When you begin to have a little understanding of the New Testament, you realize that those days were perilous. They lived at the foundation, and we live at the culmination of this age, which is more interesting because of the greater age that is coming up, the age of the Kingdom.
If you’ve ever wondered why the Apostle Paul doesn’t stay on one subject, but hops around as he does here in the fifth chapter of I Thessalonians, it is because it is like he is taking a beautiful diamond and turning it in the light until you see the many facets of it.
He is showing you the many facets of a perfect spirit, of a church in motion. The first part of the chapter deals with the coming of the Lord. He says that the times and seasons you know—what it’s going to be like when the Lord comes again—the period of tribulation.
But he gives us this assurance that we are not of the night. We do not need to be in that total unawareness that rests upon the world of the great event that’s coming, but we can be well aware; we can awake from the sleep and be ready.
In verse eleven, he begins to give exhortations that follow, Wherefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as also ye do. Do you understand what he means by this—edify and build one another up? Are we always able to do that?
We are supposed to exhort one another and build each other up. What does it mean? There are some people who cut you down; and that does not belong in the Body.
The Lord knows we have a difficult enough time without anyone being critical or cutting us down. There is much to be concerned about in the interrelationships of the Body.
The further we go in this Body ministry, the more dangerous it is, the more there has to be a right spirit in everyone. Where someone is moving in responsibility, there are always those who will criticize; and you don’t know what negative thoughts will do when finally the oneness of the Body really comes along.
It will continue, and those who are leading will continue to suffer because of the vindictiveness in people’s spirits, until the day comes that God will put a stop to those who are doing it. It will happen—the judgement will hit the Body ministry. It will not start in the house of God of the apostates, but with the remnant. That’s why God is working on you in repentance. He’s working on you to have a right spirit. We don’t dare to be among those who have the spirit of chop. Don’t do it! Edify—build up! The first facet of a church that is in motion is that everything should be done to edify and build up.
Then comes the exhortation in verses twelve and thirteen: But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. Did you get that point—be at peace among yourselves? Because it’s easy to keep things stirred up. It is needful, wherever you get together in order to accomplish anything, not to have much talk. If you’re working in this work, and someone comes in and begins to talk, talk, talk, no matter how interesting it is, make yourself an emissary of one, and say you were given an Apostolic admonition to be quiet, work while you’re here and then go home. Some of you are making a big mistake, talking as much as you do. The work doesn’t get done, and that’s what you’re here for—if you talk you’re not working. After talking two or three hours, you haven’t done fifteen or twenty minutes work, and that’s not what you’re doing this for—you’re doing this to work for the Lord. Now,—In the multitude of words wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise. Proverbs 10:19.
And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward all. Verse 14. This means that there is to be no harshness in your attitude or your feeling toward one another. You are not the judge, jury and executioner on anything or anybody. There may be things that you don’t appreciate; there may be individuals that you don’t appreciate—you may not appreciate what they are doing or the particular way that they are doing it; that has nothing to do with it—what is that to you? You do what you are supposed to do. In all phases of our life, in all that we do, it pays for us to be anything but harsh with one another; be very generous and understanding. There are different ministries, and each person goes about things completely different than anyone else. Each one makes mistakes, that’s beside the point, because where God has let authority and initiative rest, when He puts it there, they’re to go ahead. That man may stumble, but that’s all right. Pray for him, and as long as God puts him in that position, back him up; that’s the way you’re to do it. You say, “That sounds terrible, it means I can’t think for myself.” Where did you get a verse in the New Testament that says that things have to be the way you think they ought to be? It will not be the way you think it should be, it will be the way that God wants it.
Verse 15: See that none render unto any one evil for evil; but always follow after that which is good, one toward another, and toward all. This is essential, because the Body eliminates its poisons. In the human body, when there is some poison in the system, the whole process of intake, digestion, assimilation and elimination can be hung up. These little processes go on in the Body—the minute that someone begins to put in evil and you react with evil, you’re multiplying the evil, and then others multiply it. Soon a great deal of evil is going through the church. The antidote to it is that when someone brings evil, then you return with good. The good wipes out the evil. Whenever you return evil for evil, whenever you retaliate bitterness for bitterness, whenever you react on the human plane, you compound the thing that is poison to the Body. The antidote for it is to love your enemy. That wipes him out and that wipes out the poison that you would bring. You might say that love is the physic that gets rid of the poison in the Body. So when things are hung up, more love is due. Love eliminates the poisons out of the Body and the things that are evil in the spirit of anyone.
