape and framework of the church since those days of the apostles and of the prophets. The days where these were God-given gifts and offices to be used within the church and specifically for the building and laying the foundation of the church.
[13:06] And Paul gives a clear command to the Thessalonians to not despise prophecies. And while we can weaponize that verse as if we're supposed to just take everything at face value, it's followed by, there's another neighboring verse, that we're not supposed to accept everything without test as well.
[13:28] Which in Paul's day was an ongoing gift of the spirits to communicate direct revelation to the church. They didn't have the luxury of having God's word bound in lovely pages and different prints and different commentaries and things like that.
[13:45] This was all divinely revelatory information. And so it doesn't take very long. I believe within our context today to see that we live surrounded by an ecclesiological buffet of various buffets of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians who believe that God is either has continued that with the highest role of apostles of Christ.
[14:17] Or that he's bringing it back, or that he's bringing it back, that there's going to be this another wave of this gift coming back just as he did back then. But as this point of history, in the light of progressive revelation of what was going on then, the role of prophecy then, what the people of God were despising at this time, and were very quick to despise, was revelation that revealed the mind and the will of God that was not recorded on paper as of yet.
[14:56] And we find right here within what we know as the canon of Scripture, this is in which we too are not to hold and despise, lest we quench the Spirit.
[15:14] What need would there be for apostles of Christ, like Peter, John, and Paul, or prophets comparable to the Old Testament authors? Or John, the author of the prophetic book, the Revelation?
[15:30] What need would there be in our day to day for such revelation, such authority? Think about it. If there were such inspired people in the church today, the Apostle Bob, and coming in and don't question Bob, or he'll deal with you.
[15:48] And we would have to be compelled to, because of the weight of apostleship, because of what the Bible teaches about apostleship, we would have to have a loose-leaf Bible.
[16:02] We would have to be adding their words and putting their journals next to the supremacy of Scripture, and we would be missing it. And the congregation would have to listen.
[16:14] They would have to obey them, unquestionably, which is the main point. Through the lens of progressive revelation of what God was doing then, as opposed to what he's doing now, we are spared the trouble of getting sucked into this vortex of error and spiritual confusion, and unfortunately and sadly, spiritual abuse in our day to day.
[16:41] By knowing, without a doubt, according to Scripture, there are no modern-day apostles and prophets, as there were back in the Old Testament and early church founding.
[16:57] And so some may argue, well, Brent, you're wrong, actually. Last night, I was up editing a video that just froze and everything, and this guy on TV, he spoke for God.
[17:08] He spoke, and things were happening, and that camera was rolling. And I saw it with my own two eyes. Or I saw it on social media, because anything posted on social media is true, right?
[17:20] It's like you found it on the Internet. I read a headline, and it said it was true. So, you know, we just spread the falsehood and fall for little gimmicks and tricks.
[17:32] But we're surrounded by this. Last year, if last year served as anything for the church, I believe it was ripping the veil off of the false gospel of prosperity, the false gospel of prophecy that exists within churches today.
[17:52] Because literally, from looking at the election, from looking at COVID, Justin Peters says, if you know anything about Justin Peters, he has some really good videos out there.
[18:06] He said that the whole world was watching the church. And everyone who has had their cameras rolling up to that point literally had the watching world, and they had a moment on a proverbial tee to knock it right down the fairway and bring all the glory, honor, and praise to God.
[18:28] And the fact that the church kind of went into hiding their healing ways and all these claims of prosperity, basically, were canceled events all last year.
[18:43] They were talking about 2020 being a 2020 vision, seeing clearly. I think the whole world and the church saw very clearly that it's a sham. And so Paul explains it clear that what God was doing through the ministry of that context of apostles and prophets in the early church was supernaturally laying a foundation of which he would build his church from.
[19:12] He would build his church upon in which Jesus Christ is the cornerstone. Don't take my word for it. Take Paul's word for it. Ephesians 2, 19.
[19:25] So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built upon built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
[19:41] Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
[19:53] In him, you also are being built into a dwelling place for God by the spirit. And being that we have, we should see something different.
[20:07] We should see something that stands out. If we look at then and verses now and what's going on, we should be able to kind of sift through a lot of error. Because being that we have today the canon of scripture, the English word for canon comes from the Greek meaning rule or measuring stick.
[20:25] God has supernaturally bound this book together for us as a rule and a measuring stick of truth.
