Quench Not The Spirit

Temple Baptist Church - 4-27-2014

1 Thessalonians 5:19

Introduction:

A.  The Holy Spirit of God, the Comforter promised by our Lord.  Our wonderful Companion in trouble.  Our Guide in the world.  The Lover of our soul.  The Convictor of our conscience.  Our Prayer Warrior when we know not what to pray for.  What a precious Gift we received at the moment of our salvation!

B.  I fear that this precious Gift from God so often goes unnoticed.  We operate all day without seeking His will for our lives.  We too often spend our days with Him in total silence.  I am trying to say away from having a class on Systematic Theology while preaching through the books of the Bible and the doctrine of Pneumatology—the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit—is an important one.

C.  Our Lord showed the importance of the Holy Spirit when He prophesied of His coming.

John 16:7  Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.  (Our Lord always told the truth because He is the Truth so, for Him to preface what was to follow by saying, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth,” it would do us well to take special notice of what He was going to say.)

D.  The disciples were devastated because the Lord was going to leave them but Jesus said, “It is expedient for you that I go away.”  Expedient? This is a strong word as it means immediately advantageous.  The best thing that could happen to the disciples was for the Lord to go away so that the Holy Spirit of God could come.  Does this verse not show us the importance of the Holy Ghost living in the believer?

E.  Not only is the Holy Ghost a wonderful Gift given to us by God, He is also a Person and One of the great Three in One. 

1.  He can be Resisted.  Acts 7:51  Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

2.  He can be Grieved.  Ephesians 4:30  And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

3.  He can be Quenched.  1 Thessalonians 5:19  Quench not the Spirit.

F.  Quench defined – to put out a light or to put out a fire, to dampen. 

G.  Most Christians do not just pour water on the Holy Spirit to “quench” Him because, if they are saved, they love Him!  We would not just get up in the morning and say, “I believe that I will resist, grieve, or quench my precious Companion.   They just “dampen” Him!  Let me explain:

1.  People do not normally like to be either too hot or too cold, they like to be comfortably warm.  In our modern day of convenience, we simple go to the thermostat in the house and change the temperature to a more suitable one.  Our comfort zone often changes with our circumstances and with age.  Older people are not so! 

2.  In church, for example, I often see people shivering in the “cold” or fanning in the “heat.”  The problem is their body, not the thermostat. 

a)  In reality, the thermostat never varies that much in church.  We leave the heat and cooling set at a certain temperature year around.  Young people in the church pay no attention to the temperature.  They do not shiver and they do not fan, they just acclimate. 

b)  Now, a message to you older folks: we keep the thermostat setting on a certain degree.  As people come in, on average, each person here will put out 500 BTUs of heat.  It does not take long until we have a furnace going in church, even in the summer time.  Now, here is what older people do: if they are too hot or too cold, they go to the thermostat (or suggest that the pastor go to the thermostat) and turn it up or down.  If too hot, turn it down—too cold, turn it up.

c)  Learn to be a little uncomfortable and the “rule of thumb” is that, if you are cold, you can put on more clothes or bring a blanket!  There is just a certain amount of clothes that others can take off!!!

3.  People, when too hot, do not go to the thermostat and turn it down 50+ degrees!  People who are too cold do not turn it up 50+ degrees.  They normally turn the thermostat a couple of degrees one way or another.  I use a wood stove and simple close or open the damper a little to adjust the amount of heat in the house, not pour water on the fire.  

4.  Now, let me make some spiritual applications. With God, our spiritual temperature needs to be consistent!  When we are young in the Lord, as the young people in the church are young in age, we tend to be remain comfortable at the same temperature and our lives acclimate spiritually.  Unfortunately, as we get older, we want to adjust the temperature to our bodies and not acclimate to the consistent temperature that God wants us to operate at.

H.  The Person and work of the Holy Spirit are often typified by fire in the Bible. 

Revelation 4:5  And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

Acts 2:3-4  And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.  (4)  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

I.  When we “quench” the Holy Spirit, we turn our spiritual thermostat down a degree or two, not just pour water upon Him.  We use such phrases as “getting used to the dark” to show the gradualness of our spiritual decline.

1.  We Quench the Holy Spirit when we begin to spiritually starve ourselves.   

a.  Though the Bible should be as much a part of our day as our “necessary food,” too often we neglect our spiritual life by leaving the Bible untouched.

b.  We get caught up in a vicious cycle.  The cooler that we become spiritually, the less time that we spend in the Bible!  The less time that we spend in the Bible, the cooler that we become. 

c.  If our home gets too hot, I put less or withhold wood completely.  The fire will gradually die down.  If we go away for a few days, I fell the stove, adjust the damper, and let it slowly burn out.  When we get home, I will open it up and stir the ashes to see if there are any hot coals left.

Psalms 119:10-11  With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.  (11)  Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

2.  We Quench the Holy Spirit when we fail to heed His warning. 

a.  We turn a “deaf ear” to that “still small voice” that lives within us.   The Holy Spirit is our “Stop Sign” that goes up when we approach something that we do not need to be doing.  He is not our “Yield The Right Away” sign; He is our “Stop Sign!”

b.  It is the Holy Spirit that kindles the fire of passion for God in our hearts.  As we battle this wicked flesh day by day, we often get weary of the struggle and begin to give in BUT the Holy Ghost is our spiritual checks and balances.  He strives to keep the spiritual fire burning.  We keep that spiritual fire burning by being sensitive to Him.  When the fire starts going out because we begin to throw the cold water of sin upon it, the Holy Spirit sounds the alarm. 

c.  We quench Him when we ignore Him.  The Apostle Paul ties the conscience and the Holy Ghost together.  He is not our conscience but bears witness with it. 

Romans 9:1  I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.

3.  We Quench the Holy Spirit when we begin to play around with sin. 

a.  Our flesh is world conscious and our hearts deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.  I think that all of us have a good handle on that truth.  We know when we are right and we know when we are wrong.  We know that we are responsible for the knowledge that we bhave and are accountable for our decision. 

James 4:17  Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

b.  Paul said that nothing good dwelled in his flesh and that the war with the flesh was ever raging.  As we begin to become insensitive to the wooing of the Holy Spirit, we begin love what we do and, at that point, we begin to dampen our love toward God.

1 John 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

c.  Now, we are at enmity with God and, therefore, we have quenched the Holy Spirit.

James 4:4-5  Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.  (5)  Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

4.  We Quench the Holy Spirit when we fail to listen to God’s Word.  

a.  The final result of our quenching of the Holy Spirit is inevitable!  As we begin to cool spiritually by no longer listening to and heeding the warnings of the Holy Spirit, we tend to turn a deaf ear to the Word of God.  The reason people no longer hear the Bible is because they refuse to get right with the Lord.  Why would the child of God reject the Bible?  Let us look in the Book of Hebrews for that answer. 

Hebrews 4:12-13  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividingasunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  (13)  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

b.  The Bible also refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth.  God (all three Persons) is in complete unity.  The Holy Spirit will never allow what the Bible condemns.  The Holy Spirit will never guide where the Bible does not lead. 

c.  I hear so many people say, “The Holy Ghost told me,” or “the Holy Ghost lead me to,” and then follow those words with something contrary to plain Scripture.  The Holy Ghost will never counsel, convict, allow, or lead contrary to the Bible so, when we are out of the will of God, we can either be convicted and get right or we can turn off the Word of God and continue in sin.  

John 16:13  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; butwhatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.