[0:00] Welcome to our service this evening. As we come together before God we pray his blessing on our time and at the word. We shall begin by singing to God's praise from Psalm 143.
[0:20] The first version of the psalm we can read from verse 5 and we'll sing from verse 6 to the end.
[0:35] Psalm 143 and the first version. I call to mind the days of old to meditate I use. On all thy works upon the deeds I off thy hands do muse.
[0:50] My hands to thee I stretch. My soul thirsts as dry land for thee. Haste, Lord, to hear my spirit fails. Hide not thy face from me.
[1:02] Lest like to them I do become that go down to the dust. At morn let me thy kindness hear for in thee do I trust.
[1:14] Teach me the way that I should walk. I lift my soul to thee. Lord, free me from my foes. I flee to thee to cover me.
[1:27] Because thou art my God, to do thy will do me instruct. Thy spirit is good. Me to the land of uprightness conduct.
[1:37] Revive and quicken me, O Lord, even for thine own namesake. And do thou for thy righteousness my soul from trouble take.
[1:49] And of thy mercy slay my foes. Let all destroyed be that do afflict my soul. For I, a servant, am to thee.
[2:00] We can sing from verse 6. My hands to thee I stretch. My soul thirsts as dry land for thee. My hands to thee I stretch.
[2:19] My soul thirsts as dry land for thee. His soul thirsts as dry land for thee.
[2:37] My soul thirsts as dry land for thee. My soul thirsts as dry land for thee. Thious type to life in freest.
[2:49] ksenこosance thee thousand cherry anne- impacts the air of the ABOUT-田 unto thee.
[3:01] proverb that none of thy sin is a tool. Like in my highest earning Hm năm to ye. as the hour of the day before I turn.
[3:18] Teach me the way that I should walk. I lift my soul to Thee.
[3:31] Lord, bring it all my goals. I need You today to trust me.
[3:48] Because the Lord I've got to do, I welcome You in His work.
[4:02] Thy spirit is good me too and Your love brightest O God.
[4:16] I am Revive and quicken me, O Lord, even for Thy Lord is sick.
[4:32] And good for Thy righteousness my soul from gravity.
[4:46] and good and and of Thy mercy save my force.
[4:58] Let God is to be. God, do I save my soul for I are said and young to me.
[5:19] let's join together in prayer. Ever blessed God as we come before You at this evening hour we give thanks that we can seek to recognize that we are in the presence of God and that we are in Your presence as a people desirous of seeking Your face and Your favor and as we may contemplate what that entails open the eyes of our understanding so that we would not be content with anything less than what we can expect to receive from You.
[6:18] Do not allow us to be contented with our presence here in this place although it is good for us to be here. Do not allow us to think that by so doing that we have achieved or accomplished something if our heart and mind are divorced from that which we ought to be engaged in.
[6:50] We can so easily pay lip service to our devotional exercises be they conducted in public or in private.
[7:04] we can have Your Word in our hands even upon our lips and yet in many instances we find ourselves to have given free reign to our mind to wander away from the truth that Your Word contains.
[7:32] We pray forgiveness for that and that You would allow us to be focused upon this activity that we engage in collectively so that we would be as one in Your hand and that the blessing that You mean to confer upon us would be bestowed upon us collectively.
[8:02] You are able to bless individuals you are able to bless ones and twos and overlook others and pass them by.
