How To Put Out The Spirit's Fire

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

Were Paul to visit our church on a Sunday morning, would he approve of our worship? After sharing our service of worship, do you suppose he would exult: God is really among you! Far too many churches of the day may best be categorised as museums—mere monuments to past glories, or at worst they should be classified as mausoleums displaying the decay resulting from years of spiritual neglect. I am compelled by dint of the obvious to include many evangelical churches … and especially Baptist churches in this tragic summation.

Though the buildings may be filled with energetic bodies on a Sunday morning and though lively music may emanate from acoustically excellent sound equipment, the description of a museum or a mausoleum is nevertheless appropriate and Ichabod is written large above the entrance. Like Samson of old the weary saints rouse themselves thinking they shall meet the enemy, never knowing that the Lord has left them. May I state very clearly that we are not immune from the tragic results which follow once we have put out the Spirit’s fire. The warning which the Apostle issued to the Thessalonian church, Do not put out the Spirit's fire [1 Thessalonians 5:19], is a warning which we each do well to heed in these last days.

Reviewing the text in the original language, I discover the four verses are actually one command with four specific applications. Do not put out the Spirit's fire is the command followed by four specific applications—one negative and three positive. Negatively, Paul admonishes readers to stop treating prophecies with contempt [literal translation]. The three positive applications are treated as separate sentences in our text. However, in that original language there occurs a copulative conjunction, but or instead. In other words Paul provides alternatives to an ongoing action. By this criterion we must be convinced that anyone seeking to fan the Spirit’s fire into flame is responsible to fulfil three commands: test everything, hold on to the good, and avoid every kind of evil.

Permit me to read this brief passage from several other translations. It may prove helpful to grasp the essence of the Apostle’s words by hearing how others have grappled with the Greek text. Don’t try to follow in your own Bible at this moment, but simply listen for a fresh approach to the text.

Phillips provides us with an excellent paraphrase of the New Testament that brings out many nuances from the text we might otherwise ignore or neglect. Never damp the fire of the Spirit, and never despise what is spoken in the name of the Lord. By all means use your judgement, and hold on to whatever is really good. Steer clear of evil in any form.[1]

Williams captures the dynamic of the language in an unusual manner, paying special attention to the verbal forms and their English equivalents. Stop stifling the Spirit. Stop treating the messages of prophecy with contempt, but continue to prove all things until you can approve them, and then hold on to what is good. Continue to abstain from every sort of evil.[2]

Eugene Peterson has performed yeoman service for our day in his presentation of a lively translation aimed at capturing the sparkle of the New Testament in our contemporary tongue. Don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what’s good. Throw out anything tainted with evil[3].

Here is yet another contemporary effort to capture the essence of Paul’s warning. Do not hold back the work of the Holy Spirit. Do not treat prophecy as if it were unimportant. But test everything. Keep what is good, and stay away from everything that is evil.[4] Clearly there is much more here than just words to fill the space before the closing of the letter. The Thessalonian Christians were receiving a command and explanations which would ensure that they would continue to please God for the remainder of their days.

The message is an exposition of this one command: Do not put out the Spirit's fire. The organisation of the message follows the outline Paul provided. If you will focus with me on these four commands as the means by which we are to understand how to avoid extinguishing the Spirit’s fire we will grasp the essence of the divine message and facilitate the task of preaching.

Do Not Treat Prophecies with Contempt. Profhteiva" mh; ejxouqenei`te. To many of us this injunction appears obscure, dark, even fraught with potential for serious misunderstanding and grave distortion. In a day in which an increasing number of the professed people of God claim to be prophets and when many seem to continually claim to bring new revelations of the mind of God, such an imperative makes us justifiably uneasy. There were prophets in that New Testament world; there are prophets in this world today. More than any other facet for folly, the failure to identify what we are speaking of has introduced great and serious error into the life of the Church.

Too many hearing the word prophet understand it to mean seer. They think in terms of revelation of future events and restrict the thought to that one minor facet. Nothing could be further from truth. I haven’t time to cover the matter fully in our brief time together, but it is vital that we note that prophecy in the New Testament context is that particular proclamation of Word which reveals the mind of God and which therefore speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort [1 Corinthians 14:3]. Prophecy, or rather prophetic preaching, is less a matter of revelation then it is an issue of application. Prophecy is akin to that particular form of preaching which strengthens, encourages, and comforts through providing understanding of the mind of God.

