Growing a Healthy Flock, Part 7

Don't Quench the Holy Spirit

1 Thessalonians 5:19

     First Thessalonians chapter 5 and we find ourselves at verse 19.  We are studying these staccato commands of the Apostle Paul as he concludes this epistle, as he draws it to a conclusion.  Rapid fire he gives some very basic elements of Christian living in command form to the very young Christians in Thessalonica.  If it seems that these commands beginning in verse 16 and flowing down through verse 22 are rather simple and even somewhat simplistic, we need to remember that while being simple on the one hand they are profound on the other.  And also, we need to remember that this is a congregation of relatively new believers.  The church is only a few months old, none of the believers there is older than that and so they are in need of a reminder and a summarization of the basic elements of Christian living. 

 

     All of this, you'll remember, is in a context here in the closing part of the epistle where Paul is talking about how the Christians in the church are to be related to the Lord.  He's been talking about growing a healthy flock and using the flock metaphor we have noted that he was teaching about how the sheep are to be related to their shepherds, how the shepherds are to be related to their sheep, that is pastors and people.  Then he talked about how the people are to be related to each other.  And now he's talking about how the people or the sheep are to be related to the Great Shepherd, the Lord Himself starting in verse 16 some commands with regard to our own spiritual relationship to the Lord.

 

     We come to command number four in verse 19.  We've already discussed rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks, three commands which are the will of God in Christ Jesus.  Now we come to command number four, do not quench the Spirit.  This is very direct, not difficult really to interpret, but needs careful understanding if we are to apply it living in the time in which we live. 

 

     Let me first of all say that there are some commentators, in fact a quite a large number of them, who have felt that verse 19 is really connected to the next three verses, that it is a reference to some abuses that were going on in the Thessalonian church with regard to charismatic gifts and that when Paul says "do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophetic utterances but examine everything carefully, hold fast to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil," he is really offering a corrective because they were abusing charismatic gifts.  Those who hold the view that he is here talking about these charismatic gifts would say that when he says, "Do not quench the Spirit," he means do not stifle the exercise of certain charismatic gifts in the assembly of the church.  Particularly then in verse 20, "Do not despise the prophesyings which come by the Holy Spirit," and then in verse 21 and 22 they would interpret it as saying no matter what is said you need to examine it and if it's good, hold to it; and if it's evil, abstain from it. 

 

     And so they would wrap this whole passage around the charismatic gifts, the gifts of prophesying that occur in the church, or word of knowledge, word of wisdom perhaps, or even the speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues.  They would therefore conclude that in the Thessalonian church there was some abuse and that this indeed is Paul's way to try to straighten that out.

 

     All of the commentators who hold that view would connect it with 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 and suggest that the Thessalonians were not understanding the truths of 1 Corinthians 12,13 and 14 where you have great detail outlining the abuses of charismatic gifts in the Corinthian church and then, of course, Paul corrects that in very very careful terms...how those gifts are to be used, how they're not to be used, how to recognize the true gift, how to tell the false gift, how it is to be used in the service, how it is to be controlled and so forth.  There's tremendous detail about it.  He even gives the priority lists of those gifts and what is more important than all of the gifts, namely love as he talks about it in chapter 13 of that section.

 

     So they would say that there were problems along the lines of spiritual gifts in Thessalonica, that people were not following the instruction say of 1 Corinthians, 12, 13 and 14, not understanding those principles that are given there.  And so he is here correcting that problem.

 

     However, having read about ten or eleven commentators who take that view, I have to confess that I remained unconvinced.  In spite of all of the arguments that they put together, I still remained unconvinced for a number of reasons.  There is no compelling reason, first of all, to see this passage that way.  There is no compelling reason to see in verse 19 that he is saying anything more than don't quench the Spirit, period, in general.  There is no compelling reason to see that he is not simply saying in verse 20, "Don't despise prophesyings," that word is used of spoken revelation from the Spirit and of written revelation from the Spirit and he is simply saying when the Spirit speaks, don't despise it.  Just a very general statement.

 

     In verse 21, again a very general statement.  You need to be discerning, examine everything.  Whatever is good, hold to it.  Whatever is evil, abstain from it.  If he was talking about prophesyings, if he was talking about things that are being spoken, he would say...hold fast to what is true and abstain from what is false.   But here he says hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form or every kind of evil.  It has to transcend the specificity of simply some kind of prophetic utterance.