[8:13] We do not desire any such thing but that You would touch all our lives and touch our hearts and minds and reveal Yourself to us and that in and through the passion of Jesus Christ the Lord we give thanks that Your word speaks to us concerning him preeminently from the first promises that contain mention of what He is to accomplish to the promises that are yet to be realized we give thanks that there is a hungry anticipation on the part of Your people for they know that the day beckons when He will appear accompanied by the myriad hosts of the heavenly angels and all eyes will be upon
[9:15] Him when we think of what that truth says and when we think of what it is for this generation to think of that unlike previous generations who did not have the facilities that are at their disposal where we can see broadcasts through the medium of live satellite transmissions and while we do not anticipate that Christ will come in order to be viewed on television or through the screens that will allow people to do that there are ways in which the God of heaven spoke to this world so that every eye and every ear and every mouth will be stopped and every eye and every ear and every mouth will be opened according to your own disposition towards those who are unlookers but the day will come come when as we said every eye will see
[10:37] Christ and every every person will be in the position of knowing that it is he there will be no denial at that moment that this is God's son and that he has come to perform a duty that is his alone and that your word has disclosed disclosed it and even ignorance of the word of truth at that moment will be removed so that God's truth will be brought to bear upon the hearts and minds even of those who are ignorant of it they will know that this is God and that he is revealing himself to us in that way so we pray for your help even now to recognize the awesome glory that belongs to the divine trinity and as you have been pleased to reveal yourself to us through the gospel of your grace may we be made ever more aware of the need that we have of a saviour such a saviour as is portrayed in the scriptures of the
[11:50] Old and New Testament so bless us this evening unto your word bless us as we read it and as we sing these words of praise to your name bless us as we reflect upon what these words say to us and remind us of the need that we have to make full use of the opportunity that you have given to us we remember those who are unable to be present this evening we think of those who belong to a fellowship and to a regular attenders and whose presence here is never in question we give thanks for them and we pray for them that they will be restored to amidst once again where they have been denied access because of their indisposition we pray for those who are perhaps never again to be found numbered amongst the worshipping people of
[12:51] God in public because old age has overtaken them and the fairies of mind or body have made themselves known to the degree that they are no longer able to be with us and yet in spirit they are able to be here in this place their thoughts gravity towards here and that because they were so often part of this body and we give thanks for them and we remember them to you and pray that you would bless them abundantly far above our asking we remember those who are mourning amongst us and we pray for them as the sorrows of death overtake a group of people amongst us once again your voice is heard and it is seldom heard in the way that it should be heard but we pray that you would sanctify every voice that is to us reminding us of our own frailty and of our own physical weakness that will soon prove to us that we are but sojourners in this world as we spoke of this morning we pray for the grieving and the sorrowful thereby and we pray that your blessing would be upon them whatever their love is cast in the world we are mindful that we live in a sin sick world where there are many sorrowful people they are grieving in their hundreds of thousands perhaps the world over into the shadow of death we find ourselves and we acknowledge that the
[14:40] God of life is the God to whom we must turn the God of peace the God who is eternal unchangeable in your being in all the faculties that you have disclosed to us in your word wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth we give thanks for all these things that speak of your glory and that it would be universally known as of prayer we remember the nations of the earth that are at war we pray for those affected by it we think of those places that no want some who have countless infants who are at death's door because of lack of nourishment similarly the elderly because they are unable to fend for themselves and we think of these places where there are famines and where there are the effects of lack of water and drought and we pray that you would remember these places just as truly as we remember the places affected by war we pray for the grieving and the sorrowful in these places may peace reign and may your hand be stretched out mightily to bring that apart but you will be done that is what we believe and whatever it is that you intend by allowing these things to go on in our world it is your world it is your work of creation and it will bring glory to your name ultimately even though many do not believe that to be so direct us to
[16:28] Christ each one and they will still wait upon him to petition his name in the courts of heaven thankful that he is the great high priest of his people pray for our congregations we pray for our presbytery we pray for the churches that meets in general assembly we would ask that you would direct us to the scriptures of the Old and New Testament and may that be our touch to all always hear our prayers and petitions continue to direct us each one for giving sin in Jesus name Amen we're going to read from the scriptures of the New Testament from the Apostle Paul's first epistle to Thessalonians and we're reading from chapter 5 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 we'll read the whole chapter but of the times and the seasons brethren ye have no need that I write unto you for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the
[17:46] Lord so cometh as hath thee fill the night for when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travel upon a woman with child and they shall not escape but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief ye are all the children of light and the children of the day we are not of the night or of darkness therefore let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober for they that sleep sleep in the night and they that be drunken are drunken in the night but let us who are of the day be sober putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for unhelmet the hope of salvation for God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by your Lord Jesus Christ who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as also ye do and we beseech you brethren to know them which labor among you and are over you in the
[19:07] Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake and be at peace among yourselves now we exhort you brethren warn them that are unruly comfort the feeble minded support the weak be patient toward all men see that none render evil for evil unto any man but ever follow that which is good both among yourselves and to all men rejoice ever more pray without ceasing in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you quench not the spirit despise not prophesying prove all things hold fast that which is good abstain from all appearance of evil and the very God of peace sanctify you holy and
[20:09] I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it brethren pray for us greet all the brethren with unholy kiss I charge you by the Lord let this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you amen may the Lord at his blessing to a reading of his word and to his name be the praise we're going to sing now to God's praise from Psalm 51 Psalm 51 and we're singing from verse 8 down to verse 15 verses 8 to 15 of gladness and of joyfulness make me to hear the voice that saw these very bones which thou hast broken may rejoice all mine iniquities blot out thy face hide from my sin create a clean heart lord renew a right spirit me within cast me not from thy sight nor take thy holy spirit away restore me thy salvation's joy with thy free spirit me stay then will
[21:47] I teach thy ways unto those that transgressors be and those that sinners are shall then be turned unto thee O God of my salvation God me from blood guiltiness set free then shall my tongue aloud sing of thy righteousness my closed lips O Lord by thee let them be opened then shall thy praises by my mouth abroad be published and so on these verses 8 to 15 Psalm 51 of gladness and of joy fullness make me to hear the voice O gladness and all joy fullness make me to hear the voice that soul is hear them taking part of books
[23:00] So on , and what heap-と When it's all time Thy face I've grown Thy sin May it not be Our Lord free you And might slip me within Cast me not from Thy sight nor take Thy holy slid away
[24:03] Raise your name I shall rejoice When I please let me stay Then will I teach Thy wish unto Those that trust The strength of me And those that Thou shaltISH Thou shalt I
[25:08] God, me from blood guiltiness, set free then, child, my child, God, sing of thy righteous goodness. My closet, O Lord, by thee, let them be open, then shall thy places by my mind, and draw in the blessing.
