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 God’s 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 person’s 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 God’s 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. Let’s 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. Let’s 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
God’s 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
God’s 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 didn’t 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 world’s 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 God’s house until the Holy
Ghost comes!
III. Being worldly is hindering the church from being filled with
God’s 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 Christ’s.
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 carnal—just too busy to be filled.
2. Someone else might be ignorant—just not taught correctly.
3. And someone else might be worldly—loving 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?"
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