In the sermon titled 'Do Not Quench the Spirit,' Jason Dohm explores 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, focusing on the exhortation not to quench the Holy Spirit. The sermon begins by discussing the metaphor of quenching as suppressing the Spirit's work, likening it to extinguishing a fire. Dohm emphasizes the interconnectedness of spiritual actions, highlighting how neglecting or engaging in certain behaviors can either foster or hinder the Spirit's influence. The sermon elaborates on the significance of not despising prophecies by testing all things against Scripture, which is considered prophecy itself. Dohm underscores the importance of maintaining spiritual vigilance and avoiding the complacency that can lead to despising unfulfilled prophecies. Furthermore, the sermon discusses the necessity of abstaining from every form of evil to safeguard the Spirit's work within us, drawing on King David's example of repentance and desire for closeness with God. Dohm encourages believers to fuel the Spirit's fire by actively pursuing holiness, embracing God's word, and being sensitive to the Spirit's guidance.

Sermon text is 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 19 through 22, but we're going to start in verse 8. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake.

Be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly. Comfort the faint-hearted. Uphold the weak. Be patient with all.

See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit.

Do not despise prophecies. Test all things. Hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil. Let's pray. Oh God, I pray that you would help us as we now sit down to listen to your word being preached.

I pray that you would be with Jason and that you would give him your power and your authority. I pray that you would give him the words to speak. And I pray, Lord, that we would be the people that hear and change. Lord, that we would not forget as soon as we leave this place. I pray that we would be convicted, that we would repent, and that we would be more like Christ by the end of today.

Lord, thank you for this text. Please bless it. Please bless all of us as we listen. In Christ's name, Amen. So the title of the sermon this morning is simply verse 19, Do not quench the Spirit.

And I think it really is the centerpiece of these four verses that we're studying today, verses 19-22. And we're in 1 Thessalonians 5. It's a chapter about the great divide on planet earth. There are two families on planet earth. There is the family of darkness.

You are part of that family. You are one of the children of darkness and there are many. The other family is the family of light. You are part of that family. You are one of the children of light.

This is the family of God, and there are many. And the chapters, our authors, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, having established that, They go on to develop lives that are fitting for these families. And they quickly get to the patterns of life that are fitting for the children of light, this great family of God. And they begin by speaking of a life that is fitting in how the children of light relate to their leaders. And then they go to a life that is fitting in how they relate to other people both inside and outside the church.

And then last week the text that we covered had to do with the children of light having lives that have certain habits in how we relate to God. Children of light should relate to God in a certain way. They should rejoice always. They should pray without ceasing. They should in everything give thanks.

And Then they closed that section with these words, This is the will of God. This is a fitting pattern for the children of this family. This week we are turning to things that are not fitting. So just as there are things that are fitting, appropriate, ought to be seen in abundance, increasing in the lives of the children of light, there is the other side of that coin. There are things that are not fitting, that are not appropriate, that don't belong, and that need to be purged from the lives of the children of light.

And so we get some do-nots in today's text. Last week when we were still talking about do's, when we were talking about rejoicing and praying and giving thanks, one of the arguments that I was trying to make was how interrelated and interdependent those things were. In other words, we had a list of do's, three things, but I wanted you to see that it wasn't an a la carte menu. They didn't have any relationship to each other, but that they were so related that they actually depended on one another. So if you gave attention to one of them, you would find all three of them being helped.

And the opposite being true also. If you neglected one of those three things, you would find all three of those things being harmed. They're interrelated, they're tightly connected, and they're interdependent so that what you do with one has an effect on the others. That is so true of this week's list as well. We have some do nots, but again it's not an a la carte menu that you just do or don't do and then it doesn't have an effect on the others.

They're not isolated, they are interrelated, they are interdependent so that as we give attention to one of these do nots it will have an effect on all the others. Or if we neglect one of these do nots it will have an effect on the others as well. So we are going to go to the text. Let's go to the text with prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we come to You through the work of Your Son Jesus, Thanking you that every day you are teaching your children to love the things that you love a little bit more.

And to hate the things that you hate a little bit more. God, thank you. This is so merciful. You've not left us loving the things that we used to love and hating the things that we used to hate. Contrary to you.