[26:18] Can we turn to Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 5, and we can read again verse 19. Quench not the spirit. Quench not the spirit. We can safely say, I think, that when the apostle or the apostles write their letters to the various churches, that they are written for the benefit of the recipients, whoever these recipients are. And sometimes the letters are addressed to churches that may have specific areas of need. They may have problems that are associated with these congregations or churches. For example, the epistle to the
[27:33] Corinthians or to the Galatians may have a special emphasis within these epistles to problems that have arisen within these congregations. And teachings that are introduced to them or brought to their attention that they should have been aware of or that they should have more strenuously applied to their situations. But in a lot of the epistles there are teachings and lessons that are common to all. All of them will need to hear words such as the words that we have in this chapter here. Sometimes they are words of encouragement. Sometimes they are words of comfort. Sometimes they are words of correction and rebuke. And they are words that any congregation need to hear. Any denomination, any body of God's people. And words of the word that they are words of comfort. And here I suppose some of the things that Paul is addressing, these words are very specific perhaps to the Thessalonians, a problem that has arisen concerning their understanding of the latter days, the coming of Christ, what will happen before he comes, what will happen when he comes, and so on. But mainly as we come to the end of the epistle, what we find, if we put it simply, are a series of do's and don'ts. What they are to be engaged in as Christians and what they should not be involved in as Christians. Some of these things are obvious, some of the things are less so. But every Christian should understand what he has to say.
[30:03] Now, this verse here is a short verse. There are some verses that are more detailed.
[30:14] They are short, they are pithy, they are words that they can understand, I suppose, relatively easily.
[30:33] But at the same time, they merit more careful attention. And when we look at anything to do with the spirit, we may be inclined to avoid it because we think, well, this is merely the province of a fellowship that has more inclination towards the charisma or a charismatic emphasis in teaching.
[31:03] But nobody should discount what Paul has to say with regard to the relationship the church of Christ has with the spirit of Christ. Because Christ has given the spirit to the church. And here the suggestion is that the spirit that he is speaking about is in some way thwarted or prevented from doing what the spirit is meant to be doing.
[31:35] So I want us just to look at it very simply, hopefully, and consider, first of all, the the what is meant precisely by what he is in quenching of the spirit. If we can be precise, with a bit of precision in a way. What does Paul, what image does he create in our mind when he says quench not the spirit.
[32:09] Secondly, what what should we not do so that that will not happen? Clearly he is speaking to our people people and there is this potential, there is this possibility that in some way that they will be guilty of this quenching the spirit. And if that happens, what will result if the spirit is quenched?
[32:45] So these are just three thoughts that we can fix our attention on and try to understand what what we are to learn from it. Because this letter written to the Thessalonians is also a letter that is something that we ourselves have an interest in as Christian believers.
[33:08] quenching of the spirit. If we look at the original Greek text, the order of the words helps us understand where the emphasis of what the apostle is saying lies. And the word quench is a word which we would usually associate with thirst. If we quench our thirst, we have a thirst that only taking a drink will deal with.
[33:53] But the word quench here, as is used in the original Greek, has to do with fire. And it is to put out a fire. Whether that fire is used for light or for heat. If you quench it, you are suppressing it so that it doesn't function in the way that it does. That's the original use of the word quench.
[34:24] Normally we would think of it as thirsty, somebody thirsting, slaking their thirst, by quenching their thirst, by taking a drink. But here, the word that is used in translated quench is usually applied to fire.
