Ephesians 5:18 – Our Greatest Detriment – Bible study

Eph 5:18 Our Greatest Detriment Ephesians 5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; What is the greatest detriment to a God glorifying, soul winning, power-filled church today? Some would answer sin but that is too general. Others would answer compromise and that is a great detriment but I do not think it is the greatest detriment. I think the greatest detriment is that we are missing the most important Person. We are missing the Holy Ghost. To be Biblical, we are not filled with the Holy Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit of God is to be enabled. Every believe of every age has needed Gods Spirit to empower them. Othniel needed the Holy Spirit to take Debir and become a judge over Israel. Gideon to defeat the Midianites. Samson to have his strength. David to have wisdom and military power. Isaiah to see the Lord, high and lifted up. John the Baptist to prepare the way for the Lord. Paul to endure the suffering and to carry the gospel to a Gentile world. John to receive the Revelation. And even Jesus to do the miracles He did while on earth needed the fullness of the Holy Ghost. Without the Holy Spirit, we are nothing. 1. The church, although mentioned prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit, was not born until the out pouring of the Spirit. 2. The believers, although personal disciples and students of Jesus, were not illuminated, empowered, or energized until after the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not just a cloud, an attitude, or even a mind set. The Holy Spirit is a person who must not only inhabit us as a birthright, but must control our every action by willful surrender. In this passage, being filled with the Holy Spirit is compared to being filled with liquor, not that being filled with liquor is a positive thing. 1. But because most people were/are familiar with the extent that liquor changes a person. 2. Liquor will change a persons personality, temperament reaction, abilities, desires, and thinking process. 3. As liquor totally changes a person, so the Holy Spirit totally changes a believer. He takes control and makes a new creature out of that person. There is much to be said in this matter of being filled with the Spirit of God, but for this hour, let me share with you some things which I believe is hindering the church from being filled with the Holy Spirit. I. Being carnally minded is hindering the church from being filled with Gods Holy Spirit. Rom 8:5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. A. Lets agree that to be carnally minded is a bad thing. 1. The carnal mind is portrayed as opposite to spiritual mind. a. This is another one of those either or scenarios. b. You can either be carnally minded or spiritual minded but not both. c. In fact, these are in opposite relationships. As you become more carnally minded, you are less spiritually minded and vice-versa. 2. Carnal mind is death. a. Death does not mean deceased. b. It means separated from God. 3. Carnal mind is against God. a. Here the opposition of the two mind sets are more clearly defined. b. The carnal mind is an enemy of the spiritual mind and again, vice-versa. c. Since to have any more of the one means to sacrifice the other, you can see how they war for control. 4. Carnal mind can not please God. B. Lets agree that the carnal mind is not necessarily having a wicked mind. 1. The word carnal simply means fleshly or of the flesh. a. One can be of the flesh and not wicked. b. We are carnal, everyone of us, but that does not necessarily make us wicked. c. God created us in a carnal form but that does not mean He created us wicked. 2. In this context, with the carnal set against the spiritual, the carnal would represent: a. the preoccupied. That means the busy. It takes energy, effort, time, and concentration to live in this world. 1Cor 7:32 But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: 33 But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. b. the weak; that is, the susceptible. Although Adam and Eve were without sin, they were not without weaknesses. Satan preyed on their weakness and they fell into sin. 3. So to be carnally minded can be as simple and as innocent as being busy, preoccupied, and weak. a. Yet, these conditions hinder us from being filled with the Holy Ghost. b. They cause to be too busy to give ourselves to God. c. Too weak to be able to force ourselves into putting God first. C. I see this as being a major problem in our churches and our pulpits! 1. We still have good people in our churches. a. They have good hearts and sound minds. b. They are ethical, moral, reasonable, and dutiful. c. However, when it comes to the spiritual, they are just too busy with other things and too weak to put Christ first. 2. In truth, I see that our churches have been filled with this kind of people for years, decades. II. Being ignorant is hindering the church from being filled with Gods Holy Spirit. 2Corinthians 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. A. This passage is directed to the Christians not the lost. B. It states that we should possess a knowledge of the things of God and of the things of the devil 1. As parents and elders we tell our children the importance of having a good education. 