But you're making us more like you. Thank you. You have not left us to the things that our affections used to incline towards. You are discipling us. You are teaching us.

You are bringing us along. I pray that our study of your word today and the things that you set before our eyes today would help us to learn more, to love the things that you love and hate the things you hate, so that we could be conformed into the image of your Son. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. I have four main points to the sermon today and they follow right along with the text. The first is this, what it means to quench the Spirit.

You're filling in blanks on the handout, the blank is means. What it means to quench the Spirit. Verse 19, do not quench the Spirit. What does that mean? The Greek word that is rendered quench here, if you look at the Greek lexicon, here's what you find.

Extinguish, quench, suppress. Extinguish, quench, suppress. I think suppress might actually be one of the better words of those three to describe what actually is happening to the work of the Spirit in your life when you are doing this thing. You are throwing a wet blanket on the work of the Spirit. You are suppressing His work in your life.

But quench is the right word to use here. And I say that because of Matthew chapter 3 verse 11 where John the Baptist is speaking of Jesus and he says he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and what? And with fire. John the Baptist relates the Holy Spirit and his work with fire. In Acts chapter 2 verse 3, this is the Pentecost chapter, the Holy Spirit is sent.

They have been waiting in Jerusalem for the sending of the Holy Spirit, not even at Liberty to go out and preach the Gospel broadly. Jesus told them to wait and be filled with the Spirit first. So they have been waiting for that. In Acts chapter 2 it happens. And in Acts chapter 2 verse 3 we see that there is actually a visual representation of the Spirit falling on people.

What is it? It's tongues of fire falling upon them. So the New Testament has the Holy Spirit closely related with fire. So quench is a really good word to use in the rendering of this Greek word. This leads us to an obvious question.

Here's the question. Does this mean that you and I control a co-member, a co-equal member of the Holy Trinity? Do you boss him around? Do you make him effective or ineffective? Do you control what He can and can't do in your life?

That is a fair question coming out of an exhortation to not quench the Spirit. The answer to that is obvious. When you put it in those terms, can we boss around a co-equal member of the Trinity? The obvious answer to that is no, of course not. God ultimately has His way.

God is sovereign. He has determined the end from the beginning. So says Isaiah. So It can't mean that, and it doesn't mean that. But it does mean that we can have patterns in our lives that offend him and cause him to pull back.

Suppress his work, extinguish his work, quench his work. Things we do, ways we think, patterns that are offensive to a co-equal member of the Holy Trinity. And cause him to draw back. More on that in a minute. I want us to consider something else that Paul says to the Ephesians, which is really very close to our text today, and it's found in Ephesians 4.

So please turn to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, I want to read the very end of the chapter, it's verses 30 through 32. In our text in 1 Thessalonians 5, it's called quenching the Spirit. We're told not to quench the Spirit. In Ephesians 4, it's Paul again.

In this time he doesn't say, don't quench the Spirit, he says, don't grieve the Spirit. Very closely related. I think it helps us to understand what he's talking about when he says, don't quench the Spirit in our text. Let me read Ephesians chapter 4 verses 30 through 32. Paul writes, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. So we're told here in Ephesians 4 not to grieve the Holy Spirit. It is possible to have patterns in the way you think or the way you speak or the way you act that grieve him. And Then we have two verses that speak of patterns that would grieve Him, and then speak of patterns that would honor Him.

So we're learning in Ephesians chapter 4, in these verses that I just read, it's possible to grieve the Spirit, you shouldn't grieve the Spirit. Here's a list of things that grieve the Spirit. You have to see it that way. That is what verse 31 is. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.

That is a list of things that grieve the Spirit of God. If you have a pattern of those things, you are grieving the Spirit. And by implication, you are quenching His work. You are throwing a wet blanket on His Word in your life. And then we have verse 32, a list of things that honor the Spirit.

And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ forgave you. You could go right to Galatians chapter 5 and look at the fruits of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, the things that the Spirit of God is working to produce in the lives of believers, and overlay it with verse 32 and just draw lines between them. This is about the Spirit of God working to produce certain things. Apples on the tree, fruit in your life. And when you give attention to acting this way, thinking this way, speaking this way, then you are honoring the work of the Spirit of God in your life.

