Not Quenching the Holy Spirit B

John Owen, the great Puritan writer, had some rich insight. He said this, sanctification is the universal renovation of our natures by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus Christ. 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. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. The British preacher Charles Spurgeon said this, he said, I dread beyond all things the Holy Spirit's withdrawal. Death has not half the terror of that thought. I would sooner die a thousand times than lose the helpful presence of the Holy Ghost.

The question for you is this, do you have that same healthy fear? Do you dread doing anything that would keep you from receiving the help and guidance and comfort and protection of the Holy Spirit? Practically speaking, what could you do in biblical terms to quench the Holy Spirit? This is an important subject for you and for the health of your church, so stay here as John MacArthur examines this issue of quenching the Holy Spirit today on Grace To You.

The title of our study, The Bible-Driven Church, and here's the lesson. 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. 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 tenor 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. 1 Peter 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 this path of sanctification separated more from sin and unto God, that growing process, that moving ahead process is generated by the Word.

You take in the truth. A man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You feed on the Word and as you do, you grow. Now, the Spirit is the agent of the Word. The Spirit, you remember, is the author of the Word. 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21 says, holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the author of Scripture. And so, He wrote the Scripture. Not only that, 1 John 2, 20 and 27 says, the dwelling in us, He is an unction. He is an anointing so that we don't need human teachers. In other words, the Spirit not only wrote the Word, but He dwells in us as the illuminator of the Word, as the interpreter of the Word.

That's so essential. He opens it to us. That's why in John 14, 26, John 16, 13, Jesus said, I'm going to send you the Spirit. He's the Spirit of truth. He'll lead you into truth. He'll show you the truth.

He'll bear witness to you of the things that come from the Father concerning Me. In Psalm 19, it says that the Word transforms the whole person. The Word makes the simple person wise. The Word rejoices the heart. The Word enlightens the eyes. The Word endures forever. The Word produces comprehensive righteousness.

It does it all. It is given that it might teach us, instruct us, correct us, train us that we might be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The Spirit then moves into the Word as the author, moves into the Word as the interpreter, moves through the Word as the applier and quickens our heart. That's what He's doing to move us away from sin toward holiness by quickening the Word to us.

That's His work. But you can quench it. How? Fail to study the Word to show yourself approved unto God, mishandle the Scripture, don't rightly divide it, don't receive it with humility as James 1 21 says. You can quench the Spirit by not applying it in your life so that you become a hearer and not a doer. You can quench it by not hiding it in your heart, by not searching it diligently, by not desiring it, and you can quench it by not letting it dwell in you richly, as Paul said in Colossians 3. There's a second thing the Holy Spirit does. In moving us along this path of separation to holiness, He brings us into intimacy with God. This is an essential component in our spiritual growth. We need time with God.

If I'm going to move closer and closer to God, if the relationship is to be sweeter and sweeter and richer and richer and richer and fuller and fuller, then I have to spend time with God. And so it's the Spirit's work to draw me that way, to pull me that way. It is the Holy Spirit, Romans 8 says, who leads us to cry, Abba, Father. It is the Holy Spirit who leads us to the conviction that we are the children of God. Paul says again in Galatians 4, 6, it is the Holy Spirit who makes us cry, Abba, Father. That means Papa or Daddy.

That's a term of endearment, a term of affinity, a term of intimacy. The Spirit wants that. The Spirit wants us to draw into prayer, into communion, into fellowship with God, to run there as loving children with a loving Father. In fact, the two texts that teach us about Abba, Father, are interesting. In the text of Romans, the Spirit wants to draw us to intimacy with God for the sake of assurance that we might be secure in our salvation, that we might enjoy the wonderful, exhilarating confidence that we are the children of God and He loves us so much.