Verse sixteen begins like a big beautiful diamond turning to the light with a new facet: Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you. I Thessalonians 5:16–18. The rejoicing, the praying about things and giving thanks, eliminates the unhappiness and the bitterness. It eliminates the anxiety, the deep-rooted fears, because we are praying about everything and giving thanks to God. You can’t begin to give thanks, but what you become optimistic about the future of a thing—if you thank God for it, you know it will be all right. All of this is the attitude of a church that’s in motion.
God is trying to show us that back-biting and criticizing and seeing things to be judged in our own wisdom is not right. We will have problems, because the Body is in motion, it’s moving; and it will not stop moving and changing and seeing new thoughts and new ideas and new methods and new principles added to us until Christ has established a Kingdom with a rod of iron at His coming. The remnant has to be a flexible unit that He can use, it cannot become too set. We want to constantly adopt the things the Spirit of God is bringing with new principles in our church at study program. We don’t want to become too set in the way we worship, or the amount of prophecy we expect in a service so that we do not establish any ruts; but we look for the versatility of the Spirit, because we want to be flexible.
Remember, that Abraham had no abiding city. He dwelled in tents: for he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:10. Consequently, there was no fixed abode: he always lived in a tent that enabled him to pick it up and go on. People could criticize Abraham and say, “Abraham, it’s not good what you’re doing. Its not too sanitary, you don’t have a good sewage system here. This tent is a little bit drafty, too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, a poor thing to live in.” But if he’d built a house, he couldn’t move. Wherever the foundation is, that’s it. You have to bring the world to you and you can’t go to the world; so Abraham dwelled in a tent.
The thing about this church right now, is that we are tent dwellers. We are not building fixed abodes. We intend to remain flexible, to believe more next month than we believe now. We intend to have more experiences that are tucked away in the Scriptures which God suggested. He will meet us again and again. We intend to walk in greater power than we walk in now. We intend to find more versatile methods of ministering than we know at the present time. We intend to see many facets of things opened up to us that we’ve not been aware of—we don’t intend, and we’re not going to be a fixed abode. We’ll not stop, or we’ll become like other denominations that had certain doctrines and certain experiences which they built a wall around and went no further.
The problem will be that you may constantly say, “I like certain Sunday school lessons better than I like this.” Personal preferences won’t matter, because we’re looking to the Lord to lead us concerning what will help you and prepare you to be a pilgrim and a stranger in this earth. We have to move along in the path that’s set before us, and you may not like it, because it may be K-rations instead of filet mignon. You may be on the move and you may not like the diet, you may not like the discipline; but nevertheless, if we are to be the church in motion, we will have to be without the criticism, prepared in our hearts to accept and thank God for the Living Word; thank God for the Restoration, thank God for what He’s doing, and thank God for what He’s going to do; and get our minds off everything else. We can’t think any other way.
If you begin to criticize people, don’t forget that some of the toughest hoodlums were the ones who helped David build the kingdom. They came in debt, in distress and discontented. But he trained them, and soon he had troops that could throw the sling with the right and the left hand. These were men who knew how to slip around when Saul’s armies were nearby. Remember how slick they got at that business? There was the time that David and his men were in a cave while King Saul was asleep and he cut off part of his skirt; and the time when David and Abishai slipped into the camp by night where Saul was sleeping and took his spear and water bottle—the next morning David called to him from the hill on the other side, to let him know he could have stuck him like a pig but didn’t, because Saul was the Lord’s anointed. David’s kingdom was built by men of that caliber. Don’t look for people to come along of whom you’ll say, “Oh, these are the people that we want to emulate, they are the people that are perfect.” They will be misfits too. Only a misfit will fit into this walk.
