Three Warning Signs We’re Untethering the Spirit from the Truth

Spirit and Truth

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Oct. 15, 2023

Three Warning Signs We’re Untethering the Spirit from the Truth

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. John 14:16-17

You may have heard of Lawn chair Larry. Lawn chair Larry got his name by deciding to tie some helium balloons to his lawn chair so he could float over his neighbor’s yards. After tying 46 weather balloons to his lawn chair he had his friends cut the tethers holding down the lawn chair. But instead of floating gently above his neighborhood, Larry and his lawn chair shot up 16,000 feet! Just to give an idea of how high that is, that is more than 10x higher than the Empire State Building.

Larry made it down ok, but the funniest part of the story to me is that a commercial airline pilot reported seeing a guy on a lawn chair flying at the same altitude. I think it’s safe to say commercial jets don’t expect to have to avoid lawn chairs on their flight path. Things got dangerous when Larry drifted into Federal Airspace. Lawn chair Larry ended up in places he wasn’t meant to be.

When a believer untethers the Holy Spirit from the truth of God’s word, that believer will end up in places he or she shouldn’t be. The title of this message is Four Warning Signs We’re Untethering the Spirit from the Truth. Just to clarify, we can’t untether the Holy Spirit from the Truth of God’s word. Jesus calls Him the Spirit of Truth. Just as Jesus is the Truth, the Spirit is the Truth. What I’m talking about is when we untether our expectations and experiences of the Holy Spirit from the truth the skies the limit as to where we can end up…and not in a good way.

This is not a message meant to slam my Charismatic brothers and sisters. I love and appreciate them and as a continationist who believes the gifts of the Spirit are still working in the church today I believe many of the same things. The reason I don’t embrace the label Charismatic is because I don’t want to be associated with some of the images that come to mind when people say Charismatic. Some Charismatic churches have done things that to the outside observer look as out of place and silly as a man sitting on a lawn chair at 16000 feet.

The truth is there are a lot of healthy Charismatic churches that are doing a great work for God and have good biblical teaching, wisdom and big faith. The Charismatic church is one of the two fastest growing segments in Christianity – the other being evangelical churches. People are longing for more of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in the church and in their lives. Many young people especially are hungering to see God do great things again. They want to believe in the supernatural. They want to see the Spirit of God transform lives.

Today especially with the growing darkness, confusion, and polarization in the world today, and now the threat of war looming in two if not three arenas, many of us are feeling our need for God’s Spirit like never before!

The Spirit is the pneuma or wind of God and we need that rushing wind to blow in the church and in the world in a fresh way now! The 19^th century preacher Charles Spurgeon said “Without the Spirit of

God we can do nothing.We are as ships without a wind. We are useless.”

The last thing I want to do is discourage our desire to see the Spirit move in a fresh way. But a warning message is appropriate to prevent us from looking silly or drifting into danger zones in the name of the Holy Spirit’s leading.

Warning Sign #1 – Focusing more on the Spirit than Jesus

If a church or a movement is talking about the Spirit more than Jesus, that’s a warning sign. Why? Because Jesus taught us that the primary work of the Spirit is to speak of him.

²⁵ “All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. John 14:25-26

He (speaking of the Spirit) will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. John 16:14

Back in the 90’s a movement began in a Vineyard church called the Toronto Blessing. Services went on for hours as people experienced strange physical responses purportedly by a powerful move of the Holy Spirit. As that was going on we had good friends living in Georgia and their pastor had just decided to embrace this purported move of the Spirit in his church. Soon people were shaking and barking and falling down and whatever. Our friends were confused and said the church had more than doubled in a couple weeks. People were coming out to see and experience it for themselves. I remember warning our friends that if the pastor built the church on unusual experiences rather than the word of God and the gospel, it’s growth wouldn’t be healthy growth. Sadly, that church closed its doors and ceased to exist less than a year later.

What you win people with is what you win them to. If crowds are won by weird experiences rather than the beauty of Jesus Christ and the eternal life he died to give us, the foundation of their faith isn’t Christ, they’re building on anticipation of an experience. When they stop having those experiences, they move on to something else.

Some churches answer this by promoting weirder and weirder experiences. Skies the limit to what the Spirit will do! I was at a service that went on for hours as people staggered around like drunk men while the leader sang a Holy Ghost drinking song. They took Eph 5 that says don’t be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit and untethered it from good exegesis and the Spirit of truth and they ended up in places they shouldn’t have been and to those who weren’t buying it, they looked silly.

But aren’t I risking calling something silly that was a genuine move of God? One of the phrases used a lot in those days was Sometimes God offends the mind to reveal the heart. You won’t find that principle in the Bible. Instead we are told to test the spirits to discern which are from God.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false

prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1

We test by the truth of God’s word. The Spirit’s heart is to glorify Jesus, not weird. The Spirit always builds our faith on what Jesus did, not on supernatural things He does. We see this clearly in the book of Acts where the Spirit was poured out on the church and worked so powerfully in the church, and His powerful working always led to the gospel being preached boldly and people coming to faith in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ in Romans 8:9 because the Spirit continues the ministry of Jesus in the same way as Jesus. That’s what Jesus implies when he says he will send “another” helper – another in Greek meaning “one the same as”. If we can’t envision Jesus doing it, we shouldn’t think the Spirit would do it. Would Jesus heal the sick? Yes! Would Jesus reach out to the lost? Yes! Would Jesus forgive and accept a penitent sinner – definitely. Would Jesus weep or laugh or show deep emotion? He does it all the time in the gospels. Would Jesus bow down or command demons to flee? Yes and yes. Would Jesus groan in deep prayer? He did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Would Jesus bark like a dog or stagger around like a drunk person? Nope, can’t really see that.

