Seven General Commands

© 2023 C. O. Bishop

1^st Thessalonians 5:16-23

¹⁶ Rejoice evermore. ¹⁷ Pray without ceasing. ¹⁸ In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. ¹⁹ Quench not the Spirit. ²⁰ Despise not prophesyings. ²¹ Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. ²² Abstain from all appearance of evil.

²³ And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

Introduction

I first studied this passage years ago, and the latter clause of verse 18 caught my attention. Paul says that this list of commands is “the will of God in Christ Jesus, concerning ME.”

This revelation is very personal. And, I had problems with it: I wasn’t consistently obeying any of the commands he listed. I did not deliberately disobey them: I truly didn’t know how I could rejoice all the time. Life wasn’t much fun! I could not see how to rejoice in the midst of hard times.

I did not pray without ceasing. My prayer-life was very sporadic. (It still is, compared to some of the prayer-warriors we have in this assembly!) But what caught my attention the most, initially, was that God commanded us to give thanks, regardless of circumstances.

(Notice that He did not say “for everything give thanks,” (though that would be a good thing, too.) Rather, He said, “IN everything give thanks.”  Paul and Silas didn’t necessarily give thanks that they were “bleeding and in pain, in manacles, in a prison!” They gave thanks for the privilege of joining Jesus in the work of the Gospel. And they included the privilege of suffering for His sake.

But I was most shocked that it seemed to be specifically directed to ME. I read, and I could not escape the probing finger of God, pointing me out and saying, “Yes, I mean you!”

“Unpacking” the Content:

1. Rejoice Evermore
2. Pray without ceasing
3. In Every Thing Give Thanks
4. Quench Not The Spirit
5. Despise Not Prophesyings
6. Prove (test) All Things: Hold fast to that which is Good.
7. Abstain From all Appearance (all forms) Of Evil

The whole list falls under the title “God’s will in Christ for YOU.” So, if you (the reader) are “in Christ,” then, as a saved individual, all these things are directed to You.

Rejoice Evermore

This one caused me to stumble, initially, too. I read it as “feel happy all the time.” (I’m sorry, but I just can’t do that!) Later, I saw other passages which showed me that it was perfectly acceptable to feel bad about circumstances, and to weep and grieve over losses, and defeats.

I read Habakkuk 3:17-19, and I saw that Habakkuk was deeply grieved by the corruption in his nation. He was even more alarmed at the predicted judgment of God upon His nation. But he accepted it as being from God. And in the face of losing everything, he chose to find his Joy in the Savior. He said. “Yet will I rejoice in the LORD; I will joy in the God of my salvation!” And verse 19 said he made a song about it so that others could share that joy!

I began to realize then, that “Joy is a choice. ” It is not dependent upon circumstances. We can choose to find Joy in the person of Christ, and in His character, and in His constant, faithful presence. The Psalmist said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me….” It was a choice!

Pray Without Ceasing

I thought I could figure out this one pretty easily, on my own. I knew that you don’t have to “fold your hands and close your eyes” to pray. So I also knew I truly could be in constant communication with God.

But, I also knew that I am easily distracted. I will suddenly realize that I have become “sidetracked,” and not only am I not in prayer, but I am in a furious imaginary argument with some person who isn’t even there! (Usually, it is someone who wronged me years ago, and, because I never truly forgave them, their memory plagues me still today.) So, then I have to confess my anger and confess my unforgiveness. I try to obey Jesus by praying for that person. (Remember? He said, “Pray for them that despitefully use you!”)

And, you know what? Sometimes while trying to pray for them, I would circle right back into being angry all over again, because of how they had wronged me! Our old sin nature is a very “slippery” enemy! It turns out that “pray without ceasing” is harder than it sounds!

Distractions!

Forgiveness means “accepting whatever wrong has happened to you as having been allowed by God, and then absorbing the cost or the loss, without blaming the other person or demanding retribution.”

Jesus endured to the Cross in order to take our place under the judgment of God. He had to absorb the cost, himself, in order to offer true forgiveness! (Give that some thought!)

What injury have you received? How do you have to “absorb the loss or the cost,” in order to forgive those who have wronged you? Was it truly a greater injury than what Jesus bore at the Cross? (Probably not, right?) So we can choose to follow in His steps and learn to forgive, just as He has forgiven us.

In Everything Give Thanks

As I said earlier, this one was hard because I read it wrong. It does not say “give thanks FOR everything, but rather “give thanks IN everything.” I can give thanks for his mercy and for His constant provision in my life.

And when things truly seem bleak, remember Job. Having lost everything, he tore his clothes in grief, and shaved his head in mourning for his dead children. But then, he fell on his face before the LORD, and worshipped, saying “naked came I from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The LORD giveth, and the LORD hath taken away. BLESSED be the Name of the LORD!” He lost all his belongings and all his children in the same day! And, his response was worship!

The very least we can do is to give thanks for the perfect character of God, and His Mercy and Love, by which He provided salvation for a lost World. We can thank Him for the incredible privilege of working with Jesus, “pulling in double harness,” to accomplish the work of God on earth.

