Utterances 1 Thess 5:19-24

Thanks for choosing this message podcast by New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East

Toledo. In this episode, Pastor Dan speaks on prophetic utterances. The sermon entitled

utterances. Also listen at the inspirational moment for comments about our spiritual discipline

of study. God bless you today as you reach New Heights in Jesus.

All right. Good morning.

Good morning.

I say good morning, but I don't really feel like it's a good morning. I'm having a rough

night and morning, but here we are to worship God and that makes everything okay. So I'm

going to need some help today. We're doing a love theme because tomorrow is Veil Times

Day, which is my husband would say a dumb holiday, but hey, we're going to celebrate

love of God and his love for us. So what I need from you is in between songs, I need

you to find or during songs or whatever, without interrupting worship, find verses in the Bible

about love, about how we should love about God's love for us. And then in between songs,

we're going to read a couple. So find a couple or if you have some memorized, I can think

of three or four off the top of my head. So we can pull those out if we need to.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

All right. Good morning. Good morning. Just real quick announcements. A couple things.

There is a team leader meeting today. We will start as close to after service as we can.

So we'll get down in a reasonable amount of time. And thank you so much to Jamie and Tommy,

who are going to cover the pantry during that time. Anybody else wants to volunteer? If

you're not wrapped up in team and you're welcome to do that. Hopefully have some folks come

to help. Also, don't forget on February 22nd, on the evening of October 22nd, which is that

Tuesday night, the adult Bible study instead of doing Bible study, we'll be doing projects

and cleanup and fixing things around the church building. So if you know something you'd like

to do that night from six thirty to seven thirty to fix or clean up something and let

us know if there's some supplies that are needed or tools in front of we'll try to make

sure that they're here. And I'm going to be here and I'm going to fix or clean something.

I haven't decided what it's going to be yet. I got one I'm leaning towards. But so we

got some things that we can do and hope you'll come and join us for that. If you don't know

what to come on Tuesday nights, if you've got skills or ability to just willing to help,

come on. All right. And then there was one more thing. Oh, preschool preschool nursery

team meeting next week after service. And so that will be coming up. And if you're involved

like a volunteer or whatever, you want to be at that meeting. So it probably won't take

too long. But it's a situation where you want to know what's going on and get plugged in

with that. OK, we're going to pray together and then we'll jump back to work. Don't forget,

Alicia asked you to look up viva verses or maybe quote a viva verse from memory that

you may have concerning love. I found what I think is my favorite viva verse concerning

love. It doesn't have the word love in it. And so I think I might be the only one. So

I'm excited about that. All right. So let's pray. Father in heaven, this is your time.

Though we have faced afflictions, though we've dealt with issues with cars and houses and

health, we're struggling in relationships trying to figure out what's going on, trying

to make the best decisions we know how, even though all that is true. We come together

today to rejoice in you. We rejoice that we have faced trials and tribulations. We are

told in scripture that we should do so. And I sure feel better when I do. When I get wrapped

up in the things that went wrong, get dwelling on them, complaining about them, frustrated

and want to punch something, Lord, that doesn't seem to help me at all. In fact, it just seems

to go in the wrong direction. So as we rejoice in you this morning, Lord, celebrating the

love of our God for us, may we always remember it's not about the messenger. It's about the

message. It's not even about the message in this life. It's about the God who sent the

message of love to us through his son, Jesus. We know that you created the earth so that

we might live here, that we might have a relationship with you. And we're trying to do that now.

We believe that you make it all possible. We pray for the one in this room right now

who's struggling with their health situation or the one that's on the way here and is still

struggling in some situation. We pray that you'll get the car unlocked. We pray that

you'll overcome the health concerns, that you'll work it all out, Lord, because you

are God and you can do it. We pray to you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Alright, does anyone have a verse they want to share right now?

I have one. I have one of my favorite verses on the...I have to look it up because I don't know the first part, but it's

1 Corinthians 13, 4-5. Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, does not boast, does not

root, does not self-seeking, does not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrong. I really like that

verse. It's just really straightforward and tells us what to do pretty much. I love it.

How long, how high is the love of Christ? How deep, how high is the love of Christ?

How long, how high is the love of Christ? How deep, how high is the love of Christ?

How long, how high is the love of Christ? How deep, how high is the love of Christ?

How long, how high is the love of Christ? How deep, how high is the love of Christ?

More than any heart can measure, more than a heart can hold, is the heart not filled with your trust?

Well, they all were far, far, far, far high, in the love of Christ. How deep, how high is the love of Christ?

Why is it in the mouth, the teeth of the nail, that we fall within the reach of the sky? Why is it in the mouth, the tongue of the bird, that we pray to the Lord God?

Why is it in the mouth, the teeth of the nail, that we fall within the reach of the sky? Why is it in the mouth, the tongue of the river, that we pray to the Lord God?

How long, how high is the love of Christ? How deep, how high is the love of Christ?

Alright, who's got another verse?

Luke 6.31 is the golden rule. It's, you have others as you would have done it to yourself. And that's what I saw love as.

And that's a really generous verse to think about love as. Love is showing others how they should, how you think that people should treat others.

As Christians we have a different version of love that we are taught, that we're supposed to live by.

Even in secular schools, at least when I was a kid, I don't think they teach anymore, but the golden rule is treat others the way you want to be treated. Which is where that comes from, not necessarily from the Bible, but that's how it was started.

It's just a different kind of treatment, different kind of love in some things.

More love, more power, more human power. More love, more power, more human power.

More love, more power, more human power. More love, more power, more human power.

Never wish that you were not my wife. Never wish that you were not my wife. Never wish that you were not my friend.

That you were my Lord.

More pain, more passion, more of you in my life. More pain, more passion, more of you in my life.

Never wish that you were not my wife. Never wish that you were not my wife. Never wish that you were not my friend.

More you are my love.

Alright, we've come to that moment in time where we ask ourselves, how's the Lord been speaking?

Still in the middle of our emphasis on study, we go through May, third weekend in May, to actually 22nd is the fourth Sunday in May.

So anyway, the fourth Sunday in May. So maybe you've studied something this week, the Lord has spoken to you in some way, maybe you want to share.

What do you got? I'll go first.

Okay, so this is an essay written in 2013 by a man named Harry Hain.

Harry Hain's older, or hot, I don't know how to pronounce the last name for sure.

The only significance to me, the only reason I even build a map, is because I took a study course studying scripture in Bible college.

Actually I want to clarify, I think it was in the seminary, but anyway, with this map.

I'm going to read you a three paragraph opening to this essay.

And then I'll stop there, and then we'll come back, and I may read one little short snippet later on just so you can kind of see what he's getting at.

This is what he says, God has chosen to reveal himself and his plan of salvation through the scriptures.

All scripture is inspired by God, 2nd Timothy 3.16.

As a result, the Bible is the authority for the people of God concerning doctrine, what we should believe, and ethics, how we should live.

The Bible is a powerful and life-changing book. It is not merely an historical record or the quest of ancient peoples to understand the mysteries of existence.

God speaks to us through this book to reveal himself and to change our lives since, quote, the word of God is living and active, unquote.

It is, quote, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the hearts, unquote, Hebrews 4.12.

Evangelical Christians say, that's us by the way, Evangelical Christians, Evangelical means Christians who spread the gospel and tell the good news, that's supposed to be us.

Evangelical Christians say that they believe the Bible's own claim to be God's word.

They often call their churches, quote, Bible-based, unquote, and they emphasize the preaching and teaching of scripture in both large group and small group gatherings.

But how does this reflect itself in their daily life?

How would you recognize a person who loves God's word? Is it not enough just to say the Bible is God's inspired word?

Is it not enough just to talk about the Bible or to quote the Bible?

If you really love God's word, it will have an impact on your life.

A person who really loves the Bible spends regular time reading and studying it.

As a result, scripture becomes the foundation of this person's worldview.

He evaluates everything he reads and hears in light of biblical teachings.

A person who loves the Bible and spends time studying it with a heart open to God cannot help but be changed by the Bible.

As we listen to God's message and obey it, God shapes our lives so our character becomes more like Jesus Christ.

The goal of Bible study is not simply biblical literacy in the sense of knowing various facts such as how many good kings were in the northern kingdom of Israel.