There has to be something within you that rebels against the limitations and restrictions of what you have had out of the Word. People read the Scriptures to get blessed, but I have read it consistently, becoming angry, seeing the things that are there that we’re not walking in now. I cry out to God, “Where are the signs and wonders and things that should be?” These things in the Scriptures were all true for them then—maybe there were errors in translation and various manuscripts and maybe it doesn’t mean what it says—I had to follow the course other people followed or else I had to believe it. And if I was going to believe it, then it began to make me angry. Because I believed it, I believed we ought to be seeing it. The things that God is restoring to you, is because I would become furious seeing these things in the Scriptures we haven’t possessed and cried out for them. I will keep reading and I will keep on getting angry, because I will see again everything that we can see out of the Scripture. We ought to be walking in more than what we read about in this Book. This is a greater age than what they lived in. I read about Elijah, flitting from place to place without an airplane—controlling the weather and the rain—bringing fire down that burned up the oxen and the water in the trenches and the rocks too. Then he personally slew four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal that same day. Don’t tell me those prophets didn’t work for a living—hard work. I look at all that he did in those days and I don’t know whether we have a man of God that has enough courage to do it.
Everything is changed today. When I read these things, I say, “In this age, where are the signs and wonders that they had in those days?” And I don’t read these things as though they were unrelated to us. I believe we can walk in them.
Now I’m making a point I don’t want you to forget. That point is, that you can find a lot of things to criticize, but when you’re pilgrims and strangers you don’t bother to stop and build a cesspool every night. Sometimes you must walk the path you’re traveling with a shovel, because you’re more concerned about keeping in motion than you are in stopping to build everything according to everybody’s whims and fancies and restrictions. We are God’s remnant and we have a word from God, a commission from God and we’re set to get into motion. And God forbid that we walk in this with a critical spirit. God forbid that we stop and look at a few faults that people are outgrowing, who are changing, and the whole picture is changing from day to day. Concerning the Pharisees, the harlots and the publicans will go into the Kingdom ahead of them.
It will not be that we don’t believe in righteousness, in repentance, in the blood of Jesus Christ and in miracles; we’ll believe in them, but not with a mental acceptance, for the devils also believe in them. It has to be a faith that will believe God for these to be operative in our lives. If you’ve had the problem of looking at things and becoming a little critical, forget it; we’re in motion, pilgrims on the move, more concerned about reaching the next objective than we are in the refined niceties of presentation on something that may exist in any church.
You’re not to be harsh. Get the comrade, buddy spirit; you’re comrades in arms, you’ve a common objective. Don’t be harsh with each other, but don’t be easy on each other either. I put the pressure on you, but I also give you something to rise to. I show you what you can be, and you become it. Tomorrow I’ll discover other things that you can become and I’ll say “You can rise to this height too; this is how you do it,” and you’ll rise there.
We will discover new heights in God that we can reach and we will strive for them. It may be that we have many old things to overcome, to mortify the flesh and to press into the spirit.
So, Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward. Quench not the Spirit; I Thessalonians 5:17. What quenches the Spirit? The one thing that quenches the Spirit more than anything else is the fear of man and the pride of man. When someone new comes in with something a little wild, it’s easy to straighten out and set back in. Have faith for people; have faith for everyone who comes in here; it doesn’t make any difference how they come in. Have faith for them; don’t be harsh with them. That doesn’t mean that you have to be easy on them. No one has had an easy time in this walk, if you have, you’re not in the walk yet. When you get in the walk you have a rough time, but you should have the support and encouragement of everyone around you.
.… .despise not prophesyings; prove all things; hold fast that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. Verses 20–22. God has warned that for a little season the Body will be able to hit at each other, but they’ll bite and devour each other just so long and they’ll be consumed one of another. You won’t be here or even exist anymore. You will have to walk in love, and if there’s no other way, God will deal with judgement. You must have a right spirit and you must not judge one another. It can’t be emphasized too much. Be gentle with each other. Be encouraging with each other. Be careful how you criticize, you don’t know what you’re turning loose within the Body when you do it. You have to help each other with all grace and all help.
