FBCD_FaithEssentials_June_FlipBook

Faith Essentials

we can get. Our only hope of abundant living is a fullness of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:16 states: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” This verse is perfectly illustrated by an account of a Sunday school teacher who gave his children a two-part assignment. The children were instructed to write for a half hour on two subjects, the Holy Spirit and the devil. One boy wrote diligently for the entire hour on the Holy Spirit, adding this note on the bottom of his paper: “I had no time for the devil.” Being filled up with the Spirit and His blueprint for our lives keeps Satan at bay, snuffing out what he’d like to do. To conclude, note carefully that it’s the role of the third member of the Trinity to restrain . A respected religious leader from a previous generation once said concerning the decadent state of our society, “If the Holy Spirit was suddenly taken out of the world, 95 percent of the world would go on as usual.” That’s a catchy sound bite, one that I bought into early in my ministry. However, I’ve since realized it’s not accurate. A more precise statement is: “The only reason conditions aren’t much worse in the world today is because of the restraining power of the Holy Spirit.” Paul addresses this in a letter to the Thessalonian church. A key reason he wrote to this congregation was to counteract false prophets who proclaimed that the Lord’s second coming had already occurred. The apostle assured them that this would not happen until, “the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). “Apostasy” refers to the tribulation, which has not yet begun; and “the man of lawlessness” to the antichrist, who remains unidentified at this point. Paul continues, “And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only “THE MAN OF LAWLESSNESS”

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