Despise Not Prophesyings

The Church's Directive and the Command to 'Despise Not Prophesyings'

0:02 If the church is an institution of the Lord Jesus Christ, how does he direct and guide that church since he is not physically present?

0:15 The answer to that question is clearly given in our Lord's commission as recorded in the 28th chapter of Matthew when he said, Make disciples, baptize them, teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you, indicating that by the authority peculiarly given to the apostles, the directive of the church was to be given in the commands which he imparted unto them. Teach them to observe whatsoever I command you. The word of inspired apostles being binding upon the church as the word of Jesus Christ.

0:57 This is why the central part of our... our own meeting together is the opening up of the word of God.

1:06 That in so opening the word, we may acknowledge the kingship of Christ over us and in a very practical way seek directive from him as he would speak to us through the inspired penman of Holy Scripture. In our studies working through 1 Thessalonians, we have come to a series of very brief, but important, important commands which are the directive of Christ for his people. Having looked at those that more specifically deal with the believer's relationship to his fellow believer in 1 Thessalonians 5,

1:48 the latter part of verse 13 down through verse 15, we then move to consider those commands which touch upon the believer's inner life as he relates to everything. The facet of the Lord's will for him. He's to rejoice always. He's to pray without ceasing.

2:07 He is to give thanks in everything. Last Lord's Day morning, we began a study of these three or possibly four commands which close out this paragraph beginning with 5.12 and ending with 5.22.

2:24 Commands which deal primarily with the life of God's people as they are God's people. They are gathered for worship and for instruction in the truth of God. Last week we studied that command, quench not the Spirit, which applies not primarily to the individual believer and his own walk, which should be a walk in which he gives proper place and due respect to the ministry of the Spirit, but which refers primarily to the Spirit's activity in the midst of the assembled, the people of God, likened under the figure of fire that will break out

3:06 in its different manifestations, and the command is quench not the Spirit. Don't quench the activity of the Holy Spirit in the gathering of God's people. Don't quench Him by coming to those gatherings with unbelief, with a spirit of empty formality, by slavish adherence to the clock, by a sinful dread of the unusual, by prejudice, or by clericalism and criticism. Don't quench the Spirit.

3:41 And the longing of the Apostle, for it's the longing of the Lord, is that when His people gather, there shall be that freedom to be obedient to the promptings and directives of God the Holy Ghost within the gathering of His people. Quench not the Spirit. That's immediately followed, and there's a definite reason for this, by the command that we want to consider this morning. Despise not prophesying.

4:11 Quench not the Spirit. Give full reign to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But, the Apostle says, particularly with reference to the Spirit's ministry of communicating truth. So we have, immediately upon this command, to give full expression to the life and presence of the Spirit, this command that ties the ministry of the Spirit to the word of truth.

4:42 And whenever you have one without the other, you've got something less than Biblical Christianity. And as with so many things, as we've pointed out many times from this pulpit, maintaining the balance of truth is such a difficult thing. There are those that would say, despise not prophesying. Give proper place, to the exposition and application of the word of God.

5:07 When you talk about quench not the Spirit, they say, shhh, that leads into fanaticism. That's Pentecostalism, see. On the other hand, you have people who've grown weary of coming into an assembly week after week, and being able to predict with absolute, unerring accuracy, what would happen at every single point. At 12 after 11, at 22 after 11, at 13 to 12.

5:31 There's been no spontaneity, no fresh breakings forth of the Holy Ghost. And in reacting they've said, ah, that's my text, quench not the Spirit. That's what I want. I want the freedom and liberty of the Spirit.

5:45 And then they grow to despise the word. And they call that just the dead letter. And when anyone has a ministry of exposition that makes them think, they say, that's deadness, that's dryness. I actually received a note from someone some time ago, which said, a ministry of doctrine, doctrine and dogma invariably brings spiritual dryness.

6:04 Well, you see, they wanted quench not the Spirit. They didn't want despise not prophesize. Well, the Lord knows we need both. And then we're going to need what comes next week as well, to cap it all off.

Defining Prophesying: Intelligible Communication of Divine Truth

6:15 So here we have this command, immediately following, quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesize. Well, the first question with which we must grapple is, what are prophesize? If we're not to despise them, we better know what they are. And so we've got to address ourselves to that question.

6:32 The word prophecy, and the person who gives the prophecy, a prophet, and the substance of what he gives, which is called his prophecy, these words are used in various ways in Scripture. We don't have time this morning to trace them out. You have a concordance, that would make a good exercise for an hour this afternoon. Look up the word prophet, prophesize, prophecy, and see what Scripture teaches on the subject.