 

     So I see these simply then as different commands.  Do not quench the Spirit, that's one issue.  Do not despise the revelations that come through prophesying whether written or spoken.  Examine everything in your life and when you find what is good, hold on to it and when you come across something that is bad, stay away from it...basic principles for spiritual life.  So there's really no compelling reason to read some abuse into the text.

 

     Furthermore, it would seem to me that if there was an abuse going on in the Thessalonian church, such a young church, Paul would have been literally passionate about solving it because he would have seen the potential for damage and he would not have been nearly as oblique as this, as general as this, if he was intending to address himself to a major issue in the church.  In fact, he would have written to the Thessalonian church what he wrote to the Corinthian church if the abuse had showed up here first.

 

     By the way, it is also true that the Thessalonians couldn't have known what was in 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 because it hadn't been written yet.  And the reason it hadn't been written yet is because the church at Corinth hadn't been founded yet and they weren't even Christians in that city yet.  So, we would have to assume then that if there was a problem along this line, this was the first time it came up in the Thessalonian church before the Corinthian church was ever founded and he would have addressed himself to it with the same seriousness and the same length and the same concern that he did in the case of the Corinthians.  Therefore we conclude that there was no such problem there, there was no such corrective needed and there are no compelling reasons why we should make this address itself to that.  Simply stated, he gives you several commands here in the same flow that we saw starting in verse 16 that are summarizing the basics of the Christian's relationship to his Lord.

 

     Here verse 19 stands alone as a general command, do not quench the Spirit.  Now obviously the next statement assumes that the Spirit is behind prophetic utterances but it too stands on its own.  So let's just take this as a statement in and of itself, do not quench the Spirit...a general command.

 

     The metaphor here is very graphic.  The word "quench" means to extinguish.  It means to stifle, to retard or as it's translated, to quench.  It is used in Mark 9:48 for putting out a fire.  It is used in Matthew 25 verse 8 for putting out a lamp.  That's what it means, to extinguish, to quench, to stifle, pouring water on a fire.  You, I'm sure, are very much aware that the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture is depicted as a fire.  You find that in the book of Acts chapter 2 when the Spirit of God came upon the church there appeared cloven tongues of fire.  The Spirit of God is seen in a number of places as a fire.  In fact, you remember that in Paul's letter to Timothy he told him, "Kindle afresh the gift of the Spirit that is in you."  In other words, the fire is there, throw some more wood on it, get it started again, it's so low.  So the Spirit is on a number of occasions seen as a fire...a flaming fire.  And the Apostle is saying, "Don't pour water on that fire.  Don't put retardant on that fire.  Don't stifle the work of the Spirit."

 

     Now the Holy Spirit can be quenched, obviously, or he wouldn't have to command us in this regard.  We shouldn't be too surprised by that.  The Holy Spirit can also be grieved.  In Ephesians 4:30 it says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit."  The Holy Spirit can also be resisted.  In Acts 7:51 we read about resisting the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit can also be blasphemed.  Matthew 12:24 to 32, Jesus condemns the Pharisaical leaders of Jerusalem because they blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

 

     Now just dividing that up, unbelievers can blaspheme and unbelievers can resist the Holy Spirit.  Believers can quench the Holy Spirit and grieve the Holy Spirit.

 

     You say, "Well what is the difference between quenching and grieving?"  Quenching is what you do to the Spirit, grieving is how He responds to what you did.  Grieving speaks of the personal anguish of the Holy Spirit when a believer quenches the holy fire that He has kindled in the heart.  You do not quench the Holy Spirit without grieving the Holy Spirit and you will not grieve the Holy Spirit unless you quench the Holy Spirit, there simply two sides of the same problem...one describes what you do, the other describes what He does.  You quench, He grieves...He grieves because you quench.

 

     So as sheep wanting to be rightly related to the Great Shepherd, we must not quench the Holy Spirit.  Now in order to understand this we need to talk for a minute or two about what is the Holy Spirit's work and how do we quench it.  We have to get very practical about this and I think we can do that. 

