Discerning the Work of the Spirit

Date: February 9, 2024

Title: Discerning the Work of the Spirit.

Passage: 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

Deep things to consider.

Looking at another controversial passage that I know will engender many conversations in the aftermath of this sermon.

These are things we need to talk about.

“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.”

INTRODUCTION

Well, in this morning’s passage, we’re looking at a series of statements that all form one unit of thought. The imperatives found in V. 19-22, which, as we’ve seen has to do with not quenching the Spirit, not despising prophecies, testing everything, holding fast to what is good, and abstaining from every form of evil, are a set of commands that all relate to the same subject, which is discerning the work of the Spirit.

That’s what Paul is after in these verses. He wants the Thessalonian church to be a discerning people. Why? There is always going to be imposters that infiltrate the church, introduce false teaching, make false prophetic utterances, and claim to be inspired by the Spirit, but according to Paul, the church must always stand on guard because part of the church’s responsibility is to discern the work of the Spirit so that they can reject what is false and embrace what is true and good.

And this is something they must do because if they don’t, that is, if they fail to discern the Spirit’s work correctly, then it is going to have devastating effects upon their lives.

So, that’s what we’re focusing on this morning: discerning the work of the Spirit, particularly as it pertains to prophecy.

Now, I know that most of you are probably sitting on the edge of your seat, wondering what I’m going to say about the whole debate between cessationism and continuationsm, which is the debate over whether or not prophecy has ceased.

Cessationists believe there are certain extraordinary spiritual gifts—sign gifts which ceased at the end of the apostolic age, the gift of prophecy being one of them.

Basically, all the revelatory gifts and sign gifts that attended them were primarily, if not totally, confined to the apostolic era.

Continuationsists believe that all the gifts, except for maybe apostles, are ongoing realities that are for the church today and will only come to an end at the return of Christ.

Now, I do have convictions on this matter, but before I jump into that discussion too quickly, I want us to first try understanding what living by these commands would have meant within the context of the first-century church, because I think that once we understand the meaning of prophecy and the function that it had, it’s going to bring us a long way.

So, let’s try to get our arms around that; let’s think about this for a moment… Why was it so important for Paul to tell the Thessalonians not to despise prophecies?

Well, the reason for that is because prophecy was the mechanism through which God communicated His Word to His people.

Now, God doesn’t deliver prophecies of course; people deliver prophecies, but God is the one who gives a revelation to a person so that they can then communicate what He wants said, which means true prophetic utterances are to be received as the very speech of God because God is the one inspiring people to say what He wants said.

That’s why prophecy was always to be 100% accurate. As the will of God was being made known through the words of the prophets, they could not err in the deliverance of their prophecies otherwise they would have been speaking their own mind rather than God’s mind, thus misleading the people of God.

And this, by the way, was the way by which people could discern whether someone was a true prophet or a false prophet. True prophets don’t make mistakes. In fact, this is how Samuel was established as a true prophet in Israel. In 1 Sam 3:19, we’re told that the Lord did not let any of His words fall to the ground, which means God enabled Him to declare the word of the Lord without error.

And this was true for all prophets. Prophets prophesy infallibly. They don’t err. They don’t make mistakes. They don’t presume to speak for God when God hasn’t given them anything to say. They stay silent when God is silent. They speak when God speaks; and when God speaks to them, whenever they then communicate His word to His people, it always comes with the force of, “Thus saith the Lord.”

In other words, when Jeremiah, Isaiah, Deborah, Elijah, Paul or anyone else for that matter, prophesies, they aren’t merely offering good suggestions; they’re not simply giving good advice; they’re not merely saying, ‘this is what I think the Lord is telling me to tell you.’ No, when they prophesied, they were delivering the infallible Word of God and it was to be received as such. It was to be believed and obeyed.

You see, before the closing of the Canon of scripture (all the inspired books of the New Testament), the Word of God was always communicated in two forms. There was oral prophecy and written prophecy; there was God’s spoken Word and God’s written Word, both of which were infallible and completely authoritative.

As a matter of fact, the books of 1-2 Thessalonians actually provides us with some amazing material on this topic, and I’d like to briefly draw your attention to it.

Go back to 1 Thessalonians 2:13 for a moment.

1 Thess 2:13, “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

Now, I already spent a great deal of time explaining this verse when I preached on it, but just to refresh your memory here… when Paul speaks about him being thankful for the Thessalonians receiving the word of God for what it really was, namely, the word of God; He wasn’t talking about the Bible there… In other words, he wasn't talking about the written revelation of God; He was talking about the revelation of God that was communicated to them orally.