7:01 But no consideration of the exercise of the gift of prophecy within the New Testament church can ignore the passage which most fully and adequately treats of this subject. And that passage is 1 Corinthians chapter 14. So, in answer to the question, what are prophesying? The apostle assumes that the Thessalonians knew, but for many of us, this is a strange term.

7:30 So we'll turn to 1 Corinthians 14, and very briefly, seek to glean from this passage the characteristics of that which is called prophecy in the New Testament church. I would commend this entire chapter for your careful reading, but I'll just extract some of the key principles. 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Follow after love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.

8:04 For he that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God. For no man understandeth, but in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men edification, and exhortation, and consolation. He that speaketh in a tongue edifies himself, but he that prophesieth edifieth himself.

8:27 He that prophesieth edifieth the church. And then he goes on to develop this very theme. Now, if we're to break down the whole concept of prophesying as found in 1 Corinthians 14 and some in 1 Corinthians 12, we would say, first of all, that the substance of prophecy is this, an intelligible communication of divine truth. He says, now the man who speaks in the tongue, this is an ecstatic utterance, or a man speaking in a language far into his hearers and to himself, it's not his native language, but under the inspiration of the Spirit, he's able to speak somebody else's native language, as we saw in Acts 2.

9:11 We're not going into the whole question of tongues as much as you'd like me to, I'm not going to, because it's not that, if the text were forbid not to speak with tongues, I'd have to, but the text is despise not prophesize. So in contrasting tongues, which is an intelligible, an unintelligible communication, unless there be interpretation, the whole emphasis in 1 Corinthians 14 is that prophecy is an intelligible communication of divine truth. That's the substance of prophecy. The author of prophecy, the Spirit of God.

9:42 1 Corinthians chapter 12, he speaks in verse 4 and following, by the Spirit is given to one a gift of prophecy, others a gift of tongues, other gifts of interpretation, gifts of healings. The substance there, an intelligible communication of divine truth. The author, the Holy Spirit. The goal of prophecy, twofold.

10:04 One goal to believers, one goal to unbelievers. What's the goal of prophecy to the believer? Verses 3 to 5 of 1 Corinthians 14. He that prophesieth speaketh unto men edification, exhortation, consolation.

10:22 There it is, nice three point outline, all there. The goal of prophecy to the believer is exhortation, consolation, edification. Building up, stirring up, comforting. That's its goal.

10:40 Here's this intelligible communication of divine truth given by the Spirit of God which has as its goal the building up of believers. But it has a second goal, chapter 14, verses 24 and 25. But if all prophesy, and there come in one unbelieving or unlearned, he is reproved by all, he is judged by all, the secrets of his heart are made manifest, and so he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is among you indeed. Here's this unbeliever who says,

11:23 Ah, you Christians talk about the Lord being in your midst. When we go to our temple, we've got a lot to show for it. We've got a priest dressed in his ornate clothes, dressed in his ornate garb, and we have a beautiful ritual that is satisfying to the eye, and we have our idols and our icons. You Christians, you get together in one another's homes, you've got no altar, you've got no priest with vestments, you've got no ritual, and you tell us God is there?

11:46 What are you talking about your God? I don't see him. At least we've got something to show for our worship. So that unbeliever happens to come in to the assembly of a true group of people, and several of them prophesy with intelligible language.

11:59 They convey truth given by the Holy Spirit. And what happens? This man is awakened. He's convicted.

12:06 His own heart is laid bare, and he's converted. And he falls down, his posture being a revelation of the state of his heart in brokenness before this God. And he says, You people weren't kidding. God is in your midst.

12:21 You have no ritual to speak of. You have no ornate temple. You have no vestments. You have no special priestly class.

12:31 But God is in your midst. And what brought him to this place? Prophecy. The intelligible communication of divine truth in the power of the Holy Spirit.

12:41 Now, let me ask you a question. Whatever distinctive characteristics of prophecy were limited by the early church and its experience in terms of an incomplete canon of Scripture, they did not yet have the full embodied revelation in print as we have it. So there were some peculiarities, some distinctive characteristics, whatever they were. Here's my question.

13:10 What is obviously the present extension of the gift of prophecy? Don't answer out loud, but answer in your own mind. If prophecy was the intelligible communication of divine truth by the Spirit of God with a view to edifying the saints and awakening and converting sinners, what is the present extension of the gift of prophecy? I hope the answer is obvious.