 

     You remember when our Lord was coming near to His death and His crucifixion was imminent, He promised to send another helper, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who was one exactly like Himself.  His promise was that the Holy Spirit is going to come after I ascend to the Father, I'll send the Holy Spirit and He will assume the role with you that I have had.  He, the Holy Spirit, being another member of the trinity, God of very God, He will come and fulfill the role that I have filled in the lives of the disciples.  In effect He is saying, "I have been your teacher, He will be your teacher in the future.  I have been your friend, He will be your friend.  I have been your guide, He will be your guide.  I have been your resource, He will be your resource.  I have been your helper, He will be your helper.  I have been your comforter, He will be your comforter."

 

     In other words, the Holy Spirit will step into the role that I have had.  I have done it alongside of you, He will do it in you.  I have been, as it were, the fire around you, He will be the fire in you.  And so, the Lord Jesus promised and sent on the day of Pentecost and consequently to every single believer that ever comes to Christ, the Holy Spirit to live within that believer.  All Christians are indwelt by the Spirit of God.  And He is there like a fire, not to be quenched, but to be fanned to full flame.

 

     It is, I believe, common not only in the the life of believers but on a wholesale scale in the church of Jesus Christ to quench the fire of the Spirit.  Let me speak in a general sense first of all.  As I have recently pointed out in my book on Our Sufficiency in Christ, I believe the Holy Spirit is being seriously significantly quenched today and therefore is deeply grieved by what is going on in the church.  First of all, I believe that the mysticism of the Charismatic Movement while promising and purporting to exalt the Holy Spirit's work really quenches His sanctifying purposes.  And that's a very difficult thing to say, I know, and to hear and perhaps even to believe because if there would be anything we would assume to be true about the Charismatic Movement, it would be that they above all others exalt the Holy Spirit.  They're always talking about the Holy Spirit. They're always talking about the gifts of the Spirit. They're always talking about the power of the Holy Spirit.  They're heavy into that kind of Holy Spirit theology which they have highly developed, but the fact of the matter is no matter how much they talk about the Holy Spirit's work, they are in fact quenching the true sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit by misrepresenting it and offering a counterfeit substitute for the real thing.  It is a quenching of the Holy Spirit of severe proportions.

 

     The Charismatics have reduced the Holy Spirit to some sort of divine genie who does only things that are seen, felt or heard.  If they aren't seen, felt or heard, He didn't do them and He does them on demand.  And so, while the Charismatic Movement has an obsession with the Holy Spirit, it is at the same time a quenching of the true sanctifying work of the Spirit.  And when you establish a false standard of sanctification, a false standard of spirituality, you quench the Spirit. 

 

     I also pointed out in the book that the current obsession with psychology also quenches the work of the Spirit by again substituting a false operation for the real thing. They substitute human wisdom, human resources, human power packaged in human techniques as the path to solving spiritual problems.  They reject the only true power, the only genuine problem solver, the Holy Spirit, who alone can heal the sins of our lives and make us holy.  And we have to ask the question...do we need a therapist or do we need the Holy Spirit?  Much of the contemporary church while affirming its belief in the Holy Spirit would say we need a therapist. 

 

     In my book I say, "Psychological sanctification has become a substitute for the Spirit‑filled life.  What point is there in seeking the Holy Spirit's comfort if, after all, deep‑seeded emotional problems can be addressed only by a trained psychologist or if people can come to grips with their lives only by getting in touch with their childhood, or if the answers to our deepest hurts are buried deep within us.  If those things are true, we don't need an advocate, we need a therapist."  And this is precisely the route many in the church have chosen.  And it is a quenching of the Holy Spirit.

 

     I recently received a letter from a listener to the radio program, I included this letter in the book but I'll read it to you just to remind you of the attitude that is out there.  This woman has, of course, been influenced by the mass of Christian psychology and secular psychology that has come across her path and this is what she wrote.  Think this through.  She said:  "I have never agreed with your view of psychologists and how you lump them all together, Christian and secular.  A recent awareness of past events has made this all the more disturbing.  I wonder if you realize the harm you are doing as you turn people who have deep emotional problems away from seeking the help they need.  If you came from an ideal family situation, you may well have difficulty understanding how deeply the spirits of some people have been wounded and how it has warped the very fiber of their being.  Oftentimes the incidents have been sublimated by the youngster only to surface as an adolescent or adult.  Recommending only Bible study and prayer can be like putting on a Bandaid when you need surgery.  Just becoming a Christian doesn't solve the dilemma either, I used to think it does, because the troubled person may just consider their past life experiences fairly normal having sublimated the deep hurt of their spirit. Then because these matters have never been dealt with, they carry them on into their marriages and then begins another cycle."

