So how do we navigate through the current prophetic storm? Do we throw it all out? Do we say none of it's real? All this charismatic prophecy stuff is nonsense or Or do we just receive everything because we don't want to quench the spirit? How do we navigate our way through this storm?
Hey friends, Michael Brown here. I just want to address this question with simple biblical wisdom from Paul. What's amazing is that Times change. But Facts are facts. Truth is truth.
People are people. The same circumstances tend to repeat themselves, different forms, different generations. And what we're going through now, and so much shaking and upheaval in the prophetic world, at least in America. There's really nothing new about it ultimately in terms of the biblical guidelines still apply. Let me say it again.
The biblical guidelines still apply. You have throughout the whole Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, warnings about deception. And the same warnings that applied in the days of Moses, apply in the days of Jesus and Paul, apply in our day as well.
So here's Paul's practical wisdom. on how to navigate the prophetic storm, because there was prophetic confusion in Paul's day as well, because of which he had to address these issues. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Verses 19 to 21. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 19 to 21, he says, Do not quench the spirit.
Don't put out the Spirit's fire. Don't treat prophecies with contempt. test everything. Hold on to that which is good. Don't quench the spirit Don't treat prophecies with contempt.
Test everything Hold on to that which is good.
So let's break this down. Don't put out the spirit's fire. Why does he need to say that? Because there's a tendency in our humanity to move away from the things of the Spirit. Or sometimes the things of the Spirit are scandalous to our human mind and thinking.
Just go through the scriptures and look at all the unusual things that God had his people do, or all the unusual things he called them to believe, or all the unusual ways that Jesus ministered, even some of the things that happened in the book of Acts, how unusual they are. But that's just the Spirit's way. And it's very easy for us to rely on the arm of the flesh. I can do this, I can figure it out, I can make it happen. It's very easy for us to rely on natural thinking, and often our natural thinking is opposed to God's way of thinking.
He says in Isaiah 55 that His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts, which is a call for us to repent of our ways and our thoughts and turn to His ways and His thoughts. It's not a matter of turning off the brain. It's a matter of renewing the mind. Let me say it again. It's not a matter of turning off the brain.
It's a matter of renewing the mind. It's not a matter of. Just get rid of the Word, 'cause it's the Holy Spirit. Nor is it a matter of getting rid of the spirit, because it's just the word. It's the word and spirit.
It's loving God with heart and mind.
So don't. Put out the Spirit's fire. Don't reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Both the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit and preaching and teaching, the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit and gifts and miracles, all the things the Spirit does. Don't put out the Spirit's fire.
Let the Holy Spirit move in your life, give place to the moving of the Holy Spirit in your life, your ministry, your meetings, your services. Don't put out the Spirit's fire. And don't Treat. prophecies with contempt. Why does Paul need to say that?
He needs to say it because sometimes prophecies can seem weird. And you despise them. Like, what is that? That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard. I remember a word that was spoken over me many years ago.
It was a three part word. The first part was exactly right. The second part was exactly right. And the third part was outlandish. No, it that has nothing to do with my life.
Are you kidding me? And and yet I couldn't get away from the fact that this brother who was not one to give out many words, had nailed it exactly point one was true, point two was true, these were things that were not known to others. I couldn't shake point three. It turned out some months later that point three became very, very relevant.
Sometimes a prophecy can be delivered in ways that seem strange to us. Just read the biblical prophecies, and these are direct, absolute, indisputable words from the Lord that are not to be tested. They are written in the Bible, and some of them were spoken to us today. We'd say that's weird.
So we might treat prophecies with contempt because prophecies can be unusual. Or sometimes the person through whom the prophetic ministry comes is a little different than we are. And we might despise it, treat it with contempt, or because of people that are wrong. Because of false prophecies, because of people speaking out of their own hearts and minds. because of people stealing words from one another.
The same things that happened in biblical days happen today. And because of that, or now the data mining of people going on Facebook or social media or looking to find information about you so that they can now deliver an alleged prophecy, we might want to throw the whole thing out. Paul was warning about it then. Don't put out the Spirit's fire. We need the ministry of the Holy Spirit in all of its dimensions.
Whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do, however he's working today, we want to say, Lord, we embrace the contemporary working of your Holy Spirit. Whatever that means, whatever it looks like. We don't want to manufacture anything. Being weird does not equal being spiritual. Jumping all around the building and shaking may have absolutely nothing to do with God.
On the other hand, just because I may think, well, the Holy Spirit's going to do this and not this, I can't limit that. The Word of God is our guideline.
So, Lord, we embrace your Holy Spirit and everything your Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives, conforming us above all to the character of Jesus, convicting us of sin, leading us, guiding us, revealing the Father's heart to us, working supernaturally through us. Whatever your Spirit is doing today, Lord, we embrace it. And we don't treat prophecies with contempt. When we hear a prophetic word, we weigh it, we evaluate it, we test it by the word of God and by other truth factors and by the witness of the Spirit in our own lives if we're walking with God ourselves. Don't treat prophecies with contempt.