13:38 If I've done my work in this first seven minutes, it ought to be. What is the present extension? Are you answering, I hope, Spirit-anointed exposition and application of the word of God written? Preaching.

13:53 That's the extension of the gift of prophetic utterance. An extension that is more important and marked by the similarity of goals and the similarity of means to attain that goal. The goal of God's people gathering together is unto edification as well as worship. Well, how are they edified?

14:17 By the exposition and application of the truth of Scripture in the power of the Holy Spirit. Don't leave that out. God's people dry up in church after church where there's exposition and something that attempts to be application, but because it's devoid of the warmth and power of the Holy Ghost, God's people go away hungry and dry week after week. Then, how are sinners converted?

14:44 By the exposition and application of divine truth to the conscience until brought under a sense of their need and the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, they fall down before Him and give themselves to Him. So, wherever you're confronted with the exposition and application of the Word of God, you are confronted with prophecy. So much for the question, what is prophecy? Second question is, what does it mean to despise it?

Defining 'To Despise': Treating with Contempt and Mockery

15:14 Despise not prophesying, plural. Well, the word despise means to make of no account, to despise utterly, to treat something with contempt and with mockery. The same word is used of the Pharisees in Luke 18, 9, where it says, the Pharisees were the people who trusted to themselves that they were righteous and despised all others. They'd even look down upon their fellow Jews as, well, they're not really quite, we're the strict ones, see.

15:51 And Gentiles, they'd spit at the very mention of the name. Those were those dogs, those heathen dogs. Now, that's what the word despise means, to treat something with contempt, to set it off as a thing of no account, to mock it. It's the very word used of the treatment which our Lord received at the hands of those who were engineering His crucifixion in Luke 23 and verse 11.

16:18 I read now that text of Scripture, And Herod and his soldiers set him at naught and mocked him. There's the word. They set him at naught. They treated him like something less than enough.

16:31 They treated him like a common criminal. They did not see anything in him that was worthy of respect or of honor. So then, to despise prophesying is to look upon the Spirit-directed exhortations, expositions, and applications of the word of God with contempt, to mock at them, to value them as of no worth and unworthy of serious consideration. So the conclusion we draw is that this command comes to us saying, Don't ever treat as of no account

17:14 the precious privilege of exposure to the exposition and application of the word of God. Despise not prophesying. And like these other commands where something is forbidden, the very opposite is enjoined upon us. Regard them with a high esteem.

17:34 Treasure them. Look upon them as one of God's greatest and most precious gifts to His Church. So much then for the first two questions. What is prophecy?

Why People Despise Prophesying: Lack of Perception, Desire, or Humility

17:47 Secondly, what does it mean to despise prophesying? Now the third question, and this gets us down to the heart. I trust of that which is apropos to our own situation, why in the world would anyone despise prophesying? If the goal to the believer is his edification, consolation, and exhortation, his own spiritual well-being, and if the goal to the unconverted is his spiritual well-being, why would anyone despise that which is for his own good?

18:20 Why would any of the Thessalonians be tempted to despise prophesying? May I suggest several basic answers. Number one, a lack of perception as to the strategic place of truth in the development of spiritual life. You see, if we do not see that God's truth is the primary instrument that he uses both in the impartation and in the development of spiritual life, we will treat that truth lightly.

18:50 It's like the person who having no concept of nutrition, though he has experience in the spiritual world, has no idea of what is going on in the spiritual world. It's like the person who having no concept of nutrition though he has exposure to a well-balanced diet, lives on candy bars and coke. And you say, why do you live on that? Well, it satisfies my hunger.

19:13 Isn't that what food's for? You say, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. And to use a well-known nutritionist term, you are what you eat, you see. And I'm not promoting the book, but it just came to my mind and you get the, you get the idea of what we're driving at.

19:31 You see, this person has got to come to an appreciation that in the development of and the maintenance of good physical health, food plays a strategic part as well as rest and exercise. Well, unless a person sees that truth laid out, applied, assimilated is the strategic thing in the impartation and development of spiritual life, he'll despise the exposition of truth. He'll look down upon it. He won't regard it with the high regard with which he ought to be to regard it.

20:07 This applies both to the saved and to the unsaved. Now at Corinth, their problem was prophesying looked kind of dull next to tongues. Oh man, this tongues business, this caused great excitement. And so they got all taken up with tongues and Paul says, wait a minute, he says, when you come together and you're all exercising your gift of tongues, he does not discount the gift.

