How We Quench The Spirit

There was once a small, quiet town in which fires began to pop up on a frequent basis. It wasn’t long until people discovered that the source of these fires was a pyromaniac. It was actually the Fire Chief himself! This fellow “would secretly start the fires and then work to extinguish them . . . One can hardly imagine a more bizarre scene than a man working feverishly to extinguish a fire that he was responsible for igniting, until we take a moment and look at our own [spiritual] lives.”

God’s desire is that the fire of the Holy Spirit would burn within our hearts; however, a fire needs both heat and energy in order to burn. “Every Christian already possesses the ‘heat’ (the presence of God’s Holy Spirit). But that heat also needs fuel to burn.” That fuel is “the energy from the Word of God (the Bible), the energy from communication with God (prayer); and the energy from the people of God (the church). Tragically, however, once the fire of God’s Spirit begins to burn within us, we often grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flame that we (and God) have worked so hard to ignite.”(1)

What we are going to focus on this morning is “How We Quench the Spirit.” So, let us begin by looking at 1 Thessalonians 5:19.

Quenching the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19)

19 Do not quench the Spirit.

To quench means, “to extinguish,” “to still,” “to quiet,” “to repress,” or “to stifle.”(2) The picture here is of a fire that has been doused with water. The Bible frequently likens the Holy Spirit to a flame. In Isaiah 4:4 he is “the spirit of judgment” and “the spirit of burning.” In Matthew 3:11 John the Baptist declared in reference to Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” In Acts 2:3-4 we read, “Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Warren Wiersbe says, “In using the word ‘quench,’ Paul pictured the Spirit of God as a fire. Fire speaks of purity, power, light, warmth, and (if necessary) destruction. When the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives and churches, we have a warmth of love in our hearts, light for our minds, and energy for our wills. He ‘melts us together’ so that there is harmony and cooperation; and He purifies us so that we put away sin.”(3) “It is the effective working of the Holy Spirit that Paul warned against hindering. His fire can be diminished . . . The Holy Spirit’s working can be opposed by believers.”(4)

If we know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, then we have the Holy Spirit within us permanently. However, there are ways that we can hinder or diminish His power working through us. Daniel L. Akin, President and Professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, says in reference to this verse, “A believer cannot lose the Spirit, but he can grieve Him and quench Him. In this verse it is the work and not the person, of the Spirit that is in view. To quench the Spirit is to extinguish, stifle, restrain, or stop His work in our lives.”(5)

In 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22, we are told, “Hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” Refusing good works and practicing evil are related to quenching the Spirit. Quenching the Spirit “can happen in any heart when the Holy Spirit is stifled, allowing thoughts or actions which are contrary to the character or practices of God. The fire of the Spirit is suppressed when He is rejected, when His convicting power, righteousness, and judgment are ignored. We douse the Spirit’s influence in our lives through doubt, we drench Him with anger, [and] we drown His power with immorality.”(6)

“The fire of the Holy Spirit must not go out on the altar of our hearts; we must maintain that devotion to Christ that motivates and energizes our lives.” In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul wrote to Timothy and told him to “stir up the gift of God which is in you,” and the verb means “to stir the fire again into life.”(7) Let’s now take a look at Ephesians 4:30-32.

Grieving the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30-32)

30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.

The word grieve means, “to wound the feelings,” “to make sorrowful,” “to offend,” or “to displease.”(8) The Holy Spirit immediately indwells us at the time of our spiritual birth in Christ, which is when we are sealed; however, there comes a later time of empowering that some people call being “filled with the Spirit.” But the term “filled” is better rendered as “empowered.” The Holy Spirit wants to work in our lives in great power, but we can grieve Him or quench Him, to where He won’t do much through us.