Well, then what do you do? Test everything. Test everything. If you are not willing to have your words test it, As others have pointed out over the years, then there's something wrong with you. We don't need to test the word because there's something wrong with you.
If you say this word is not to be tested, this is straight from God. Even if you receive something from the Lord, it is now suspect because of the way you are delivering it. Test everything. There it is written, 1 Corinthians the 14th chapter, Paul gives the guidelines that two or three prophets should speak. and then others should weigh carefully what is being said.
They should test it, especially other prophetic people. They should test it. Colleagues of mine that believe they're receiving words from the Lord, they feel this is an important word, and before they post it, they will send it to other people more seasoned than themselves, and they will say, Give me your feedback. Do you believe this is from the Lord? Does it need to be fine-tuned?
Sometimes we have something from the Lord, but it needs to germinate. It may be a day, a week, a month before we're supposed to even deliver it, if we're supposed to deliver it at all. It may be something God's just saying to us that we're supposed to pray over.
So test Everything. Look, when someone gets up to teach the Bible, And says, let me explain what this verse means. And it sounds odd to us. What do we do?
Well, we look at scripture and we dig deeper. And we say, well, you said the Hebrew says this, the Greek says this, it's actually wrong. And actually, you were going, you didn't understand the words you were reading in English, and you interpreted this out of context. We test teaching by scripture, we test those things claiming to be prophecy by scripture.
Now, not everything can be tested by scripture meaning. There may be a word that the Lord gave me this word for you. I just see you in Hoboken, New Jersey. I don't know what that means, but I just see you in Hoboken, New Jersey. You begin weeping.
It's like the Lord's been speaking to me about going to Hoboken. I've never been there.
Okay, but you can't test that in the Bible. The Bible doesn't say anything about going or not going to Hoboken. But you can test it in other ways, and other people can pray with you about it. You never do something just because someone says the Lord showed me. Never, never, never, never.
it must bear witness with your own spirit. And again, if it's directive, you're going to change your life, you're going to move somewhere, you must know that you know that it is God's directive and God's leading. That prophecy may plant a seed in you. Maybe that's what that prophecy did. and it gets you thinking about something you weren't thinking about.
But then you have to know in your heart before the Lord. I remember a Korean brother with his wife came to see Nancy and me years ago. I was teaching him at a seminary, a branch of a seminary in New York City. And he said, I'm trying to be a pastor. I'm training to be a pastor, but I don't have any sense of calling to do it.
I don't have a burden to do it. I said, well, why are you doing it? He said, well, a sister I know had a dream and she saw me call to be a pastor. I said, Well, you have to know your own heart. You have to be called by God your own life.
There's no possible way you can do this because of what someone else says.
So I said to his wife, What would you say to your husband? And she said, I would tell him, do whatever Dr. Brown says. I said, no, no, that's not what. In fact, I wasn't Dr.
Brown here, it was Reverend Brown. Whatever Reverend Brown says. I said, no, you have to know yourself. You have to be called by God yourself.
So if your life is before the Lord, Lord, I want to please you, I want to serve you. If He's speaking to someone else, it will. Bear witness with your own spirit. or God will show you, or others may come with that same confirming word, and then you pray into it even more. All right, so test.
Everything. And then hold fast to that which is good. And and this is what I want to share with you that's so important.
So I started preaching in 1973. I got saved in the Italian Pentecostal Church in 1971. By the late 1970s, I'd become very skeptical. I become somewhat hostile towards my charismatic Pentecostal roots. I actually tried to become a cessationist.
I'm not speaking down to any cessationist. I'm not saying you don't love God, you don't love His Word. I'm just talking about my own experience. I tried to become a cessationist, but the word was too plain and I couldn't. I couldn't get away from it.
I couldn't get away from the fact that tongues and prophecy were still for today. But I discounted and questioned a lot of what I had seen. All right? And I became very skeptical. I mock certain things that I used to practice and believe, the televangelist preaching and different stuff.
Anyway. God convicted me in the early 80s, 1982, that I had left my first love, that I had become theologically proud. Again, I'm not judging another cessationist. I'm just talking about my own experience. I'd become theologically, intellectually proud.
God sent someone to minister to me. I didn't like him. I didn't like... His personality. I thought it was kind of beneath me.
They didn't seem to seem a little weird. God used him. to speak prophetically to Nancy and me God used him to plant a seed of conviction. in me. He was the real deal.
And God spoke through him. And then over the course of that year, God brought me to repentance for my pride. and then sent an outpouring of the Spirit through me that dramatically touched the church that I was part of and serving as a younger elder in the body there. sent a move of the Spirit that rocked my world. ignited a fresh fire.
And then over the years, God had to remind me, you're not the corrector-in-chief. You're not the corrector-in-chief. You're not the policeman of the body.