There were none, actually.

As important as it is to know the theological teachings of the Bible and even to memorize specific passages of scripture,

that in itself is not a sufficient use of the Bible.

Since the Bible is God's powerful word, Bible study should transform your life, your thoughts, your values, your attitudes, worldview, and behavior.

God wants us to become, quote, doers of the word, not merely hearers who delude themselves, unquote, James 1.22.

Yet even though evangelical Christians often say that the Bible is important to them, the lifestyle of many people reflects a different story.

A person's true priorities are shown not to be what he says is important, but by how he spends his time.

If you don't spend time reading, studying, memorizing, meditating on God's word, can you really say that the Bible is important to you?

In practical terms, do you act as if the Bible really is God's unique and authoritative message to humanity?

That's the opening part of the essay.

Now the rest of the essay is different reasons why we should study the Bible.

I'm going to rattle off a few.

He says, God commands it.

Did you know that it is commanded in the Bible to read and study the Bible?

Even to meditate on the Bible, which is something a lot of people read, some people study, some people read and study, some people read and study and never meditate.

Some people meditate on the word, something they heard in a sermon or whatever, but never read and study it.

But it is commanded in the scriptures.

The Bible is our only sure source of knowledge of God.

People talk about feeling the Holy Spirit.

People talk about reading other things, watching something on TV, and going, I think God was talking to me and stuff like that.

All of that can happen, right?

But there's one sure place that God can speak to you, and that's in scripture.

The Bible is food for spiritual growth.

He's got scripture to back it up, but the bottom line is, like newborn babes, long for milk of the word of the Lord.

We must long for milk of the word so that by it we may grow in respect to salvation.

And then it goes on.

The Bible is food for spiritual growth.

There is great joy in studying and obeying God's word.

That's supported with scripture.

Psalm 119, which is the longest psalm in the Bible, is, you guessed it, entirely about the Bible.

It's entirely about scripture.

So if somebody wants to take up the challenge of memorizing all of Psalm 119, by the time you're done, you will know a lot about the Bible

and probably have a new love for the Bible.

But studying Psalm 119 is no small task because it is the longest chapter in the Bible.

Some helpful attitudes in Bible study are, the Bible is God's love letter to humanity.

We asked the question we were just kind of off the cuff talking to tonight.

We asked the question, what is the Bible to you?

We did a recent survey on that. We were talking about it on the morning show.

They had thousands of answers.

And one of the answers that regularly came up was the Bible is God's love letter to humanity.

The most common answer was basic instructions before leaving Earth.

Which we kind of said we didn't really like that one.

It's nice, but it's more kind of fluff than true.

There's so much more in the Bible than instructions.

So the Bible is God's love letter to humanity.

And so if someone loved you and sent you a love letter, would you just tuck it away and not read it or study it or not care about it?

Worship is a reason to study your Bible.

Psalm 119, 12 basically says, I'm paraphrasing basically to be it right the whole thing here.

Should stir up your heart to love and praise of God as the psalmist did when he reflected on God's word in Psalm 119.

And then he mentions that again in 12, 38, 68, 108, and 171.

And in 171 he says, let my lips utter praise for you teach me your statutes.

Reliance on the Holy Spirit to give insight.

I like to be told by God what I should do.

The Holy Spirit leads me, tells me, or prompts me, makes me feel like I should do something.

Right? I like that.

You can get that from the Bible.

The Holy Spirit inspired the entire book.

He speaks through every word of it.

Expectancy.

We prayerfully read the Scriptures and expect God to teach us what we need to know.

Willingness to obey.

We read the Scriptures because we want to do what God tells us to do and in the Scriptures he tells us what to do.

If you love God and want to follow his directions, you listen to his directions.

And then the last one that he lists is perseverance.

Good Bible study takes some work, but it's well worth it.

We may go back and actually read a few of those chapters in upcoming weeks, but I just wanted to encourage you.

This just cropped up in my studies this week.

And it reminded me that we cannot, we can spend a lot of time arguing for study.

That would probably be a mistake.

Because the truth is, if you don't want to study, you're just not going to do it.

And no amount of coursing, no amount of discussion, no amount of pushing is going to make a first do.

And we really shouldn't.

Right?

You can do it out of the love of God.

Do it because you want to learn.

Do it because you want to grow.

Do it because there are things there for you that God has provided.

Then you'll do it.

And that's basically it.

But as I read this, I realized, we talked about it as a discipline.

It is commanded all throughout Scripture.

And you see examples of people all throughout Scripture who studied the Bible and brought out amazing treasures from that trove of God's good knowledge.

Okay?

Alright, so I wanted to share that with you.

What else?

Anybody else got something?

How about another verse on love?

You got something?

Alright?

Alright, let's hear it.

God, the world so much that he gave, and he said that they do so now.

Whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.

Amen.

And that's why God sent Jesus, right?

I've got one on 1838-1839, for I am pursued that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things presented, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything, any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Amen.

So what will separate us from the love of God?

Nothing.

Nothing.

Good stuff.

This is Ephesians 5-31.

It says, This is why men will leave his father and his mother and be united with his wife, and the two of them will be one body.

Amen.

I think love, obviously mostly the love of God, right, provides that for us, but I think the love that God puts in our hearts makes that possible.

I don't think love between a man and woman can be not there and then be made one.

Ron?

In 1 John chapter 3, he's talking about love and hatred.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

And for this is the message you heard from the beginning, we should love one another, do not be like Cain, if you want to be evil or murder his brother.

And it goes on and on, but I was really focusing on 14.

We know that we have passed from death to life because we love each other.

Anyone who does not love remains in death, which is just yet another strong reason for gathering together as a body,

because we know that you have transcended death when you love, show love to other people, you're loving people inside the body.

That's another way of confirming inside yourself, confirming that you're safe.

It's powerful.

So as to simply put, it's do you love me?

If you don't, check yourself.

Alright, over here, Tim?

If I speak in the terms of men or angels but do not have love, I am only a resounding dawn for a playing symbol. If I have to give a prophecy, it's the battle of all mysteries and all knowledge.

And if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I have nothing.

If I give all I possess to the Lord and give over my bodies and hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it does not frown, it does not dishonor others, it does not self-seeking, it does not easily anger, it does no record of progress.

Love does not delight in evil but enjoys the infiltration and always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves.

Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are times, they will be still, where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

But we know in part, and we prophesy in part, that when completeness, completeness, this comes, what is in part disappears and goes on to there.

And now these three remain faithful in love with the greatest of these of love.

Ok, who else? Tony Zane.

Revelation 5, 12-13.

Sing with a loud voice, where these land that was slain receive power and riches and wisdom and light and honor and glory and blessing, and ever create a thing which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them I heard say, to him who sits on the throne and to the land be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.

Reading that, I just think about how everyone will say it someday, you know, there will be a day of restoration completely, you know, and dealing with, what I would say, just tales of a broken heart at this time.

Sometimes I seek after selfish justice, selfish righteousness, you know, just selfishness, selfish anger, but not reaching out to God. The thing is, if it wasn't for Christ's affliction, and us going through that affliction with Christ, we could not endure.

But there will be a day when we will not have to endure anymore, and there will be a day to all those who continue with Him, because God continued with us, that will not last.

Like I said, the fruit of His Spirit, there will be a day when there will be just love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

There will be a day in that, but until then God's Spirit is who helps us endure with such sorrow, but in Him there is no sorrow.

Amen. All right. So we're going to pray together at this time, and then we'll have tithes and offerings, and then we'll have a little more worship, and maybe a couple more verses in between songs.

Brother Mike, would you pray for me? Oh, go on. Real quick. So my wife made a comment earlier about how I don't like Valentine's Day.

Oh, you're going to vindicate yourself now? Okay, let's hear it.

There's one reason that I did, and this is really the only reason I don't like it, and the biggest thing is because I always felt that if you really love somebody, you shouldn't need a specific day to prove it.

So if we really show love to those people every day, then Valentine's Day is kind of a joke.

Yeah. I'd say Valentine's Day is more about romance than it is about love. All right. Brother?

Father God, we want to thank you for this time we come together. Worship you, learn more about you. God, I should be able to go through our service, be the pastor, bring the blessing.