Perhaps we could rephrase this particular injunction in contemporary language so that it read: Listen to the Word of God as it is preached. That seems to be essentially what Paul has in view. Carefully attend to the preaching of the Word. In the day in which he wrote the Thessalonians the church did not have a complete revelation of God’s will, the Bible was not yet complete. Today we have a full revelation of God’s mind in the Bible. Whenever a preacher stands to preach, and when he opens the book and provides an exposition of the text making application to our particular day, that man is continuing in the prophetic tradition. We must resist the spirit of this age and refuse to treat such preaching with disdain or callous indifference.

Ours is an age populated with people possessing stunted and dwarfed attention spans. Weaned on television and the nine-second rule we grow to adulthood with an attention span more suited to entertainment than to thoughtful contemplation; and the entertainment sought must be delivered in a manner constantly shifting our attention from one subject to another. Thus it is difficult for modern man to long focus his attention on any one matter for long. The minds of those living within this present age are restless and constantly active as the imagination roves far and wide. Those who study in the seminaries of the day are frequently told that preaching is passé, a relic from days long past when people were not so sophisticated nor so cultured as we are.

I am convinced there is still a place for the spokesman of God. Let the man of God stand before a congregation announcing, “Thus saith the Lord,” and insure that he has a message from the Living God, and people will listen. There is a heart hunger in our world for a sure word from Him who holds all things in His hands. Entertainment may gather a crowd for a brief while, but it is a message from the Creator, a word from the Author of Life, which captures attention and which insures reflection by those hearing.

Yet, it is precisely God’s own people who are most able to damage credibility of the spokesman of God, redirecting the attention of outsiders to again seek entertainment when they treat the preaching of the Word with disdain or through treating that holy act in a disinterested manner. There was a day in the which Christian men and women set aside time to worship, and the preaching of the Word was central to that worship; the people came for morning worship and returned for an evening meeting. Those same dear saints were at the church mid-week for a service of prayer. Today, if the preacher speaks for forty-five minutes, and that but once in a morning worship service, we begin to fidget and wiggle and squirm and we turn off the message given through God’s messenger. Ever and always the preacher is compared to media superstars whose messages continue but seventeen minutes a day, and woe betide that man who cannot match up to the hero of the moment who holds forth on radio or TV! Brothers and sisters, this ought not to be!

When we fail to look up the passage in the Bible so that we may read the Word for ourselves, when we announce through an attitude of boredom that we would rather be elsewhere, when we choose to neglect the assembly of saints for our own momentary pleasure we are treating prophecies with contempt. When we hear the words but fail to hear the message, we are treating prophecies with contempt. When we go through the motion of attending worship but never somehow grasp the theme of the exposition, we are treating prophecies with contempt. Just at this point I am compelled to note that I can find something of eternal value in every sermon by a God-called preacher. I confess that I have had a few close calls, but God is in the message when the man of God speaks out of the fullness of study and waiting before the Lord.

Test Everything. Pavnta de; dokimavzete. Test everything with a view to approving the truth. The Christian Faith is not a blind leap into darkness. Never is a Christian to check in his brain upon entering into the Faith. The Christian Faith is reasonable and sane, a thoughtful faith, and those who walk in that Faith are never commanded to walk in ignorance. The Apostle enjoins believers to test everything, thus embracing the whole of life. Nothing is excluded from this testing, but especially does Paul direct children of God to weigh carefully the teaching which attends the preaching of the Word to insure that they sift the good from the evil. How shall we obey this injunction to test everything?

The first test to be applied to prophecy is Scripture itself. Like the residents of Berea we are to examine the Scriptures to see if what the Christian teacher says is true. Some years ago I read a most unusual description of attendance at preaching from the days that preceded Tyndale’s translation of Scripture into the vernacular. Here it is:

Each of them had his own Bible, and sedulously turned the pages and looked up the texts cited by the preachers, discussing the passages among themselves to see whether they had quoted them to the point, and accurately, and in harmony with their tenets. Also they would start arguing among themselves about the meaning of passages from the Scriptures—men, women, boys, girls, rustics, labourers, and idiots. Here over a thousand of them sometimes assembled, their horses and pack animals burdened with a multitude of Bibles.

