Review of Sermon by Mr. Wallace Smith

Recently Living Church of God (LCG) published a sermon by Mr. Wallace Smith entitled, "Engage the Power of God's Spirit", published 5/20/2018.

Here is a link to the page with that sermon:
http://www.lcg.org/cgi-bin/lcg/sermons/lcg-sermons.cgi?category=Sermon1&item=1526846400

I thought it was an excellent sermon, and I recommend it to anyone who wants the Holy Spirit to be more active in their minds and life.

In the sermon, Mr. Smith gives six ways to engage the power of God's Holy Spirit. His points are practical, straight-forward, and easy to understand.

In the beginning he talks about the desire of some to hear new knowledge, and he explains that there is a need to be reminded of what we know. He then reviews the meaning of the holy days.

I find his talking about the need for Church members to be reminded of what we know as a Church more than to be taught new knowledge, then his six points on how to engage the Holy Spirit, ironic, for me anyway, but I mean this in a complementary way.

I find it ironic because what he taught in his sermon was actually new knowledge, for me personally. Maybe for others it was not new, but for me it was new, and I have listened to sermons regularly in the Church of God for almost 40 years. And it was very good. Mr. Smith explained something I did not fully understand before.

I have had a pet peeve about some speakers in the Church of God over the years. Sometimes they would say that we need to "use the Holy Spirit", but they don't say what they mean or how to do it.

"Use" is an active verb. It means we take some sort of action. So how are we to "use" the Holy Spirit? I know what it means to use paper and pen to write something. I know what it means to use a computer keyboard, or to use a cell phone. So what does a speaker mean when he says, "use" the Holy Spirit? What am I supposed to do? Say some magic words? Put my mind in some kind of meditative state or trance? What? Speakers often don't say. It is as if they are aware of some special, mystical mental process that they think their listeners know about, and they are saying to do it, but not what it is or how. It is as if they have some secret knowledge I do not have. It irritates me when they speak that way.

But while Mr. Smith uses the word "engage" rather than "use", he does give practical points on how to make the Holy Spirit more active in our minds and how to have access to the power of God's Spirit.

I won't summarize his points here - I'll let you get those from the sermon if you want to listen to it. Click the link above.

But basically he explains that the Holy Spirit becomes active in our minds when we do certain things that the Holy Spirit will help us with. One example is Bible study. Then he gives six things to do, that, when we do them, the Holy Spirit automatically becomes more active in our minds to help us do them. Bible study is one example, but there are five other points he gives.

There was nothing new for me in the six points themselves, but I learned at a deeper level the truth that when we do these things, we are engaging or "using" the Holy Spirit, because God's Spirit automatically goes into action to help us when we do these things. This is how we can "use" the Holy Spirit.

This sermon was helpful to me and I recommend it to others.

Thank you, Mr. Smith.