20:31 He says, but what's the matter with you people? You've forgotten the goal of every gift is what? Building up? So he says, covet gifts, but covet rather to prophesy.

20:42 Why? Because the intelligible communication of divine truth is the divine means to build up the saints. That's the means. But tongues was flashier.

20:53 So they began to despise prophesying because they didn't see the strategic place of the intelligible exposition and application of divine truth. See? Now this has happened today to an alarming and tragic degree. Out here you have liberalism that says we're tired of words, words, words, words, words.

21:17 Let's roll up our sleeves and get out and get busy. Let's get into the ghetto and clean up the ghetto. Well, what about the gospel? Get out of here with your words about the gospel.

21:27 We're tired of words. We want actions. Actions imparted. That's salvation.

21:31 They despise prophesying. And so the average Christian would say, well, we're tired of words. And so the average liberal, he can't preach worth a plug nickel. And he doesn't care.

21:44 Oh, he can agitate for civil rights, equal voting rights. He can agitate on a thousand issues and get genuinely excited, but put a Bible in his hand and say, listen, you start talking from that, he despises prophesying. See? Well, we don't have many liberals here, if any, so I won't spend a lot of time there.

22:08 I'm not going to talk about the religious principle. It's not something foreign to us. It's what I would call the problem of formalism. Everything's in the beauty of the liturgy.

22:22 Liturgical churches, you know, they say, well, if people come and you don't have a liturgy and there's nothing aesthetically stimulating, what can you give them? I've heard people talk in the most glowing terms about the mass from this very standpoint. They were captured by the beauty of the mass. You couldn't help but be captured by, quote, the beauty of the mass.

22:46 We have one of Bruckner's masses that someone loaned as a beautiful thing. It's done with an orchestra and some operatic singers. Beautiful. Aesthetically stimulating.

22:58 And even the words in it aren't bad at all when they're translated out of the Latin. But you see, this is what captures people. And they despise prophesying. Why?

23:07 Because they're all taken up with the sensual fleshiness and the mushy aspects of formal liturgical worship. It's interesting that the New Testament church is not an extension of Old Testament temple worship. But it's rather an extension of synagogue life. You see, the temple was taken up with formal ritual.

23:33 The synagogue didn't. And where these synagogues were placed throughout all the Roman Empire, they were not primarily worship centers. They were people who had attached themselves, many of them, to synagogues in these different countries of the Roman Empire. And at the stated feast days, they came up to Jerusalem three times a year to the temple to worship.

23:57 But the primary purpose of the synagogue, you read about in Luke 4, when Jesus came into the synagogue, they handed him the scroll. And he stood up to read. And then he sat down to expound. And the New Testament is the central source of the biblical and biblical scriptures.

24:21 And when the life leaves the church, she always goes back by degrees to the form of temple worship. And away from the structure and form of synagogue life. And so in our day, some people despise prophesying because they don't see the centrality of truth. On the one hand, there's flux and development and relativity.

24:45 On the other hand, there's formalism. And then within our own circle, and this brings it close to home, within evangelicalism, preaching has been demeaned and lowered in the eyes of men. On the one hand, you see it with Pentecostalism, with its strong emphasis upon the Spirit. Oh, we must have the Spirit.

25:05 But I ask, how do I know what is His Spirit and not some other Spirit? I had a Pentecostal study two weeks ago when I was holding meetings over here in Bloomfield. I came for special meetings one night and at the end of the message he came and said, oh, it was so good to hear some Bible preaching. He says, you know, we Pentecostals, we haven't produced Bible preachers.

25:28 We haven't produced them. He admitted this. Why? Because in their jealousy to maintain, quench not the Spirit.

25:36 They've not seen that the Spirit's ministry is directed by and fed by the Word. The Spirit and the Word are different. And they know much about the spontaneity of the Spirit, some of the more stable Pentecostal assemblies than we know. In fact, I'll really stick myself out on a limb and tell you that once in a while I got so weary, weary, of the heaviness and the lack of spontaneity in the church we attended in Lancaster some years ago.

26:03 We'd occasionally go over to the Assemblies of God church there because there was some spontaneity, some understanding of what it was to quench not the Spirit. There wasn't a wildfire and there wasn't a lot of screeching and hollering and ladies jumping up and down doing a jig. No, they took seriously the necessity of order. But they had captured something.

26:26 If someone's heart was full and they broke out in a hymn, nobody turned around and looked at them like this. But they all joined in and you felt your Spirit caught along with them. But one of the reasons was they had a ministry that gave a proper place to the truth so that the fire of the Spirit didn't break out and singe was channeled along the lines of the Spirit's directive in the Word. You see?