They “heard” it from them, and when they heard it, they received those prophetic words as words that had originated with God. The Thessalonians had discerned that they were not just the ordinary words of men.

Now, we can talk about more about how they discerned that, but all I want to underscore at this point is that according to 1 Thess 2:13, true prophecy that is communicated orally isn’t something less than the Word of God; it is the Word of God.

Now, another example of this is in 2 Thess 2:15.

2 Thess 2:15, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.”

Now, you can see how the Roman Catholic church would take a verse like this and really run with it. And that’s what they’ve done. ‘We have two authorities’ they say; the Bible and Tradition—Holy Tradition.

So, yes, the letters of the New Testament are infallible, but so are the oral words of the Church’s magisterium… Now, this is where they run into a problem… Because the “spoken word” the Thessalonians were to hold onto were not the words of the church’s bishops; they were the words of the apostles and prophets, which we no longer have today.

You see, the Bible teaches (Eph 2:20) that the apostles and prophets laid the foundation of the church, which means whenever they spoke under inspiration, either in spoken word or in letter, the church was to hold onto it. They were to believe it and obey it.

Now unfortunately, sometimes it is just assumed that what these agents of revelation taught in word was different than what they taught in letter, as if the content of these two forms of communication contained remarkably different information.

But it’s actually much more likely that the Word of God that was communicated in word and letter was the same basic material, it’s just that it was being communicated in two different forms, which at that time in history was absolutely necessary because they couldn’t simply open their Bibles to Matthew or John or Romans or 1-2 Timothy like we can so easily do today.

You see, the Word of God in the early church was primarily received through the spoken words of the apostles and prophets, including some others as well; but over time, as the New Testament books were being written, copied and passed around, the need for prophecy and prophets serving in local churches was becoming less and less necessary.

As the foundation of the church was on the cusp of completion, you’re seeing the profusion of oral prophetic activity become set in stone in the New Testament writings.

So, this definitely was a unique phase of history; indeed, it was a transitional stage of history. As the old wineskins were being replaced with the new wineskins, there had to be an outburst of prophetic activity to form the new content upon which the church would be built.

And this is something we would expect because just as the prophetic voice of the Old Covenant came to an end with the completion of the Old Testament Canon; so the prophetic voice of the New Covenant would come to an end with the completion of the New Testament Canon.

You see, the point is that the presence of prophetic activity indicates that there is still an open Canon, and that’s one of the reasons why cessationists have a really hard time seeing how someone can hold to the completion of the Canon while still affirming that there’s prophets all over the place, prophesying.

So, how do they get around this?

Well, to come full circle now… Let’s think about this in relation to 1 Thess 5:19-22.

When Paul says, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good,” the way that this is typically interpreted by continuationists is that whenever someone prophesies, the prophecy itself may contain some truth and some error, and you, the hearer, have the responsibility to discern what parts of the prophecy should be believed and what parts of the prophecy should be rejected.

So, when Paul says, “hold fast to the good,” he’s saying, hold onto the true aspects of the prophecy but reject the false aspects, which would mean of course that, prophecy, under this system of thought is fallible. Prophecy may contain sleight errors and mistakes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the person communicating it is a false prophet.

This is how guys like John Piper and Wayne Grudem interpret this.

Listen to Grudem, he says, “When Paul encourages them to ‘hold fast to what is good,’ he implies that prophecies contained some things that are good and some things that are not good.”

Now, as much as I love Wayne Grudem, I would pushback on what he argues for here, because what he sees as a necessary implication is not a necessary implication at all (more on that later), but for now, what I want to highlight is that this is how someone who holds to continuationist convictions can hold onto sufficiency of scripture while simultaneously holding onto the continuation of the gift of prophecy.

If prophecy is fallible, meaning it is imperfect and subject to error, then it does not bear the force of, “Thus saith the LORD.” In fact, Grudem even argues that when people prophecy today, they should never preface their prophecies with statements like, “Thus saith the LORD,” but should instead say something more along the lines of, “I think the Lord is leading me to tell you…” fill in the blank. Well, “I think” is not the language the Bible uses in reference to prophecy!

But needless to say, the point is that New Testament prophecy in the continuationist perspective is non-authoritative. You are not under obligation to submit to it in the same sense that you are obligated to submit to the Bible. The Bible, you must believe and obey; but prophecy, you may believe and obey.

Why? Well, it’s because the Bible is 100% the word of God whereas prophecy, even true prophecy, may contain, in fact, most likely does contain a mixture of God’s words that are combined with the imperfect words of men. And so you got to sift through it to figure out what parts of the prophecy are from God. That’s the basic contention.