[20:38] It would be a condemnable and blasphemous error to ever believe such a book doesn't contain all we need for the building project of his church. We would miss it completely. Nobody has the right to tamper with, add to, or subtract from that foundation.
[20:56] It has simply been laid once and for all. And there are no more apostles and prophets that need to help it as they appear in scripture who have authoritative and infallible revelation from God.
[21:10] What is modern day prophecy anyhow, church? Is it not the preached exposition of God's written word as he's revealed, particularly observed through the contextual application within our own lives?
[21:24] If the ministry of prophecy is a revelation of God's mind and will, we look no further than the word of God as revealed in the complete canon of scripture. Apostle Bob can say whatever he wants, but sure enough, I'm going to test every word within the context of scripture.
[21:40] And so the church ought. It is through divine revelation that God established the foundation of the church by way of apostles and prophets then. And it is through progressive revelation that God is guarding, protecting the foundation as his church by way of pastors and elders, as we see through progressive revelation that he has set defenders of truth for the church.
[22:08] And so we see the next section, or I'll say the next point. There we are looking through the window into the original context, right?
[22:23] Or if you're waking up this morning, we're taking for a little ride, a mental ride here, looking through windows. And so we're looking through that window now, going to that window and looking to our world today, looking at progressive revelation and prophecy today.
[22:39] We read, do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophecies. If it is true that this book contains the only life-giving message, life-directing message, and that being a very prophetic message that we need in our lives that has come directly from God, we ought to be attentive hearers to those who speak the word of God, and also be attentive listeners and doers.
[23:20] With that, we can close the discussion and the debate regarding cease continuation of apostles and prophets. That should be not even a topic of discussion in our day.
[23:30] We have the canon of Scripture. And be ready to observe the quite evident, the secondary kind of prophetic gift and ministry that the church has today, which has already been laid, and that is through the preaching of the word of God.
[23:48] If we're tapping into the prophecies and the commands of the apostles, this is what ought to be giving the life in the direction of a church. I like to think of it in different terms of, you know, we live in a culture which has YouTube videos out the wazoo, and we all have our favorite preachers and sermons.
[24:13] And we have the luxury of listening to podcasts all we want. We don't have to order a CD anymore. We don't have to order a DVD anymore. We can just click and it be right there upon our screen.
[24:26] And I think that we can all come to an agreement that there are various preachers out there that I think of like Billy Graham. I think of, you know, modern day John Piper, or maybe way back in the day Charles Spurgeon and things like that.
[24:42] These are preachers who were given, I believe that we can agree that undoubtedly they give remarkable, they have received remarkable giftings of tapping into the word of God and just bringing forth this contextually bound and very appropriate manner of scripture, not cherry picking whatever they want to formulate what they want to say, but looking upon the word, drawing the content out, and the Holy Spirit that inspired the word is now coming through their lips, through their preaching.
[25:23] Those who draw upon deep insight into a passage and its context will draw upon its meaning brilliantly, or even its application. Some preachers are better at the exegesis, the critical examination of scripture, that you're just like, wow, that blew my mind, I feel like I'm in seminary, or some are just really good at applying scripture to our context today without negating the context that the passage was written.
[25:49] And it seems legitimate to call this insight prophetic insight in light of progressive revelation. And those preachers who illuminate the truth of scripture in that way, a prophetic gift, because it's derived from prophecy already spoken.
[26:08] And after all, after all, anything mined from the word of God is mining deep into the infallible cavern of truth, as the Holy Spirit guides in our understanding.
[26:24] So it ought to be received with great seriousness, great reverence, and what Paul's saying is that it should be received with great testing as well.
[26:34] Don't be duped for things that sound good. Paul's admonishing here is to warn against deliberate suppression of the operations of the Holy Spirit in the congregation.
[26:46] It doesn't take long to observe that our human nature is kind of bent towards holding contempt towards God's word. Think about that for just a moment.
[26:56] If Paul's saying, don't despise prophecies, and that looked different then, and it still is a command for the church today to not despise prophecies, simply we can understand that this is showing contempt for God's word.
[27:12] Back then it was revelatory. Right now it's found within the canon of scripture. And so it doesn't take long to look through all of these pages. It started in the garden, leading all through the days of the judges and the kings, leading into the prophets.
[27:30] People despise God's word. Those are, there's just a bent, a natural bent within our human being, that we don't want to accept and receive what God has to say to us.