When you have this list of bad things in your life, a lot of it having to do with how you relate to other people, then you are grieving His Spirit. You are quenching His work in your life. I want to read a quote by Spurgeon. I've been reading Spurgeon on the Holy Spirit with a couple of young men in the church. And we hit the chapter on grieving the Holy Spirit this week.

Perfect timing. And here's a quote from that chapter. Spurgeon says this, I think I now see the Spirit of God grieving when you sit down to read a novel and there is your Bible unread. Perhaps you take down some travel book and you forget that you have got a more precious travel book in the Acts of the Apostles and in the story of your blessed Lord and Master. You have no time for prayer, but the Spirit sees you very active about worldly things, having many hours to spare for relaxation and amusement.

And then he is grieved because you see that you love worldly things better than you love him. His spirit is grieved within him. Take care that he does not go away from you, for it will be a pitiful thing for you if he leaves you to yourself." It would be a pitiful thing if he leaves you to yourself. Ouch! Spurgeon sees in his mind eye you reading your novel and your Bible is unread and he says that grieves the Spirit.

The Spirit gets the point. When you can't put down the novel, you can't bring yourself to put down the novel, and you can't bring yourself to pick up your Bible, the Spirit gets it. You love things more than you love Him. You have no time to pray. You have all kinds of time to allocate to relaxation and entertainment.

The Spirit gets it. He knows how to interpret those things. He is a co-equal member of the Trinity. He knows all things. He reads our hearts.

Here is the point. We can't despise the work of the Holy Spirit and expect that everything will stay the same with the Spirit. He will just keep on keeping on and not be offended and not pull back. You have no right to expect that when you are despising His work, that there will be no change in your relationship with the Holy Spirit. That He will never be offended and He will never change His operations within you.

I want you to see this. This is merciful. The Spirit pulls back and real live Christians feel it and don't like it. It's merciful that He would pull back. If he didn't pull back, you'd never stop loving the world.

If he didn't change the way in which he related to you, you'd never stop grieving him and quenching him. He wants you to know that he's grieved and that you're quenching his work. So he pulls back and the real life Christian who is indwelt by the Spirit of God feels a change. Feels distant. Feels cold.

And we don't like it. It's sweet to be near to God. And it's bitter to be distant and cold. It is bitter. It's the mercy of God that the Spirit of God would actually pull back when we mistreat Him so, by loving our novels and hating the Bible in practical terms.

No one would ever say that. No one would ever admit that. No one would ever admit that they have lots of time for Leisure and entertainments, but no time to pray. Friends, do not quench the Spirit. We need every single movement on our souls.

There's such a need for His fruit in our lives. We can't afford to forfeit one movement in our souls Point number one what it means to quench the spirit point number two One way to quench the Spirit, despising prophecies. If you are filling in blanks on the handout, way prophecies. One way to quench the Spirit, despising prophecies. Verse 20.

Do not despise prophecies. Prophecies proceed from the Holy Spirit. You despise prophecies, you quench the Spirit. You see how interrelated and interdependent they are. This verse can be a lightning rod in the modern church.

Why is that? Because there are two camps regarding miraculous spiritual gifts that we see in the book of Acts. One camp says they ceased, they are called cessationists. Meaning the miraculous spiritual gifts that we see on display in the book of Acts were for that time they did not continue forward, we should not expect them to see today. There's another camp that say, no they continue.

They're called continuationists. So you have cessationists and continuationists. The continuationists say, there's no indication in the New testament that these things should, would, or did cease and we should expect to see all of them on display even as they are seen in the book of Acts. And the continuationist camp, those who believe that those miraculous spiritual gifts continued even to today and will continue until Jesus comes back. They believe that being a cessationist is by definition quenching the Spirit.

In other words, if you don't have someone delivering a prophecy from God today in your church and that would be disturbing to you and you would restrain that, you are by definition quenching the Spirit. So that is the continuationist's main interpretation of these two verses. Don't quench the spirit, don't despise prophecies. They would look at me and us and say, you despise prophecies because there is not going to be a prophecy today, and if there was you would freak out. And so by definition, by the fact that that is true, you are quenching the Spirit.