The Holy Spirit will always glorify Jesus and reflect Jesus to us and through us.

Warning sign #2 – making the Spirit’s work more about emotion than about mission

This is not to remove emotions from our experience of the Spirit. There are precious times when the Spirit deeply touches our hearts and emotions deeply. The Spirit moved Jesus emotionally:

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Luke 10:21 

By the way, that was a Trinitarian moment! But the Holy Spirit filled Jesus’ heart with joy! Jesus loved God and people with emotion! He laughed and wept, was moved with compassion, and even got angry. If we are to love the Lord with all our hearts we will love Him emotionally. Emotions are good!

But we need to be careful that we don’t measure the power of a move of the Spirit simply by the amount of tears or tingles we feel. Emotional doesn’t mean transformational. I’ve seen people cry but not change.

Emotion isn’t the Spirit’s purpose, mission is. Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit empowered them to be his witnesses. When the Spirit was poured out on them in the upper room, they didn’t stay up there crying and laughing and hugging. This fearful band of disciples went from hiding to preaching publicly to large crowds and thousands got saved. The mission of the Spirit was to save souls and His mission through us hasn’t changed.

Captain John Walker and his wife Kate were transferred to the Robbins Reef Lighthouse in 1885, where

John Walker lit the lighthouse up every night in order to guide sailors safely to port. A year later John Walker died from pneumonia and his last words to his wife were: “Mind the light Kate.” And she did just that for another 33 years, making sure that lighthouse beamed its guiding light to lead lost sailors to safe harbor. It became known as “Kate’s light”. She was dedicated to minding the light because she knew that lives depended on it.

Jesus said there’d be two explosions in the last days: wickedness will increase and the gospel will be preached in the whole world. An explosion of garbage and an explosion of grace. We are living in that time. I heard someone say recently that evil used to just be out there and people could engage it if they wanted to. Now evil is evangelistic. It’s aggressively recruiting souls to join in the evil.

All the confusion and despair we see around us is the symptom of being spiritually lost. Suicide is the 2^nd leading cause of death for people between 10-24 years old. Ten year olds committing suicide. People are lost. The tinderbox going on in the Middle East and the blatant anti-semitism going on around the world and here in America and especially at elite college campuses is also a symptom of spiritual lostness. The same demonic spirit that drove Hitler and the Nazi’s is driving these people to hate the people from whom the Savior of the world came. That hatred isn’t from them – it’s the same hatred Haman felt when he attempted genocide against the Jews and Herod felt when he tried to kill the Christ child. It’s a spiritual hatred from the pit of hell.

And it will increase. As Christians we know that, while things might settle down temporarily it won’t stay settled for long. The Bible says about the last days when people say “peace, peace” – sudden destruction will come. The gathering clouds of Armeggedon is when the nations turn against Israel in one final battle – and that’s when Jesus returns. That may not be what’s unfolding today…and it might be…but it’s definitely a birth pang of that day if nothing else. We don’t need to be fearful, we don’t need to worry – because we know who is Sovereign over the affairs of men. We know who wins in the end and He is our Lord and our Savior!

But we should feel a renewed sense of urgency to shine the light as if lives depended on it. Because they do! Ron Hutchcraft shares a simple prayer from Col. 4:3: Lord, open a door. Lord, open their heart. Lord, open my mouth. That’s a good prayer to pray because God wants you and me to be His light in our situation.

Hutchcraft also shared a practical help to being a light. He said share your story. Share how God has changed you, how He met you, how He saved you. People can’t argue with your story and they don’t feel threatened by your story. Be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you – share your story of hope with others. And ask God to use it to draw their hearts to Jesus.

I did that the other day as I was talking to an unsaved friend and an opportunity came for me to share a specific way God had answered prayer in my life. Share your hope story. The Holy Spirit wants to do far more than touch our emotions – He wants to use us in Jesus’ mission of rescuing lost souls. Shine the light as if lives depend on it – because they do.

Warning sign #3 – preoccupation with the “new” thing the Spirit is doing

I’ve noticed in some segments of the church they are always looking and expecting the new thing God is doing. There’s always a new revelation, new kingdom movement, new apostolic authority, new prophetic word, or new wave just around the corner. We can get addicted to “new”. More dangerously, looking for the new can cause us to drift away from the gospel of Jesus.

Anything new thing the Spirit does is going to renew and refresh in our hearts the old thing God did through His Son Jesus. In the Old Testament God says, “see I am doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?” That new thing was the new covenant that God was going to make through His Son.

The methods can change but the message never does. The methods might be new but the message is the old, old story of Jesus’ saving grace. No new revelation, but our hearts might be made new to receive that revelation in a fresh way. Yes, we need fresh. We need renewed. We don’t need “new”.

To close, let’s be praying for a greater move of the Spirit – evidenced by people coming to faith in Christ and getting saved. Evidenced by a great sense of holiness and love in the church. Evidenced by the gifts and the fruit growing in our lives. Evidenced by us maturing in our faith and glorying Jesus. Evidenced by our loving truth and studying our Bibles more.

We desperately need the Holy Spirit. There is great danger if we think we don’t. But our understanding of the Spirit of Truth must be firmly tethered to the Truth.