26:49 But in most Pentecostal situations this is not true. Then there is on the other hand the mysticism and subjectivism of groups that say, no, we just want to see Jesus. Don't teach us doctrine. Like the note I received that said, we would see Jesus.

27:05 Don't give us doctrine. Well, the minute you begin to say, who is Jesus? You're in the realm of what? Doctrine.

27:13 You're in the realm of doctrine. The very God of the very God, the very man of the very man. What did he do? He died on the cross.

27:24 Why? That's doctrine. That's doctrine. And yet in evangelical circles today there is this despising of prophesying, this intelligible exposition and application of the Word of Truth in some desire to have some mystical experience of Jesus that has no doctrinal framework.

27:40 It's impossible. And then there is also in our evangelical circles what I would call the doctrine of God. It's called carnivalism. We've got to put on a show.

27:52 I picked up a newspaper from a preacher friend of mine in another part of the state and it said, we're glad to announce we have such and such a musical team that will come to your church for musical packages. Now, isn't that cute? Musical packages. I've been in churches and meetings where they said, now, Brother Martin, we'd like to preach about 30 minutes because, you see, we have this musical package and we have that musical package.

28:16 Carnivalism. It despises prophesying. I don't do it anymore. People say, will you come here to preach?

28:23 I say, well, I'll consider it. Let me ask a few questions. Number one, are you going to clutter up the hour with all kinds of extraneous stuff that will wear people out mentally and emotionally so that they can't think with me as I open up the word? Are you going to give me at least a good hour to open up the word and apply it?

28:41 And if they say, well, I just say, sorry, you can get someone else. Well, you say, that's proud and haughty. No, it isn't. It's the scripture that is compromising his position by ministering in a situation where prophesying is despised because of carnivalism, putting on a show.

29:01 No, all of these different reasons God says despise not prophesy. Do you see the centrality of spirit-owned exposition and application of the word for the edification of the saint and the conversion of the sinner? If you don't, if God hasn't made that real to you, to some degree you're going to despise prophesying. You'll despise it.

29:26 Well, the second reason why prophesying's are despised are these. A lack, or is this, a lack of desire for the exposure which prophesying brings. Remember what it said? Prophesying is good for edification, for exhortation.

29:50 To the sinner it says, he comes into your midst and if all prophesy, the thoughts of his heart will be exposed. John says, men love darkness rather than light. True prophesying exposes. You see, for a Christian to be built up, just like physically, you've got to get rid of the poisons in your system.

30:17 Whatever poisons are in me are coming out and this stuff all over my face. Until they get out, I won't be better. Now, it's not pleasant having to come out and get out, especially this way, but it's necessary. The child of God is the work of the word.

30:34 The very word Jesus uses when he prays, cleanse them, purify them, is the word that we use with a cathartic. Yes. We need to have that purging influence of the word. But you see, if we're dodging, hedging, and we just want to sort of rock along in the comfortable status quo, we'll despise prophesying.

30:58 Why? Because it nails us to the pew. It says, thou art the man, thou art the woman. We don't want prophesying.

31:07 They want a nice little 20-minute homiletical ditty that'll make them feel good, give them a few more facts, and make them go home saying, well, I went to church today. They don't come saying, Lord, if I need to be blistered good, blister me. Lord, if I need to be spanked, spank me. You love me too much to let me run around like a spoiled brat.

31:31 Now, Lord, you spank me if I need correction. Use your word. And a sinner that gets dead in earnest doesn't despise prophesying anymore. He'll be there every time the doors are opened.

31:42 He'll attend to the word. We've seen that right in this place when God's begun to stir people up and let them know that their only hope of salvation is in God's mercy in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. And they'll attend seriously to the word. Why?

31:58 They want that exposure. It's painful, but it's sweet pain. And this lack of desire for this exposure is what will cause us to despise prophesying. Then it may be, in the third place, pride in our own knowledge.

32:11 You see, a man who thinks that he has in his own cranium the sum and substance of all that he needs to know about life and the world to come and life now, why should he attend to prophesying with an eager, teachable spirit? He knows all there is to know. So it could be pride in our own attainments, or it could be prejudice to the instrument who conveys the truth. And we despise the prophesying because we say, I don't like the way it comes out.

32:38 I don't like the sound of the trumpet that the Lord's blowing. Or I don't like its color. It's brass and I'd like it silver. You know, the Lord talked about the people of his own generation.