Be as we lift our voices, the voice of you. God should be entitled and offering as they're collected. I would think we would be able to do that.

And God, I pray. We want to thank you for loving us enough to send your Son for us.

And you guys, your blessings, time, blessings, service, you think.

Hey, did you want to read the post? Did you want to read the post?

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I'll do my Bible verse now.

Okay.

But it says in Genesis 29, 10, and it came about when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother.

Verse 11, it says, Then Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted his voice and wept.

What's significant about that, it sounds romantic. The verse sounds romantic, but it's so much more than that. We have to remember that Jacob represents Israel, and Israel represents the church, and Rachel kind of represents the rest of those who are outside.

So when they come together and he kisses her and he weeps, reminds me that we're to love other people the way God loves us, and that was his image of how he loved her. The love that I have for my wife, like, there's a lot of times where it makes me want to cry, not because I'm sad, but because I have great joy.

We should be grateful that we have the opportunity to love, and in loving, like, really experience it. Not romance, I bought you chocolate, I bought you card, I'm the best husband in the world, but really love your wife or really love your brother in Christ or really love the kids.

Love people and really experience that love, and that's what God made us for.

Amen.

I love you Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you.

Oh my soul rejoice, say joy my King, in what you hear.

May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ears.

I love you Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you.

Oh my soul rejoice, say joy my King, in what you hear.

May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ears.

May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ears.

Jesus, King of my heart, Father, my peace and my life, Spirit, the joy of my soul you are.

Jesus, King of my heart, Father, I rest in your care, Spirit, the hope of my heart you are.

The heavens declare you are done, and the mountains we blow,

the oceans cry hallelujah, and we worship you Lord, for this is our song of the night.

Jesus, in your spirit my soul, I'll pray you Lord, forevermore, Jesus, the love of my life you are.

The heavens declare you are done, and the mountains we blow,

the oceans cry hallelujah, and we worship you Lord, for this is our song of the night.

Jesus, I am in awe of the love that you show.

Jesus, how precious you are to me, to me. The heavens declare you are done, and the mountains we blow,

the oceans cry hallelujah, and we worship you Lord, for this is our song of the night.

The heavens declare you are done, and the mountains we blow,

the oceans cry hallelujah, and we worship you Lord, for this is our song of the night.

Our song of the night, our song of the night, this is our song of the night.

Our song of the night, our song of the night, this is our song of the night.

If you figure it out before we get there, you have to write it down.

Okay, and that way we'll know. Don't just go blurting it out.

Alright, so I want to ask you just a simple question for a minute.

And I think, I hope we can come to an agreement on the answer to this question.

So I'll ask you to kind of like process it and maybe we can all agree.

And that is, does God speak?

Now in the Bible, many times in the Old Testament, God has given human attributes.

In fact, some would say because we are made in the image of God, God must look like a human.

Right? You know that's not true, don't you?

That he doesn't necessarily look like a human.

Obviously Jesus looked like a human, and you could say that then in some sense we were made sort of like in Jesus' image.

He was occidental, probably had long hair, often dirty feet, and kind of different mannerisms than you might be used to.

So I don't think that really even holds.

But we hear things about the hand of God, right? Reaching down from heaven and making different...

We hear things about the mouth of God, God spoke, right?

The heart of God.

The question is, again, back to it, does God speak?

Now, we know that in the Bible people heard God.

We have recorded conversations between God and his people.

Even between God and not his people.

You know that, right?

There were people who didn't know God, that God told them that they would be judged or bad things would happen to them because they were fighting against God, rebelling against God, not on God's side.

Remember when Pharaoh pled with God and said, hey, but how could you do this?

This man, why am I being punished? Why is my whole house not having babies?

Because this man passed his wife off as his sister and I took him into my house.

That shouldn't cause me to suffer, right?

Because he deluded me, so why am I...

And God said to Pharaoh, I understand what you're saying.

That's why I kept you from sinning against me by taking her in intimacy, right?

That's Pharaoh.

No follower of God at all.

But he pled with God because the Israelites followed God and they knew, even though they didn't want to accept it, they knew that God was real and had power.

And so they had a conversation with God.

Abraham, Jacob, others, many people, David, right?

Tons of people had a conversation.

So, does God speak?

But does speaking require a mouth?

And does God have a mouth such as we have?

I submit to you that speaking does not necessarily require a mouth.

Not here to answer the question or even ask the question whether God has a mouth or not.

We're talking about whether God speaks or not.

So I think based on scripture, because so many people have testified and written down even by the leadership of the Holy Spirit,

the conversations that they've had with God, I think, I hope, that you can come around to the idea that God does indeed speak.

Does he speak through his word?

I think he does.

But does he speak?

I think he does.

That's the question I want to linger on in our mind then.

And you grab your Bibles, if you would, and turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

Does it say four? No, it says five. Good, yes, alright.

I mistakenly sent out the wrong reference at first and then had that fixed.

And she actually fixed it. She did a good job.

So 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

And I'm going to begin reading in verse 19.

Now there is obviously more in this.

This is talking about kind of the way Christians should behave and how they should handle themselves and things like that.

But we're going to drill down on a specific part of it.

And I'm going to begin reading in verse 19.

It says, do not quench the spirit.

And depending on what translation you're reading in, most of them have a semicolon there.

Do not quench the spirit.

So first of all, when you quench something, you stifle it or you put it out or you make it small.

And the spirit is God's Holy Spirit.

In fact, the word here is the word that they always use for God's Holy Spirit.

There are some other words for spirit.

A word you might be familiar with like psyche.

That's where we get psyche from.

From the Greek, that's that word. That's the human spirit.

This is not that. This is God's Spirit. God's Holy Spirit.

So think about it for a minute. We can, we have the ability, written to Christians,

we have the ability as Christians to quench God's Holy Spirit, to stifle it, to stutter it, to stop it.

And it is actually a hymn.

And so if you were trying to do something and I came up and I was pushing you,

so Ricky, you're going to run out the car, you've got to buy buns for dinner or something, right?

You forgot to get that maybe.

And I show up and I'm on your sidewalk and you're heading to the car to buy buns.

And I'm there and I'm putting my hands on your chest and I'm pushing you back

because you're trying to walk to the car, right?

And you're like, damn, what are you doing, man?

Because you like me, at least I hope you do, you're supposed to love me even if you don't,

you don't beat me up, right, or whatever.

You don't kill me. You don't throw me in a ditch somewhere.

You know, don't stuff me in the trunk and take me to go buy buns with you.

So you're just like, why are you pushing on my, why are you stopping me from,

you try to dodge around me, whatever, try to get done what you're trying to get done.

I'm stifling you, I'm quenching you.

Eventually you're going to say, dude, I don't need the buns that bad.

I'm just going to go back in here, we're going to eat the hamburgers without buns, right?

And then when I turn around to go home, you're going to run to the car and go buy the buns, right, trick me, right?

Okay, so stifling, quenching, we're talking about smashing it back, putting it down,

stopping God the Holy Spirit from working.

The command not to do that means we can do that.

You understand?

And Paul is writing here, don't do that.

Don't stop God the Holy Spirit from working in you.

Now, if it's God the Holy Spirit that cleanses, if it's God the Holy Spirit that regenerates,

if it's God the Holy Spirit that seals, and if He can cleanse and regenerate and seal,

then you don't want to stop Him.

Understand?

We don't want to stop Him from doing what He wants to do,

which is to bring us and keep us in right relationship with God, to heal us and cleanse us internally.

We don't want to stop Him.

But the fact remains, based on this verse, we can stop Him.

Do not quench God's Holy Spirit. Verse 20 then says,

Do not despise prophetic utterances.

Now, you can tell by the topic of the sermon that we're going to come back here in the points,

but to despise something is to think little of it or to make it of no consequence.

And a prophetic utterance here is basically, and I'll simply say it now,

and then I'll break it down a little bit more when we come back to it,

it basically is when God speaks through someone or someone speaks on behalf of God,

and then to despise that would be to make it little or to make it useless when someone speaks on behalf of God.

Again, we'll come back to that in a minute.

Then 20, I'm sorry, then 21, but examine everything carefully.

So now to examine something, it might be to get your little magnifying glass out and look at it closely,

like, oh, I see a fingerprint or I see some small detail,

put it under a microscope to take a good hard look at something, right, is to examine it.