 

     Now let me stop here and say this, the thesis of this lady is that Bible study, prayer, the ministry of the Spirit is a Bandaid, psychology is deep surgery.  You see what this is saying?  What in effect it is saying is the reverse of the truth.  The absolute reverse of the truth.  Psychology is the Bandaid and the Word, prayer and the power of the Spirit is the deep surgery.  But that is the mindset that is rampant in the church. 

 

     Further the letter says, "The simplistic answer is that it's due to sin."  Is that simplistic or is that true?  She says, "Ask God to forgive you, forgive others, read your Bible and pray, ask God to help you do better, but you also have to address what the sin has done and if the person is not aware of the problem that has become so deeply buried in their sub‑conscience, how are they going to go about correcting it?  A man with a broken leg isn't helped by rubbing ointment on the hurting area.  Until you discover the underlying cause of the pain you can't bring about healing."

 

     Again the thesis appears.  The Bible, prayer, the ministry of the Holy Spirit rubs ointment on the problem, it does not correct it.  To correct it you must go deeper than what spiritual resources can take you.  That's an amazing thing.  Furthermore it reflects nothing more than evolutionary atheistic Freudianism which says that people are the way they are because they have sublimated a whole bunch of junk into their id, it's all hidden under the surface and somehow it's got to be regurgitated up and they'll be healed, which, of course, is foreign to biblical data and has no correlation whatsoever with the work of the Spirit.

 

     The lady goes on, "The Christian psychologist has been trained and is better able to get at the root of these serious problems.  A friend or good listener isn't of much help because the matter is too deep and a minister has an entire congregation to minister to, how in the world could he justify the time it would take to deal with just a few in his congregation?  Life is becoming more complex, relationships more fragile because of it and you don't think Christians should seek professional counseling????question..question...question...question.  I wonder how many other needy people have been persuaded not to seek professional help they desperately need.  I shutter to think of the responsibility that is yours as your voice travels the airways, discouraging people from getting the help they need.  I sincerely hope that we have misunderstood the real meaning of what you meant.  To make my point very clear...I do not agree with you that Christians should not seek professional psychological counseling.  If the need is there, they should avail themselves of the help."  And she said some other things in the letter which do not bear repeating.

 

     But the point that I make to you is this is a common perspective that the Bible deals with things superficially and until you can peel back the layers psychologically and therapeutically to see what's hidden underneath, you're not going to get to the deep healing that someone needs. 

 

     And I would simply say to a woman like this, or to the rest of the people who would follow in this pattern, is she seeking answers from the right source?  Is she really in tune with the real answer?  Is there actually someone better equipped than the Holy Spirit?  Are we saying that had God known what we now know now, rather than plant the Holy Spirit in us to lead us to the path of perfection, He would have given us our own personal psychiatrist?  Did God somehow suffer greatly because He happened to be on earth incarnate prior to Freud?

 

     So many people have bought in to this and it's not new, it goes all the way back to Galatians chapter 3.  In Galatians chapter 3 and verse 3 he says, "Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?"  Have you found some human agency technique, methodology, therapy or whatever that is going to do the real deep stuff because the Spirit can't do it?  I mean, is this ridiculous?  You began in the Spirit, do you think you'll be perfected by the flesh? 

 

     What does he mean by that?  Think about it.  Do you believe that the Holy Spirit can do the saving work? The transforming work?  The justifying work?  The Holy Spirit came into your life and in the power of the gospel translated you from death to life, from darkness to light, from heaven to hell, from sin to holiness, from Satan's child to God's child.  The Holy Spirit did all of that but He can't do the sanctifying work?

