Forgetting The Holy Spirit Series

Please open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5….

The letter is to be read by all Christians till Jesus returns to earth; for it is a letter from God for encouragement and instructions. The main encouragement of course is that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to earth soon to perfect all His Believers and take them home to heaven forever and ever! Close your eyes for a moment and picture what can happen at anytime….

The Lord Jesus himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Amen?? With this in mind, let us now not only open our eyes, but our minds, our hearts, and our souls to the Lord as we listen with joy His instructions for us. Read along with me 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28….

We have learned so much so far from this passage; today we will focus on v19-22….

The key verse of course is v19….

This is a critical instruction for every Christian. But let’s be honest, do we really think about this on a daily basis? I know I have to work on this!

v19 is a crucial “to do” for every Christian; we are to know what it means, remember it daily, and do it!

And so, What does it mean? Other English translations (ESV, NASB, NKJV) states it this way “Do not quench the Spirit.” Or again in the old NIV, do not put out the Spirit’s fire. What does it mean?

First of all, what is the spirit? I’m going to leave to you as homework to check the original Greek word for Spirit here and to check it in context. What makes sense here is, The Spirit in v19 is the Holy Spirit!

The next question then is what is the Holy Spirit? Again, I will leave it up to you as homework to look up the Scripture verses associated with the following truths about the Holy Spirit: (of course I am always available to you by phone or email if you need assistance in looking up Scriptures); the Holy Spirit:

- is fully God, eternally existing with God the Father and God the Son; we easily place the Holy Spirit in the background; let us never forget that the Holy Spirit is Holy and God eternally existent!

- completes and sustains what God the Father planned and what God the Son accomplished

- is inside a Believer

(Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit when they believed in Jesus Christ)

- brings God’s blessings on Believers:

• empowers

• purifies

• reveals God’s truths and presence

• guides and directs God’s people

• brings “revival”

• assurance

• unifies

We place the Holy Spirit in the background because He doesn’t do much for us?? On the contrary, the Holy Spirit does so much!!! If we are in a sea of sin, Jesus Christ is our lifeboat but the Holy Spirit is our POWER MOTOR!

All these truths explains to us why the Spirit is full of fire! And again this Spirit, who is God and full of fire, lives within every Christian! Let us all pause for a moment to quietly pray; ponder about this truth of God the Holy Spirit living in you and give thanks…..

Amen to our God and Praise the Lord! God the Holy Spirit is alive and well here with us on earth while we wait for Jesus Christ to return from heaven. Every good and powerful thing is provided by God for all people; but, there is a problem; is the problem with God?? – never in eternal time!!

The problem is with people, why??

People who do not believe in God through salvation and lordship of Jesus Christ will be eternally judged! People who do not believe in Jesus Christ are drowning in a sea of sin because they refuse to accept the lifeboat freely given by God! If you have never believed and accepted Jesus Christ as your only Savior and Lord, now is the time to do it!

God has provided everything for people but there is a problem of people rejecting God’s gift through Jesus Christ! But, there is also a problem with us who call ourselves Believers of Christ: For most of us who already believed and accepted Jesus Christ, even though we will not be eternally judged, we can quench the power of God through the Holy Spirit! Christians are in a boat saved in the sea of sin BUT many do not utilize the power motor available who is the Holy Spirit within them!