MESSAGE 14 - 1 THESSALONIANS CHAPTER 5:19 – DO NOT QUENCH THE HOLY SPIRIT; DO NOT GRIEVE HIM
This message is an extension of the previous one. We are now going to consider the quenching of the Spirit in fuller detail.
{{1Thessalonians 5:19 “Do not quench the Spirit.”}} (NASB)
Here is a command among a list of commands that ends this first letter to the Thessalonians. I think one of the problems with a list of commands like this, is that one tends to read the commands as in a list, passing from one to the next without considering carefully what is being conveyed to us in each command.
PART 1. THE ACTUAL OFFENCE
Paul demands we do not quench the Spirit. The Holman version translates this as “Don’t stifle the Spirit,” with the NIV and ESV also using “quench”. The word means to put out, as you would with a fire by stopping the air from feeding it. The Greek means “extinguish, quench, suppress, thwart.” Clearly, we are capable of quenching the Holy Spirit, of extinguishing His work in, and among us.
PART 2. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE BELIEVER’S LIFE
Before we go any further thinking about what it means to quench the Holy Spirit, we need to look at the Spirit’s work in a believer. That is essential. Even before that, we need to make it very clear that expressions like “it” or “influence,” are not to be used when describing the Holy Spirit, as they are blasphemous. The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, God Himself. God, the Father, sent God, the Son, into the world to save us from sin, and God, the Son, sent God, the Holy Spirit, to the believers for various purposes. We will look at those purposes as we are taught by Scripture.
PURPOSE 1 – The Holy Spirit helps the Christians to worship the Father and Son in spirit and truth. {{John 4:23 “but an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers. John 4:24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”}} Our renewed spirits (through conversion) link with truth to worship truthfully.
PURPOSE 2 – The Holy Spirit is the One who regenerates and gives spiritual and eternal life. {{John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”}} When we give our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes in to dwell in us.
PURPOSE 3 – The Holy Spirit is the believer’s well causing him to outflow with living, spiritual water. {{John 7:38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,’” John 7:39 but this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.”}} This is the water of life, freely flowing in, and from, the spiritual life of a believer.
PURPOSE 4 – God has sent to us the Comforter who will be with us forever. {{John 14:16 “and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper that He may be with you forever - John 14:17 that is, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”}} This Comforter or Helper is “parákletos”, the Holy Spirit. The translated biblical words that can likewise be used are - Advocate, Intercessor, Consoler, Comforter, Helper, Paraclete. Technically, “parákletos” means "one who pleads another's cause before a judge, a pleader, counsel for the defence, legal assistant; an advocate". One called alongside to help.
PURPOSE 5 – The Holy Spirit will lead us into truth and will teach us all things. He will help our remembrance also of spiritual things. John 14:26 “but the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”}} It is imperative that we rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us the word of God. We must be open and honest before Him. I suppose a question can be asked of all church goers – “Do you really want to be taught by the Holy Spirit, or are you happy as a church passenger?”
PURPOSE 6 – The Holy Spirit bears witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is essential that we learn from the Holy Spirit all about our Saviour. {{John 15:26 “When the Helper comes whom I will send to you from the Father, that is, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me.”}} The Holy Spirit will bear truthful witness to the Lord. We can not progress in our spiritual life without the Spirit’s ministry in us.
PURPOSE 7 – The Holy Spirit is the Truth who glorifies Christ to us. {{John 16:13 “but when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come. John 16:14 He shall glorify Me for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you.”}} We need to be led into truth because there is so much error in the world. Beware of any movement that glorifies the Holy Spirit because He does not focus on Himself, but brings all glory the Lord. In Revelation 4 and 5, it is the Lord as the Lamb freshly slain, and the Lion of Judah who is in focus. The Holy Spirit is handling it all.