Our confession, the Baptist Confession of 1689 has cessationist elements in it, and I am a cessationist. Or a recovering Charismatic, which I was in high school and college. Or whatever you want to call me. And I'm not going to wade into that today. If we were preaching through 1 Corinthians and we hit chapter 12 and we hit chapter 14, I would have to.

I would have to fully develop that. I'm in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and I'm saying I don't have to. And I don't have time to. So I don't insist that you are a cessationist. I don't think you're crazy if you're not a cessationist.

But I do want to insist that you not hold a view of prophecy that makes it inferior to Old Testament prophecy. Now track with me here. This is the only point I want to insist on in terms of developing a distinction between cessationists and continuationists. Here's what I'm saying. I forbid you to hold a view of prophecy that makes it inferior to Old Testament prophecy.

Why do I do that? Because The New Covenant isn't worse than the Old Covenant. The New Covenant is better. It's a better covenant based on better promises. So if there is prophecy that is continuing, I insist that the prophets not be inferior and that the prophecies not be inferior.

Meaning, fallible and unknowable. I think that alone, Applying the standards for prophets and prophecies that have always existed in the Old Testament, just saying those have to still apply if we have prophecy today, will keep us away from a lot of the God-dishonoring things that are happening in the modern church. So I'd like to start, in terms of speaking of what I think it does mean, by going to an example of despising prophecies. We have the perfect example for what it means to despise prophecies in 2 Peter chapter 3. Please turn there.

2 Peter chapter 3. By the way, for clarity, I'm waging war against the common modern view that New Testament prophecy can be fallible, and it's no big deal if it is fallible. Old Testament prophecy is a big deal if it's fallible. You don't listen to that prophet anymore and you might stone him. I'm just saying under a new covenant that is supposed to be a better covenant based on better promises we have to reject that view.

That now under the better covenant we have an inferior prophecy that it doesn't matter if it's not right and that has no bearing on how you view the person who said God said this and it didn't happen. Alright here's a clear example in the New Testament of despising prophecy. 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 1-4. Peter writes, Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder, that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." What do you have here?

You have scoffers reacting to prophecy. And reacting to prophecy that we have in 1 Thessalonians. So this is very relevant to us because it's the same book in which we're studying. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy have spoken at length about Jesus coming back and the resurrection of the dead. What is that?

That's prophecy. That's unfulfilled prophecy to the Thessalonians and unfulfilled prophecy to me and you And it hasn't happened yet. Jesus come back yet. No, it's unfulfilled prophecy So here in first Peter second excuse me second Peter chapter 3 we have people reacting to that prophecy And Peter begins by saying be mindful of the words of the holy prophets He's talking about the Old Testament prophets and be mindful of the words of the holy prophets, he's talking about the Old Testament prophets, and be mindful of the words of the apostles of the Lord. And then he says, scoffers are going to come and they are going to say, where is the promise of His coming?

They are going to scoff at the coming of Jesus Christ. They are going to scoff at prophecies that are from God that haven't come true yet. And they are going to say, because they haven't come true yet, they aren't true. This is despising unfulfilled prophecy that we have in 1 Thessalonians. So even cessationists have unfulfilled prophecy to despise.

In 1 Thessalonians, in Matthew chapter 24. In 2 Thessalonians we are going to hit more unfulfilled prophecy in the weeks to come in 2 Thessalonians. And we will have the opportunity to despise it. We have unfulfilled prophecy in the book of Revelation. The point is, we're all in the same boat.

You can be a continuationist, you can be a cessationist. The point is, We all have the opportunity to despise prophecies. No matter whether you think it's happening today in the church or not, we all agree that there is unfulfilled prophecy and there is an opportunity to despise it. In this case, in the case of what is before us in 2 Peter, about Jesus coming back, if you will not watch and pray, if you will not live in expectation that Jesus might come at any time, you are despising prophecy. You are essentially saying in your heart, where is the promise of His coming since the time of the fathers things have continued and they will just keep continuing.