2. We force them to learn science, history, language, and mathematics; and when they complain that they will never use any of it, we tell them, "You never know! It is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it." C. Do we have a knowledge of spiritual things? 1. This morning, we looked at demons and the dangers of them. \#See 2015Notes on "1Tim 4:1"\ You know that there was nothing new in that message? 2. This morning, we put out the second batch of booklets on what God says about homosexuality. You know that there is nothing new in that booklet? 3. In fact, I have been preaching for 41 years and to this date, I have never preached anything new. 4. Everything that I preach others have known and preached before me! 5. It was truths like these and many others that our founding fathers had and that moved them to make the laws in our land that today are being undone by ignorant and godly people. 6. That old expression, "Those who do not know the past are destined to repeat it," is true and within the next few generations our world will know what it is to be under oppressive rulers, both of this world and the spiritual world! D. What we are ignorant of that is keeping us from being filled with the Holy Spirit? 1. We do not understand the importance of holiness. Many believers think the extent of being filled with Gods Spirit is listening to music with a beat and feeling something. If that were so, there was not a Holy Ghost filling of the Holy Spirit until the 20th century! There was no beat in the services of D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Charles Finney. Yet, some of you can remember those revivals where the Spirit of God moved, sinners were saved, Christians were changed, miracles occurred, and cities were changed. It didnt come from a feel good musical service! 2. We do not understand the important of prayer, fasting, and preaching. Friend, this is what it takes and all it takes for a Holy Ghost moving, but we are too busy (too carnal), so we try to look elsewhere to place the blame for spiritual ignorance. We want to blame the times, blame the politicians, even blame the lost people. It is never the lost worlds fault that the church has died. We just close our minds to the truth. a. It is time to start some revival meetings that have no ending time or date. b. We just need to stay at Gods house until the Holy Ghost comes! III. Being worldly is hindering the church from being filled with Gods Holy Spirit. Mark 4:18 And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, 19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. A. Worldly can be much like being carnal. 1. In fact, the two are much the same. 2. We have a fleshly, carnal existence because we live on this world. 3. Because we live on this world and are carnal, we are weak. 4. Because we live on this world, are carnal and weak, we must give our time and energy to caring for the things of this world. B. However, the word "worldly," can mean more. 1. Worldly can speak of having a love for this world, something that the Bible tells us not to do. 1Jo 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 2. Christians are a very peculiar group of people. a. We live on this world, but we are not of it. Joh 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. b. As Christians, we are living in a foreign environment. 1Pe 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; c. But like a spy or an undercover policemen who goes deep undercover for long periods of time, we can lose our identity. d. We can become like those God has sent us to infiltrate. C. Now, Christians are neither spy gaining intelligence nor policemen seeking to bring charges. 1. We do nothing in secret. 2. We announce our allegiance to the God of heaven. 3. We make know that our purpose for being here is to preach the gospel and to convert as many of this world as we possibly can. 4. Yet, living here for so long, there is a danger in us being converted to their ways instead of them being converted to Christs. 5. I wrestle with worldliness and if you will be honest, you likely do as well. D. But we cannot be filled with the Holy Ghost if we are filled with the pleasures of this world. Worldliness hinders being filled with the Holy Spirit. IV. Sin hinders us from being filled with the Holy Ghost. A. Some would argue that all three of the things I have already mentioned are sins. 1. I would not argue much against them. 2. By using the terms that I use tonight, I merely want to demonstrate that there are different degrees of sinfulness. B. By calling this last point sin, I mean that when we are engaged in willful, disobedient sin, we cannot be filled with the Holy Ghost. 1. Someone might be carnaljust too busy to be filled. 2. Someone else might be ignorantjust not taught correctly. 3. And someone else might be worldlyloving the world. 4. But saddest of all, is someone who knows what it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and would rather have some other vice or sin instead. 5. Yet, there seem to be many in the church today like this. C. Jesus faced some in His day that would rather have sin than have Him. He asked. Mr 8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? D. I ask, "What will it profit us if we gain this world and its pleasures but lose the power of Christ?"