The text of Galatians doesn't emphasize assurance. In Galatians, the Spirit wants to draw us into intimacy with the Father, not for the sake of assurance, but for the sake of resources. We need to go in there, not just so that we can enjoy as company, but so that we can tap into what we need. We cry, Abba, Father, on the one hand, because we just want to celebrate the relationship. We cry, Abba, Father, on the other hand, because we so desperately have needs.

That's not unlike your children. Sometimes they come to you for no other reason than just to enjoy your affection, and there will be those times when they come to you to ask you for what they desperately need. And we cry, Abba, Father, in either case. And what is it the Spirit wants to do? It is the Spirit who, moving in our hearts, Paul says, makes us cry, Abba, Father. It is the Spirit who gives us that affinity for communion and intimacy with God, who takes God from being a distant God as He would be in the religions of the world, and making Him a God of love and compassion and care, understanding, a God who wants to enfold us in His love. Intimacy with God is an essential part of our growth. How can we ever become a spiritual father? Three levels of spiritual growth, spiritual babies, spiritual young men, spiritual fathers. Spiritual babies know the basics, spiritual young men know doctrine, 1 John 2, 12 and 13 explains this, and spiritual fathers know Him who is from the beginning. I can't have a deep knowledge of the eternal God unless I've spent time with Him, right? So in this process of spiritual growth and sanctification as I move toward holiness, I have an ever-increasing knowledge of God. Paul cried out for that, that I may know Him. That's the longing of my heart.

I want to know Him better, know Him better, know Him more. And the Spirit moves us that way. He desires, He works, He leads us into ever-richer, intimate fellowship with God. That's why He allows difficulty in our life, because it's difficulty that drives us into that communion, isn't it?

It's so essential. You can quench it by not accepting the difficulties of life, being bitter and angry, by not being prayerful and not enjoying the communion of God. You can quench that work of the Spirit by not being worshipful, by not being willing to cast your care upon Him. You can quench that work of the Spirit by operating on your fleshly power, sticking with your human resources and saying, I'm not going to go to God for anything. I've got all I need.

I can handle myself. You quench it by feeling inadequate, by not trusting God's love and saying, if I go, He doesn't love me, or not trusting His supply, He doesn't have what I need. Any of those and more would cause you to quench that work of the Spirit. There's a third thing He does. In moving us toward Christ's likeness, He glorifies Christ to us. He glorifies Christ to us.

You say, why does He do that? Because the goal of our holiness is to be like Christ, right? As I said in Galatians 4, 19, Paul says, I have pain until Christ is fully formed in you. To be like Christ is the issue. When we awaken His likeness, when we see Him as He is, we'll be like Him as He is. That's the goal.

That's the prize. That's the mark of Philippians 3 that Paul moved toward. And if I'm going to be like Christ, I've got to know what Christ is like. If we say we walk in Him, 1 John 2, 6, then we ought to walk as He walked. If we say we abide in Him, we belong to Him, we're His, then we ought to walk the way He walked.

If we're going to do that, we have to see how He walked. So what does the Spirit do? He shows us Christ.

He makes Christ glorious to us. In John 15, 26, and in John 16, 14, and 15, Jesus said, when the Spirit comes, He will bear witness of Me. He will show the things of Me to you.

That's what He'll do. He'll show you Me. He'll reveal Me to you. Jesus said, I have come to reveal the Father. Jesus said, the Spirit's come to reveal Me.

He'll show Me to you. He always leads people to ascribe glory to Jesus Christ. No man, 1 Corinthians 12, 3, ever curses Jesus by the Holy Spirit, but no man ever calls Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit. He is always ascribing lordship to Christ. He is always giving glory to Christ. And so He wants us to gaze on the glory of Christ. He wants us to see the One who is the goal of our spiritual progress. Look at 2 Corinthians 3, 18, absolutely magnificent verse, often overlooked, and so I write it under my name sometimes when I sign someone's book. 2 Corinthians 3, 18 says, we all, that is, believers, Christians, have an unveiled face.

