Do not Quench the Spirit

We are currently working through 1 Corinthians in our Sunday Sermon series at church and last Sunday we hit 1 Corinthians 12:10-11. You can listen HERE.

10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

The focus was working miracles and distinguishing between spirits and then on v11. Prophecy and tongues etc will be dealt with in a different sermon later in the series. We also had a lively debate, last night, in our small group. This is not uncommon when the spiritual gifts are being discussed.
(Please note the dove picture representing the Holy Spirit is posted slightly tongue in cheek)

Where do I stand on Spiritual Gifts?

For the record I will lay out where I stand on what are often called ‘The Charismatic Gifts’. That is the supernatural gifts given in scripture by The Holy Spirit:

• I believe the gifts of the spirit are for today and did not cease at the end of the Apostolic age. Therefore I am NOT a Cessasionist at all. The best term to use would be ‘Reformed Charismatic’.
• I believe God can and indeed does heal people today and know people who have been miraculously healed.
• I believe in prophecy (as in words of knowledge from God about others as well as words from God including pictures etc.. Also words for specific people or the church that are from God about what God wants to do in the future. By way of some examples) I have operated in these gifts myself. NB: With the Caveat the prophecy is always subject to Scripture and is in NO way equivalent to it!
• I believe speaking in tongues is valid, as is interpretation of tongues. I however do not speak in tongues myself.
• There are many other gifts mentioned in scripture and I do not have any issues with them being a normal part of the Christian life and experience.
• The greatest spiritual gift is the gift of Regeneration of the unbeliever to being a believer. The creation of a new Christian life. The must surely be the greatest miracle of them all!

I became a Christian at 18 and have always attended churches where the spiritual gifts were practiced. It has always been part of my Christian experience. I was witness first hand to what became known as ‘The Toronto Blessing’ (look it up). I have seen some pretty whacky stuff over the years it has to be said.
With that being said why did I find Sundays sermon challenging? I’ll come on to that!
On one hand we have the above on the other, I am a self confessed cynic . I very rarely just accept what people tell me without question. If people claim to have been healed I want proof. Very often one must just accept the word of the person and trust their integrity. However I do sometimes wonder why God does not heal more obvious problems rather than the obligatory back ache, arm ache, head ache’s etc… All those are great and fantastic to be healed from. I suffer back problems and would love to not have to worry about it recurring again. We do have testimonies of more obvious physical symptoms being healed. Like legs growing, backs straightening, the deaf hearing. Those I get more excited over as they baffle doctors and are clear undeniable miracles. In my previous Church in Crawley there was a wheelchair bound lady with ME and other disabilities, dependant on medical and financial help, who had been in her chair for years. One night she was healed and to this day I believe is now walking about. A walking talking miracle!
So I am constantly in this tension between cynic vs believer. It is certainly not a helpful place to be and is often lack of faith or just plain unbelief on my part.



I certainly have issues with some of the more wacky things people are claiming and much of this comes from Bethel mania among others, see below. Gold dust and Angel feathers for example just say to me distraction from God rather than glorifying God which ultimately all spiritual gifts must do. I know the bible does not list in exhaustive detail all spiritual gifts or miracles but I find such things unhelpful.
So what was so challenging in Sundays message? The following passage was cited:

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:16–22 (ESV)

Now v21 is often used as a defence against some of the more out there spiritual manifestations and rightly so. However preceding it is v19. We are often in danger of quenching the spirit when we throw out everything, if we detect even one thing that may set off our alarm bells. I find this is exactly what I do. As soon as I detect the slightest hint of theology that I would consider ‘off’ then I switch off.
My biggest example of this is in the case of Bill Johnson from Bethel Church in Redding California. Now there seems to be little doubt that God is moving spiritually in that church in some amazing and miraculous ways. The long list of testimonies of healing is amazing. However I cannot listen to Bill Johnson preach. I have tried and cannot get through an entire ‘sermon’ of his without being very annoyed by it. I certainly have theological differences with him and with his use of scripture and these create a huge barrier. Yet God is using him in ways that are undeniably amazing.

Main two Tension Points!

What I massively struggle with is the tension between the fully realised Kingdom of God in the new creation of Jesus return and the now, cursed fallen world that God’s kingdom breaks into occasionally. The already and not yet of the Kingdom. How much can we expect of the miraculous in this age?
The other is the line between how much a part faith plays vs the absolute sovereignty of God. V11 of 1 Corinthians 12 says:

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

The spirit decides who gets what, when, where and how much.