That account was penned by a Jesuit priest named William Weston in the year 1588 after he had observed a large Puritan gathering in Ely, England.

Thomas Hobbes, born in the very year that the Puritan meeting described occurred, looked back with disdain on the effects of the translation and dissemination of the Bible in the century following the Reformation, and he wrote:

After the Bible was translated, every man, nay, every boy and wench, that could read English thought they spoke with God Almighty and understood what He said, when by a certain number of chapters a day they had read the Scriptures once or twice over.

Our forefathers read the Book and knew the teachings of the Book. They compared the teaching they received to that which was written in the Book. This is our heritage. Should we forsake our heritage as the children of those who sought understanding of the will and the way of God? This is our heritage as followers in the lineage of the Bereans. Let us resolve to study the Word, faithfully attending the preaching of that Word. Read the Word for yourself. Study the Word for yourself. Compare what the preacher says with the Book. Become a student of the Word.

The second test of prophecy is the Person of Christ Himself. Recall John’s caution given us in 1 John 4:1-3. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. Christ is the centre of our Faith. Christ is the Author and Perfecter of our faith [Hebrews 12:2]. Does what is taught honour Him and is it consistent with Him as we know Him?

Can we trust simple men and women who are twice born to discern the mind of God? Dare we trust ordinary men and women who are born from above to weigh the preacher’s words to determine whether he has spoken truth or not? May I suggest to you that we can do no better than to trust those who are born into the Family of God to determine the reliability of the Word. Hold every teaching from this pulpit, or from any pulpit, against the standard of the Person of Christ. If the teaching diminishes Him and denigrates His grace reject it as unworthy of the Lord of Glory. That teaching which has not the ring of authenticity, which fails to glorify Jesus the Son of God, which fails to focus attention of Him, cannot be of God and cannot be truth. The Spirit of Christ will guide you into all truth, and we may be assured that ever and always He will bring glory to [Christ] by taking from what is [His] and making it known to you [John 16:13,14].

The third test we are to apply to prophecy is comparison to God’s grace expressed through Christ. Salvation is free and complete. Anyone who perverts this Gospel deserves to be eternally condemned [Galatians 1:6-9]. That teaching which enslaves us to human effort is error and under eternal censure of the Living God. We are not saved through our own deeds; neither do we maintain our standing in grace through our efforts. Paul marvelled at the Galatians that they turned aside so quickly from the doctrine of grace, so he queried in his letter: I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort [Galatians 3:3,4]? Does the preaching exalt God? Does the preaching lead us to rely on His mercy? Does the preaching lead us to rejoice in His grace? Does the preaching cause us to exult in His goodness freely given?

The fourth and final test for prophetic preaching is by examination of the character of the speaker. Jesus warned us to watch out for false prophets, cautioning that such individuals are wolves disguised as sheep. Then He added: By their fruit you will recognise them [Matthew 7:15 ff.]. Isaiah, warning against false teachers present in His day directed readers to the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn [Isaiah 8:20]. I do not say that we ought to accept every statement uttered against the preacher as gospel truth. The God-called preacher is vulnerable to the slander of angered sinners and to the gossip of unregenerate tongues. I do state, however, that the man of God is responsible to walk according to the Word and to live consistent with the precepts of the Word, and such a godly life will be evident to all who know him.

In recent years many Christians were astonished at the fall of a number of evangelical idols. They had acquired large followings and were the darlings of the unthinking. When they were exposed as fraudulent many were shocked. No one should have been surprised, for in every instance they had appropriated glory which rightfully belonged to God to their own person, and the True and Living God has pledged:

I am the LORD; that is my name!

I will not give my glory to another

or my praise to idols

[Isaiah 42:8].

Almost without exception those who sinned so grievously against the Lord and against His people were soon back in the pulpit with blindly adoring sizeable followings that continued following their teaching. Dear people, if the pastor is immoral or unethical or heretical you are to beware of what that man teaches. Hold the professed man of God to the perfect, infallible, unerring, authoritative, demanding standard of the Word of God. To do less is to expose yourself to hurt and harm. To do less is to dishonour the Lord who gave the Word. To do less is to despise the teaching of the Word.

