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Welcome to day 5 of our look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 in Daily Drive Time
Devotions. We're looking at verses 19 to 28 today. Let me begin by reading those
verses to you.

Do not put out the Spirit's fire. Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test
everything.

Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of
peace, sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. Brothers
pray for us.

Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have
this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you.

As you read these last verses of 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, it feels almost like
Paul had talked to them and he didn't have much time to finish writing, so he
tried to fit everything he wanted to say to them that he didn't get to say in
the previous chapters in just these few verses. But obviously the Holy Spirit is
the one who inspired Paul's writing. So even if that was his thought motivation,
the Holy Spirit was inspiring this moment and he just wanted to give us at the
end of this book these strong encouragements about how to live the kind of life
that God wants us to live.

In many ways to me, 1 Thessalonians 5 is about how to live the abundant life.
The whole book as we look through it is about how to live the authentic life
that God has given us to live. And this is how to live the abundant life.

There's just some simple words of advice from the Apostle Paul who had learned
from Jesus how to live the abundant life and he's passing it along to us. So
let's just walk through these words of advice beginning in verse 19 with this,
do not quench the spirit. Don't put out the spirit's fire.

This word quench was used of both light and fire. Don't darken the light. Don't
put out the fire.

The spirit's prompting comes into our lives and tells us to stop doing what's
wrong, to start doing what's right. It's really in those two areas. Stop doing
what's wrong, start doing what's right.

We're all familiar I think with that inner feeling that says, I feel like maybe
God wants me to do something here. And I think we're all familiar with that
inner feeling that says, I'm feeling like God doesn't want me to be here. This
just doesn't feel right.

Don't quench the spirit. How do you know? How do you know it's the spirit and
not just my idea somehow?

I mean, I'm walking by an ice cream store and I see Sunday and I think, the
thought, God wants me to have that Sunday. How do I know if that was the Holy
Spirit? How do I know if I'm quenching the Holy Spirit by not going in there?

Well, in a minute as we walk through this, I want to give you five tests for a
word from God. But right now, right now let's start with one test. It's
interesting.

I don't often feel prompted to do something unselfish without the power of the
Spirit. If it's an unselfish thought, an unselfish action that you're being
prompted to take, it's probably the Spirit speaking to you. When the Spirit
prompts you to love someone, don't hold back.

Don't quench that. Now, often the Spirit will prompt you to do something you
don't want to do. And that's hard.

That's hard to do. People often associate this Spirit's prompting with some
undisciplined spontaneity. What I've found in my life, it's more of a
disciplined spontaneity.

It's not a matter of just doing what you feel like doing. It's a matter of doing
what you feel compelled by God's Spirit to do. And sometimes you don't feel like
doing it, but you know it's what God wants you to do.

Lloyd John Ogilvie said about this prompting of the Spirit, "No great literature
or art was ever produced by a person who worked when he felt like it. " And when
it comes to being a believer, he said, "Creativity is concentrated power from
the Holy Spirit. " So don't quench the Spirit.

Don't quench the Spirit by saying, "I don't have time to do that. " Don't quench
the Spirit by saying, "I don't feel like doing that today. I'll do it tomorrow.

" Don't quench the Spirit by saying, "I've got to study this before I do that. "
Don't quench the Spirit's work in your life. Now, in a moment, we're going to
talk about how to test the Spirit's word.

Wait for that. But before that, second word of advice here is do not treat
prophecies with contempt. And when we use the word prophecy, oftentimes we think
about telling the future.

That's not what this is talking about. What we're saying in the New Testament
is, well, F. F.

Bruce called it, "Declaring the mind of God in the power of the Spirit. " It is
not foretelling the future. It's forth-telling the word of God.

And this prophecy, this telling of the word of God, doesn't have to be in a
sermon. You can hear it in a message. You can also hear it in a conversation or
in something you're reading or in a song.

And the Bible says don't treat those prophecies, those words from God, with
contempt. The opposite of contempt is reverence, an attitude of sacredness, an
attitude of worship, where to live the word of God. It reminds me of what
William Temple once said, "To worship is to quicken the conscience by the
holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to unshackle the
imagination by the beauty of God, to open up the heart to the love of God, to
devote the will to the purpose of God.

" Don't treat it with contempt. Instead, instead do that. How do you treat a
prophecy with contempt?

Well, for most of us, it's not that we put it down. It's not that we say ugly
words against it. It's that we just ignore it.

So be careful. Be careful not to leave the Bible just lying on a shelf and never
read it. Be careful not to hear a word from God on a weekend in a sermon and
then just ignore it the rest of the week.

Be careful in a conversation with a friend when you hear a word from God and you
know you need to do something about it, not to take the time to write it down.
The number one way that I treat a prophecy with contempt is just to ignore it,
just to let the feeling pass. Don't treat it with contempt.

Treat it as something sacred, something to worship. Third thing that Paul says
to do here as he talks about living an authentic, abundant life is he says,
"Test everything. Test everything.

" It's interesting. Don't treat them with contempt, but also test everything.
This is one of those all-inclusive words again.

This is all-out Christianity that he's talking about. How do you know if it's
God prompting your heart? How do you know if it's a prophecy?

How do you know if what a teacher is saying is true? Let me just give you five
quick tests. Let me say them and then say them again so that you might remember
them.

The scripture test, the Jesus test, the grace test, the character test, the
edification test. Five tests. Scripture, Jesus, grace, character, and
edification.

What do I mean by those? The scripture test is does this prophecy, does this
prompting of the Spirit agree with what the Bible says? If it doesn't, it's not
a prophecy.

It's not a prompting of the Spirit. It has to agree that the Holy Spirit's not
going to disagree with himself, so it has to agree with what the Bible says. And
that solves the issue for a lot of people many times.