So, as much as I have embraced what the Holy Spirit is doing over the decades, I've also seen in me a tendency to be critical. in a way that can be unhealthy. a critical way that can actually quench the spirit. a critical way that can actually deny the things of the Spirit. And what's been important for me Because I've seen flaky things, obviously, and I've been preaching, as I said, since 1973, traveled the world.
All to say I've seen the good and the bad. I've seen the beautiful, I've seen the ugly. And and I I know how easy it is for us. When we see things that are wrong, and we hear about data mining, we hear about this false prophecy or this false prophet. to think, man, the whole thing's not real.
Okay, first, what does the word say? What does the word say? For those of you that are cessationists, you say, hey, this proves the whole thing's flaky. We've been saying it all along. I understand that's your conclusion.
I differ with your understanding of scripture. To me, the Bible is unmistakably, undeniably anti-cessationist. declaring clearly that the gifts and power of the Spirit continue today. Even if you think the charismatic movement is wacky, to me, the Word of God is very clear. The gifts and spirit of the Spirit, including tongues, prophecy, healing, continue today in the body around the world.
So First thing is, what does the word say? If you're discouraged, maybe there was a prophecy given in your life and it messed your life up because it wasn't really God. or there was no contextual teaching of how to process this and steward the word. Maybe you've been burned. Maybe you yourself felt the Lord was saying something, it turned out not to be God, brought tremendous discouragement.
Understand. I get it. I've been there, done that. The question is, what does Scripture say?
So test everything, hold fast to that which is good. And I believe the Lord has laid this on my heart. to share with many of you.
So you prayerfully process this. Many of you received something precious from the Lord over the years. Many of you have been used in prophecy, but you've drawn back. because of extremes and disappointments and abuses. Many of you have received genuine prophetic words from the Lord, from a stranger, from someone just praying for you in church.
from someone close to you. and they've been genuine, they've been beautiful, but now you question everything. Hold fast. Fast. to that which is Good.
Don't be rocked. what's happening. in in some prophetic circles. Don't be rocked. by when you hear that this one was gathering information and that's why the prophecy seems so accurate.
I've received accurate words spoken to me from people before there was such a thing as social media. from a stranger that I met at an airport, talking and praying together. I remember distinctly it happening with a brother I met in Finland. And American brother in Finland at the same time as me at the airport getting on a flight. I look back years later and thought, wow, those were remarkably accurate words that he spoke.
Wow. from a stranger. There have been times the Lord's spoken through me to people. Very specific things. I don't mean names, phone numbers, but I mean very specific things, supernatural, undeniable.
Maybe you've had that experience. Maybe the Lord's moved in you in certain ways in your own life, and you're like, I don't know about any of this. Don't throw out something precious. Don't throw out something where the Lord really met you personally. where there was that deep communion with him.
where there is that undeniable presence, sometimes the presence of God helps confirm a prophetic word. Again, everything still must be tested, but sometimes a word is spoken and you know it's true, it's accurate, and the Holy Spirit is all over that word as it's spoken, and you may find yourself weeping because the reality of it. Don't lose something precious. in your fellowship with God. and your intimacy with God.
Pastors and leaders watching this, don't draw back from the things of the spirit. because of abuses. Don't draw back from the things of the spirit because of human error. and human failing. God remains perfect.
The Spirit remains perfect. The word remains true. Jesus remains faithful. And we cannot effectively carry out the work of God without the The anointing and power of the Spirit. Without the gifts of the Spirit glorifying the risen Jesus, if we want to see God move in full, we have to embrace all word.
And spirit. together.
So let us not Be reactionary. In all my decades in the Lord, yeah, I've seen prophetic errors and abuses and mistakes, but I've seen. beautiful, wonderful, steady flow of the Lord's grace through prophecy over the decades. I've seen abuses of the Bible. People misusing the Bible every single day on the internet, misusing the Bible every single day and preaching, teaching around the world.
Someone's misusing the Bible. Cults can even misuse the Bible. But we don't throw out the Bible. We just bow down to the word, to God and to his word and say, Lord, I bow down to your word. Open my eyes to see the truth of your scripture, the truth of your word, the truth of your heart.
So do not throw out The precious with the profane. Do not be reactionary. There may be a storm, but God's ship is steady, sailing through it. And much of the prophetic world around the world. has no clue what is data mining.
Or, what do you mean, prophecies without accountability? What is that?
So God continues to move. often among people whose names we don't know, often among people who aren't on YouTube speaking to you like I am now. People just every day, and that's all there are. Nobody is anybody. There are no big shots.
There are no celebrities. We're all just servants. We're all nobodies. We're all worthless outside of God's grace making us worthy.
So Don't don't throw out the good with the bad. Remember the principles. Don't quench the spirit? Don't treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything.
Hold fast to that which is good. Mm-hmm.