Hold On To the Good. To; kalo;n katevcete. What shall we do with the results of our testing? Two actions are demanded by knowledge of what is good and evil. First, we must hold on to the good. Take possession of that which is good, seize that which is worthy of God, grasp that which is noble and honourable. To the Philippians Paul wrote: whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you [Philippians 4:8,9].

I recall a conversation with some members of the black community in Dallas. I had inquired about Dr. Caesar A. W. Clark, at that time the pastor of the Good Street Baptist Church. Dr. Clark had the well-deserved reputation of being perhaps the most powerful preacher in all of America and I was interested in learning about his ministry. What struck me about the response was the manner in which I was answered.

“Oh, yes,” my informer began, “Dr. Clark is a great preacher; and he pastors a great church. You will not miss the church should you drive near there on a Sunday morning. All the congregation carry their Bibles and they know what it says.”

What a glorious testimony! The members of the congregation carry their Bibles, and they know what it teaches. These saints are distinguished by their lives. They are marked out by their righteousness. In a very real sense they had grasped Paul’s injunction to hold on to the good. That is what I desire for us. However, we cannot hold on to the good without avoiding every kind of evil.

Avoid every Kind Of Evil. Ajpo; panto;" ei[dou" ponhrou` ajpevcesqe. The sentence as it occurs in that original language is interesting and insightful. Somewhat literally Paul stated, From every visible evil, hold yourself aloof. If it is known to be evil, don’t. If it is questionable, don’t! If it dishonours God, don’t. With this injunction the Apostle draws a distinct contrast between good and evil, between truth and error, between that which is genuine and that which is counterfeit.

Permit me to quit preaching for a moment and go to meddling. The wickedness of our world prompts me to confront each of us with these thoughts. When we watch television shows which dishonour God through cursing and through disrobing men and women and portraying them as mere animals controlled by their passion, we cannot honour God. When we listen to music which glorifies alcohol and drugs and which exalts violence and which extols immorality, we cannot honour God. When we refuse to show compassion to the down trodden and to the hurting, we cannot honour God. When we fail to witness to the grace of God, speaking up for Christ and standing for His righteousness, we cannot honour God. When we choose to absent ourselves from the worship of God because we surrender to the desires of our own flesh, we cannot honour God. As Christians we are not only to outwardly live holy lives, but we are to inwardly be changed and transformed so that we want to live holy and godly lives.

Our lives are packed with activities and we are unable to find the energy to study the Word. Family comes to visit, friends drop by for a chat, opportunities to travel arise, and somehow we make a choice that the preaching of the Word is secondary to these other activities. We need recreation, we determine that we need time alone, and so we once more forsake the preaching of the Word. Though we did not deliberately think to do so, we revealed to the watching world that we hold prophecy in contempt, we are showing that we despise prophetic preaching. And the Spirit dies, and the fire dies down, and excitement dies, and soul-winning ceases, and witness dies, and the church dies.

Travel to almost any city in our nation and you will see buildings which once housed vibrant congregations where the Word was preached and where Christ was presented as the Son of God and where the lost were called to faith in Him. Today, those churches are vacant and quiet and there are at best a few dimly glowing embers left in the midst of teeming and lost humanity. That did not happen in a moment, but as certainly as smoke rises from the fire it happened because a people put out the Spirit’s fire.

At best I have a few years left on this earth. At best this congregation has two or three decades of witness in this place before the reins must be relinquished to a generation yet to follow. Our children are not saved. Our neighbours are not saved. Our colleagues are not saved. Our families are not saved. Our community is not saved. For this brief moment we call now, you and I stand responsible to lift a banner in this place. Why is this building not filled with people? Why is this service not filled to overflowing with inquirers? Why do you and I have neighbours who have yet to acknowledge Christ? Why do we not tremble at the thought that our children are not saved? Why do we not weep at the knowledge that our families are lost?

We had a Sunday School, and we treated it as though it was a baby-sitting service. When will our children hear the message of Christ if not now? When will our children be invited to believe? Why should we not invite them to believe now? Every Sunday School class should set the salvation of the students as the primary goal of that study; and having been saved each teacher should make it his or her goal to see the believers grow in grace and in knowledge of Christ the Lord. Who will tell our children of Christ if not us?

