Category Archives: Morning Thoughts

Morning Thoughts (I Thessalonians 5:19)

Morning Thoughts,

I Thessalonians 5:19, "Quench not the Spirit."

This morning, what drives us and "lights our fire?"  When you meet people, it really does not take long to discover where their highest interest lies.  Generally speaking, things that people want to talk the most about are things that really get them going.  Whether they want to talk about their family, job, hobbies, etc., you can see a fire within coming out when they talk about these things.  Fatherly pride comes out like burning coals when he speaks about his wonderful children.  Burning beams flash out of the man that talks about a profession that he really enjoys.  Embers of joy burn brightly in the man that delights in telling of his day at the lake or golf game that he just had.  Whatever the enterprise or field of consideration, the fire is easy to spot.  Biblically speaking, there are fires that we should strive to keep burning brightly in our lives.

Our study verse this morning has some rather interesting language just on the surface of it.  When considering what the word "quench" means in relation to the Spirit, one might get the wrong impression if they are too human-centric.  The word "quench" means to put out or extinguish.  It should be apparent from the whole of Scriptures what this verse cannot mean, but let us briefly state it anyway.  Man is not more powerful than God.  Man cannot extinguish or kill the Holy Spirit of God.  Paul is not admonishing people to keep them from bending God to their will.  Such an idea would be patently opposed to the very tenor and fabric of Scripture.  Having lined out the obvious point of what the verse cannot mean, let us investigate what the verse in actuality does teach.

Though God has all power, He has never exercised the fulness of His power.  Though He could force human beings into abject prostration, He generally does not operate in such a manner, though He has done so from time to time (like He did with Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4).  As the old saying goes, "God is not willing to do everything He is able to do."  He has far more power than we can possibly imagine.  God's most frequent operation method when interacting with His people here on earth is by way of impression, guidance, and direction.  He plants the inward desire and ability within His people, and fully expects us to exercise the abilities He gives. (Philippians 2:12-13)

Since this normal pattern that God exercises does not use forced coercion, we can begin to peel back the teaching that Paul here employs.  However, before we do, let us make one more observation about what this verse is not teaching.  Some have mistakenly framed the idea of us refusing to act on God's impression as an idea that impeaches God's sovereignty.  One man actually told me, "If you say that we can do something other than what the Spirit wants us to do, you're saying we have more power than God."  His point wast that all of God's children would act in a certain way (though he never said precisely what that way was) since we could not contradict or go against the Spirit.  When I attempted to reason with him from our study verse, the conversation degenerated into him venting his opinion in raised tones.  Friends, this verse and its associated meaning in no way impeaches God's sovereignty.  Had He desired to not act this way and interact with us a different way, that was His prerogative, and He would have been just in doing so.  He is still sovereign and just for interacting with us in this way.

Back to Paul's thought, we see that failing to act on what God has done for us through thanksgiving and praise is failing to utilize what His Spirit has planted within and daily impresses us with.  This impression is like a fire that God expects us to stoke and burn brightly.  Sometimes I hear people denigrate the value and worth of grace.  Some even make the claim, "Preaching grace either rocks people to sleep or fattens them up beyond fruitful use."  Truth be told, grace is the subject that unlike any other will stoke the fire and make the flames burn brightly.  Instead of thinking of grace as a blast of water upon the flame, grace should be thought of as extra fuel to make the fire hot and make the engine go.

In our passage, Paul has been exhorting the Thessalonian brethren on the practical importance of looking forward to the second coming of Christ.  No greater thought could be pondered today than the eventual return of our Lord and King.  Thinking about that blessed subject should be coupled with thoughts of soberness, righteousness, and holiness.  These thoughts and devotions provide strength and comfort to our world-weary souls.  When seeing a crumbling and decaying world, nothing will build the embers like holy thoughts about the Divine return of Christ.  To keep those thoughts, we need to put off the works of darkness (Verses 3-5), pray continually (Verse 17), and rejoice evermore (Verse 16).  These short, staccato verses towards the end – like our study verse – show how we keep the thoughts burning. 

When considering these things, we should not willingly and knowingly do things that we know are going to make us sluggish and muted in our thoughts of them.  When things of the world crowd in too much, we then forget for a season that we are going home.  We forget that He is coming for us.  We forget what a rich standing we have with Him.  The impressions of the Spirit and the tugging and yearning from home are quenched for the time being.  However, even though this thought revolves around the second coming of Christ in this passage, the message can be broadened out greatly to many other spiritual matters.

This past Sunday, we had some visitors at church – an older man and his wife – that had never been there since I have been the pastor.  Only some of the members knew them, but they seemed to supremely enjoy the services (the lady even came back for our evening service).  After service, she approached me, introduced herself, and said she had a question.  Since she was unfamiliar with Primitive Baptists, she said, "Do ya'll allow women shouting in church?"  My response to her was the same standard response that I give when people ask about saying "amen" or shouting.  If you feel genuinely impressed of the Spirit to shout or say "amen," then do it.  If you feel no impression, then don't.  I have been in services where I have experienced what I thought was "good" shouting and "bad" shouting.  I have seen what appeared to be genuine "amens" and the put-on variety.  One thing I would recommend to anyone (which I recommended to the lady) is to never do something that quenches the Spirit.