He's been talking about Moses, and when Moses got the glory of God on his face, you remember he went up in the mountain, he saw the glory of God, got all over his face, and he veiled it? He says, well, we don't have any veil. We don't have anything that gets between us and the glory.

We don't have anything hindering. The veil is off in Christ, and we are looking as in a mirror and seeing the glory of the Lord. That's a great statement. What is the mirror that reflects the glory of the Lord?

It's this. This is where we see it. So as you study the Word of God, the reflection of the glory of Jesus Christ comes blazing off of it. I don't care whether you're talking about the Old Testament or the New Testament. Christ is the theme everywhere. And as you gaze into the Word of God with the blinders off, with the veil off, because you're in Christ, and you look in this glass which reflects the glory of the Lord into your face, as you do that, look at this, you are being transformed into the same image. You see, as we study the Word of God and the glory of the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ, is exposed to us, comes flaming as it were off the mirror of the Word, almost blinding us at times, like Moses who went in the rock and got the glory all over him. As we gaze into the glory of Christ revealed in the Word, we are transformed by that glory. Then he says, from one level of glory to the next level of glory, from glory to glory to glory to glory to glory.

Who's doing this? End of the verse. The Lord, the Spirit. It's the Spirit's Word.

Would we want to quench that and we want to retard that? The Spirit is transfiguring us. The word transformed is actually the same word translated in Matthew 17, transfigured. And it describes Jesus when He was on the mount, you remember? And He was transfigured before them.

That was quite remarkable. The glory of the Lord had appeared on the face of Moses, that's the outside. But Jesus showed His glory, it was on the inside.

And what Paul is saying here is quite remarkable. He is saying, you, as believers, are more like Jesus than you are like Moses, because the glory is not on the outside, but the glory is on the inside. You're being literally transformed on the inside, transfigured on the inside into the same kind of glory that Jesus displayed by the work of the Holy Spirit. So in this process of the Spirit moving you on the path of sanctification, He wants to illuminate the Word, which makes you grow. He wants to draw you into intimacy with the Father, which pulls you along the path of intimacy, which makes you grow. And then He wants to reveal Christ to you in such blazing glory that you see clearly the image of where you're going. And as you focus on that image and are lost in wonder, love, and praise, you will find the Spirit of God moving you inexorably along the path to Christ's likeness. What a thought. You can retard that, too.

You can quench that, too. Just don't bother to study the Word. Just don't see the beauty of Christ. Just use the Bible as a means to solve all your problems and don't let it just reveal Christ to you. Don't be humble and admit that you're so far short of the glory of Christ that you desperately need to see His glory and to be moving to a new level of glory. Spiritual pride will hold you back. Lack of humility will hold you back.

All those things will quench. Retard that. Unwish, retard, hinder the work of the Spirit and grieve His heart. Fourthly, in the process of this movement in your life, He wants to guide you into God's will. He wants to move you into God's will. What do you mean by that?

It's twofold. First of all, it means obedience to the will of God revealed. Obedience to the will of God revealed.

That which is in the Scripture. He wants to move you to be obedient. He wants to prompt your heart, prompt your conscience, convict your mind, stir you. In Jeremiah 10 23 it says, I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps. Jeremiah says, one thing I sure know, I can't run my own life.

And he was exactly right. He was saying, I can't direct my own life. I can't direct my own steps. And then he cried out to the Lord and he said, Lord, you've got to do it. You've got to guide me in the path of your will.

I cannot do that on my own. Ezekiel 36 27 talks about the first dimension of that, the promise of God in the new covenant. I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances.

There's the answer. I'm going to give you my spirit in the new covenant through Christ. I'm going to give you my spirit and he will lead you to obey me.

That's what he said. He'll lead you in obedience. He'll prompt you to obey what the Word says. Psalm 143 10, this is fascinating.

Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God. Then this, let Thy good Spirit lead me on level ground. On the one hand then, the Spirit teaches us to obey the Word. On the other hand, the Spirit leads us on level ground.

