Quench Not the Spirit
By Pastor Matt Black
27 June 2007
Midweek Bible Study
1 Thessalonians 5:19; Ephesians 4:30
Introduction: Open your Bible to 1 Thessalonians 5:19. Just four words here tonight: “Quench not the Spirit.” That is also our title. We can all memorize this verse tonight. It is so simple to learn, but to live it out in our lives is what the Lord wants for us. Quench not the Spirit! Don’t put out the fire of the Spirit of God. This is the essence of the Christian life. You see you can attend all the churches you want to, you can know all the theology and all the right answers, but to be a Christian is to be led by the Spirit of God.
I. So first tonight, I want to briefly talk about Life in the Spirit.
There is something so amazing about the Christian life, that if you do not have the Spirit of God, you cannot call yourself a Christian. Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” If the Spirit of God does not dwell in you, then you do not belong to God. The Spirit is God’s seal of ownership.
A. The Sealing of the Spirit. Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. A person becomes a Christian when a spiritual transaction takes place. We are told by Jesus Christ himself that the Spirit. Jesus says in John 16:8 I will depart and send the Holy Spirit to you, “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”. He says in verse 13, “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth”. There is a verse in Ephesians 1:13 that says we as believers are all “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”.
What is this sealing? Well it is the Spirit coming upon our hearts and melting our hearts and putting His seal—which is a stamp—into our hearts, and molding us and overpowering us. That is the sealing of the Spirit of God. What happens is the heart is guided and led and overcome by the Spirit of God. This is what happens when we become a Christian.
Paul says “Quench not the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19). You’ve been sealed—let the work of the Spirit continue on in you! Don’t put out that fire that melted your heart and sealed it! Don’t put the fire out! Let the Spirit of God mold you and press deeper and deeper His seal—His stamp into your heart. So we are sealed by the Spirit.
Transition: Now look over at Galatians 5:16. There we find a command to “Walk in the Spirit”.
B. Walking in the Spirit. Galatians 5:16 says it clearly, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” To be a Christian is to walk in the Spirit. It is to literally ‘keep in step’ with the Spirit of God. There is both an objective and a subjective leading of the Spirit of God. Paul tells us plainly that if we are not led by the Spirit we are not believers at all. Romans 8:14, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
This principle of the Spirit’s leading is expressed in many ways in Scripture.
· He says, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
· Christ says, “Abide in me” (John 4:4).
1. There is an Objective Leading of the Spirit. The Spirit of God immediately once we come to know the Lord will lead us to obey the revealed will of God in the Scriptures. The Word of God will come alive by the power of the Spirit of God! He will illuminate your eyes as you read. He’s given unto us “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17)!
As the Spirit leads us to drink in the Word, the Power of the Word of God will make us holy and keep us from sin.
Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” We know the Spirit of God will keep us from sin as we follow His Word. We know that “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). Psalm 1 tells us that the blessed man—the man filled with the Spirit of God does not walk “in the counsel of the ungodly” (verse 1), but what does it say? “His delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” (verses 2-3). As we submit to the Holy Spirit of God, we know that He is going to guide us into the truth of the Word of God. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). We come to faith by the Word of God, and we come to trust the Word of God in faith more and more as we continue to hunger and thirst after it. The Spirit of God moves in us and “As newborn babes” we “desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2). The Spirit illuminates our eyes and puts a hunger and thirst in our heart for His objective leading in the Word of God!
So tell me, where do we find the objective, forever settled in heaven, leading of the Holy Spirit of God? In the Word of God—the God-breathed scriptures. Jesus said in John 6:63, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
2. There is also a Subjective Leading of the Spirit. That is, the Spirit of God prompts and guides us to make decisions in life based on His Word. We come to a decision in life, and the Spirit of God brings to your mind a command from the Word. The Spirit of God prompts your heart, prompts your conscience, convicts your mind to go a certain way, stirs you up, and sets you on fire. Remember the two that walked with Jesus on the Road to Emmaus? When the risen Jesus spoke to them, something was going on in their hearts. Do you remember what they said in Luke 24:32? “They said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”
Jeremiah 10:23 says it this way, “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” We all feel like Jeremiah—I can’t do it Lord! I don’t know your will. Guide me! Direct me!
Look over at Ezekiel 36—this passage tells us what it is like in our present time, the age of grace—the age that we are now in—the time of the New Covenant after Jesus accomplishes His work on the cross. God says in Ezekiel 36:25-27, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
So we know the Spirit will lead us. The Spirit leads us, prompts us, illuminates us, convicts us to obey what we know out of the Scripture. But the Spirit also leads us through the circumstances of life, in areas that are not revealed in Scripture. The Bible doesn't tell me where to preach. It doesn't tell me what to say when I preach in a certain place. There are many things in my life that the Spirit has to lead me into. So there is the objective leading of the Spirit as He prompts us to obey the Word and there is the subjective leading of the Spirit as He through circumstances and providence and as He speaking to us in our hearts challenges us and moves us along a path of circumstance, opportunity, responsibility.
