Do you remember playing the board game Monopoly?  There is a “Get Out of Jail Free” card that can be drawn from the Chance or Community Chest cards.  This card can be saved and played when needed.

This is how some religious groups and religious teachers use the appeal to the Holy Spirit.  If an action or teaching cannot be supported from the Scriptures, then they appeal to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

A case in point: The Presbyterian Church (USA) and same-sex marriage.  Michael L. Brown wrote an article entitled, “It’s Time to Leave the Presbyterian Church (USA).”  This article appeared in an online magazine called OneNewsNow.com and also in gopusa.com on June 23, 2014.  He wrote, “The PCUSA had made its rejection of the Word of God official. According to the denomination’s statement, on Thursday, June 19, ‘the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) approved the recommendation from its Civil Union and Marriage Issues Committee allowing for pastoral discretion to perform ‘any such marriage they believe the Holy Spirit calls them to perform,’ where legal by state law.’  In other words, regardless of what scriptures plainly say, as a PCUSA minister, if you feel called to violate God’s word and perform a same-sex ‘marriage,’ follow your conscience, not the Bible.  This is… nothing less than rebellion against the authority of the Word.  The statement continues: ‘They also approved a recommendation to change language in the Book of Order to indicate that marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman.’  Not only is this completely unbiblical, since marriage in the Bible and throughout history requires a man and woman rather than ‘two people,’ it is also completely illogical, opening a Pandora’s Box of new possibilities.  After all, if marriage is not the union of a man and a woman, why does it require two people?  Why not one or three or five?  What is so special about ‘two’?” (gopusa.com).

Brethren, it is essential that we not only teach others what the Bible teaches, but that we demonstrate the completeness of revelation.  The system of faith was delivered in the first century (Jude 3).  The apostles were guided into all truth (John 14:26; 16:12-13).  The Scriptures are not only inspired of God, they also make us “complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:6-17). If we win the battle with others on what the Bible teaches on this subject or that subject, but do not help people grasp the completeness of the revelation of Scripture we will lose the war in convincing them.