And to do so carefully then would be more than just a cursory examination.

Oh, it's red. Oh, it has writing here. Oh, writing's kind of faded.

I can see, oh, let's see what, it's going to have to look a little more deeply into this here.

Oh, look, it's broke down into chapters and verses,

and there's some big words that I might, I don't even know what they mean.

I might have to look closely at that, right.

To examine something carefully is to pour your effort into examining that thing, right.

Notice then it says, examine everything carefully.

Now that's troublesome if it's literally everything,

because I've never really taken a long hard look at the insect world.

I've really never turned over leaves on a thousand trees to see what might be found underneath.

I don't really know that much about how a car works.

I understand the basic science behind it,

and I know if a part's bad and you replace it,

unless it's caused some other problem or there is some other problem,

that would generally make the car work correctly,

although I am without the skill to replace the parts most of the time.

So if I'm to examine everything carefully, I would say I have failed at that.

But we understand in the context of these verses

that he is not talking about literal everything, right.

Let's go back and look at it for one second.

Come back to where we started.

Do not quench the spirit, semicolon.

Do not despise prophetic utterances, period.

So those two things go right together.

But examine everything carefully.

So now that's in contrast to the statement, do not despise prophetic utterances.

So what is he really talking about looking hard at?

What is he really talking about examining?

He's talking about examining that which pretends to be or that which actually is a prophetic utterance.

If it's a word from God, you better get your butt in gear and look heartily at it,

which means right now if there is a chance that sometime while I'm up here preaching today,

I'm going to say something from God, your thinking cap should be on all the time.

You should be taking notes or processing internally that which we're talking about.

Somehow or other you've got to get yourself wrapped around the concept

that sometime here today God may say something through me or even through you.

Because you can go off on a rabbit trail and be thinking about what I'm saying

and you might go, oh, you know, yesterday when I said or yesterday when I saw or last week when I saw,

I now realize God was saying something to me and I missed it.

And you can't.

Because here is a scriptural command to examine everything carefully, semicolon.

Hold fast to that which is good, semicolon, abstain from every form of evil.

So now we have this, the goal of examining everything carefully is to sort it into two piles.

Good, bad, simply put.

Hold fast.

One of my favorite movies of all time.

Master and Commander, if you're not really fond of the period era which is tall ships,

sailing ships when the English Navy essentially sailed the world

and fought all takers if necessary to deliver justice and righteousness

as was defined by their monarchy.

I enjoy that era a lot and I love that movie Master and Commander.

I read the series of books, the first 18 or so of them because there's like 20 some.

I read the first 18 of those books and one of those books was called Master and Commander

and the movie was called Master and Commander.

And in there, there's an old guy and he gets shot in the head during a combat early on

and they wind up having the surgeon installs a little metal plate, uses a spoon actually,

takes the end off a spoon and installs it in his head.

And then later he starts to get to be okay again and he's doing stuff.

And on his hands he is tattooed, hold fast.

Hold fast means don't quit, stand up, grip it, be ready, be diligent, be hard working.

You know, you duck when enemy fire comes in but as soon as the fire stops, you go.

And the fact is if you have to go while the fire is still coming in, you go.

Hold fast, do what's right.

And in this case, it's applying specifically to that which we were to be examining carefully.

And what is that again?

The prophetic utterances of God.

When God speaks, when God says something through His people or through His Word

or through your life or through your experiences, you hold fast to that.

Once upon a time in my life, for example, I became burned out.

I got to the point where I basically was ready to quit the ministry,

not because I didn't think it was what God wanted me to do,

not because I was mad at anybody or disappointed in my church or anything like that,

but I had just gone so fast and so hard for so long that I got burned out.

It's a chemical reaction that happens in your body.

It's akin to depression.

During my depression, if you want to call it that, or my burned out state,

I went to Meyers grocery store over on Wheeling and I went to get peanut butter.

Now we have always bought, even Sherry prefers,

Jif crunchy peanut butter over any other kind of peanut butter that's out there.

And so we had always bought Jif crunchy peanut butter,

except in eras of our lives when Sherry wasn't eating much peanut butter

or when we already had Jif peanut butter but I didn't want to rot.

Then I would buy the Meyers brand of peanut butter.

This was an era of our lives when Sherry was not eating much peanut butter.

And so for years, by that time, probably two or three years,

I had always gone to Meyers and bought Meyers crunchy peanut butter

because it's cheaper than Jif.

I'm not doing commercials for anybody or anything,

but the bottom line is it's cheaper and to me it's basically almost as good.

So I tend to err toward being cheap as you might know.

And so I'm standing there in the aisle and it's been about two years

since I bought any peanut butter other than Meyers crunchy peanut butter.

And I stood in the aisle in front of the peanut butter for 45 minutes

debating with myself which peanut butter to buy.

That's burnout. You can't go any further.

I couldn't move my feet to walk toward the shelf

to grab the Meyers peanut butter that I had bought the last seven times

or whatever because I was burned out.

Out of that then, I went back and said,

if I'm going to do this thing that God has set for me to do,

and I knew I was supposed to pastor, in fact, I knew I was supposed to pastor

this church even back then. It was what God had called me to.

I knew that. I had a clear calling from God.

And if I was going to follow that prophetic utterance of God,

I needed another prophetic utterance of God to understand what was going on

in my life that led me to a place of burnout so I couldn't spend 45 minutes

picking out the peanut butter.

Because nobody can spend 45 minutes picking out peanut butter.

You don't have that kind of time in life.

Or you do that on peanut butter and you've got seven other products like that.

Next thing you know, they've got that machine out

and they're cleaning the floor in the store

and you're still standing in front of whatever product debating what they're going to do.

And so what I did was I sought God. I prayed. I read the scripture and so on.

And God began to lay out for me a strategy for my life.

Starting with a passion statement. He said, this is what you'll do.

Now I've not memorized my passion statement. It's on the website.

I can tell you what it basically says.

It says that I will creatively share the gospel in any way that I can think of doing it.

And that's what I have tried to do.

Have I been successful? No.

The truth is I've not.

I've missed many opportunities to share the gospel.

But the truth also is I always come back to that strategy

and I know that that's the prophetic utterance.

And so when I have nothing else, when I don't know what else to do, I do that.

Hold fast to that which is good.

Figure out what part of your life is God have you investing in.

And you will get that from the prophetic utterances of the Lord.

You will figure out what your passion is, what you care about, what you can do,

what your talents are, what your direction is, and so on.

And when God says things like, let go of your anger,

you will work on letting go of your anger.

You will hold that truth.

In fact, every time you get angry then, you should say,

okay, is this an anger I need to immediately let go of

because I know that's something I'm supposed to do, and so on.

If you wrote down now, took a blank piece of paper and started numbering them

what are the things I know from Scripture, from what I've been told of God,

what God has said to me, and wrote down what you're supposed to do?

Could you fill the page?

Could you get just one that you're actively doing all the time,

that you're always thinking about?

Because that's what this verse is calling us to.

Hold fast to that which is good, that which comes out of the teachings of God,

that you know, that you know came from God.

Hold to that.

Grip it with all your might.

Don't let it go no matter what.

Two weeks ago I stood up here and I said,

you need to adopt, if you really want to be passionately serving the Lord,

you need to adopt this saying,

you'll have to kill me to stop me from doing what God has called me to do.

When I said that, my very heart was chilled.

Can we?

Well, to do so, you're going to need to understand

when it's a prophetic utterance of the Lord and when it's not.

And this verse commands us to examine everything that could be carefully.

Hold fast to that which is good.

Take the pieces of it that you know are right,

the things that God would command you to do,

and then dismiss the rest.

It says abstain from every form of evil.

Kid yourself not, we have an active enemy,

and he will prod you to do what's wrong.

Not every spirit that is in the world right now is the Spirit of God.

We don't want to quench the Spirit of God, that's where we started at.

So when we experience something in the Spirit,

we want it naturally, if you don't want to quench the Spirit,

you go, okay, maybe this is something I need to do something about.

Maybe this is something I need to move on, right?

Or I just need to say or do this because that's what I feel.

The problem is, much of what we feel is not actually from God.

It's from our flesh, which is one of your chief and foremost enemies.