[34:42] Now, if you take that image with you and think of fire. Fire being suppressed or put out. And you remind yourself that he is speaking of the spirit.
[34:58] You'll find that when the spirit is spoken about, that very often he is spoken about as fire or the imagery of fire is closely associated with it.
[35:19] We have two examples that we can direct you to. First of all, in Matthew's Gospel, when John the Baptist was speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ and the coming of the Lord Jesus, he says in Matthew chapter 3, I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance. But he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
[35:57] So, the Holy Ghost in the mind of John the Baptist, who is associated with fire. Again, when we go to the book of Acts and the day of Pentecost, there are very powerful images presented to us there of the outpouring of the Spirit of God.
[36:21] In Acts chapter 2, there appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
[36:43] Now, again, the association is with fire. So, in our mind, we have this connection made between the passion of the Spirit and fire.
[36:59] And the passion of the Spirit is being quenched. The fire is being suppressed. The fire is being put out.
[37:11] Now, that's very difficult for us to imagine. How the Lord, through the Apostle, is warning the Church and warning others of this nature that exists of the Spirit being quenched.
[37:33] Because, as I said, the passion of which he is speaking is the Spirit. He is not talking about an influence.
[37:45] He is not talking about something that is moving about as if it was some kind of experience that some people will have and others don't.
[37:59] What he is talking about is a passion. He is talking about the divine being that is the Holy Ghost.
[38:11] The one of which Jesus spoke when he spoke to the disciples. And he taught the disciples that he was going to send the Holy Spirit to be at work amongst them, if you remember.
[38:29] You know, in John chapter 15 and John chapter 14. Various occasions the Lord gave a promise, an undertaking to the Church that he was going to send the Spirit of Truth to work amongst them.
[38:50] Remember, there are many passages, I suppose. But it's important for us to have a grasp of this truth.
[39:01] When Jesus was preparing his disciples for his departure.
[39:14] He was not going to go away and leave them without his own presence. But his own presence was going to be reinforced to them through the presence of another.
[39:31] And that other was no lesser individual than the person of the Holy Spirit. In chapter 14 of John we read, I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.
[39:50] Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
[40:03] I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. And, well, you can find, I'm sure, many examples from the words of the Lord Jesus.
[40:19] That when he is taking his leave, when he is leaving the world, he is going to leave. Not just an influence, not just an expression of his presence through his word.
[40:32] But the person of the Holy Spirit. The one who is equal with himself, the Son of God.
[40:44] And with his Father, who is in heaven. The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And he is the Holy One that Christ promises.
[40:59] And he is to bear witness to Christ the Messiah. And Paul insists that any person who has not received the Spirit, has, he is not Christ.
[41:15] He is none of his, Paul says. It's that serious, it's that important. The passion of which this verse speaks. It is not just a holy passion.
[41:27] He is a passion who is God. A passion who is necessary for spiritual life to exist in the life of any believer.
[41:39] Without it, there is no spiritual life. So it's all important. When he says to the church, do not quench the Spirit.
[41:54] Do not suppress this fire. Do not put this fire out. And it's almost, when you try and imagine that that is the truth that he is saying.
[42:10] That you are thinking, well how can this possibly happen? How can it possibly be that the person who is the triune God, in the passion of the Holy Spirit, that he is in some way being suppressed?
[42:30] Is God not all powerful? Is God not capable of resisting any passion that rises up against him in any form of opposition?
[42:46] And yet, the teaching that God gives to us in his word is, that it is possible for a person to be guilty of this very thing, of frustrating the purposes of God in the hand of the Holy Spirit.
[43:07] That same Spirit that Christ has given to us to be our comfort, to be our help, to be our informant, to be our life, that we have in some way the ability to resist him and to quench him.
[43:28] Now, if that is the case, and clearly it must be, because Paul never uses language redundantly.
[43:39] He never tells us to do something for no good reason. He doesn't tell us not to do something if there is a good reason for us not to do it.
[43:49] He doesn't tell us to do something if there is no good reason for us to do it. And if he is telling us here, and he is, amongst all the other bits of advice that he has given to the church, he is giving this, which is almost as stark warning as you can get, do not quench the Spirit.
[44:15] Now, I think we can safely say that it is quite possible that an unbeliever can be accused of doing this.
[44:34] And how it is managed may be a question for which I don't have an answer.
[44:47] But if God is present as he is when his word is preached, and if there are those present when the word is preached who are unbelievers, it must follow that those who remain unbelief, that they are resisting what the Spirit of God is there to do.