Sometimes good sermons are ruined when they go longer than the Spirit impresses.  Sometimes good sermons are ruined when they are cut short of the Spirit's impression.  Some men have sat down 5 minutes too late, while others have "stripped it too green" as the old saying goes.  One thing I have learned from painful experience is that quenching the Spirit today may yield a very prolonged and dry season.  Occasionally, quenching the Spirit will lead to never regaining certain things.  For example, whenever I get an impression to look at a certain passage, word, or subject in the Bible, I now try to act on it as quickly as I can.  In the past, I have put off looking at something I felt impressed to look at saying, "I'll be sure to look at that later."  When later finally came, I had nothing.  No insight.  No impression or guidance.  By quenching the Spirit, I never got the direction and guidance from that thought that I would have should I have acted in the way I was directed.

So it is with so much of our lives.  Fires only burn and burn well when they are fed.  Now, His Spirit is ever near with fresh mercies every morning and daily grace.  However, our feeling of that sufficiency and experience will hinge greatly on our efforts to feed the fire.  When people's "world" is their family, they devote time, energy, and devotion to their family.  They are feeding the fire of desire that burns for their family.  When someone's "world" is their job, they feed that fire by "living at the office" and breathing their occupation.  When someone wants to be a good fisherman, golfer, etc., they will devote hours and days and weeks to improving those things.  The fire burns, and they cannot seem to get enough of it.  The more they put in, the more they want and the more they enjoy it.  So should our time, effort, and energy be with the Spirit.  The more we feel Him, the more we should want and desire that blessed time. 

I remember the first time that Bible reading was not drudgery to me.  I can still recall the first sermon that seemed over in a flash, and I wondered, "Where did the time go?"  Painted fresh in my memory are walks that I have had with the Master where the burning embers heaped up in flames with a passion to stay ever with Him.  These are times that we should not only not take for granted but desire to find them more often.  One of my dad's simple answers to those that asked him for Bible reading plans was a one word response, "More."  When they asked for explanation, he said, "Try to read it more.  More today than in the past.  More in the future than today.  More next year than last."  Truly a day in His courts is better than a thousand beside, but a day in His courts should make us want a thousand more in them.  May we find those moments with the King, follow His impression, and never shirk away or let things crowd in.  In so doing, we will not only keep the ice water away from the flame, but we will also burn brighter as shining lights than we did before.

In Hope,

Bro Philip

Morning Thoughts (Deuteronomy 7:3-4)

Morning Thoughts, ,

This subject is by request.

Deuteronomy 7:3-4, “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.  For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”

This morning, certain subjects ramp up the “emotion meter” more than others.  Due to the intrinsic or inherent nature of the subject matter, emotions sometimes run away from reasoning.  Therefore, we hope to handle the subject matter before us as objectively as possible and not allow undue emotion to enter into the writing.  Today, there are opinions a mile wide on every hand about the subject of inter-racial marriages.  Some are for it.  Some are against it.  Some approve a little.  Some approve a lot.  Ask a random selection of people off the street how they feel, and you may get a dozen or so varied statements about it.  However, as disciples of the Lamb, we need only be concerned with the Scriptural pattern to see how we should think and look at the subject.  So, what does our source material state?  How should we think?

When I was growing up, I had the providential blessing of being raised in a supremely good home.  My parents attempted to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  One of dad’s favorite statements in his exhortations to my brother and I was, “Be sure you pick out a God-fearing woman to be your wife.”  He would say oftentimes that many differences of opinion could be worked out if two people were devoted to making it work, but one issue could never be resolved if the woman did not believe in God.  Sometimes, I even think he secretly wanted us to find some woman of another order and help convert her.  But, I digress.  The point of his statement was that any other type of woman will eventually do what God warned the children of Israel about.  The seven nations of Canaan that they were about to dispossess from the Promised Land were idolatrous people.  They were not God-fearing.  Any marriage to them would have resulted in idolatry (and occasions in the future showed this to be true).

The study verses before us are the prohibition that we should look for in opposing certain marriages.  Was Israel prohibited from ever marrying someone of another nation?  Previously we read from the book of Genesis that Joseph had an Egyptian wife that bare him Ephraim and Manasseh.  Moses married an Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12), and Aaron and Miriam spoke out against it.  As a result, God’s judgment came upon Miriam in the form of leprosy.  Ruth was a Moabitess, who Boaz eventually married in the book of Ruth, which union was blessed and honored by God to eventually bring forth King David and ultimately King Jesus.  Why were these marriages so prosperous and honored by God while the seven nations of Canaan were prohibited as spouses for the Israelites?

We can only speculate about the Ethiopian woman that Moses married as well as Joseph’s wife, but we can see plainly confirmed on the page that Ruth was a God-fearing woman that was honourable in all things.  This pattern seems consistent with the prohibition of the Canaanites.  They were not God-fearing nor honourable.  God would not recognize those marriages with His blessing and favour.  However, He blessed the other inter-racial unions and cursed those that cursed those unions (like He did with Miriam).  The lesson to this point seems to indicate that the state of the person’s attitude and heart towards God is of greater concern than the particular nationality that they hailed from.