Or it's from an evil spirit that's messing with your heart, your mind,

your situation, whatever, which is basically the rest of our enemies.

So he says hold fast to that which is good,

and abstain from every form of evil.

We go just a little further in the text, it says 23,

now may the God of peace himself,

why do you think he says the God of peace there?

God's a God of a lot of things.

Why is he specifically calling the God of peace?

Because out of this process that he is calling us to comes that peace.

Now it doesn't come from you or your best understanding

or your intellectual ability to dissolve the mess and get the rest out of the way.

It comes from God.

The prophetic utterances of God have this purpose that he would instill in us a peace.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify,

that means clean you up and set you apart for something special,

sanctify you entirely,

and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete

without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

See, here's what's going on.

Because we understand that there is a new us and an old us,

we want to deal with and embrace the new us, don't we?

We want to be the new person.

All old things have passed away, I am a new creation in Christ.

I want to be the new person.

Well that new person is soul, body, mind.

See, our body has desires.

And you want to eat too much sweets, you want to stay up too late,

you want members of the opposite sex, whatever.

Our bodies have physical desires.

And we feel like we have to divorce ourselves from those physical desires.

We say, well my body wants this,

but my heart, which is regenerated in the Lord,

knows that's not good for me so I'm going to not do it.

I'm not going to go there.

My mind perceives this, I get this, I think this, I'm feeling like this,

so I'm going to do a certain action.

Well no, I'm a new creation so my mind is wrong, my heart is what's right.

Knock it off, both of you.

I brought you here, I can send you home.

Thank you.

My mind wants me to go a certain direction,

my regenerated heart knows better,

so then I'm going to divorce myself.

But Paul writes that it is our hearts, our bodies, our minds,

all of you completely in entirety without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So you have to do the work to get your mind doing what it's supposed to do.

How do you do it?

By paying attention to the prophetic utterances, the Word of God.

Paying attention to what it is that God has said.

And then the last verse,

Faithful is he who calls you and he also will bring it to pass.

See the burden could be on us, but thankfully it's not.

When you're sorting out the utterances, the good and the bad,

the bad might be your utterances but the good are his.

And when you get all the good together, now you've got something to work with.

You've got gas in the tank, your car is fixed,

you're capable of moving forward and doing what it's got to do

because if something that's bad presses in, then you can dismiss it.

You can abstain from it.

Alright, so we're in the points then.

First of all let me ask a couple of questions.

What does it mean to despise prophetic utterances?

Remember we said that the word despise means to make something small.

Despise means to make it look little or be insignificant.

Why would anyone ever despise or make insignificance or make it look small

the teaching, the speaking of God?

Why would anyone ever do that?

Well, there is an obvious first answer, right?

What is the obvious first answer to why anyone would ever despise the teachings of God?

Not rhetorical, go ahead and answer it.

They don't believe in God, they're not a follower of God, they don't care about God, they hate God.

You say, well no, they don't hate God, they just don't care.

There's love and there's hate and they're opposites, you're in one camp or the other.

So if they're refusing God who sent his own son to die for them, they hate God.

They may not act out in their hate, but they will just passively resist

and continue to hate God as they go on, it's one or the other.

If you go up to somebody who just flat out does not believe in God

and they say I'm not a Christian and you tell them they hate God,

they will get mad at you.

I understand that, so I'm not saying you should do that.

But what I am saying is there's love and there's hate, that's it.

Say I like God, I just don't want to follow him.

No, that's hate, that's not like.

Because God did everything necessary already and is waiting in the wings

with all the power of creation, all the power of resurrection,

all the power of God himself waiting in the wings to be unleashed in your life,

to perform, to do what you've got to do, and you're saying no.

You're stifling him.

The moment that Ricky is trying to walk down the pathway to his car to go buy buns

and I show up and start pushing him or tackling him or shoving him around,

he's going to get worked up.

Because my actions are not loving, unless I happen to know, of course,

that when he gets in the car he's going to get hit by a semi

that's about to roar by a Dreard in Rochester, and I know this somehow,

and I'm stopping him because of that now,

but to him it wouldn't seem loving no matter what.

And that's how people who don't know God, don't like God, don't care about God,

don't want to follow God, that's how they see it.

When God resists them in their lives, when they face wrath,

we were once objects of wrath, when they face that, they see it as either

A. a completely random force, or B. God is against me, and they just resist even more.

So they hate God.

The point is, that is one very good reason why one might despise the prophetic utterance of the Lord,

but if someone is a believer, why might someone despise the prophetic utterance of the Lord?

Well, first of all, it goes into what are the prophetic utterances.

What is it actually? What is a prophetic utterance?

Well, the word that's actually here is the word profeteria, like cafeteria, profeteria.

So it's like cafeteria, right?

You go through the cafeteria line, and here's, you can have Salisbury steak today,

or you can have chicken parmesan, your choice, which one you want.

We're going to have one of each, right?

And so it's just like that.

Now, that's not what it means.

What it means is the full body of God's prophetic teachings, the full body of God speaking.

So we have some collected permanent storage of literal prophets, people who had the job.

They actually got hired, and you say who hired them?

Well, God selected them, and then they got hired by the general populace, right?

You know who called Jonah a prophet of God?

Well, you know God did, right? But who else?

Everybody in Israel, right?

Everybody who was a follower of God saw Jonah as a prophet of God.

Okay? So we can go to Micah, we can go to Joel, we can go to Amos, we can go to Daniel,

we can go to Isaiah, we can go to Jeremiah.

They're all literal prophets of God.

So everything that they said that was later recorded by the Holy Spirit, that is profiteria.

Propheteria. Okay?

However, so is every time you're going down the road and you see something happening on the side of the road

and you think, God, that's pretty significant, and God says, yeah, I want you to do something about that.

And you keep, go right on driving.

You just ignored the prophetic utterance of the Lord, right?

Why would someone who is a believer ignore the prophetic utterance of the Lord?

Well, it comes down to a few things.

So the first reason might be, you don't know what it is.

You know how to tell the difference.

And you are commanded to know what it is, we just read it, and to be able to tell the difference.

You're commanded to.

If you don't know when it's a prophetic utterance and when it's not, and you're not applying yourself

to be able to sort them, you're in sin.

Let's be frank, right?

The Bible says, do it, so do it.

You're not doing it.

You're not preparing yourself to do it.

You're not taking the necessary steps to be able to do it.

You're in sin.

There's a reason why somebody would not, why somebody would despise the prophetic utterance of the Lord.

Why they would not listen to them, because they're in sin.

They're in sin, have not equipped themselves to be able to do it.

They're not actively examining everything to sort out what it is.

And so they're not doing it.

Once you're in sin like that, you're confused about what is a prophetic utterance and what isn't.

Then it's pretty easy to follow voices, direction, promotional advertising, whatever, to go some way

other than the way that God would have you to go.

There is a body of teachings delivered by everybody.

Don't think that the enemy doesn't have a message.

It's anti-God.

There is not an inch of terrain anywhere in the mega-verse

that God has ever claimed that Satan didn't also claim it.

And think about how he could take it away.

So, how do you, number one, know when it's a prophetic utterance and when it isn't?

Number two, how do you actively examine the prophetic utterances

to determine when they actually are and when they aren't?

And then we'll get on in a moment to how do you hold fast to the ones that you find out are good

and dismiss the ones that you find out are not of God.

So, first of all, basic steps, I'm not going to dwell on any of this,

basic steps of how you can know what a prophetic utterance is.

Number one, if you compare whatever it is that you think might be a prophetic utterance to this book in the text,

use the little concordance in the back, use your little electronic Bible,

sort out verses that talk about the same thing, what you think might be a prophetic utterance from God,

and you find something that is contrary to what you're hearing.

God says, I should put my job and go over here and take this job instead.

And you're like, well, I don't think my job is talked about in the Bible.

But then you think about why am I actually thinking about quitting my job?

Well, I'm having a personality conflict with so-and-so and it just makes my job kind of unbearable.

This job over here doesn't have that, so that's why I'm thinking about it.

Okay, God, should I quit? Yeah, quit, go over there.

Then you go in the scripture and you find words or commands that say, no, stand your ground, be a light for Christ, etc.