That is a New Testament example in spades of what it means to despise prophecy. In addition, flip back one page to 2 Peter chapter 1, just one page back. Let me read verses 16-20. Chapter 1, verses 16-20. For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This is talking about when Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. The voice came from heaven saying those words. That's what Peter is speaking of. Verse 18, And we heard his voice which came from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Here's the main point I want to take out of 2 Peter chapter 1. Scripture is prophecy. Prophecy is God putting words into a man's mouth to get those words to his people. He is speaking to His people.

Scripture is prophecy. That's exactly the main point of what Peter is saying in chapter 1. Scripture is prophecy. Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Peter says this is that.

This is holy men of God being moved by the Spirit of God. He put words in their mouth. He was speaking to you. He gave you His Word. The Bible is prophecy.

Scripture is prophecy. All of it is prophecy. Here's the point. Whenever and however God speaks, there is an opportunity to despise it. Whenever God speaks, however God speaks, Built into it is an opportunity to despise what God has said.

We can despise what God is saying by neglecting our Bibles. That is despising prophecy, because all scripture is prophecy. I hope I just proved it to your satisfaction from 2 Peter chapter 1. All scripture is prophecy. If you neglect your Bible, you are despising prophecy.

We can do it by taking lightly what we read. So let's say our Bibles aren't dusty. We actually read them. You can read your Bible very unprofitably. That's not all that hard to do.

You can read it a lot and read it very unprofitably. It can be an intellectual exercise to you where You feed the brain a little bit and you close that thing and put it back on the shelf. You've taken it lightly. You've not been prayerful. You've not been thoughtful.

You've not read it before the Lord in order to see what he would have you know and do. And you have done your little intellectual exercise and you've despised prophecy. We can do it, we can despise prophecy by being hearers only and not doers of the word. That despises what God has said. So, if I don't do anything, I want to come to this verse, do not despise prophecies, and get you to extract yourself from thinking that prophecies is only foretelling the future by a guy who comes into the church service with the claim to be something.

Let's expand our view of prophecy to match Scripture. I'm not trying to narrow it, I'm trying to expand it. When we hear the Word, And we go away and we don't do anything with it. We are despising prophecies. It has to be that way.

So I can't wait until the end of the sermon to start applying. We have to start applying now. Are you despising prophecies? Do you have a dusty Bible? Or do you read it just as an intellectual exercise?

Or Are you a hearer only? You never do what God speaks to you in His Word? To despise prophecies is to pat God on the head. He is Lord. He is Lord.

He has spoken in his word and you and I would pat him on the head. That's number two. One way to Quench the Spirit, despising prophecies. Number three, identifying and honoring legitimate prophecies. If you are filling in blanks, identifying, honoring.

Identifying and honoring legitimate prophecies. This is verse 21. Test all things. Hold fast what is good. Instead of despising prophecies, We should identify the legitimate ones.

What is actually of God and then we should honor it. We should find out what God really said. This is really of God. These things are of God. He said this.

This is true. And then we honor it. In fact, this is not just prophecies, I want to retract what I put on the handout. Because the verse actually says all things, Test all things. Test prophecies and test everything else you hear too.

To find out what's true. What God says is always true. What people say God says isn't always true. It's not enough to just claim God told you to say something, it has to be true, or it is not of God. Now how?

How do we test all things? We have been given a plum line. You know what a plum line is? A plum line is called that because there is a weight at the bottom of a piece of string called a plumb bob. It has a point at the bottom of it.

I know this because I googled it this morning very early. A plum line is what it gets its name from. So it's a string with a weight on the bottom of it and it tells you what perfectly vertical is. If you want to argue with the plumb line, you've got to argue with gravity. Your beef is with gravity if you don't think the plumb line is vertical.

Because you just put a weight on a string and that tells you that line is vertical because of gravity. It's a perfect unmovable standard for what's vertical. So it's really helpful for people who are building things. A plumb line. That is what scripture is.

If you want to argue with scripture, you are arguing with God. It's the plumb line. It's like arguing with gravity. Good luck winning that argument. Gravity knows what vertical is.

Gravity is not a thing that knows anything, but you know what I'm saying. Gravity defines what vertical is. God defines what true is. If He says it, it's true. Turn to Acts 17.