Quench Not the Spirit

in 1789, William Carey, a Baptist minister in Leicester, England was preparing to go to India with the Gospel. He was at a meetingof ministers and he was advocating the work of Evangelism. Another minister (the chairman of the meeting Carey was attending) retorted, “Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do so without your aid or mine!”

That is about as classic a “quenching of the Spirit” as I have ever heard. But there are worse. Whenever God stirs the heart of one of His children, to attempt something for Him, there will be someone there to say “it can’t be done, it won’t work, etc.”

David was volunteering to kill Goliath. Remember what ALL the other men said: they all scorned him, shamed him or warned him that he would surely be killed. At best, in “being supportive,” they loaded him down with such heavy body armor that he couldn’t move!

Goliath cursed him, and promised to feed his body to the birds! His answer to the giant was, “You have come to me heavily armed. I come to you in the name of the LORD of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied!”

Ancient “Weapons“

Goliath was a “human tank,” for that time in history! He was huge, heavily armed, and heavily armor-plated! And, like a tank, he made a lot of noise! As a result, all of Israel’s armies were terrified!

David, on the other hand, was wearing no armor at all, beyond the divine protection of God. His only power was found in the Name of the LORD of Hosts (that’s Jesus, by the way!) And his only physical weapon was a sling…two cords, and a pouch to hold a stone. But slings were the “bazookas” of that time in history! And God guided his hand so that the rock not only hit Goliath’s only unprotected place (his forehead) but so that it struck with enough force to actually punch through and sink into his forehead.

Now: Was it entirely miraculous? Perhaps…or God could have just given the stone an extra push and supernatural accuracy. Or: we can consider the fact that a major league pitcher can heave a baseball in excess of 100 miles per hour…and the cords of the sling more than doubled the length of David’s arm, and thus doubled the speed of his delivery! (Yes, a egg-sized rock, hitting a forehead at around 200 miles per hour could surely be fatal!)

But, if the naysayers had persuaded David to just go home, then that whole victory would have been cancelled! Thank God that He did not allow the Spirit to be quenched, in this case!

Despise Not Prophesyings

Don’t reject out-of-hand a message delivered as being from scripture. Someone has taken time (assumedly) to study, and prepare a lesson, a sermon, a testimony, or something. Be respectful, and hear them out. But the next verse tells the “rest of the story.”

Listen critically, comparing what is being taught to what we know of the Word of God. If they are teaching false doctrine (Not just a misunderstanding…deliberate twisting of scripture) then we have to take a stand against it.)

Prove All Things: Hold Fast to That Which is Good.

The Bereans (in Acts 17:11) were commended for their response to the teaching of the Apostles: “These were more noble-minded than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, AND searched the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”

They were not “rejecting” the apostolic message (not “despising prophesyings”) but they also were not easily won over by clever speech, or persuasive argument: They wanted GOD’S Word on the matter. So, they searched the scriptures to find His answer!

Ephesians 4:11-14 says that the purpose of the leadership gifts is to draw the flock along into spiritual maturity, including that that (v.14) we are no longer are to be like little children, believing every new thing, so that we are blown back and forth by every convincing argument. Hold fast to that which is good.

Abstain from all Appearance (all Forms) of Evil

People frequently misunderstand this passage to mean “if something looks bad, then avoid it.” That potentially places us in an untenable position of feeling obliged to please everyone. I am not obliged to please everyone. For example, the Gospel offends most people at one level or another.

One Christian woman very firmly told me that she believed it would be morally wrong for her to attempt to share her faith with someone else. How can obedience to God be morally wrong? (It cannot!) But she had subjected her own values to those of the World, where it “appears evil” to tell people about Jesus. I have known believers to lose their jobs for (on their own time) telling a coworker how they can have eternal life. But they were doing right.

The idea, here, is to avoid every form of evil: Everywhere Evil shows its ugly face, abstain! Don’t be partners with evil. Feel free to “let the World pass you by!” You want no part of where they are going!

The Result?

²³ And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

Our confidence is not in ourselves: But God lays out seven general commands for all believers and Paul offers his confidence, praying that, if the believers followed these things, they would continually grow in Christ, and that God would preserve and keep them blameless.

Paul’s conclusion is that his confidence is in the faithfulness of God, not the “worthiness” of those believers, nor their productivity, or any such thing.

The Children of God

Having placed your trust in Jesus as your Savior, and in His shed Blood as the full payment for your redemption, you have become a child of God. Yes, I am aware that many people try to teach that “everyone is a child of God.” Jesus said they are not! He said one has to be born again to become  a child of God (John 1:12, 13) or to even see the kingdom of God. (John 3:3) And in John 8:44, He told the people, “You are of your father, the Devil!”

But as a child of God, we can expect His guidance, His blessing, His chastisement, and His care. And regardless of whether we flourish or struggle, He will not lose us, under any circumstances! He said, “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.”

Lord Jesus, we ask that You would continually sharpen our focus, to see Your will for our lives, laid out in black and white, right here in Your Word! We are not left without instruction: You have given us the Written Word and You have given us the indwelling Holy Spirit. Teach us to follow you in sincerity and in faithful service.