Now there's a substantial possibility that it is not a prophetic utterance of God.

So you can't just as easily say, I'm going to do that, just what the heck, it's in the will of the Lord, He wants me to do it.

Because you have to drill down on it, examine it, think about it, it's my personal motivations.

Clearly examine both jobs, for example, in that analogy, and decide at which one can I most serve God?

I'm serving the Lord, will I be able to over there?

I don't actually know because I don't know what it's like over there.

I'm witnessing, I get this guy I've been talking to.

Oh, that's a big deal, well, I'm helping people, I'm making a difference.

If I go over here, will I be able to do that? I don't actually know because I don't work over there.

Now you have to, that's what it means to examine it.

First you start by, is there something contrary in scripture?

Just tell, the person says, why weren't you at work yesterday?

You say, well, I was sick. You weren't sick, you had another problem going on, but you don't want to talk about that other problem.

You say, well, I was sick. And in the moment you feel justified in saying that.

Say, well, I think God would have me just say I was sick rather than get into all those details.

It's actually complaining, right? If I complain about what was going on in my life, then that's all complaining.

I don't want to do that, so God don't want me to get into all that, so I'm just going to say I was sick.

So if you feel like God is telling you to say you're sick, or you saw somebody tell you,

or somebody else do that and get away with it, or you know people do that and get away with it,

you think that that might be something God would allow, but scripture says, basically,

thou shalt not bear false witness. So it's a lie. So now you know you can't do that.

It's as simple as working with sin. Anything the Bible says you cannot do that is not good for you,

it's not good for the kingdom, not good for God, you can't do it.

So you examine the prophetic utterances first in the light of what the scripture says.

Secondly, once you get to the point where now you start to have doubts, you look very seriously at each course of action

and figure out which one will honor God the most.

So you see somebody on the side of the road and you feel like there's a prophetic utterance to stop and do something about it,

and you say, well, could that honor God? Is there some way God could use that?

Well, yeah, he could, because you get a new relationship, could share the gospel,

could mitigate someone's suffering, could deal justice, could show mercy, kindness, love,

all these people are driving by and I can be different from the world because I can stop and do something about it.

So now you've got all the possibilities on the table that it could be that God is telling you to stop and do something about it.

And over here are some restrictions, some reasons why, well, I don't want to be delayed, I don't want to face trouble,

I could be in danger, so-and-so is waiting on me, right, and certain reasons why not to do it.

Now, you know what those sound like? I mean, you can hear it. They're excuses.

They sound like excuses because they are excuses.

And when you start to realize, okay, in this pile I've got excuses, in this pile I've got the possibility of glorifying God,

then that's a pretty good way to think that that is a prophetic utterance from the Lord,

to do what it is that God has called you to do.

Why would a person ignore or make small the prophetic utterances of God?

First of all, because they are not a believer at all, they despise, they hate the Lord.

Secondly, it could be because they're not willing to do the work to figure out what is a prophetic utterance and what isn't.

If you find that you're sitting in this room right now and you're not sure when God is speaking and when God is not,

that's not on God. It's on you because you're switching the channel too often.

You're listening to too many other things. You're doing too little work in Scripture or in prayer time with the Lord.

It's on you. And you need to repent and turn back to God as Scripture calls us to do and say,

okay, I'm going to look for these teachings, these speakings of the Lord.

I'm going to figure out when God is telling me what to do and I'm going to do what He has commanded me to do.

The third reason, and I'll stop with this one, but I'm going to do some case studies in a moment here.

Some of them stepped on my toes a little bit, but we're going to do that in a second.

The third reason is because following a prophetic utterance of God will change everything and people do not like change.

We don't like change. It causes us stress. Your heart rate goes up, your problem solving, your adrenal gland kicks in

and you start thinking, I don't know, this is going to be more difficult than I thought it was going to be.

I don't want to go that way. And so we resist the change.

Now, if the God of the universe speaks, what happens? And when God said, let there be light, what happens?

The light began to exist, right? Every time God says something, something happens.

Everything can be changed by one little thing. If you do manage to get in the car and you do go to the corner

and you do get hit by a semi, at the best you'll be dealing with that for years.

But if you respond to the prophetic utterance and you don't get in the car and you don't get hit by the semi,

now your life is a clean slate and all kinds of things that can happen that wouldn't have happened.

If you stop the car and involve yourself in what's going on on the side of the road

when you normally would be just like, I'm turning my head, but God wants you to do something.

So you go and you do something about it and you lead somebody to Christ.

Now we have a Christian and we can begin to multiply and the world can be reached for Christ.

The prophetic utterances of God are about change. God is trying to change you.

That's why he says we must be not only a hearer, but a doer of the word.

Jesus' brother James wrote that. You know why?

Because for his whole life he had heard the prophetic utterances of God.

He went to temple every Saturday and they would read the Scriptures.

They would read the prophetic utterances of God.

And then Jesus stood up one time and he said, they read a prophetic utterance,

or Jesus I think read it himself or quoted it from memory, and then he said,

this is fulfilled today.

James didn't get it. Not until after they crucified him and he came back to life again.

After that James got it and everything was changed.

And so he said, we must be doers and not only hearers of the word of God.

You must pitch yourself to discovering when God is speaking and doing what God is saying.

It's a two part process, but the doing never comes until the discovering has been done.

Except the doing is at least part of the time doing the wrong thing.

You understand that? If you don't spend your time examining the prophetic utterances of God,

you won't find the utterances. Sort them out and hold on to them.

Instead, you will inject yourself with the philosophies and doctrines of the world.

You will think it is just as okay to do what the world does with their pastimes,

or do what the world does on their job, or do what the world does in their car,

or do what the world does behind their closed doors.

Because you have not heard and hung on to the prophetic utterance of God,

who wants you to be holy as he is holy, sanctified, set apart, and different in your body,

in your mind, and in your soul at the coming of his son Jesus Christ.

What are we required to do then with prophetic utterances?

One of these is not as clear in the text as the other. Number one, we have to utter them.

You understand you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God wants to speak, yes, and he wants to speak through you.

He wants to speak through every person in this room. He wants to speak through you.

While you are busy despising prophetic utterances and not learning how they sound,

and not doing what they say, God actually wants to speak through you.

You are to utter prophetic utterances. You are supposed to be speaking on behalf of God.

Go ye therefore and make disciples.

You are supposed to be speaking on behalf of God.

But Christians, church-wide, worldwide, struggle with the ability to speak on behalf of God,

because somebody else could do it, and they can't follow the example,

because they can't sort out when it is a prophetic utterance and when it isn't.

And you have to. You are commanded to.

And as soon as you know what one is, then you are going to be sitting in a room,

in a meeting, or on the job, or in the car, or on the phone,

and the Spirit is going to urge you, God's Holy Spirit,

he is going to urge you to say something. It could be something silly or dumb.

The first snippet of the 13 or 30 or however many ever it was things,

I stopped counting it like in the teens, when I was at Seneca Lake,

the first one of those was God telling me to walk over to the drink fountain at Burger King,

and say hi to somebody that was there. And I didn't do it.

And like 40 seconds later, they walked out the door and they were gone.

But when God was showing me, I said, God, you tell me what to do and I'll do it.

And God was showing me what he had told me to do that I didn't do.

That person walking out the door without me saying hi to them,

was the first vision that he showed me.

You may think that these things that God tells you to do are insignificant, but they are not.

God loves you and he loves them. And he is sending you to them to express his love.

You must utter what God tells you to utter. Speak up. Speak out.

And he will tell you, you must utter it. We'll come back to that in the conclusion.

Number two, we must respect the prophetic utterances.

You're talking about a lot of work. I've got a lot going on.

I don't know that I'm going to really be able to do what you're asking me to do,

to study, to work, to scrutinize, really look closely at the things,

sort out what's an utterance of God, what I'm really supposed to do with that.

And so I guess I'll get around to it because I do love the Lord,

but I don't know how I could possibly do this.

Listen to me. This is a command of the Lord.

It is a prophetic utterance that Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica.

You are supposed to do this.

You need to decide right now in this room that it's more important than your job,

it's more important than your family, it's more important than your money,

it's more important than your hobby.

Now, if you take your job, your family, and your money out,

you'd have plenty of time to study, plenty of time to sort out what God's saying and do it, wouldn't you?