[45:13] And the Spirit of God is in the world to do one thing. It is to draw our attention to the passion of Jesus Christ, to remind us of who he is, what he has done, what he is yet to do.
[45:29] It is explained in different ways within the Scripture, but that is the preeminent role of the Spirit. And wherever God's word is read, wherever God's people are gathered, that is the purpose for that gathering.
[45:47] And we are reminded of that in different ways. When Paul was speaking to the Ephesian church, and a lot of the divines, the writers, they draw attention to the similarity between what Paul was speaking of to the Ephesian church and what he is speaking of here to the Thessalonians.
[46:14] He is speaking here of quenching the Spirit, but writing to the Ephesians, he is saying, grieve not the Holy Spirit.
[46:28] Now, you'd think that these two things are quite different, different. But, because of the similarity, theologians say, well, it's the same thing that he is alluding to.
[46:44] You grieve the Spirit, and you quench the Spirit, when you do the same thing, or when you refuse to do the same thing. You know, in the morning we mentioned how the Apostle Paul, as a preacher of the Gospel, endured much suffering.
[47:06] And not only did he experience resistance to the preaching of the Gospel, but that resistance took various forums.
[47:16] not only was he challenged because of the word that he preached, but people took a very firm line with Paul.
[47:32] They beat him. They attacked him physically, not just verbally, but physically. And he was exposed to the enmity of Satan directly.
[47:46] All of these things were in his experience, and we understand that Paul would experience grief because of that. And we can understand and appreciate how an individual can experience that.
[48:02] But it's harder for us to understand how the Holy Spirit can experience that grief. But that is exactly what the Apostle Paul is saying.
[48:12] that when a person resists the message of the Gospel given through the Holy Spirit, it creates grief in the heart of the Holy Spirit.
[48:29] You can't imagine that the Holy Spirit is without feeling. You can't imagine that the passion of the Holy Spirit is one that is untouched or unmoved by unbelief.
[48:42] It would be wrong for you to think like that. And what we have to remember and what we are reminded of in this passage is that very thing.
[48:54] Thomas Boston, a preacher of a past generation, tries to explain, and he does so very well, in my own opinion, what it is that quenching the Spirit involves a sin.
[49:13] Willful quenching occurs when men or women set themselves to put out the Holy Spirit to put out the Holy Spirit being resolved not to part with their lusts.
[49:29] They go on in opposition to their light and strangle their convictions and murder their uneasy conscience that they may sin without control.
[49:45] Maybe I've got that back to front. They strangle their uneasy conscience and murder their convictions either way that man of God was saying.
[49:58] This is what a person does. The Holy Spirit is the one that God in his mercy has given to us to enlighten our minds in the knowledge of Christ to bring home to us the beauty of the gospel to bring home to us the awful reality of sin and when he comes to bring such life to bear upon our hearts what do we do?
[50:26] We suppress it. We put it out. you know if you can imagine it's not difficult to imagine if somebody puts a fire on in the middle of our room and that fire is burning brightly and you decide it's not really it's a danger I don't want it what do you do?
[50:53] You go and kick it and spread the fuel this way and that so it won't continue to burn so the light that it sheds will be suppressed and the fire and the heat of it will be dampened and put out that's the image that Paul wishes to convey that this is something that we should not allow to happen not the unbeliever and certainly not the believer that if we are engaged in any activity that could be construed as quenching the spirit this is what the outcome of it is I think it's Boston who says that we may not be able to kindle the fire but we can certainly put the fire out we may not be able to open the door but we can certainly shut it and that is the way it is
[52:07] God has given to us in the person of the Holy Spirit the means by which our knowledge of Christ can be increased that our relationship with him just read through this passage again the things that are encouraged by the apostle to enhance the spiritual life of the believer and all of these things you could you could if you imagine we often were very good at looking at diagrams generated in order to enable us to see how things work at the heart of the activity of the church is the Holy Spirit there is no church without the Spirit you can't remember who it is that says that when Christ began his work in the world with regard to the
[53:10] New Testament era the first thing he did was not send out the disciples but send out the Spirit and then the disciples the Spirit had to be at the heart of what he was doing and he was the one who equipped the church to go out with the gospel he was the one who witnessed to your soul before you could respond to the gospel and before you could do anything that was beneficial to your never dying soul and whoever we are we cannot presume that the testimony of the Spirit or the light of the Spirit or the work of the Spirit will continue apace if we frustrate it if we resist it if we quench it as this word tells us as congregations as individuals within congregations as unbelieving members of the congregation and I was preparing this I was reminded just came before me the way