You say, what does that mean? That's the subjective work of the Spirit that's not necessarily related to the Scripture. The Spirit leads us, prompts us, impels us, compels us, convicts us to obey what we know out of the Scripture. But the Spirit also goes beyond that and leads us through the circumstances of life in areas that are not revealed in Scripture. The Bible doesn't tell me where to minister. The Bible doesn't tell me where to preach, 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.

He provides a level path for me. 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's speaking to us in our hearts, challenges us and moves us along a path of circumstance, opportunity, responsibility. That is beautifully stated, and I love the words of this particular statement in Isaiah 30. Let me read you 2 verses 20 and 21. Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, in other words, though you've had it tough, He your teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your teacher. Then this, your ears will hear a word behind you. This is the way.

Walk in it whenever you turn to the right or the left. That's the subjective leading of the Spirit. You're going to have a voice saying, do this, don't do that.

Not an audible voice, but a strong compelling. As you're in the Word and faithful in prayer, the Spirit of God is whispering to your conscience, whispering to your mind, do this, don't do that, do this, go this way, this is what I want. And He does it through your desires, your spiritual desires, your pure desires. He enlightens your mind. He stirs your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord, and He shall what? Direct your path.

He'll move you around the obstacles and over the hurdles and make it a level ground. Process of sanctification that involves progress, and it means I have to do God's will. That is, first of all, the Spirit prompts me to obey the Word of God by convicting and sometimes chastening me if I don't. And then the Spirit of God orders the providences of my life, the events and circumstances, and whispers in my conscience through my desire and sends me in the direction He wants me to go. All that is moving me in the process of sanctification.

You can quench that too. Selfishness, 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 His leading, I don't even check in with Him.

I really am not interested in it. Those things will quench the Spirit. Lastly, He strengthens us inwardly. All of this progress requires inward strength. As we just noted, it is not in a way of a man to order his own steps. I don't have the strength, as Zacharias says, not by might or by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.

I can't do it on my own. And that is why Paul in Ephesians 3 prayed this, I pray that you might be strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit, Ephesians 3 16. The only way you're going to do God's will, the only way you're going to experience God's love, the only way you're going to see beyond what you can ask or think, the only way you're going to be glorifying to Christ in the church is when your power is coming from the Holy Spirit. That's why 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says, when I am weak in my human strength, I become powerful because when I've run out of human resources, I cast myself on God. Strength comes from the Spirit. And so He's infusing us with strength as we are in the Word, as we are praying, as we are obeying. Even when we go through trials, we cast ourselves totally on Him because He's all there is that is left. The strength is there. The strength is there. You couldn't witness without His strength.

Jesus said, you will receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you, then you'll be a witness. You couldn't have victory over sin without His strength because you can't do it in the flesh. The flesh cannot overcome the flesh, only the Spirit can overcome it.

You could never have victory over Satan, for the weapons of our warfare in that battle are not fleshly, but mighty spiritual weapons given by the Spirit. You could not have security, for salvation is only vouch safe to you through the sealing of the Spirit. You could not serve effectively apart from the power of the Spirit. You cannot praise God in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord unless you're filled with the Spirit. You cannot have right relationships in a marriage, in a family, or anywhere else unless you are so filled with the Spirit. It's the Spirit's power that enables us to do everything. You can quench that, too, by being proud, not being humble, not recognizing your weakness, not recognizing your need, not recognizing your dependence. You can quench this work of the Spirit by being confident in your own flesh, your own ability. Any kind of sin retards this whole thing. Now, why should you deal with sin in your life?

Because the alternative is quenching the Spirit of God, retarding your spiritual process of sanctification, and grieving the heart of the Spirit, bringing down chastening and the forfeiture of blessing in your own life. The Spirit is doing a great work, illuminating the Word, bringing you into intimacy with God, showing you the glory of Jesus Christ, the goal of your life, guiding you into God's will, strengthening you for spiritual ministry at service and battle. He does all that. He is a powerful Spirit. I guess the sum of His ministry is no more beautifully stated than it is in Isaiah 11.