Example: Let me give you an example of what I mean: The Bible tells us to fast. But he does not tell us always when and how to fast. That is left up to the subjective leading of the Holy Spirit. I may be lead to fast for your healing or for a person’s salvation. I make a decision to fast at a certain time under the leading of the Spirit of God.
In other words, the Spirit of God will subjectively apply the Word of God to every single circumstance and situation in life. As are faithful in the Word and in prayer, the Spirit of God will be prompting you to go in the way He wants you to. We have these kinds of promises all over the Word of God, that God will prompt us, convict us, and guide us.
· 1 John 2:20, “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”
· John says again in 1 John 2:27, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”
· Psalm 37:5, “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”
· Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Transition: So with all that in mind, what does Paul mean when he says “Quench not the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19)? We can very easily see that it means to disobey the promptings of the Lord. The Lord says “when ye fast” or “when ye enter into your closet to pray”, and you sense that prompting from the Spirit of God within you, you must obey it. You must obey as He applies His Word to your life. We are going to see that to disobey the Lord in any way is to “quench the Spirit of God”. It is to pour cold water on the burning conviction in your heart. You are about to waste a whole lot of time surfing the Internet, and He says, “you haven’t prayed today or read my Word, forsake the way of vanity and follow me”. And you just go on being entertained. That is quenching the Spirit. Actually, we are going to see very clearly what this is as we look over to Ephesians 4. Here in this chapter, we have the command to put off the old man and put on the new. Verse 30 says something we are very much interested in tonight, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
II. What does it mean to Grieve the Holy Spirit?
Spurgeon said, “it is very, very easy indeed to grieve [the Holy Spirit], Sin is as easy as it is wicked.”
A. Explanation: For a Christian to sin in any way grieves the Holy Spirit. Any sin in thought word, deed—any action or attitude that does not reflect God in your life grieves the Holy Spirit of God.
You are called to be Holy as God is Holy. This is called sanctification in the Scriptures. It is said in other ways in the Bible. God is conforming us to the image of His Son. That is sanctification. This is God’s work in you. Philippians 1:6, “…he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”. God is making you HOLY.
B. Grammatical Construction. Again, let me remind you of the grammatical construction of this verse. It’s very important. It literally says, “And grieve not the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God”. This verse screams God’s holiness. It is as if the Spirit of God is saying through Paul, “I am the Spirit that dwells in you, and I am not like anything on this earth. I am holy. Don’t ever, ever forget that”. Holy means separate. So to live in the Spirit of God is to live contrary and separate from this world. It is to think contrary to the way this world thinks.
C. Application: The truth is, any sin whatsoever, no matter how small we think it might be, grieves the Spirit, indeed the Holy Spirit of God.
So to grieve the Holy Spirit of God is to stifle His work in you and in this world through you. The Spirit is doing a great work in you. He is illuminating His Word to you; He brings you into intimacy with God. He guides you to speak to people about Him. He strengthens you to deny yourself when all the world is telling you its ok. He makes you daily more and more like His Son. And when you say “No, I want my way” in ANY AREA. It doesn’t matter what it is. Any sin no matter how big or small grieves the Holy Spirit.
D. Illustration: We are the house of God. Our God fellowships with us in our hearts and in our bodies. When we have a guest into our house, we make the best food, we make sure their living accommodations are clean. What would you do if you were a guest in the house, and the food was stale and dry and maybe the milk was rancid? You went to lie down and the sheets were soiled and they stank?
I think Jeremiah 2 gives a good understanding what it is to grieve the Holy Spirit. It is to forsake the Lord’s way revealed by His Spirit, and to go our own way. Jeremiah 2:13 says it this way, “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
It is a terrible thing to quench the fire of the Spirit’s conviction in our souls.
Transition: Let’s ask yourself another question…
III. What are specific areas in which we grieve the Holy Spirit? Look at Ephesians 4.
A. Lying: If we don’t put “away lying”and “speak every man truth with his neighbour” (verse 25), then we grieve the Holy Spirit.
Do you speak the truth even if it hurts you? There’s a convicting verse in Psalm 15. Psalm 15 begins by asking, “who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 2 He that walketh uprightly…” and verse 4 says, “He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.”
· Do you keep your word in every way? If not you are grieving the Spirit
· Do you twist the truth or exaggerate it to protect yourself or to make yourself look good in any way whatsoever? You grieve the Holy Spirit of God that wants to sanctifiy you!