But in response, I would argue that Grudem has redefined prophecy, and here’s what I mean… When Paul tells the Thessalonians not to despise prophecies, “but test everything; hold fast to what is good,” to say that Paul is arguing that there are good things to accept and misleading things to reject within a single prophecy is, in my mind, introducing a concept that is foreign to the Bible.

One of the ways by which prophecy can been tested and has always been tested is by examining whether or not there are any errors in it at all. And if it has errors, well then you know that there isn’t any good reason to believe any of the prophetic claims that guy might be making.

To hold onto what is good is to hold onto prophecies that are actually true—totally true—and fully true, because remember, prophecy, is based upon a divine revelation from God which God then supernaturally causes to be transmitted without error, and as we saw in 2 Thess 2:15, that’s true of prophecy that is transmitted through spoken word just as much as it is, prophecy that is transmitted and transcribed onto the pages of Holy scripture.

The point is that true prophecy always delivers the word of God, so whether we’re talking about forth-telling or fore-telling or giving new revelation is kind of besides the point, because the main point that needs to be emphasized again and again is that the mechanism through which God reveals His infallible Word to people is through prophecy!

And so, the question is: is God still revealing His infallible Word to people today, outside of scripture?

You see, this is why, as far as I’m concerned, the only way to believe in the continuation of the gift of prophecy without threatening the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture is by embracing a definition of prophecy that turns it into something that isn’t quite the Word of God and thus doesn’t need to be held to such a high standard that binds the conscience.

In fact, even Grudem recognizes this. In his book on the gift of prophecy…

(Note) Makes the best case for the continuationist perspective.

Grudem is no light-weight scholar.

There was a time when I was persuaded by his case.

I’ve waffled over this issue.

I was never into the charismatic craziness.

There are many others like that too.

There are more biblically rooted, moderately minded continuationists, who don’t want to be identified with the charismatic movement, and I don’t think it’s always wise or fair to lump them altogether.

I would warn you to not get involved with some of the nutty practices in some circles.

I sit pretty comfortably in the cessationist camp.

And to come back to Grudem… in his book on the gift of prophecy, he agrees with the reasoning of the cessationist position - that if New Testament prophecy is equivalent to Old Testament prophecy in that it bears the same divine authority, then he says, “we would clearly expect this gift to cease once the New Testament was complete.”

Now, Grudem doesn’t go there himself, as he thinks New Testament prophecy is less authoritative than Old Testament prophecy, but this is precisely what cessationists are pushing back against.

In fact, one of the main issues that cessationists have with continuationists is that many of these gifts are being redefined. The gift of prophecy has been redefined. The gift of tongues has been redefined. The gift of miracles and healing has been redefined. All of these gifts have been redefined, so that when their actually practiced in certain circles today, for the cessationist, they don’t think it actually looks anything like what we see going on in the early church.

Now, I don’t have time to get embroiled in some of these other disputed matters right now; I simply flag that to show you some of the concerns cessationists have. Now, at the same time, I don’t want to minimize some of the concerns continuationists have with cessationist reasoning either.

And some of their points need to be carefully considered, too.

In fact, even I would concede the point that there are some arguments cessationists use to try to prove cessationism that I don’t find to be particularly convincing.

Personally, I think cessationists can sometimes overstate the strength of their case.

But yet, on the other hand, I also think it’s true that continuationists all too often fail to see and appreciate just how unique and transitional the apostolic era was. The apostles and prophets laid the foundation of the church, and you only lay a foundation once. It’s unrepeatable. So, to say that just about everything that happened back then is supposed to be normative for the church in all ages is, as far as I can see, simply not true.

Now, to the continuationist point, I would agree with them that there isn’t any verse in the New Testament which explicitly says the sign gifts ceased in the apostolic era. I get that.

But you know… despite that being the case, as I’ve spent many dreadful and glorious hours wrestling with this issue, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is more than enough evidence and verses that strongly suggest to me that some of these gifts really were designed to be confined to that first-century era when the foundation of the church was being laid.

Now, I know we all probably have scores of passages on our minds that we’re thinking about right now… ‘well what about this passage…’ or ‘what about this experience I had…’ and all of those things are worthy to be addressed, but given that our passage mainly has to do with prophecy, I’ve tried to limit our attention to focus on this unique revelatory gift as much as possible.

And to wrap this up, let me give you some concluding thoughts.

When Paul, in 1 Thess 5:19, says “Do not quench the Spirit,” he’s saying do not put out the Spirit’s fire. Do not stifle the work of the Spirit. Do not resist His work in your life, and although this can have a broader application to our lives, it’s clear from the context that Paul is specifically talking about the need to not quench the Spirit in terms of not despising words of prophecy, which was really important for Him to underscore at that time because without these Spirit wrought words of prophecy, they would have been missing out on so much valuable information that was needed for them to be built up into the likeness of Christ.