We had an adult Sunday School programme that began to grow and which provided instruction in righteousness. When will such classes be so filled that it is necessary to begin other classes if not now? When will our neighbours begin to participate in those studies and learn of Christ if not now? Who will invite our neighbours to the Faith if not us?

I tell you that our Sunday School ought to be the greatest, the most powerful, the finest evangelistic tool we ever employ as a congregation to fulfil the commission of our Lord. Every individual in our neighbourhoods ought to have opportunity to hear the teaching of the Word through a multiplication of classes providing holy opportunity. Every one of us who claim membership in this congregation ought to be not only acquiring knowledge of the Word of God and applying that knowledge in daily life, but every member of this congregation ought to be active in building the Sunday School. Some of us need to consider becoming teachers. Some of us need to consider assisting in the various classes. All of us need to be involved in bringing others to share in these classes; and since our friends and loved ones, our neighbours and our colleagues will already be present we will want to invite them to remain for the preaching of the Word.

The alternative is grim. If we place our own comfort ahead of these apostolic injunctions, we will be guilty of putting out the Spirit’s fire. And the witness will die. And our children will be lost. And our neighbours will be condemned. And the preaching of the Word will lose its lustre. And the glory of the Lord will depart. And the church will die.

Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. Amen.

Permit me to read this brief passage from several other translations. It may prove helpful to grasp the essence of the Apostle’s words by hearing how others have grappled with the Greek text. Don’t try to follow in your own Bible at this moment, but simply listen for a fresh approach to the text.

Never damp the fire of the Spirit, and never despise what is spoken in the name of the Lord. By all means use your judgement, and hold on to whatever is really good. Steer clear of evil in any form.[5] Phillips provides us with an excellent paraphrase of the New Testament that brings out many nuances from the text we might otherwise ignore or neglect.

Stop stifling the Spirit. Stop treating the messages of prophecy with contempt, but continue to prove all things until you can approve them, and then hold on to what is good. Continue to abstain from every sort of evil.[6] Williams captures the dynamic of the language in an unusual manner, paying special attention to the verbal forms and their English equivalents.

Don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what’s good. Throw out anything tainted with evil[7]. Eugene Peterson has performed yeoman service for our day in his presentation of a lively translation aimed at capturing the sparkle of the New Testament in our contemporary tongue.

Do not hold back the work of the Holy Spirit. Do not treat prophecy as if it were unimportant. But test everything. Keep what is good, and stay away from everything that is evil.[8] Here is yet another contemporary effort to capture the essence of the text. Clearly there is much more here than just words to fill the space before the closing of the letter. The Thessalonian Christians were receiving a command and explanations which would ensure that they would continue to please God for the remainder of their days.

The first test to be applied to prophecy is Scripture itself. Like the residents of Berea we are to examine the Scriptures to see if what a Christian teacher says is true. Previously I read a most unusual description of attendance at preaching from the days that preceded Tyndale’s translation of Scripture into the vernacular. Here it is:

Each of them had his own Bible, and sedulously turned the pages and looked up the texts cited by the preachers, discussing the passages among themselves to see whether they had quoted them to the point, and accurately, and in harmony with their tenets. Also they would start arguing among themselves about the meaning of passages from the Scriptures—men, women, boys, girls, rustics, labourers, and idiots. Here over a thousand of them sometimes assembled, their horses and pack animals burdened with a multitude of Bibles.

That account was penned by a Jesuit priest named William Weston in the year 1588 after he had observed a large Puritan gathering in Ely, England.

Thomas Hobbes, born in the very year that the Puritan meeting described occurred, looked back with disdain on the effects of the translation and dissemination of the Bible in the century following the Reformation, and he wrote:

After the Bible was translated, every man, nay, every boy and wench, that could read English thought they spoke with God Almighty and understood what He said, when by a certain number of chapters a day they had read the Scriptures once or twice over.

Our forefathers read the Book and knew the teachings of the Book. They compared the teaching they received to that which was written in the Book. This is our heritage. Should we forsake our heritage as the children of those who sought understanding of the will and the way of God? This is our heritage as followers in the lineage of the Bereans. Let us resolve to study the Word, faithfully attending the preaching of that Word. Read the Word for yourself. Study the Word for yourself. Compare what the preacher says with the Book. Become a student of the Word.

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