I feel like I've overused this cross reference, But I can't not use it today. It's the Bereans in Acts chapter 17. You can't talk about testing all things for truth without coming to Acts chapter 17 and talking about the Bereans, so I'm going to do it. Acts chapter 17, verses 10 and 11. This fits right with Thessalonians, right?

Because Paul and Silvanus and Timothy just got run out of Thessalonica and they come to Berea in Acts 17 verse 10. Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. So just parenthesis here.

I'm not talking about the believers in Thessalonica. I'm talking about the ones who actually ran them out of town. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. They are fantastic Bible students. They are ready, like They have a readiness and an eagerness and then they go home and they do extra unassigned homework.

Searching the scriptures to find out whether it matches the plumb line. Whether the teacher was trying to argue with gravity or not. Don't argue with gravity. You can never win. Don't argue with the Word of God.

You can't win there either. We need to know if what is said to us is true. So we have these two elements that we find in Berea among these noble-minded people. Are you ready? The first element is readiness.

They received the Word with readiness. They had a hunger and a thirst for it. They had an appetite to hear what God would say to them. They had an eagerness for it. And they were always testing what they were hearing.

Two elements, both precious, both necessary, and there they were together. And I want to argue that when you detach them, you have problems. If you have readiness without testing, many of us when we first got saved we had readiness without testing. We didn't know our Bibles and we weren't used to going to look to find out, and we would fall for anything when we first got saved. We had a readiness.

We couldn't wait to hear more from God. And so we were looking for that in all kinds of places. And some of them weren't good. And some of it, we swallowed it hook line and sinker and it became things that needed to be ripped out and replaced with sound doctrine later because we had readiness but we weren't testing the things that we were hearing to find out whether those things were so. We weren't going home and looking at the plumb line to say, wait a minute, this isn't vertical.

But, it's also possible to have testing without readiness. The withering critic, who is parsing every single phrase to find error. But it's not because there is a hunger to hear from God, it's because there is a cynical spirit that is there, waiting to disprove everything that comes out of everyone's mouth. It's easy to sort of drift towards that. It's not easy to become that.

That's a long way down the road. It's easy to drift towards that. We begin to become very critical about the things that are said, and we become withering critics. There is no eagerness to hear from God. There is an eagerness to skewer the teacher.

We should check ourselves. Is this an eagerness to hear what God is speaking to me, and to make sure that what I'm hearing is pure truth, or do I just want to skewer the speaker? Those are different things. So it's bad to have readiness without testing, and it's bad to have testing without readiness. Those two should be friends and should travel together.

Our authors say test all things. Listen to what the Apostle John says in 1 John 4 verse 1. I don't think you'll be able to make it there in time, but you can look it up later if you want to. 1 John 4 verse 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." Paul says that spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Some of these things have to be spiritually discerned.

John says, test the spirits whether they are of God. Don't believe every spirit. Many false prophets have gone out in the world. Many people go out there and say, God told me to tell you this. And they're lying.

God never did tell them to tell us that. So we test the spirits and we compare to the plumb line to see whether the teaching we're getting is vertical. It matches the standard. We test all things. Here's what Matthew Henry says in commenting on this, the doctrines of human infallibility, implicit faith, and blind obedience are not doctrines of the Bible.

Amen. I'm going to read that again. I like it so good. The doctrines of human infallibility, implicit faith, and blind obedience are not the doctrines of the Bible. We don't need a pope.

We have a pope. His name is Jesus. The vicar of Christ is Christ. Everything else gets tested. Every other spirit gets tested.

Among the Lord's people. Now this is the other part. First part was Test all things. Here's the other part. Hold fast what is good.

This is vitally important. It isn't enough to sort out good from bad. Okay, you can come to the first half of this verse. Test all things. Okay, I've tested it.

This is good. This is bad. Okay, What do we do with the good? Nothing? Are we just sorting information here into stacks?

The good stack and the bad stack, and now I go home. No! We hold fast to the good. We cling to it. And one of the ways we cling to it is we practice it.

We say, this is good, that means God is speaking to me. God is speaking to me. And it requires action on my part. It requires that I think differently, or it requires that I speak differently, or it requires that I do differently, or it requires all three. Hold fast to what is good.