[27:44] And there are folks who hunger for this continuous, just fresh, divine, revelatory directives from God. And what I am connecting through progressive revelation and biblical theology might sound a little bit boring and dry to some, but that does not pose a problem with the book.
[28:03] It poses a problem with us. We have historically despised God's word and God's directive in our lives. It doesn't take long to see it in the Old Testament.
[28:15] And you see some hunger and idolize so deeply for God's next fresh revelation within the framework of their circumstances, within their lives, but better they are acquainted and satisfied with God's first revelation revealed within the canon of scripture and allow that to direct their lives.
[28:35] And so we can understand that as we say no to the leading of, of the Holy Spirit in our lives, looking at verse 12, leading all the way to verse, verse 18, as we continuously say no to the leading of the Holy Spirit over here.
[28:53] And on the other side, as we continuously say no to God's word, through scripture as well, despising prophecies, look then in the center.
[29:05] Do not quench the Spirit. Paul's command here is not to reject God's word outright, nor accept it outright. It simply calls us to listen and to test.
[29:16] And it takes patience. Often, my kids will sift through sand or dirt and things like that, you know, with the little plastic sand sifter that has like a little grating.
[29:31] And simply saying, when words are being spoken, they ought to be tested. They ought to be tested in line with God's revealed word through the canon of scripture.
[29:45] And you got to sift through it. And that's not to say that you throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe there's a couple of good things, but those who know the word of God, those who are attentive to the word of God, will know how to tell the difference.
[29:57] And with that, we find a balance of people who are being people of the book and people of the Spirit. And that through God's design in our lives, it is possible to be both without reducing the other.
[30:09] And so I pray that this is made ever more present, even in our church here today. And so as we come to the last points, we see listening, testing and treasuring truth.
[30:26] Because Paul continues, not to despise prophecies, before that it was not to quench the Spirit, but to test everything, hold fast to what is good.
[30:39] Abstain from every form of evil. And some may say, Brent, this is really complicated. Because these guys, Apostle Bob, he's tall.
[30:56] He's kind of, I don't know, intimidating. And man, when he opens, he doesn't even have to open the Bible. He just knows the scriptures. He's like, boom, boom, boom. And Isaiah said this, and Genesis, and then Revelation, and then one to another.
[31:11] Well, that's the very problem. His Bible isn't open. He isn't using specific context within those realms. He's just cherry picking to say what he wants scripture to say in a divine authority.
[31:24] And it's wrong. It's wrong. There are some that are cutting puzzle pieces just to fit where they want them to fit. Like a puzzle piece is made to form in a certain position.
[31:38] And through progressive revelation, certain puzzle pieces were supposed to fit there. And they're not supposed to fit over here. But it reveals this picture. When you stand back and leave the puzzle pieces intact, you see a beautiful working and masterpiece of what God's been painting for us to understand.
[31:56] And if we would only trust that our puzzle piece here and defending the word of God through the written word of God, through the canon of scripture, is a true fitting puzzle piece in our day to day, we would save ourselves a lot of grievous moments of falling for error and misleading and being misguided by myths and dreams and visions and whatever have you.
[32:21] So, church, we have something real here. And this is life changing. I don't even know where I'm at in my notes today. It's the same feeling that we ought to pay attention to.
[32:38] After binge eating all this cotton candy, I call a lot of preachers, I have a term for it, is the cotton candy preachers that have a lot of substance.
[32:48] They have a lot of fluff. But, man, it's just, they lack substance and they don't provide the nourishment you need. And you can eat and eat and eat, but it's like you can binge eat that all you want.
[33:00] But as you sit there after the fact, as the sugar rush ends, you feel like death and you crash, you sit there thinking, man, I shouldn't have done that. And how many times, if we would just pay attention to how God has been guiding us and is leading us today, that we would be avoided of getting to that grievous position of regretting certain phases and situations in our life.
[33:23] But unfortunately, it's not a health crisis that is in play in our lives when we disobey God's design. It's salvation. It's a salvific crisis.
[33:36] Because people do not know who God is. Because they're listening to Apostle Bob's version. They're not listening to God's version.
[33:46] So that ought to be the very thing that we pay attention to as we are testing various expositions of the word of God and even my own exposition every Sunday.
[33:58] Not in a hypercritical sense of preferential leanings, like, well, I wish he would quote more John Calvin. I like John Calvin. Or maybe Arminius over on this side.