[54:27] I was myself before I was converted I remember I probably the Lord was working in my life at the time I'm sure he was I was certainly giving more thought to the word of God but I remember a minister speaking to a particular body of people in the congregation speaking very pointedly to the grey hairs of the congregation that's how he spoke to them the grey hairs of the congregation and he said your hair is getting greyer by the minute and you're sitting under the gospel and you have still not embraced the salvation that is in Christ and I was just in my early twenties I've got very little hair left and most of it is grey but in those days that wasn't the way it was and yet
[55:34] I applied that to myself because one thing that filled me with dread was the hard heart that I possessed that made me resistant to the gospel and I feared it I was afraid of it even then and it made me think long and hard about what would happen if this went on if it became worse still and the apostle is here warning the church warning the people of God warning those who are not the people of God the Holy Spirit must be allowed to do his own work and if you are responsible for doing anything that prevents him from doing his work then you will answer to him for that if we go on in any sin whatever the sin is that is what we're doing even if the sin is going on as believers and not living a life as consistently as we could under the tutelage of
[56:56] God's word the divine Octavius Winslow has written a book on the work of the Holy Spirit and this is what he says and I suppose it's quite a thought for every believer can any believer expect a growth of spirituality an increase of vital godliness in his soul while he secretly and it may be unsuspectingly cherishes opinions derogatory to the personal glory of the Holy Spirit he says never his gracious and all important work is inseparably connected with the glory of his person and how important is the witness of the
[57:59] Spirit to each one of us so that when these words come before us amongst so many other words we should not think of them as being just a couple of words that we can gloss over because what they are saying to us is a challenge asking me asking you the question can I be responsible for this am I in some way dulling the light of the Spirit in my life am I in some way suppressing the influence that the Spirit can bring so powerfully to bear upon the way I live my life as a Christian in the world are there any areas of my life where this might be true of me where this is very much the case will be called to engage in this do everything here that
[59:07] Paul says that's a challenge to the believer rejoice he says pray quench not we might put them in order we might say this is more important this is what we must you know prayer is important the joy of the believer is important some people have linked the word that comes after this despising of prophesying and you know they take you back to the New Testament era where the work of the Spirit in an infant church was so much more important but no this is a stand alone verse that can speak to each of us with regard to what God's word is saying to us and it is God's word in the hand of the Spirit that we depend on to open the eyes of our understanding to enhance the relationship with God's people and with the God of that people and every one of us can be engaged in this questioning and in this resolution to ensure that this is not true of us but may
[60:21] God encourage us to think of his word in that way let us pray oh Lord oh God how often we come to your house and we say to ourselves if only the Spirit would work and we need you to work we need you to apply your word to our hearts and to our minds and to bring it to bear upon how we live our life here in this world so that in the light of that world we would go on help us oh Lord to recognize the privilege that we have of being a Spirit filled people if that is what is true of us and to have the potential of that being fulfilled your word tells us that we can be filled with the Spirit the word tells us even in that word that that filling is a filling that goes on and continues to go on and may that be true of each one of us so hear our prayers and bless your word to us and pardon our sins in Jesus name
[61:29] Amen concluding with the words of Psalm 145 Psalm 145 the second version of the Psalm and we're going to sing verses 9 to 15 Psalm 145 the second version verse 9 good unto all men is the Lord for all his works his mercy is thy works all praise to thee afford thy saints O Lord thy name shall bless the glory of thy kingdom show shall they and of thy power tell that so men's sons his deeds may know his kingdom's grace that doth excel thy kingdom hath none end at all it doth through ages all remain the Lord upholdeth all that fall the cast down raises up again the eyes of all things
[62:34] Lord attend and on thee wait that here do live and thou in season due dost send sufficient food them to relieve these verses good unto all men is the Lord good unto all men is the Lord Jesus, reminds four of his Holy Spirit, they and all they covetized their grain, their soy hentam,maanoror,oror!
[63:49] Muzica Thy kingdom hath now ended all, in just through ages all remain.
[64:23] The Lord upholdeth all that call, that hast to rest the love again.
[64:43] The eyes of all things, Lord God, end, and join thee with the Spirit.
[64:59] The Lord upholdeth all that call, and thou inciest unkindless end, the flesh shall burn and do we live.
[65:21] Amen. May we grace, mercy, and peace be God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit rest and abide with you all now and always.
[65:32] Amen.