Just listen to this. Isaiah 11 2, the prophet describes the Holy Spirit this way. He says, He is the Spirit of the Lord. He is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. This Holy Spirit will bring you wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and cause you to fear and worship God. It is the Holy Spirit who does everything you need done. What more do you need than wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord?

You don't need any more than that. That's His work. That's what He wants to do in your life. But you will stifle it. If you are not filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5 18, if you are not walking in the Spirit, Galatians 5 25, they just describe the same thing. Being filled with the Spirit means He fills me up controlling everything. Walking in the Spirit simply means I put my feet in the path that He sets. And when you walk in the Spirit, the Spirit will do His sanctifying work. We don't want to quench the Spirit in the church today, but we're doing it on a large scale. We don't want to quench the Spirit in our own individual lives, but we're doing it if we do not allow the Spirit of God to accomplish these five things as He moves us toward Christ-likeness.

May God help us to be faithful, not to quench or grieve the Holy Spirit. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, continuing his current series here on Grace To You. It's a study he calls The Bible-Driven Church. In the past couple of broadcasts, John, you've been talking quite a bit about the work of the Holy Spirit. And every now and then I'll hear someone say, John MacArthur doesn't believe in the Holy Spirit. And obviously that's not true. The truth is, you've written and said quite a bit on the Holy Spirit over the years.

So talk for a moment about what led to that. I think probably the most humorous thing I heard along that line was somebody was commenting on me, some charismatic leader, and he said, Well, John MacArthur is effective. Just imagine what he'd be like if he had the Holy Spirit. I'll tell you what I'd be like if I didn't have the Holy Spirit.

I wouldn't be redeemed. I just happen to be like every other Christian in the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in me, and whatever I am, I am by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And I have said a lot about the Holy Spirit. More recently, it has come together through the book Strange Fire. That book was part of a conference we did—Grace to You Conference—on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The book Strange Fire has had a very remarkable impact. Of all the books that I've written through the years, this one, maybe the one called The Gospel According to Jesus, have had the most transformative effect on people's lives. The subtitle of Strange Fire is The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship. Nothing is more important than knowing the true God and knowing his nature and his holiness and worshiping him accurately.

The evangelical church today really has a very casual understanding of God the Father, and an even casual understanding of God the Son, and sadly, a very confused understanding of the Holy Spirit. So I've written this book called Strange Fire to expose those misrepresentations and clarify the true nature and work of the Holy Spirit. It's going to deepen your understanding and love for the Holy Spirit.

That's its purpose, is not to just denounce something, but to present the truth. An eye-opening, helpful resource to put in the hands of a friend or loved one confused about the Holy Spirit. Title again, Strange Fire, reasonably priced, and it'll have an impact, believe me, on your life and all those who read it.

Yes, it will. And friend, as John said, the goal of this book is to deepen your love for and understanding of the Holy Spirit. To see how the Spirit can help you conquer sin and grow strong in your walk with Christ, order John's book called Strange Fire. You can call our toll-free number at 800-55-GRACE. You can speak directly with our customer service team between 7 30 a.m. and 4 o'clock p.m. Pacific time. Our phone number again, 800-55-GRACE.

Or you can place your order at our website, gty.org. Strange Fire costs $15 in hardcover, and as always, shipping is free. I would also recommend that you listen to all the messages from the Strange Fire conference that Grace To You hosted a few years ago. This conference honored the true work of the Holy Spirit and confronted errors in charismatic theology. The series includes teaching and panel discussions from John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, Conrad M. Bayway, Justin Peters, and more. You can review those messages and discuss them with your relatives, friends, or your fellowship group, and you'll find the mp3s and transcripts available for free download at gty.org. That's our website again, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Keep in mind you can watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times. And be here tomorrow as John continues his study, The Bible-Driven Church, with another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.