How about the next one:
B. Sinful anger: If we are sinfully angry (verse 26, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath”), then we grieve the Holy Spirit. Do you allow frustration to rule you? Are you moved out of anxiety for your job or your relationships in life to ‘take it out’ on someone? That is ungodly and you grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
Anger can be both passive and active. Anger is seen with the silent treatment. That is passive anger. I just won’t say anything! So you stew. And you wait. And you are silent. You are frustrated. Of course this passive anger turns to bitterness. And it shows a spirit that will not forgive! It will eat you up so bad. This sinful anger is the cause of much sickness and depression. People are walking around wounded because they have let this anger eat them up. They have turned this anger in on themselves. Listen, if this is you, you need to repent and stop grieving the Holy Spirit of God inside of you!
C. Sometimes anger is active and aggressive and it explodes with sinful words and horrible exaggerated words that are spiritually murderous. That’s why after we read verse 30 to not grieve the Spirit of God we read, verse 31, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” The answer to sinful anger is a heart of thankfulness. You are not in hell. No matter what he or she did to you, she didn’t give you what you deserve. Forgive forgive forgive! Our Lord said in Matthew 6:14, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
D. Corrupt communication. Verse 29 says, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”
Again, verse 31 says, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice”. If you want to measure sinful anger in your life, measure your tongue.
We read in James 3:2-12, “For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. 3 Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. 4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. 7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: 8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. 11 Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?.”
E. Selfishness and Pride. We read in verse 27, “Neither give place to the devil.” Satan’s way is selfishness and pride. To go our own way in any circumstance is to give place to the devil’s way who always wants thte place of God. This is the root of all sin. Selfishness says, ‘I want to do what I want to do and I want to do it the way I want to do it. I don't want to obey that command. I'm not interested in doing that ministry.’ Self‑will, stubbornness, pride, or apathy, indifference, and insensitivity to the Spirit’s leading. Maybe you don't even check in with Him, you just make your decision about things in life. You don’t care what the Spirit might want, but you know what you want. That attitude is the quickest way to “give place to the devil”. Those things will quench the Spirit.
F. Stealing. Verse 28, “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” What are ways we steal? First all stealing is from God.
· When you don’t come to church you steal from God His worship.
· When you don’t tithe and give offerings, you rob God! Malachi 3:8, “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.”
· You steal from God when you don’t pay Ceasar what is Ceasars. Do you cheat on your taxes? You are robbing God!
· You steal from God when you take from your neighbor. You borrow something and you don’t keep good care of it, or you forget to return it. That’s stealing.
· You steal from God when you pirate software and music and try to get something for nothing.
Verse 30 says in all these things we must pay attention! “Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
Transition: Finally, the question must be asked…
IV. What should I do if I have grieved the Holy Spirit? That question is answered earlier in the passage of Ephesians 4. Look at verse 22.
Ephesians 4:22-24, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
The Christian walk is a daily renewal. When David sinned he said in Psalm 51:10-12, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
In 2 Corinthians 4:16, Paul says is so clearly, “though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”
Be renewed, renew a right spirit, the inward man is renewed day by day! Do you get the picture?
The Spirit filled life is a life of constant surrender. Paul says it again in Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
Conclusion: It is this progressive sanctification that we are talking about tonight. Remember Philippians 2:12-13, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Work every day to surrender? Are you yielding to God and working out His will in your life? Total consecration is our daily task. Every day, you have one thing on your agenda. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. “Thine be the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.” Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness”. Hunger and thirst after righteousness and you will be filled. All of this is you surrendering completely to God every moment of every day. To not surrender is to pour cold water and quench the fire of the Spirit’s conviction and moving in your heart.
Let me close with a quote from Charles Spurgeon, “Now suppose the Holy Spirit is grieved, what is the effect produced upon us? When the Spirit is grieved first, he bears with us. He is grieved again and again, and again and again, and still he bears with it all. But at last, his grief becomes so excessive, that he says, "I will suspend my operations; I will be gone; I will leave life behind me, but my own actual presence I will not take away. And when the Spirit of God [breaks his fellowship] from the soul and suspends all his operations what a miserable state we are in. He suspends his instructions; we read the word, we cannot understand it; we go to our commentaries, they cannot tell us the meaning; we fall on our knees and ask to be taught, but we get no answer, we learn nothing. He suspends his comfort; we used to dance, like David before the ark, and now we sit like Job in the ash-pit, and scrape our ulcers with a potsherd. There was a time when his candle shone round about us, but now he is gone; he has left us in … darkness. Now, he takes from us all spiritual power. Once we could do all things; now we can do nothing.…We go to our tract distributing, and our Sunday-school, we might almost as well be at home. There is the machinery there, but there is no love. There is the intention to do good, or perhaps not even that, but alas! there is no power to accomplish the intention. The Lord has withdrawn himself, his light, his joy, his comfort, his spiritual power, all are gone.”
Are you aware that the Spirit’s power has left you? Are you conscious that He is grieved with your life? Cry out to Him! 1 Peter 5:5, “be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”1 Peter 5:6. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time”.
Put off the pride and get back in your prayer closet.
Closing Hymn: 41 Spirit of the Living God