Do not quench the Spirit

You hear your phone ring, you pick up the phone and answer the call, on the other end is a voice of the person who called you.

That caller has a reason for calling you, there are three things you can do with that call,

You can listen to what the person has to say to you, you can converse back with the caller, or you can reject the caller and hang up on them.

But regardless of what you choose to do with the call, you were called and there was a reason for your call.

Every one of us has experienced phone calls, we have conversed with the person on the other end of the line.

Sometimes it is someone wanting to give us good advice and many times we reject that advice, most of the time we hang up on the advice giver, because we just think that we don’t need any advice.

Even though advice is given free from the giver and it costs the hearer nothing, most people don’t like advice.

We like to think that we are smart enough not to need any advice from any one else.

Likewise we all receive a call from our creator whom we call Almighty God at certain times in our life experiences.

Many times we have refused to accept His call, we have refused to receive His message and we have hung up on Him, most don’t even want to talk with him.

But throughout our lives God keeps ringing our number, hoping to communicate with us, some of us finally do hear His voice, we stop to hear His message, we accept His message, obey the call and begin a life of communicating with the Father of our creation.

When we begin a fellowship with the Lord God, all that belongs to the heavenly Father becomes our inheritance as His sons and daughters we have been grafted into the kingdom of God by and through the Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God.

This doesn’t mean that we will live in this world without problems or trouble free, sometimes we may be scraping our pennies to get by, and maybe we will feel the pain of heartache, loneliness or sickness.

We most certainly will experience the attacks of Satan and his little imps of hell or maybe even from family, friends or others who do not understand the closeness we have to our Father, because they hate the Father, his Son and His children.

But know this our Father has prepared our way through this world and this life even before He sent us into it through the birth canal of our earthly mother’s womb.

He has made a way through the communication of His Holy Spirit and through our calling upon Him in prayer that our hearts can be confident that He will never leave us alone, He will never forsake us, He will always work things out in our lives for our benefit and good.

He has proven Himself closer to us than any person on earth, He has shown us His love greater than the love of any human and He promises us that if we will call upon Him in the time of trouble or need, that He will always answer and supply us that need.

He has reserved for His children deliverance in the time of trouble, help in solving our problems, healing for our sicknesses and protection from our enemies.

But we must first answer His call, heed His call and follow His advice spoken to us through his Holy Spirit.

Even as He is certain to call us, we must answer His voice and not hang up on Him.

Because the fate of those who continually reject the prompting of God’s Holy spirit will one day lead to the hardening of their hearts so that the lines of communication will be broken down and they will no longer hear the voice of God and will leave this world and move into the next completely and totally separated from God for all eternity.

They will have heard that last call from God, they will have hung up on Him for that last time and all hope of communicating with God and having a loving relationship with Him for all eternity will be forever lost.

In the beginning of the first man Adam, he had a closer relationship with God than any other human since the Garden of Eden.

But there was a day when Adam created a break in his relationship with God by straying from the path of righteousness into sin, (sin simply meaning disobedience to the law of God concerning his diet).

Adam ate of the forbidden tree and immediately his eyes were opened and his conscience told him that he had sinned and he was ashamed and so he ran and tried to hide from the voice of God, but God continued to call him until Adam stopped and answered the voice of God.

God reminded him that because of his sin, he was now a dead man and if he continued to sin, sin would destroy his life on earth and put his body in the grave of death.

Adam paid a heavy price for his sin, God moved him out of the beautiful garden of Eden and Adam would live out the remainder of his days in a cruel hard world.

By the sweat of his brow he would struggle to survive until death finally over took him.

But even with that God did not forsake him, when Adam called unto the Lord God, He was always near to help Adam through his life.

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?  Genesis 3:9 (KJV)

So then what is the first call we will receive from God?

The call to repent of sin, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9  (KJV)

 

The second call to be born again in His Holy Spirit, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again”. John 3:7  (KJV)  

 

The third call to follow Jesus, “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”. Matthew 16:24  (KJV)

 

The fourth call to be His witnesses, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth”. Acts 1:8

The fifth call to serve him, “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”. Mark 16:15-16  (KJV)

 

I suggest that if you hear God’s voice again if he rings your number please don’t harden your heart, please pick up listen to him, talk to Him, hear his message it is a matter of life and death for you.

If you reject His call, if you close your heart from hearing His message to you, if you push His voice out of your conscience you could be cutting your line of communication from him for the last time and in so doing seal your fate forever in separation from the Father who loves you with greater love than any human.

 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16  (NIV)

Even as we humans tire of calling someone and having them not answer our call or answer and hang up on us, we at some point will cut them loose and stop calling them.

So it is with God after you hang up on Him, after you reject His call a certain number of times, He will give you over to a reprobate mind and you will stop hearing His voice and He will stop calling you.

 

Romans 1:28 - And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

 

Do not quench the Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:19 (NIV)

While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. Hebrews 3:15