That means it's not just Creating two stacks, good and bad. So that was number three. Identifying and honoring legitimate prophecies. And really it goes way beyond prophecies. It's test all things.

Number four, and lastly, safeguarding and cherishing the work of the Spirit. If you're filling in blanks on the handout, safeguarding, Cherishing. Safeguarding and cherishing the work of the Holy Spirit. Verse 22. Abstain from every form of evil.

You might say, how did you get from here to there? This is about abstaining from evil. What does this have to do with safeguarding and cherishing the work of the Spirit? Abstaining from evil is safeguarding and cherishing the work of the Spirit. And I hope to prove it.

We've come full circle now. And you can't not see how interrelated and interdependent this is with do not quench the spirit. Do you see the connection? How closely connected and how closely dependent Do Not Quench the Spirit is with abstain from every form of evil. If you don't abstain from every form of evil, to one degree or another you are quenching the Spirit.

And, if you are not quenching the Spirit, you will be abstaining from every form of evil. They are interrelated. They are interdependent. The Spirit is what? What is the Spirit called?

The Holy Spirit. So by definition, He is offended by unholiness. The Holy Spirit of God comes to live inside the people of God and when they don't abstain from every form of evil, say it the other way, they are willing to partake of forms of evil. The Holy Spirit is offended by the unholiness. That's just being the master of the obvious.

I've not said anything profound there. That's just by the definition, the Holy Spirit has to be offended by the unholiness that we bring into our lives. We are willing to partake of forms of evil and the Holy Spirit is offended by it. It's easy to read this verse abstain from every form of evil and just say well this is just another form of be holy for I am holy. Don't sin.

I got it. We are not supposed to sin. I can't do it, but at least I understand it. To do that is to miss something very precious. So I want to try to get us to what is precious here.

It does mean God is holy so we should be holy. And it does mean we shouldn't sin. But there's a reason why Paul and Silvanus and Timothy are saying this. So keep it connected with the reason. I want to sit at the feet of King David for a minute.

The man after God's own heart. And look at Psalm 51. Please turn there. It's the last place we'll be turning. Psalm chapter 51.

David. Psalm 51 is the psalm of confession and repentance for Bathsheba and Uriah. So King David commits adultery with Bathsheba, and then kills her husband. You want to talk about making room for a form of evil. You just have it in exponential terms in David's life.

Imagine how much that would grieve the Holy Spirit. But he is repenting in Psalm 51. In fact, the song we sang was essentially Psalm 51. You can match it up almost line for line with Psalm 51. So we have already sung Psalm 51.

I would like to read Psalm 51 verses 10 through 12. David writes, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous Spirit." David commits adultery, David kills the husband.

The prophet comes and says You are the man. And David comes to his senses and his great fear is that he would lose fellowship with God. Ok, It's right here. Do not cast me away from your presence. God, I'm an adulterer And I'm a murderer.

And I know you can't have an adulterer in your presence. I know you can't have a murderer in your presence. God, please, is there a way You cannot cast me from your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. God, please don't leave me without the Holy Spirit.

David had a lot of problems, but in his mind, his greatest problem is that fellowship with God has been lost. And the joy of salvation, the joy of being the Lord is gone and he is begging God to restore it. I hope you have a memory of being in a time of such sweet fellowship with God that you were terrified of the thought of messing it up by sinning. I want you to search your memory banks. I have this.

I've got it in my memory banks. A time of life when your fellowship with God, your walk with God, your communion with God was so sweet, It was so close that you were afraid to sin because you thought it will mess it up. It will make what has been so sweet, less sweet. It will make the closeness that I have had more distant. It will make the warmth that I felt cold.

And though it was your duty not to sin, duty was the furthest thing from your mind. Being with God, walking closely with Him, was the reason you were afraid to sin. That's in my memory bags. When I say that to myself, I've got it. And it was every form of evil that you were thinking about.

Not just the things that your neighbor would know. You were afraid to sin because you knew that God knew, and it would put distance between you and Him. And your walk was so sweet during that period, you couldn't bear the thought of it being less sweet. Or there being more distance, or there being more coldness in your heart. Now, here's the question.

How distant is that memory? How far back do you have to go in your memory banks to get there? This is probably my main exhortation from today, brothers and sisters. If you are in Christ, reclaim that ground. A loud sin gives up that ground.