Now, think in your mind, if I didn't have to work, if I had nobody, no family whatsoever,

if I had no money whatsoever, I'd have plenty of time to read my Dollar Tree Bible,

listen to pastors preach, walk around thinking,

okay, God, what do you want me to do, and doing that.

Now ask yourself, do you want God to take out your family, your job, and your money

so you can have time to do what he told you to do or not?

He gave you your job, your family, and your money so that you can represent him

and say the things that you're supposed to in those circles.

Not maybe. It's a fact.

The message is important.

To God, the messenger is more important.

He wants to work through you to speak.

You need to respect the utterances.

Say what you need to say when he wants you to say it.

Respond to the utterance and do what you're told to do when he tells you to do it.

And then discern or sort the utterances

because sometimes you're going to get some garbage in there,

and you're going to say no.

You've got to say no.

You've got to do more than say no.

You're going to hold fast to that which is good and be busy doing that

while you cut out that which is bad and abstain from it completely.

And then the last thing, of course, is to hold on and to abstain.

You won't ever have to abstain from a prophetic utterance,

but you do have to sort out what is a prophetic utterance

so that you can not abstain from it.

You're like, you're honestly saying to me that I might have to walk into a very dangerous circumstance

and say something that nobody wants to hear.

Have you read the Bible?

This is literally the definition of the kingdom since Adam and Eve.

People saying what nobody wants to hear,

but actually in their spirit they do want to hear it

because they're being convicted.

Nobody wants to hear, you've sinned against the Lord, now you're going to die.

Nobody wants to hear, well, you actually are the man who stole the lamb.

Nobody wants to hear, we're all sinners in need of a Savior

which we can't come up with by ourselves,

so God the Father is going to send His Son to die like this.

Nobody wants to hear that.

Nobody wants to hear, yeah, you're a wretched soul on your way to hell,

but there is grace, you can be saved if you'll believe in Jesus.

Nobody wants to hear the first part.

And we're leaving it out because nobody wants to hear it.

Yes, exactly, God wants you to go wherever He wants you to go

and say whatever it is that you need to say, and He's going to give you the words.

But you're going to have to do the work to know when it's the Lord.

Don't squander your life for some foolish pursuit,

but don't resist spending your life on the grandest pursuit of all.

Okay, we're going to do a couple case studies.

Some of these will hit close to home, there are no names.

In my time in ministry I have seen all of the four things I'm about to share with you,

real people, but I'm not naming any names.

Number one, there was a man who was sometimes ignored because he spoke a lot.

Every time he got in a group he had a word to say.

He was always saying something, talking a lot, all the time.

And people basically, every time he got up to speak or every time he said,

hey, I've got something I want to say or whatever, people would dismiss it.

Because he's talking so much all the time.

Yeah, everything he says is good, but he says so much, and they dismiss it.

How do you solve that problem?

Well, number one, you remember that God may be speaking.

In the midst of that man's drawn out overly long story,

while you're going, huh, I really need to get on to get done what I've got to get done,

God may be speaking.

So listen, and actively sort.

Actively sort what he's saying and go, is this?

Oh, it is.

Now I've got a gem.

Now I've got to figure out how do I hold on to that and use it going forward.

The worst thing is, because people had, past tense, gotten into not listening to that man,

he began to think he was talking too much.

So a lot of times he was speaking on behalf of the Lord.

And so now he doesn't want to utter anymore.

And the word of the Lord is not spoken by anybody in some of those groups.

Because that man is unwilling to say what he was going to say,

because he can tell that the people are there don't really want to hear it anyway.

Number two, case study.

A man who had no right speaking for God, because he was obviously unclean.

He had sin in his life.

He knew he wasn't doing what was right.

And so he's like, I can't speak for the Lord.

Why would God use me?

I'm a dirty vessel.

I'm a vessel meant for dishonor, right?

That's why I still struggle with my sin all the time.

That's why I get angry when I shouldn't.

That's why I get out of control when I shouldn't.

Except God can speak literally through anyone.

Jonah was disobedient to the Lord, ran and, let me say it in a funny way,

hid in a fish for three days to not share the prophetic utterance of the Lord.

And yet, he was eventually vomited on the shore, walked to Nineveh,

shared the prophetic utterance of the Lord, and they repented like God's people were not doing.

The entire story of Jonah is about how some people who are dirty and unclean will get it.

Once Jonah told them, remember what the king said?

He got down off his throne, got in sackcloth and began to repent.

And he told all the people, he said, we're all going to...

This guy didn't know God.

He wasn't a Christian.

He didn't have the Holy Spirit.

He wasn't a follower of the Lord.

He told all the people, everybody, all the cows even, I want everybody in sackcloth.

We're going to repent in the off chance that God may spare us.

All it takes is one little encounter, one moment, one spark from the Lord,

and you can say what it is you need to say.

It doesn't matter how unclean you are.

A member of this church was walking down Main Street contemplating some harmful behavior,

and a man sitting on a park bench, a man sitting on a park bench, drunk as all get out, couldn't stand.

Looked up at him and spoke scripture word for word to him and said what the Bible said on the topic that was in that man's heart.

And he immediately had to repent and he realized if he can do that,

if God can use a drunk to tell me what I need to tell, then how could he ever fail to use me if I'm willing?

So what does the man do who had no right speaking for God?

Well, he remembers this first and foremost, that we all have no right.

It's about grace. Salvation is about grace. You have no right. I have no right.

I have no right to be a pastor or to preach. I didn't earn it.

It's not because I went to school for crying out loud.

The first time I ever preached, I had never been to school.

The only studying of the Bible I had ever done was reading the book of Daniel.

And first I couldn't understand it, then I got saved and then I could.

And I began to realize that when you're saved, you can understand the Bible and read it and apply it to your life.

That was as far as I had gotten the first time I was called to preach.

You have no right. I have no right.

How can we despise the prophetic utterances that comes out of someone that seems to have no right to speak?

The answer is you can't.

If God speaks through a cricket, you listen.

If God speaks through a guy who's had 74 concussions and told, look, this, you listen.

If God speaks through a drunk, you listen.

If God speaks through a rapist, you listen.

That's why you have to do the work to be prepared to hear God.

That's why you have to be able to examine the teachings and go, OK, this is clearly from God.

Because God, by His grace, will use the fools and the fallen of this world

because those who are supposedly risen up, those who are supposedly saved, are doing it.

And so God will speak through whoever He wants to.

In one of our earliest meetings as a would-be eventually church body, we were a church plan at the time,

we were discussing the core values.

And Brother Tony Brister got called out of town, and so he wasn't able to be there.

We were selecting our core values.

Arden was four and a half years old.

And he was sitting in the room, I would say fairly patiently actually, sitting in the room.

And he was participating in the conversation.

And we got to a point where we were debating on four of the core values.

So we really need to cut out two of these, and then we can get down to the number that we were targeting.

And the room got quiet. Nobody had an idea.

We all were favoring of those four.

We were all like, yes, well, we believe that needs to stay or whatever.

And Arden said, well, you know, it occurs to me these four are actually kind of two.

They're very similar.

You can put this one with this one, you can put this one with this one, and then they're basically the same thing.

If you think of it the right way, why don't we just keep them all and just make them into two?

And it was like a golden gong went off, and everybody went, that's what God is saying.

That's exactly what we're supposed to do.

And to this day, now 15 years later, those four core values are combined into two core values and are core values.

You can go read them on our website or look them up later, and the bottom line is that God used a four and a half year old child to say to a bunch of men and women who had worked their butts off for six hours to try to figure out what God was saying about core values,

and he used a four and a half year old child to lead them, to lead us.

We have no right speaking for God, and we certainly, having received the grace of His salvation, have no right not speaking for God.

He can use you. Do the work of figuring out what the prophetic utterances are, when they're of God and when they're not, and then share them.

Speak on behalf of the Lord, and let no man think he is not good enough to be used by God.

Let no woman think she is not good enough to be used by God. You can be.

In fact, you may be the only person within the sound of my voice right now.

It might be everybody else in the room thinks that you're messed up, used up, don't say anything, or all you ever do is get in trouble.