Remember, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of prophecy, and all true prophecy, whether written or orally communicated, is inspired by the Spirit, prompted by the Spirit, and superintended by the Spirit such that it always delivers the pure unfalsified word of the living God.

‘So don’t despise it; don’t let all those charlatans and false prophets who are prophesying falsely in my name, make you think ill of prophecy itself.’ Be discerning. Do your due diligence, test everything, hold fast to what is good, and abstain from every form of evil, and even here, although this last command is one that can certainly have a wider application, I think this is probably still related to the topic of prophecy.

Because you know what false prophecy is? It’s evil. True prophecies are good and false prophecies are evil. So, hold fast to the good ones and abstain from the bad ones. In other words, every so-called prophecy, or prophet, or even prophetic ministry that has the appearance of evil is to be rejected. It’s something you want to abstain from.

That’s the basic thrust of what this passage is about. Now obviously, there’s so much more that could be said and explored on this topic, but just in passing, I will add that none of what I’ve argued for this morning is to say that God no longer leads His people in supernatural and extraordinary ways. Although I definitely land more in the cessationist camp, I really like to call myself an, experiential cessationist.

Because I believe there are times when God condescends and draws near to His people in unusual ways. I believe there are special seasons of grace when the Holy Spirit is poured out without measure. I don’t know how else to explain a revival.

Furthermore, I also believe there are times when the Spirit prompts His people to do something or maybe even say something to someone. I’m sure we’ve all had experiences like that before, and to a certain extent I’m okay with that; my main issue, however, is in calling any of that prophecy.

There’s a difference between prophecy and impression. Prophecies are infallible and objective; impressions are fallible and subjective. The former has passed away, but the latter is still around.

Now having said that, even here we need to be discerning because while I don’t think it’s wise to outright reject the more extraordinary ways by which God might be providentially leading His people by placing something on their hearts as it were, we also have to understand that impressions are no sure guide to follow. At the very least, they’re not something you can live on. You need the more sure word of scripture to guide your soul.

But hopefully you can see, this is why we need wisdom… This is why we need to pray for wisdom and spiritual discernment.

CONCLUSION

Brothers and sisters, may we never forget that just like the Thessalonians, we, too, need to exercise discernment today.

Now, I’ve already argued that we’re in a different context now than they were back then, but even though it is the case that there are no longer any spontaneous revelations of the Spirit being given, through which people are made to prophecy infallibly as they did before the completion of the New Testament Canon; the good news is that all the Spirit wrought words of prophecy that are needed for life and godliness has been preserved for us right here in our Bibles.

And you know, that’s why, whenever we proclaim the Bible and rightly interpret the Bible, that is a form of prophecy because the Bible is prophetic by nature of what it is; it’s the Word of God!

So, although the gift of prophecy is no longer around; the church still continues to have a prophetic voice. Now it’s not that we prophesy in the sense of giving new revelation as Paul, Silas or Ezekiel did, but inasmuch as we proclaim the revelation of God that’s already been revealed and deposited for us in the Bible, that is prophetic in nature.

Therefore, we all have the responsibility to do the work of the discernment. If we do not allow the Spirit of God to work through the word of God, we’re in trouble! If we despise the prophetic word of scripture in our hearts and say that we don’t want to hear what God has to say about what His will is on a particular matter, then we will quench the Spirit’s work in our lives, because the Spirit of God always works through the Word of God!

If we do not test everything, if you do not put me to the test, if you do not put everyone to the test who claims to speak for God, then there will be devastating consequences.

So, test everything. Test the spirits to see whether they be from God or Satan.

Well, what another practical passage this is. Hopefully we’ve come to see and understand how the gift of prophecy functioned in those early days, when the New Covenant church was birthed into a new context where it was critically important for them to be given fresh revelation from God so that they could be guided into all truth.

Brethren, God met their need. He provided for them. He guided His church then, just as He does now: through the prophetic word. Then, it was primarily made known in the form of oracular pronouncements, and today it is made known in the form of Holy writ.

But in either case, we can see that God, in His grace, has done what is necessary to ensure that His precious bride never be without His word at least somewhere on earth, so that, we, the church can fulfill our responsibility of proclaiming that Word, propagating that Word, and then having it disseminated far and wide.

What a gift God has given us in His infallible, inspired, prophetic word. May we trust in it today, and may we hold fast to it’s incorruptible message, for as the apostle Peter has said, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Prayer.