32:52 He said, that's why they despise prophesying. John the Baptist came prophesying, they wouldn't listen. Jesus came prophesying, they wouldn't listen. He said, you know what you people are like?

33:03 I'm paraphrasing from Matthew 11. He says, you're like kids in the marketplace. And the kids play a somber tune like a death march. They say, let's play funeral.

33:14 I say, no, we're too happy for playing funeral. Jesus said, you of my generation are like that. John the Baptist came and he said, look at him, old sad sack, long faced Christian. Wears that old funny garment with that long beard.

33:31 Look at the meal he eats. Locusts. Wild honey. He's a health food nut.

33:37 Eating locusts, wild honey. We can't listen to him. Or he may be a prophet, but he's so strange and somber and funereal. They despised John.

33:52 Why? They said, because they couldn't go the form through which the prophecy came. Then Jesus came along, sat down with harlots, went out to eat with them, went to the houses of publicans, stood at a well and talked with a woman of shady reputation, enjoyed a good meal, licked his lips, wiped his mouth off with the napkin, sat back, obviously, and they said, yeah, look at him. He's too much like the common people.

34:21 He's a friend of publicans. Look at him. He drinks a little wine with the publicans. He's a wine vicar.

34:26 Look at him. He eats the full meal. He's a glutton. We can't listen to him.

34:31 Isn't this what they said? Jesus said, that's what you people are like in this generation. And you know, the human heart hasn't changed, has it? Huh?

34:42 God would speak to us by the voice of prophecy in this sense. The exposition, the application of the word. Say, ah, can't listen to that. Can't listen to that.

34:53 That fellow's too serious. He talks too loud, too long. This fellow over here, oh, he's too humorous. He talks too short.

35:02 He's not logical enough. He's not fiery enough. Oh, he's too fiery. He's too, he makes you, what is all this but a big smoke screen for the heart that doesn't want to come to grips with the word.

35:15 Oh, dear ones, don't despise prophesying. Don't despise prophesying. Don't regard them lightly because of either the pride or your own knowledge or prejudice to the instrument conveying it. These are different things.

How We Despise Prophesying: Absence, Wrong Attitude, Mental Laziness

35:30 Well, I hurry on now to consider in the fourth place, how are we most prone to despise prophesying? We've considered what is prophesying. In the second place, what does it mean to despise them? Why do people despise them now?

35:45 How do people despise prophesying? How are we most prone to despise them? May I suggest three ways. Number one, three ways to despise the word.

35:57 One is the failure to be present where the word is preached. Here's a mother who prepares three adequate meals for her children and for no good reason one of her children consistently absence himself from one or two of those meals. What is that child saying to the mother? What you have prepared is not of sufficient worth for me to be present to assimilate it for despising the mother's cooking.

36:32 You get the application, don't you? Despise, not prophesy. When the servants of God seek to prepare an adequate diet of divine truth, and that's an awful responsibility. Just take my word for it.

36:47 To feel that the well-being of an assembly in great measure rests upon the shoulders of the teaching ruling elder that he present a balanced diet of divine truth, not all the threats lest people come in bondage, and yet not all the promises lest they become presumptuous, not all grace lest they become lax, not all law lest they become legalist. That's an awful responsibility. An awful responsibility. And when you sweat through it and say, Lord, of all that you've put in the cupboard of truth, what should I take out for these next months?

37:25 What should I give to the people as their diet of truth? And you feel, well, I've got some good doses of vitamin A and C and B there in the morning and some real big doses of E and C at night and you seek to prepare that balanced meal and people willfully, deliberately do not frequent the table. They're despising prophesying. And I can say before the Lord, I do not say this as a pastor because I feel my nose is bent because you won't come for my cooking.

37:57 No, no. You see, you're robbing. You're robbing yourself as that child robs himself of physical health by despising the mother's meal. How are we most prone to despise prophesying?

38:12 By failing to be present when the word is preached. Second, by failing to be present with the right attitude when the word is ministered.

38:24 Oftentimes, prophecy is despised in this place because we come with a body that has not had sufficient rest and a mind that is not at rest. A mind that has not been sufficiently quieted to think with the preacher, to follow through the text. And the victory was lost, or the battle was lost, Saturday night. The battle was lost Saturday night.

38:47 I can tell when some of you come in here Sunday morning pretty well that you had it.

38:55 And many times it's confirmed. That glassy-eyed stare begins to greet me halfway through Sunday school and by this hour, that's it. You're long gone. You're like the fighter who's standing up in the ring but the referee looks at him and puts his arm around the other fellow and raises his hand.