This isn't very recent memory for me. It has occurred to me as I've thought on these verses, how much ground has been lost without me really knowing. Because this often happens by degrees, little degrees. And after a while you're not even aware of how much ground. And you're just really not walking that closely with the Lord anymore.

It's not that sweet. You've sort of forgotten what it was like to walk that closely with the Lord, that you'd be afraid to engage in any form of evil because you just can't give up the sweetness. That's what this text is about. Here's what the Nelson Study Bible says in one of the notes on this verse. One of the fundamental rules of walking with God is that we should not say no to the Spirit of God.

A fundamental rule of walking with God. Don't tell the Holy Spirit no. Don't tell him no. When he's moving on you, to pull back from this or to do more of that, don't tell him no. You quench his work.

You add distance. Every time you say no, you are adding distance. You are making your heart colder. You are making the communion less sweet. Every time you say no, here is what Matthew Poole says, Men by sloth, security, earthly encumbrances, inordinate affections, etc.

May abate these operations of the Spirit. Did you get his list? Sloth, security, earthly encumbrances, inordinate affections, etc. These are all forms of evil. We don't think of it that way, but we should think of it that way.

Sloth is a form of evil that we should abstain from. To go back to Charles Spurgeon, when we love the novel that hate our Bible. When we have lots of time for the novel, we have no time for our Bible. When we have no time for prayer, but we have lots of time for leisure and entertainments, That is a form of evil. Sloth is.

Misallocating the time that God has given us is. Earthly encumbrances. These are things in ordinate affections. These are things that can be lawful. These are things that can be lawful.

But you begin to bring them up in status into competition with the things of God, and you push aside the things of God, and you find yourself dominated by lawful things, and you are quenching the Spirit. Don't tell me you don't know this can be true. I don't believe you. I won't believe you. Don't tell me you have no experience of this in your life.

I won't believe you. Because I've got too much of that experience in my own life to believe it can be true of you. Applications. I have four. The first three, I just want to reverse So number one, fuel the spirit.

Fuel the spirit. So the exhortation in our text is do not quench the Spirit. Instead of throwing a wet blanket on it, throw gasoline on it. I'm not saying you can make the Spirit more powerful than the Spirit was. That's not what I'm suggesting.

I'm suggesting that when We bring a willing, obedient heart that loves God that the Spirit produces His fruit at such a faster rate. I don't think that's controversial. I'm not saying we can add anything to the Spirit. I'm just saying we should bring a willing heart that loves God. We should throw gas on the fire, not a wet blanket on the fire.

Fuel the spirit. Number two, adore prophecies. Adore them. The exhortation in the text was do not despise prophecies. Yeah, exactly.

Instead of despising them, we should adore them. We should thank God Almighty that He speaks to His people. And we should want to hear what He has to say, and then we should do something with it. We should adore prophecies. We should thank God that He is so good that He hasn't just left us to our own thoughts and our own ways, but He has given us His word.

He has spoken to us. He cares enough about us to speak to us. 3. Proactively do all the things that please the Lord. Proactively, do the things that please God.

Number four. Finally. Ask yourself the question, where have I said no? The Holy Spirit is trying to move you toward something or move you away from something and you said no. And you said no.

And you said no. And you said no. And you said no. And you said no. And you said no.

And he started to pull back. You were quenching him. Because he was offended. And he wanted you to feel some absence. He wanted you to feel some distance.

He wanted you to feel cold where it used to be hot. He wanted you to taste bitter when it had been sweet, so you'd know that He noticed. And He was offended by the unholiness that you invited into your patterns. Where have I said no? God, how good it is that You confront us.

I do thank You for the do's, the things that we should be doing, Like rejoicing, like praying, like giving thanks. But God, we know we need the do nots. We know we need You to come and put Your finger on the things that we've cultivated in our lives that are not fitting for your children. Extract them Lord. Don't leave us to ourselves.

God where we've said no and where we've quenched the Spirit we want to plead with you. Not to cast us from your presence and not to take your Holy Spirit from us. Thank you for this text. Please use it in a mighty way in our lives in Jesus name, Amen.