First you check it by scripture. How do I test a message? The Jesus test.

Oftentimes you'll hear a messenger and they're talking about something and when
they talk about Jesus, they act as if Jesus is just a man. First John chapter 4
verse 2 says, "Any teacher needs to recognize that Jesus is God. God come in
human flesh.

" And if a teacher cannot pass that test, then their prophecy is not a prophecy
from God because Jesus very clearly tells us that he came in human flesh. The
Bible tells us that and it tells us not to trust a teacher who does not teach
that Jesus is God in human flesh. That's another way to test a message.

Third way to test a message that you're hearing is the grace test. Paul said
when he was talking to the Galatians, "If I or even an angel brings you a
different gospel than this gospel of grace, don't trust it. " That says to me,
when it comes to tests, grace trumps angels.

If an angel shows up on your doorstep and miraculously appears and gives you
some message that's against the grace of God that forgives our sin, Paul says,
"Don't trust it. Don't trust that message because grace always trumps even
angels. " Fourth test is the character test.

Jesus talked about this in the Sermon on the Mount. He said about teachers,
"You're going to know them by their fruits. You're going to know them by the way
that they live.

" You notice a lot of these tests that we're talking about test not just the
message but the messenger. In this one, you do look at the messenger and you see
is what they're doing in their life reflecting what they're saying with their
teaching. If it doesn't, it doesn't pass the test.

Then the final test, and this one comes from Ephesians, is the edification test.
Ephesians talks about the fact that all our words should build up one another.
Well, obviously, our teaching should build one another up.

The test here is, does it build up God's people? If it tears down, it's not a
word from God. Scripture tests, the Jesus test, the grace test, the character
test, the edification test.

Those are some ways to test everything. Now why? Why test?

So you can criticize, "Ah, they're teaching something wrong. " No, he says test
it so that you can hold to the good. You're not testing to find out what's
wrong.

You're testing for what's right. It's like going to a stream and you're taking a
pan and you're panning for gold and you're trying to find the gold nugget.
You're not looking at all the rocks that are wrong.

You just throw those out. You sluice them out. You look for the gold nugget.

You're looking for what's right. Wait for the good. Work for the good and look
at God's word and how it can work in your life.

The idea here is the idea of a genuine coin rather than a counterfeit coin. Look
for that which is genuine and then live it out. That's why you test things so
you can live them.

The fourth word of advice from Paul here about how to live an abundant life,
avoid every kind of evil. Every kind. What's included in that?

Every kind. Most of us I have found are good at avoiding some kinds of evil. We
have our list of what's really, really evil and then we have some lists of some
things that are pretty bad.

Well, I really shouldn't get involved in that. But the Bible says avoid every
kind of evil and notice it says avoid it. Not fight it, avoid it.

The best way to win a boxing match against evil is to not even get in the ring
because you're going to lose every time. Satan is stronger. Satan is stronger
than me.

Satan is stronger than you. The Bible says that Satan is like a roaring lion and
it is good to avoid roaring lions. You might be frustrated right now in your
life because you keep walking into the ring and you keep losing.

It feels like you're bloodied and beaten every day of your life with some
temptation that you're trying to fight and win the battle on your own. These
verses remind us, stay out of the ring. You can't handle evil in your life so
you need to avoid it.

Paul, as he talks about the kind of life that he wants us to live and the
picture of what God has for us, ends with this prayer. First Thessalonians 5, 23
and 24. Let me read it again.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through and may your
whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. We all know that
when we're going to be in heaven with God, he's going to make us perfect like
his son.

But how about on this earth? What about the in-between time? Here Paul reminds
us that even now, God is sanctifying you.

He's growing you through and through. At that moment, your whole spirit and soul
and body will be preserved blameless at the coming of Jesus Christ. That is
God's picture of your life, the abundance, the authenticity that he has for your
life.

And you may look at that and think, how in the world is that going to happen?
How can I pull that off? Let me remind you of the last four words.

The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. He will do it. Focus on
those four words.

We've been made holy so that he can cause us to be made holy and he will do it.
The secret to any growth in my life that's going to happen is he will do it. The
power to any change in my life that will happen is he will do it.

Everything that we've looked at together in this book, 1st Thessalonians, hinges
on these four words. You want to develop the ability to share with others that
we talked about in chapter one? He will do it.

You want to have a lasting impactful ministry that we talked about in chapter
two? He will do it. You want to enjoy the personal purity that we talked about
in chapter three?

He will do it. You want to have the real attitude of expectancy that we looked
at in chapter four? He will do it.

And you want to have the full and abundant life that we've seen here in chapter
five? He is the one who will do it. That doesn't mean he doesn't have anything
for you to do.

He will wear you out with what he is doing in your life. There is much
faithfulness in my life, in your life, with what he does, but it's who I'm
relying on. And when I rely on those four words, he will do it.

I have hope. I can look forward to what he's going to do in my life day to day.
So let's look forward to it right now.

Jesus, thank you for what you will do as I trust you. And so right now, I trust
you in a fresh way. Help me to recognize that I don't have to put the burden on
my shoulders, that instead I have to trust in you to do what only you can do in
my life.

I'm willing to do whatever you show me to do. I'm willing to be made willing.
I'm willing to learn to do what you want me to do.

But I also recognize that the strength and the power in the end are going to
come from you. And if that's where they're going to come from in the end, I want
them to come from you in the beginning, right now, today in my life. So I lean
on those words.

I want to live those words. You will do it. Jesus, thank you that I can depend
on you.

In your name I pray. Amen. Well, make sure to join us next week.

We're going to start a new book following up on this book. We're going to study
through, right after First Thessalonians, we're going to take a study through
Second Thessalonians together.