PURPOSE 8 – The Holy Spirit brings us life and peace. {{Romans 8:5 “for those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit, Rom 8:6 for the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”}} A carnal Christian walking according to the flesh is not able to have a mind that is set on the Spirit which brings life and peace. We are all to set our minds on the Spirit.
PURPOSE 9 – The Holy Spirit is the ownership in a believer’s life. {{Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”}} If you don’t belong to Christ, you do not have the Holy Spirit. If you have the Holy Spirit, you belong to the Lord. Note the wording – “the Spirit of God; the Spirit of Christ”. It is Deity in the Godhead.
PURPOSE 10 – The Holy Spirit directs and controls our lives as our great Guide. {{Romans 8:14 “for all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”}} This is progressive as we are available to the Holy Spirit to lead us. The willful man rejects God’s gift to Him. The one who follows the leading of the Holy Spirit is a son of God (in God’s family of believers).
PURPOSE 11 – The Holy Spirit has adopted us into the family of God and gives us the assurance that we are God’s children. {{Romans 8:15 “You have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” Rom 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, Rom 8:17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.”}} How sweet the inner testimony is, that we belong to God and we can be close to Him. The Spirit’s ministry of adoption is wonderful. We are now heirs as well, and fellow heirs. It gives us peace.
PURPOSE 12 – The Holy Spirit has a wonderful ministry of intercession for us weak Christians. {{Romans 8:26 “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”}} The greatest help in prayer comes from the Holy Spirit. Not only does He help us to pray aright, but intercedes personally for us before the heavenly throne. It is just one of God’s loving blessings to us.
PURPOSE 13 – The Holy Spirit indwells us as a temple of God. {{1Corinthians 3:16 “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 1Corinthians 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own 1Cor 6:20 for you have been bought with a price? Therefore glorify God in your body.”}} The Spirit of holiness indwells us. The purpose is to sanctify us, to make us more holy and like our Lord. How many of us have dirty temples?
PURPOSE 14 – The Holy Spirit baptises all Christians into one Body. {{1Corinthians 12:12 “Even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ, 1Cor 12:13 for by one Spirit we were all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”}} The purpose of the Spirit is to unify the Body of Christ, His universal Church. Irrespective of our ethnic position or social standing, the baptism of the Spirit is God’s method to unite all believers into one holy Body, making us members one of another.
PURPOSE 15 – The Holy Spirit has sealed every believer for the Rapture and realisation of the Lord’s presence, and He can be grieved. {{Ephesians 4:30 “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”}} We have the Spirit’s seal on us; indeed, in us, and are secured by Him as the redeemed of God. He will keep us until we are in the very presence of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. {{Ephesians 1:13 – (ESV) “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”}} The Holy Spirit is actually the Seal which (whom) God has given to us. We must not grieve the Indwelling Spirit in us.
PART 3. THE SUMMARY OF OUR STANDING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
The list above is not a full list but I hope you have been able to see the operation of the Holy Spirit in your life, or more to the point, what the Holy Spirit wants to do with your lives. I will now list a summary of some of the points we have just made. Keep in mind the key verse for today, “Do not quench the Spirit.”
[1]. The Holy Spirit requires truth. The Spirit of truth wants us to be walking in His way.
[2]. He wants us to live in the fullness of spiritual life.
[3]. He is the inner well but it must be spiritually clean or no rivers of life will flow.
[4]. He is our Teacher and Instructor in the things of God.
[5]. The Holy Spirit wants to glorify Christ in us, and through us.
[6]. He requires our minds to be set on the Spirit so we live in the peace of God, and in the fullness of life.
[7]. He is our Communicator, bearing witness of the Lord, so that we might glorify Christ.
[8]. He indwells us as His temple, and abides in us from the time of salvation until resurrection.
[9]. His work is one of unity, with the Father, and with all fellow believers, as He has baptised us into the One Body.
[10]. The Holy Spirit is our God-given Seal who will abide with us forever, and He must not be grieved. There must be no known sin!
PART 4. HOW DO WE GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT?