[34:09] You know, I wish he would lean a little bit more in that preferential leaning. Not in a hypercritical sense, church. But in a salvific sense of who God is and who Jesus is and how our lives ought to look because of them.
[34:25] John MacArthur says, One is never to downgrade the proclamation of God's word, as he comments on this passage.
[34:35] But to examine the preached word carefully, What is found to be good is to be wholeheartedly embraced.
[34:47] And what is evil or unbiblical is to be shunned. Church, we are supposed to be very excelled at picking the bones out of our meat and not be eating the wrong things and breaking teeth and digesting things that our bodies were not supposed to take in.
[35:10] When the Bible opens, we must have ears to listen. Our minds have to be engaged because you know what is true.
[35:20] Our hearts have to be softened by the Holy Spirit to find and understand what the word has to say. And the enemy is after those who are gullible.
[35:33] The devil is quite advanced in experience. You think Apostle Bob knows how to use scripture out of context. I've got news for you. The enemy has been around for quite a long time.
[35:45] It was very crafty at it at the very beginning of man. He uses flattery. He uses trickery. He uses guilt trips to draw those away who cannot distinguish for themselves truth of scripture versus error.
[36:03] And I like to say that within the church, it doesn't take... People talk about wolves in the church and things like that and wolves coming in.
[36:15] Well, wolves don't last long when you feed them sheep food. Wolves don't last very long when you feed them sheep food. And so it is true for us today.
[36:26] We must know the right tests to conduct in our lives and in order that we are not duped for a lie. And drawn into this vortex of error and emotions as if we just downed a dozen cotton candy cones.
[36:40] So the first test that we... If you're taking notes today, the first test that we need to be conducting is just the plain test against the truth of scripture.
[36:53] How do you know what's true? Well, God has made it so that we can know true from error. Like the inhabitants of Berea, we are to examine the scriptures to see if what any Christian teacher says is true.
[37:14] And when we're dealing with prophetic ministries and things like that, context is absolutely key. Context is key.
[37:25] And you can have a problem with me saying big theological words, but biblical theology is crucial.
[37:37] To see the storyline that God has been seeing out from the very beginning and how it ends and seeing how that sort of like a music staff, as music kind of goes in a melody, and not just isolating this one part, but listening to the entire piece.
[37:56] And not only listening to that entire piece, listening to the other instruments within that piece that are all making this beautiful, harmonious melody of God's glory and who Jesus is.
[38:09] We ought to know the difference. Theology matters, church. And so the first test is just plain truth of scripture. You can quote a passage from scripture and still be wrong, is what I'm saying.
[38:24] The second test is test against the divine human and the person of Jesus and even the Trinity. We can't forget, it wasn't too long ago we did a 1 John series and we studied 1 John 4, verse 1, where it says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
[38:51] For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God.
[39:04] Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus is not from God.
[39:18] This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Boy, that is amplifying quite a bit of different manifestations in our world today.
[39:32] You got a whole laundry list. You know Jehovah's Witnesses are calling now? Just so you know, they're calling now. I get voicemails and I go to their JW, whatever, websites and look at their literature that they told me to look at.
[39:50] They're not knocking anymore, they're calling. You know, the enemy has been crafting and it's the same old lies in a new day. We can't fall for it. Test against the divine person, the divine and human person of Jesus Christ in the Trinity.
[40:08] The second, the third one is to test God's free and saving grace through Christ. Because anyone who perverts the gospel, preacher, apostle, prophet, even angel, deserves to be eternally condemned.
[40:24] When you change the gospel into a works-based system, the Bible within its context makes it clear that by grace we have been saved through faith.
[40:38] It's not of works. It's not of our own doing. There's nothing that we can do to earn God's merit and favor in our lives. It's only through faith.
[40:50] And so anything that perverts that has to be condemned as false. It's objective truth, church, even if they're a nice person. The fourth test is the test of character of the speaker.
[41:03] When Jesus told us to, in Matthew 7, watch out for false prophets, warning us that they are wolves disguised as sheep, he added, by their fruit, you will recognize them.
[41:17] So you've got to consider the test of character. You know, Apostle Bob can be coming in from across the country and he has a message and then does all these, you know, cool things. But who is Apostle Bob?
[41:30] Do you really know? If you don't, that should concern you. And that should be a problem. And just as the tree that has identifiable fruit within their lives, so a teacher must be identified by character and conduct.