 

     You believe that the Holy Spirit was powerful enough to convict you of your sin including making you weary of your self‑ effort to please God on your own?  That the Holy Spirit was powerful enough to make you repent from a sense of shame about your sin and a fear of the wrath of God to turn from your sin and follow Christ?  You mean that the Spirit was powerful enough to energize the gospel so that it could come to you as truth in your spiritual deadness and that the Spirit of God was powerful enough to regenerate you, create you all new, plant the very seed of the life of God within you and He did all of that but He now can't handle your problems?  It seems to me the hard work is done.  And when you were saved, at the moment of your conversion, the Spirit of God effected a complete reversal and renewal of your heart.  There was a radical transformation, miraculous and supernatural.  It set you apart from sin to God.  It placed you into the body of Christ.  The Holy Spirit took up permanent residence within you.  He gifted you for spiritual service.  He secured you and sealed you unto eternal glory.  He poured out the love of God in your hearts, making you into true worshipers of God and lovers of men.  He did all of that at the time of your salvation. And Paul says to the Galatians and anybody else who comes along with this same kind of folly, "Are you telling me that He did all of that and now you can't trust Him for the rest?  And you've turned to some human resource and you now think that for the problems of life the Holy Spirit is a Bandaid and psychology is deep surgery?"

 

     That's absolute folly...folly.  Look at what the work of the Spirit is.  Let's consider it.  Now we talked about the fact that in the Christian culture in which we live today there's a quenching of the Spirit, through psychology, through the mysticism of the Charismatic Movement.  And I added in the book another section on pragmatism.  There are people who are quenching the Holy Spirit by replacing powerful preaching with manipulation...powerful teaching, powerful exposition of Scripture with entertainment who think that the church grows not by the power of the Spirit but by the cleverness of creative entrepreneurial activity.

 

     Now what about the personal life?  Let's get away from that big picture down to you and me. What does the Holy Spirit want to do in me that I can quench?  Very simply stated, He wants to move you along a path to ever increasing holiness.  Did you understand that?  He wants to move you along a path to ever increasing holiness.  What does holy mean?  Separate.  He wants to separate you further and further from sin and the further you get away from sin the closer you get to God.  It's just a process of separation.  He wants to produce in you the decreasing frequency of sin, the decreasing frequency of sin, the decreasing power of temptation, the decreasing preoccupation with the world, the decreasing victimization to the flesh and increase your longings for God. That's the progress of sanctification. That's a movement toward holiness.  That is His work.

 

     And the goal of that, of course, the perfect goal of that is Jesus Christ.  "I press toward the mark," right?  For the prize.  And it's Christ Jesus.  I want to be like Christ.  David, the psalmist, said, "I'll be pleased, I'll be happy, I'll be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness." That's my goal.  Paul said, "I have pain until Christ is fully formed in you," Galatians 4:19.  And Colossians says, "We work preaching, teaching, warning every man that we may present every man perfect in Christ."  We want them like Christ.  We want you to be Christ like.  We want you to come to the fullness of the stature of Christ, Ephesians 4:13.

 

     So, the Holy Spirit wants to move you from where you are to being like Christ...along a path of ever increasing holiness, that's sanctification.  It's just a separation process, further and further separation.  That's what He wants to do.  Holiness was like a seed planted at the time of your salvation that grows.  And as it grows it bears more and more and more and more fruit and that's the working of the Holy Spirit.

 

     John Owen the great Puritan writer had some rich insight.  He said this, "Sanctification is an immediate work of the Spirit of God on the souls of believers, purifying and cleansing of their natures from the pollution and uncleanness of sin, renewing in them the image of God and thereby enabling them from a spiritual and habitual principle of grace to yield obedience unto God according unto the tenure and terms of the New Covenant by virtue of the life and death of Jesus Christ." 

 

     It's a work of the Spirit on your soul purging, purifying, cleansing from the pollution of sin as you move more and more toward the image of God.  Or more briefly he said it this way, it is the universal renovation of our natures by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus Christ.

 

     Now, that's what the Spirit desires to do.  Psychology can't do that.  Human wisdom can't do that.  Nothing can do that but the Holy Spirit.  The only agency that can do it is the Holy Spirit.  You can quench the Spirit in the progress of that sanctification by substituting ecstatic experiences, emotions, feelings, methodology, therapeutic methodology, gimmickry, formulas, whatever...pragmatism, mystical intuitive self‑ authenticating experience psychology, emotions, feelings, all of that will never do what the Spirit is to do and alone can do.

 

     Now in this holy progress there's a handful of things the Spirit is doing in you and you need to know.  They're the components of this process.  They make up this process. 

 

     Number one, He illuminates the Word...He illuminates the Word.  First Peter 2:2 says, "As babes desire the pure milk of the Word that you might grow thereby."  You grow through the Word.  Now if you're going to move along th