Conclusion

So on the one hand we MUST ‘test everything’ as I believe there is much counterfeit faux spirituality out there within the Christian church. One example of which I heard recently was an event where the preacher/teacher didn’t once open his bible and it was all about the ‘experience’. Run away, run a mile and don’t look back at that sort of thing. If Gods word is not taught and supporting what is experienced or lip sevice is paid to the word then at least question what you are seeing. Be a Berean (Acts 17:10-11)!
Yet on the other hand we must NOT let our own prejudices and fears of the supernatural ‘quench’ what God is doing even through people I may disagree with theologically. I need to be open to God using me for the miraculous. I need more faith to be honest as I struggle to believe supernatural things will happen when I pray. My struggle with the tension points mentioned above often causes me to choose safe faith over stepping out and taking risks. I must learn to be humble realising how little I understand and trust God always that whatever happens He is Sovereign and works all things together for Good (Romans 8:28).

When Biblical Truth and Experience clash!

Ok, I know that is a provocative Title and of course it is intended to be ;-). Last week I attended an evening where a well-ish known Christian was speaking, who has a ‘Healing Ministry’. This was the second of Two evenings put on by a local church.

Firstly this Blog post is not meant in any way to personally criticise a fellow brother in Christ. This is simply me trying to work my faith out and when I come up against something that I find a contradiction I need to get my head round it.

The evening consisted of a singing time of Worship. Then a ‘talk’ followed eventually by what I am going to call ‘doing the stuff’. Sadly just as the ‘doing the stuff’ started I had to leave, as it was 9:40 and the car park I was in shuts at 10:00, but I digress. The ‘talk’ consisted of stories where this person had been used by God in various situations for miraculous healing of others, interspersed with ‘teaching’ from the Bible. Herein lies the issue. It is good to hear stories of God healing people as this builds faith and that is not where I had a problem. It was the ‘teaching’ that was brought that I was, to put it mildly, astonished to hear.

There was one important thing that the person said that I totally agreed with. That when praying for healing you don’t have to tell God what to heal and you don’t need to convince God to do so by many words. A simple ‘be healed in the name of Jesus’ is all that is needed, the rest is up to God. This is largely what Jesus did and what the Bible records the Apostles doing. Great we can agree on that! The whole issue of how ones faith interacts with God’s sovereignty and the resulting healing or lack thereof is another issue entirely. I am not going to go into that here as I don’t have any semblance of a coherent understanding of it theologically.

However apart from that one point, what was taught as being from scripture seemed to me wrong on so many levels and I have not heard a mangling of scripture like that in quite a while. However what is clear is that after I left there were several medically verifiable miraculous healings that I am certainly not going to credit to any power apart from God Himself.

So what do you do with that? Clearly incorrect biblical interpretation yet God powerfully using this person in the area of healing. My approach to these things is always to measure anything I see by the plumb line of scripture. Or be a Berean (Acts 17:10-11). For me if I don’t see it in scripture at least in principal then I do not accept it. I absolutely, 100% believe that God can and does heal today miraculously, I have seen it.

My theological view point is most definitely Reformed and I truly believe it most accurately reflects what scripture teaches. But clinging so close to the importance of right doctrine can have the effect of quenching the spirit. This is possibly why churches that hold to reformed doctrine tend to be very conservative and not actively move in the power of the spirit. New Frontiers churches seem to be fairly unique in this area. NFI is rooted in Reformed doctrine yet is clearly charismatic in its expression of the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.

I totally believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. I totally believe that the gifts through the Holy Spirit seen in the New Testament are for today's church in whatever measure God sees fit to pour out and on whomever He desires. I would even go as far to say that holding a reformed view of scripture does not contradict or stand against the active gifts of Holy Spirit in healing, prophecy, tongues etc.. and actually supports it. It is the holding to certain traditions, viewpoints or teachings of the Reformed Giants of the faith so tight that possibly quenches the spirit.

Therefore whilst I may disagree with much of the teaching and emphasis that comes out of the likes of Bill Johnsons ministry at Bethel Church who this person speaking was certainly related, God is clearly using the ministry to perform amazingly miraculous healings. So I give God the Glory for that!

So where does this leave us? Someone wiser than myself offered these points:

• Miracles only endorse the power of God not the man.
• Miracles only endorse the power of God not the mans teaching.
• Miracles only endorse the power of God not the mans life or lifestyle.

All I can say again is that God is sovereign and who am I to question who He chooses to use as part of His divine redemptive plan. I will continue to hold to the closed handed issues that the Bible is very clear on and I will endeavour to passionately seek and treasure God alone as my ultimate and only source of true joy and only way to salvation. I most definitely want to have a far deeper experience of knowing God more intimately and being open to the working of the Holy Spirit in as yet unimaginable ways, but without throwing my intellect and brain out the window. I repeat we must always measure any and all spiritual experience we may have against the unmoveable benchmark of Gods word. Let none of us, whatever doctrinal position or tradition we hail from, just believe what we have seen or heard without testing the spirits (1 John 4:1-3) and examining the scriptures daily (Acts 17:11).

I know I have only scratched the surface of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and I pray we never become satisfied with where we are in all God has for us and all He wants to do through us. Let us remain humble, bearing with one another in Love (Ephesians 4:2) while we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12-13).