[41:45] And guess what, church? As we look at those puzzle pieces fitting within context, God has established overseers of his church. Shepherds.
[41:57] People to endure, to lead, to guide, and to know the sheep, but also to be known by the sheep. Right?
[42:08] God has given us directives for his building projects. How quickly we can despise it. And also the last one is just a test of corporate edification.
[42:21] An authentic prophetic message will strengthen at times, it will encourage at times, it will comfort the hearers, it will edify the church. It will bring conviction of sin and awareness of God and to be conducive to peace and order and above all to love.
[42:41] That there's no children with itching ears, just ready to fall hook, line, and sinker. Whatever he says, it's gold. Don't test him.
[42:51] Don't question him. You'll go to hell or you'll be in sin or you'll be kicked out from the church. That would be a church I'd be glad to be kicked out of, quite honestly.
[43:04] Instead, the corporate edification, the corporate body of the church is not children with itching ears to hear what they want to hear and to feel what they want to feel, but soldiers ready for battle.
[43:16] Soldiers who are trained, that have gone out, that have almost experienced starvation through trials in life and who are ready for the course that God has waiting for them laying ahead.
[43:30] We are expert money changers. We have the ability to see a counterfeit bill versus a real bill. And you know how that comes?
[43:40] Through knowing the word of God yourselves. These are tests that we rehearse, that we sharpen through reading the Bible one-on-one, as this summer is going to be probably a lot of that.
[43:53] And we do that Monday through Saturday. If you expect to know and distinguish truth from false by just attending Sunday morning and taking my word for it, you're missing it. Because you're not helping me any.
[44:06] Because what if I'm out of line? You understand? We have to be sharpened. We have to be rehearsed in these things. And we can be assured that we will have the proper sifting tools at hand to discern God's word from a lie.
[44:21] And in that, we can better understand what it means to hold on what is good and avoid every kind of evil. Amen? All right, I found my notes here.
[44:36] I'm just going to land this plane for you this morning. I could probably keep going on. I want you to understand if you are just waking up right now, good morning.
[44:47] But I want us to understand and take your notes. Scripture has the supreme authority in prophetically guiding his church.
[45:02] Scripture has the supreme authority of prophetically guiding his church. Its very health, its very growth, depend upon the proclaimed word of God.
[45:15] through its delivery from here to there and also reception. In this, the Holy Spirit blazes brightly.
[45:26] And it starts here with the word of God. And I was reflecting this week that what would this look like within our church? What if this fire was blazing?
[45:39] What if the word was coming to life in our own lives? That all of a sudden, we find ourselves meeting with people throughout the week that don't know Jesus. We're reading the Bible.
[45:50] We're telling them, no, we're introducing them to what is true. What would that look like in our church? And you can always talk about starting this revival and everything, but man, if revival would start with anything, it starts here as it did within the first great awakening.
[46:06] It starts with the proclaimed word of God. And we don't have to add, we don't have to really do much. It has power on its own to do that. And so we would save ourselves much less trouble than to misprioritize or minimize the central role that blazes within our midst, being strictly from the exposition of God's word.
[46:25] Here we find life. Here we find guidance. Here we find the mind and the will of God. And it is infallible. It will not fail you.
[46:36] And it's without error. Yes, the music can be fantastic. Just a side note, the music has been fantastic. Thank you to everyone who's doing the music in this church.
[46:49] You know, the music can be good. The welcoming crew. Les can be up here with a peppy welcome in the church, but without the word of God carefully proclaimed through verses bound to one another, our time is better spent not here, but the breakfast joint down the road.
[47:08] I've experienced the instances of Pentecostalism and personally, you know, personally and profoundly. And it is through the codependence that we find that error being just attached to different people.
[47:21] We need to be attached to Jesus Christ. Might we have very longing desires that are quenching for true water, living water and true bread of life that's found within the word of God.
[47:35] Let that be so in our church here today. And if you are not in Christ today, maybe you're lost and maybe you're chasing those dry clouds. I do want us to close our time today with just reading a couple of things from Jude and just looking and turning to Jude.
[47:52] Jude 4 says, Verse 12 says, These are hidden reefs at your love feasts.
[48:20] As they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom and darkness has been reserved forever.
[48:48] Verse 16 says, These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They are loudmouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.
[49:03] And let this be so in verse 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.
[49:26] Amen. Amen. Let's pray as we close our time and worship team, you can come back up.