39:13 He knows this guy's on his feet but he's out on his feet. You ever heard the expression? Some of you are out on your seat.

39:21 There you are. Now seriously, do you see how this is a despising of prophesying? If we really believe, Lord, what I'm going to receive tomorrow is for my edification, consolation, exhortation and I want to bring to that a fresh mind, an alert body, a quiet spirit and you do the necessary disciplining Saturday night and Sunday morning of your time and your rest so that you come to give to the prophesying the kind of mind and heart that it needs. See?

39:56 I say we're often prone to despise prophesying in this assembly. Not only by our failure to be present where the Word is preached but by our failure to be present with the right to be present with the Word. The right attitude and disposition which involves a rested body and a quiet mind which involves, secondly, a teachable spirit. It says in Acts 17, we'll look at that more in detail next week as we consider the next command, prove all things.

40:21 These were more noble than they at Thessalonica in that they received the Word with readiness of mind. What a beautiful picture. There was readiness of mind. They received the Word, a teachable spirit.

40:36 Someone has said, they who hear with prejudice will never hear with profit regardless of who is preaching. There's some people that every time I preach I never get the feeling they've ever really come with a teachable mind. They're sitting there not as a student but as a judge.

40:55 You follow me? And their attitude is if he says something that fits into my niches I'll take it. If he doesn't,

41:02 that's pretty blunt but that's it. And you get that feeling and not only do you have that feeling when you watch their lives it's obvious because you will be able to see them. You will preach through things that have touched these individuals at the most sensitive and obviously needy areas and yet when you confront them about it and say, look, this is what we heard, this is what we studied. Didn't that say anything to you?

41:23 They say, I never remember you ever heard that.

41:27 And you say, how can it be? How can it be? Well, here's why. They've despised prophesying by coming with something other than a teachable spirit.

41:39 In contrast to that, there was someone who prayed here Wednesday night and I couldn't believe it. In a little prayer of three minutes they gave a digest of last Sunday's messages Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night and I sat there amazed. I said, Lord, what in the world would happen if we had a church full of people like that? This individual wasn't doing it to throw accolades at me.

42:00 They were praying. It was obvious as they were praying that what they heard in Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night had been God's word to them and had gripped them and was already making its impression. Upon the light. So in their prayer, it came out.

42:15 And I sat here amazed. Some of you may have had the same reaction. Do you remember what happened here Wednesday? I couldn't believe it.

42:21 There was a digest.

42:24 Some of you couldn't even give the subject matter if I hadn't given it in review. What's the difference? Oh, so-and-so has a greater mind. No, that's not the basis.

42:32 The basic difference is coming with a teachable spirit.

42:37 Receiving the word with readiness.

42:41 Not everything. Next week, prove all things. You don't take everything that I say or anyone else. But nonetheless, receiving with readiness.

42:49 And then, the third thing involved in this matter of a right attitude is that of having a diligent mental state. You know, people don't like to think. We're lazy. Mentally.

43:03 And you can despise prophesying by refusal to think with the prophet. Now that was another thing that was so nice with tongues. Everybody got speaking in tongues and they said, Boy, the Lord's here. Hallelujah.

43:16 But we don't know what they're saying so we don't even think. But boy, we sure have a great time.

43:22 And you know, lots of people that way say, Well, I want to feel good. Let's sing some rousing songs. Let's have some rousing testimony. Let's have some rousing preaching.

43:29 What do they mean? Let's get feeling good without thinking hard.

43:35 Well, you carry that to extreme and that's the LSD cult. Let's find answers. Not by painstaking observation and analysis and grappling with things as they are. But take a cue and take a trip and get some insight.

43:51 It's free of charge. No mental sweat.

43:55 Isn't that it?

Results of Despising Prophesying: Impoverishment, Insult, Rejection, Withdrawal

43:58 Despise not prophesying. By favor to be present with a mind that's prepared to be diligent. Well, I want to close very briefly this morning with my last question and then answer. What are the results of despising prophesying?

44:13 Why is Paul so concerned that these people do not despise prophesying? Well, because he knows the results if they do. He knows the results if they quench the spirit. He also knows the results if they despise prophesying.

44:27 And here they are briefly. First of all, the impoverishment of our own souls.