Let us consider some failed inter-racial marriages from the Bible.  In Nehemiah, we read of those that the Israelites had married after returning from the captivity in Babylon.  The nations were so perverse and corrupt that the Israelites’ children were speaking part Hebrew and part language of Ashdod. (Nehemiah 13) The worldliness of their upbringing was stifling and stunting Israel’s spirituality, as seen quite clearly in the lives of their children.  Solomon married a great number of women from various and sundry nations, and his marriages ultimately led to his latter end being worse than his beginning.  Idolatry and wickedness marked his twilight rather than peace and prosperity from the God of heaven.  In both of these cases, idolatry is seen prominently and flagrantly.

So, how should we approach the situation today?  What are our prohibitions today?  Biblically speaking, I believe dad’s faithful and trusty old saying, “Make sure she’s God-fearing” stacks up pretty well with Scripture.  If the prospective spouse hails from a culture and upbringing that is quite idolatrous and shows no indication of desiring anything else, then do not consider such as a good choice for husband/wife.  However, if someone is honourable, God-fearing and truly wants to make things work, then consider such a one a possible choice for a spouse.

To be fair, we cannot discount the fact that there are differences of cultures across different ethnic groups.  Just on a food and clothing level, certain ethnic groups prefer certain types of foods and wear certain styles of clothing.  As a tame example, I would probably would have had a hard time marrying a Scottish lass if she expected me to wear a kilt all the time.  Though our skin tones are the same, there is a cultural difference there that would have taken extra effort to agree upon before entering into marriage.  There are many examples of cultural differences besides food and clothing, but these should suffice to make the point.  If I were asked by an inter-racial couple to perform their ceremony, one thing I would definitely encourage them to consider is that they will have extra hurdles to work through than other couples would.  Every couple is going to have hurdles to work through, but differing cultures adds another layer to the cake to sort out when trying to make a marriage work.  However, if they understood that and were willing, devoted, and committed to making it work anyway, I would have no problem performing their ceremony.

Beyond the cultural aspect, how else should we consider this today?  Should we stand for the idea?  Against it?  Indifferent?  I recall many years ago that I had a discussion with a minister who vehemently opposed the idea of inter-racial marriage – rather he only opposed one type of inter-racial marriage.  At the time, my son was less than a year old and crawling around on the floor.  When I tried to show him the Biblical pattern to observe, he pointed to my son and asked, “You mean to tell me that you would be ok if your son came home one day with a black girl?”  My answer floored him.  “I would rather he come home with a black girl who is respectful, God-fearing, and loves him in a lifelong and committed way, rather than him come home with a trashy, disrespectful, and God-hating white girl.”  Considering marriage and all of its inherent difficulties (two people living as one), why would one consider choosing someone fraught with problems just because the race or skin tone is the same?

Another thing that should be considered is simply this, inter-racial marriage is something that we can only legitimately say is acceptable for all races or unacceptable for all races.  Mixing and mingling the idea that this race is ok and that one is not is the height of hypocrisy.  God’s prohibition of those seven nations was due to their idolatrous ways.  Any other nation that acted similarly was to be treated likewise in the subject realm of the discussion of marriage.  Since the cultural differences exist between various races – even if the skin hue does not – the extra marital hurdles will have to be navigated in all cases.  Therefore, all cases of all different races need to be treated consistently.  The race is of less importance and value as the quality of the character of the individuals looking to wed.

Doubtless, we have all seen failed marriages between like races as well as differing races.  We have seen successful marriages between like races as well as differing races.  As previously shown, the Bible is replete with examples of all.  Similarly we have seen marriages fail when people were of differing faiths (denominations) as well as failed marriages of the same faith (same denominational order).  Rich and poor people have married to varying results.  Young and old have wed to mixed conclusions.  Each scenario, whether race, finances, age, or order, presents its own set of unique pitfalls and landmines to navigate around.  The point is not whether people find someone else with the same exact background.  The point is whether someone is willing to stay committed and devoted to their spouse through thick and thin, no matter what comes, as their vows require that they do.  Therefore, it goes back to character, integrity, and being committed which can only stem from being God-fearing.

As long as time shall remain, there will always be a variance of opinion on this subject.  Some will go to their grave disagreeing with me, while others will perhaps agree with these sentiments.  If I ever hear a compelling, reasoned, and – above all else – Biblical argument to change my views, I hope that I would do so.  However, no matter how high the emotion meter may rise or fall due to a certain subject, we must always strive as Christ’s disciples to seek to know His mind upon the matter rather than follow “my druthers.”  May we diligently devote our lives to seeking His counsel from His pages of Scripture and through prayer for daily guidance.  One thing His word plainly declares is that marriage is unto death.  May our endeavors in life keep this bedrock principle firmly in view and seek to honour the marriage regardless of any natural circumstances, whether race or otherwise.

In Hope,

Bro Philip