It doesn't matter. And you might be the only person within the sound of my voice right now that will say,

absolutely, I'm in. I'm going to listen to God and tell people what it is that God wants them to hear.

Out of my mouth, I will speak up, because I know I am not worthy, but I also know God wants to use me.

And you can start being used. What are you waiting for?

Case study number three. There was a man who did strange things. He was kind of bizarre, kind of odd.

Made some bad choices, someone might say. I mean, they weren't horrible choices. He wasn't a murderer, a rapist, or anything like that.

But he was probably angry at times. He was probably...

There was a man who did strange things, strange enough to make people wonder about him.

Like, why did he do that? That's a little odd. And so they didn't listen to him.

They said, yeah, he's just a little over the top, or he's too much, or he's a little strange for me to follow his ways.

Listen, you're not asked to follow the prophet. You're asked to follow the God of the universe who delivers the message to the prophet, through the prophet, to you.

There's an old saying that says, don't do as I say. Don't do as I do, but do as I say.

That's actually true when you're talking about the prophet. When somebody speaks up on behalf of God, you don't have to follow their example.

You don't have to be like them. You don't have to go, oh, I'm going to start dressing like them and looking like them every day so I can go to heaven too.

No, you don't have to do that. You have to listen for the utterance of God in what they're saying and do what they're telling you to do, because it comes from God.

Jesus was dealing with the Pharisees in his day, and the Pharisees would teach people to do right, but they themselves weren't doing right.

Does anybody know what Jesus said to the people about what they should do, about what the Pharisees were telling them?

Does anybody know what they said? What did Jesus tell people to do with the teachings of the Pharisees?

Don't follow them, but you can listen to them.

He said, do what they're meant to be. Don't follow their example, but you can listen to them.

Listen to what they're saying because they're teaching you the Scripture, but don't follow the Pharisees.

So that man who does strange things just may have something for you to hear today or tomorrow.

That woman who you go, she's all messed up, she's just kind of quirky, or she's too young or too old,

or clearly screwed up doing this or that or the other thing, the prophetic utterances may be coming from there.

So instead of judging people about whether or not God has made them sane or not, we need to listen to what God is saying.

The last one, this one hurt me probably the most because it was exactly who I was before I got saved.

These are all stories about real people that God brought to mind.

The last one is, there was a man who had to train himself not to speak because when he spoke, he spoke from his flesh,

or he spoke from his ideas. So he trained himself not to speak.

And then God made him a person who was supposed to speak up, was supposed to say something,

but he had so trained himself not to speak that he couldn't speak up.

And he missed opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to say what it was that God wanted him to say

because he had so trained himself not to speak up.

I don't want to say something. I've got something to say. I just don't know exactly how to say it.

I'm afraid if I say it, I'll sound crass or I'll sound irritated or whatever.

So I'm not going to say it.

But when you get a prophetic utterance, Lord, what is that man supposed to do? He's supposed to speak up.

You've got to speak up. They'll think I'm mad or they'll think I'm hurt or they'll think I'm goofy

or they won't like what I have to say.

But if it's what God has given you to say, you have to learn to say it.

How do you do it? You go back to step one. You read the scripture and pray and sort out what God is actually saying.

You learn to sort these things that might be prophetic utterances

so that when one comes into your head and you're supposed to say it, you just say it.

Stop thinking about it at that point.

But you get to the point where you can recognize it for what it is and do what you're supposed to do and speak up.

Boy, we could get there so many ways.

When I was younger, my self-esteem was weak.

I was told I could be anything, do anything. I could be president of the United States or a lawyer or a doctor or anything.

If only I would just apply myself.

And in my heart, I knew I wasn't going to apply myself, which meant I really couldn't be anything at all.

So I was stuck. My parents weren't bad people. They were great people. They raised me in a great way. I helped the home.

We had some difficulties. I was taught to do some things I never should have learned to do.

But the bottom line is they were good people trying to raise me the best they knew how.

But I was taught that I would never amount to anything because I was told I could amount to anything if only I would apply myself.

But clearly I was not applying myself. Therefore, I would never be anything. Therefore, I had no right to speak up to anyone.

I couldn't talk out in a crowd. I would go to a restaurant and I would order a sandwich.

And I couldn't even tell the person behind the counter that I didn't like mayonnaise and didn't want any because I was afraid of what they would think of me.

That's where I wound up at.

I'm saying to you, God wants to use you. Do you need to learn how to speak? Then learn how to speak.

Do you need to learn what to say? Then learn what to say.

But God wants to use you to affect the world. And He can, no matter how messed up you think you are.

You should do what Scripture says you should do.

Sort the prophetic utterances. Then hold fast to what is good and abstain from what is evil.

That brings us to our conclusion of conclusions.

Now you'll notice, did you catch it Josh? Did you figure it out?

You'll notice that the title is on the board.

Now they used a font that sort of messes up my object lesson just a little bit.

Does anybody notice anything about this? If you have your bulletin, you'll see it.

The title in the bulletin is different from the title on the screen.

What's different?

Two T's.

This title has one cross missing.

The utterances of God will never leave out the cross of Jesus Christ.

Those who utter on behalf of God will never leave out the cross of Christ.

The sacrificial sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ is the way that people get to heaven.

So if what you are testing, and we can go to 1 John 4 and look at it.

But if it does not declare that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and came in the flesh.

And therefore by extension died on the cross, rose again on the third day.

He's now standing at the right hand of the Father in heaven making intercession for us.

And has set His Holy Spirit into us.

That we can live and reign and be strong and exercise our spiritual gifts.

If what you're about to say does not accept that as true.

Does not testify in some way to that. Does not include that in your thought process.

Then it is probably not a prophetic utterance from God.

It's probably just an idea you got.

But if it does include that, if it is based on that or somehow leads to that.

That is a pillar holding it up, then it could be a prophetic utterance of God.

And by despising it, and despising it could be you not saying it.

It could be you not hearing it. It could be you not living it.

By despising it, you are despising the cross of Christ.

The sacrifice of the Lord.

If Jesus Himself, the creator of all the universe who died on the cross for your sins.

And rose again on the third day.

Showed up in this room right now.

Would you spit in His face?

Would you smack Him and say, what were you thinking Jesus?

That's just too stupid. I can't believe it.

That is exactly what people are doing when they are despising the prophetic utterances of God.

You say, I've never read much in the minor prophets.

Shame on you. Repent and turn to the Lord.

You say, I don't have time to study my Bible.

Shame on you. Repent and turn to the Lord.

You say, I don't meditate much on Scripture.

Shame on you. Repent and turn to the Lord.

The God of heaven has given you His voice.

He has spoken to you now.

He has spoken through you at every opportunity that you have allowed Him.

He has used a dirty, unclean vessel that needs grace.

To deliver a message in which is the power of salvation.

First, unto the Jew, and then unto the Gentile.

And thank God for that because that's us.

I am asking you today, does God speak?

I am telling you today, He does.

To you and through you, despise not when the God of heaven speaks.

This time I ask the praise team to come forward and we're going to have a closing hymn of imitation.

But I would ask you to address in yourself, if you've heard something from the Lord today,

do not despise that prophetic utterance.

Not from me, I'm not saying, did you hear me speak?

Because I know everybody in this room heard me to some extent.

But I'm asking you today, do not despise the prophetic utterance of the Lord.

What did He tell you? What is He saying? Are you prepared to repeat?

Do you need a sordid? Do you need some time to sort it?

Then do that. Don't just walk out here and go, I didn't quite get it, but I'm going to sort it when I get around to it.

No. Before you play another game, before you eat another meal, before you put your shoulder to the wheel,

before you earn another dollar, you figure out what it is that God is saying to you,

and what it is you're supposed to be saying, and you begin to do that.

Would you stand with me as we sing this song?

And then you respond as the Lord lays in your heart.

If you're here accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior for the first time today,

then you come and share that with us.

If you're here today and say, I need to speak up for the Lord, I need to not let myself be held back,

then you come and share that with us.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back. No turning back.

The Lord come with me. I still will follow.

The Lord come with me. I still will follow.

The Lord come with me. I still will follow.

No turning back. No turning back.

My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

We're pursuing trying to get a church app set up,

and so maybe that God will work that out in the upcoming weeks.

God bless you today as you reach new heights in Jesus.