44:35 The impoverishment of our own souls. If the intelligible communication of divine truth in the power of the Spirit is the main instrument of our edification and we regard it lightly, we do so to the impoverishment of our own souls. Secondly, we do so to the insulting of our Lord Himself. Just like the woman is insulted whose guests do not come to her prepared meal, so the Lord Himself is insulted when He has ordained to speak to us through the prophetic ministry.

45:11 That is, the exposition and application of divine truth in the power of the Spirit. And in Luke 10.16 He hints this when He says, Whoever does not receive you, My appointed servants does not receive Me. And whoever does not receive Me receives not Him that sent Me.

45:28 Third thing it does, it creates the negation in God's eyes of our other duties as far as there being any reality in them. Proverbs 28.9 Whosoever turns away from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination. Listen.

45:45 What right do I have to think God will hear me when I speak if I won't sit and listen when He speaks? That's pretty impudent, isn't it? It's like the child who's got something to say and the parent says, Now wait a minute, I want to say a few things first and he says, No, no, no, no. What he has to say is more important.

46:01 That's a little brat if he goes on that way and you better deal with him as such. You know, oft times we're brattish in our relationship to the Lord. Very anxious to the Lord here when we talk. Oh boy, God better hear what I got to say.

46:13 I got lots of problems He ought to know about and do something about. I got lots of questions the Lord ought to know about and answer. So the Lord better hear. God says, Now you sit down and listen.

46:22 I got something to say to you. And He says, If you turn away your ear from what I have to say to you, then your prayer when you talk to me is an abomination. He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination.

46:38 In other words, the only disposition consistent with any kind of spiritual activity is a heart that cherishes God's Word to itself. And then the fourth place, and this is a dangerous thing and I want you to listen, some of you young people especially, there's the danger of God rejecting us all the time. You read Proverbs chapter 1, it's a frightening chapter, where God says, I've called and you refused. I pled and you wouldn't hear.

47:06 God says, The time is coming when I'll mock at your calamity. The time when you'll call on me and I'll turn a deaf ear. I called for years, you stopped your ears. God says, Alright, the time's coming when you call and I'll stop my ears.

47:19 That's a frightful thing. People who despise prophesies. Earnest preachment of the truth. The truth of God was regarded lightly.

47:30 They were entreated to repent and seek the Lord and take in earnest the whole matter of their soul's salvation. They regarded it lightly. God said, The time is coming when there'll be that judicial hardening and rejection. And then the last danger, the last result of despising prophesying is that the Lord may withdraw the gift from us.

47:52 Amos 8 and verse 11, God says to a nation that despise prophesying and despise prophesying a famine's coming, not a famine of bread, but of hearing the word of the Lord. And God says, You'll run to and fro to find the word of the Lord and you won't find it. Beloved, listen. I believe that the present state of the evangelical church is in part God's judgment upon our despising of prophesying.

48:17 Why has there been no crop of powerful preachers in our generation? It's because the previous generation said, We can run the church with our carnivalism. And with our gimmicks and with our gadgets and the centrality of preaching was blurred by the centrality of organization and big personalities and programs and gimmicks and musical packages and all the whole thing until God says, All right, you despise the gift of prophecy, I'll take it away from you.

48:48 And that's a frightening thing. A frightening thing. Oh, may we never despise it so that God takes it away from us. I tell you, I have some spiritual fainting fits at times as I work on my work.

49:00 I have some spiritual fainting fits at times as I work on my work. I have some spiritual fainting fits at times as I work on my work. I have some spiritual fainting fits at times as I work around this building. I've walked up and down this place sometimes alone and I've said, Lord, what are we putting nails in for 50 years from now?

49:09 Will the truth ring from these walls? Or will you have judged a people who began to despise prophesying and take that away? That's a frightening thing, isn't it?

49:25 Isn't it? This wouldn't be the first place it's happened. And it never happens overnight. It's when people get careless and cherish prophesying a little bit less than they ought to that they get a little less careful about what they hear and how they hear and how they obey and gradually there's that declension and relinquishing of that grasp upon truth until 50 years down the road it's nothing but a heathen temple with a lot of religious rigmarole and ritual but no prophetic irons.

50:04 May God sooner flatten the walls before that hour comes but there's lots of places where he hasn't. That's the result of despising prophesying. God will withdraw the gift. Well, I close where we began.

50:19 God's command to his churches despise not prophesying. Oh, to have an assembly where the fire of the spirit is not quenched and where the purity of God's truth is not despised. Is it too much to expect that God will make us that kind of a people? Hmm?

50:38 Is it too much to expect that he'll make us that kind of a people? Let us pray to that end and cry that God will help us to despise not prophesying.