In each of the following, let us consider the points of PART 3 carefully.
[1]. IF we are careless about truth, we grieve Him. If we don’t handle the word of truth properly, we grieve Him. We are led by the Holy Spirit, and if we don’t bother to walk by His leading, or if we walk and live carelessly and dishonourably, then we grieve Him.
[2]. IF we live a carnal life, a selfish life, a life with unconfessed sin, then we can not live the fullness of a spiritual life, a holy life that the Holy Spirit desires us to know. We therefore grieve Him.
[3]. IF we are not living a spiritual life of dependence on God, we have muddied the inner well, and it springs up polluted and worthless for God. In this, we grieve the Holy Spirit, for He can not give to us rivers of life, for the Holy Spirit can not work through an uncommitted and sinful Christian.
[4]. IF we refuse instruction or have a spirit of rebellion that makes us unteachable, then the Teacher can not instruct us. He can not lead us into the truth of God. Pride, sin, carelessness are all enemies of a teachable man of God. The carnal, stubborn Christian grieves the Holy Spirit.
[5]. IF the Holy Spirit is not able to glorify Christ in you, and use you to glorify Christ, then you have extinguished the ministry of the Holy Spirit, because His burning ministry is to glorify the 2nd Person of the Trinity. Is your life in such a state that the Holy Spirit has too much clutter to deal with, and you become weak and ineffective as a Christian? When He can’t use you, then He is grieved.
[6]. F you are not in peace or living life in the fullness of the Spirit, then you have a mind that is not set on Christ. Paul said in Romans 1 v 1-2 that our minds must be renewed, and that happens with transformation of our minds, by not being conformed to this dead and worthless world. Set your minds on the things of God always, not on the things of this world always. A mind set on worldly standards will grieve the Holy Spirit.
[7]. IF you ignore the wisdom of the divine Communicator, then you won’t glorify God. Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you, and then you will glorify God. If you hold back, and don’t see that as your priority, then you grieve the Holy Spirit.
[8]. IF all you do is to allow your temple (which is your body) to become the devil’s playground; polluted with idols, programmed by wrong priorities, positioned to face the world, and not Christ, then you are insulting the Holy Spirit who dwells within, and all you provide is muck and worthless stuff. When an important visitor comes to visit, and to stay a few nights, you are not going to give that one a room full of garbage and unwashed and smelly dishes. When you do that to the Holy Spirit, then he is grieved.
[9]. IF you pay no attention to the wider Body of Christ, and to fellowship of other Christians; and to maintaining harmony in your fellowship with other Christians, - as the Holy Spirit has baptised us all into one Body – then you do nothing to promote unity in the Body. The Holy Spirit works for that purpose but you hinder it. Such a thing should not be. When you create friction and neglect the members of the Body, you grieve the Holy Spirit.
[10]. IF you disregard the Holy Spirit who is the Seal, who has sealed you for God’s glorious, eternal purposes, then you grieve the Holy Spirit. Having any known sin present, and sinning, is to oppose holiness which is what our lives are to exhibit. The Holy Spirit has been given to sanctify us = make us holy. Do you desire that for your lives?
PART 5. BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
WHEN you grieve the Holy Spirit, then you stop His work. You prevent His ministry in your life, and you will be the loser. When you don’t allow the Holy Spirit’s full operation in you, then you are quenching the Spirit (our key verse). You are dampening down, putting out, and suppressing God’s work. These are serious matters and must have our full attention. Do you want to count for God? Do you want to live for Him a full spiritual life? Then the Holy Spirit has been sent to enable you to do that.
It is important to place our verse in context in chapter 5 of Thessalonians. In the previous verses, Paul had been saying that we must always seek after that which is good for one another, and for all men; and that we are to rejoice always and pray without ceasing; and that in all things we must give thanks in everything. All those things are difficult, but failure in them, is to quench the Spirit. This verse also becomes the lead in to 2 verses later, a most important one we will consider in another message.
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