There’s a deep sensitivity coming to the Body members and with that sensitivity you can help each other and love each other. This Body can surge forward and do and create things in the earth by the power of God and the authority of the name of Jesus. We could create things that would be unbelievable, but notice the rest of this Scripture, … and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ—to sanctify you wholly. Verse 23. It’s so necessary because of all the things that are reacting within the Body. In I Corinthians 12:25 it is worded so carefully, … that the members should have the same care one for another. The same care—there should not be one member of the Body without everyone really caring for them, doing what they can to encourage their hearts. We should have the same respect and love and concern for each one of the elders as we have for Jesus Christ, because the Christ that dwells within them brings forth the eldership. We don’t dare to look at anything in the flesh or their personality, which is changing anyway, but we look at the Christ that is within them and honor that. We honor our brother and our sister and respect them. Inasmuch as we did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me. Matthew 25:40b. This is serious to think about—how far should we go? If He laid down His life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. Our love will have to increase until we are willing to die for the Body—as we would die for Christ.
We are pilgrims and strangers on the move; we have no fixed abode. We believe that we’ll believe more tomorrow than we believe today; we will walk in more tomorrow than we walk in today; we will understand more tomorrow than we understand today. We’ll be more dedicated to the Lord tomorrow than we are today and we shall do the labor of the Lord with a joyful heart. Amen.
This is the day that the Lord hath turned the tide of many battles. Behold how His arm gains in the victory, and His name is exalted and praised. Let all that believe in the Lord rejoice, for the Lord hath not delivered them over to the offender and the oppressor, that there should be no remedy; behold that there should be no balm in Gilead. It is the Lord that lifteth up those that have been downcast and downtrodden and He causeth them to stand and walk in His way. He renews strength in them that faint in the way. Behold, He feedeth them that hunger and thirst after Him. Is He not the Lord that delivereth all that call upon His name?
O rejoice this day, for is not this a day that battles have been changed and tides have shifted? And behold, he that pursueth, fleeth; and he that oppresseth is downcast. And the Lord hath exalted the humble and brought down the proud in the imaginations of their heart. And He hath caused His people to triumph; He hath caused the lame man to take a prey. Behold how he hath caused the weak thing to confound the mighty. Behold how He casteth down all they that work iniquity. But shall He not exalt all them that trust in His name?
Oh it is good to trust in the Lord. It is good that thou shalt hope in Him and not waver in thy spirit, nor turn aside in the day of oppression, that when the day of adversity come, thou faint not. Let thy heart rejoice and be glad in the Lord, for it is the day that the Lord hath turned many battles, and given thee His victory—this very day—this is the day—today. Hallelujah.
Let your feet be established in it and your heart not waver from it, because the words of the Lord have fulfillment. What wilt thou, O faint heart, wilt thou journey a prolonged journey through the wilderness, or wilt thou valiantly go forth and possess the land that the Lord hath given? Would thou look to the feebleness of thy limb and say, “Behold, I am not able to fight in the battle?” Or will you look at the arm of His strength and rest in His victory? Yea, let us make haste to go up and seek out the thing that God hath given us. For there hath not been revealed unto us but a small portion of the goodness of our God. We that have delighted in Him, have not seen but a small portion of that which He hath already said is ours. He hath given it unto thee. Let your heart be glad in it. Amen.
This is the day of the Spirit, the day when thou shalt find the manifestation that cometh from the Spirit. And it shall manifest itself in every way, in every realm upon the earth. For surely the Lord hath called ye forth as kings and priests before Him and as warriors before His face. Shall that mean that thou shalt go forth with stately garments? Shall that mean that thou shalt have a word which shall, with much words go forth upon the earth? Nay, it shall be a thing of the spirit which the Lord hath put within thee. It shall be a violence which is in thy spirit. And it shall be a meekness which is in thy spirit. But it shall go forth, and there shall be those which shall fall before thee. And thou shalt go, even as an army, terrible with banners upon the earth. And thou shalt go forth in the meekness, but in the violence of the Lord which He hath put in thine heart. And the terribleness of the banners which the Lord hath given unto thee shall be, because the Spirit of the Lord dwelleth within thee, and thou goeth forth in His strength and in His might.