First Thessalonians, chapter
5. I love the way the Word of God,
as we just follow it through and go verse by verse and sometimes
word by word, we're actually just led to see glorious things
in His Word. I thought I'd just read from
verse 14 down to the end of the chapter, but I'm really just
wanting to look on 5 verse 19, but it's lovely to see the context. Verse 14, now exhort your brethren,
warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the
weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for
evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, both among
yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without
ceasing. In everything give thanks, for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the spirit, despise
not prophesying, prove all things, hold fast to that which is good,
abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace
sanctify you wholly. And I pray, God, your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you,
who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet
all the brethren with a holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord
that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren. The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. It's been an awesome
journey through 1 Thessalonians. But it's interesting to come
to this verse and to think how much we owe to the Holy Spirit
and how little we often speak of Him. But He is God. He is a person, and all of God's
children are in the most intimate, intimate relationship with Him. And such was the situation in
Thessalonica. Such is the situation in the
lives of us in this church. But the Holy Spirit in 1 Thessalonians
gets three mentions and an important one in 2 Thessalonians. So I
thought it would be good just to refresh our memories and just
look at the activities of the Holy Spirit. We remember from
Acts chapter 16 that Paul was guided and directed by the Holy
Spirit to go from Turkey across to modern day Greece. He passed through those big cities
and then he came to Thessalonica and he came there preaching,
opening and alleging, explaining. explaining and proving that Christ
must needs have suffered and risen from the dead again from
the dead and this Jesus whom I preach to you is Christ and
then in verse 4 of chapter 17 says and some of them believed
They believed. Some of them believed and some
of them consorted. They associated with, they had
fellowship with Paul and Silas. A great number of them, but some
out of that crowd that he preached to. But this Holy Spirit, if
you go back to the beginning of the book, chapter 1, verse
5, this Holy Spirit came. The Gospel came. He caused, He
brings the Gospel to people. It comes under the direction
of the Holy Spirit, verse 5. And it comes not in word only,
but as it is in truth the Word of God. It comes in power. And it comes in the Holy Ghost,
in the Holy Spirit. It comes bringing much assurance. It comes as its evidence, as
is evidenced in the lives of Paul. The Gospel they bring impacted
them and then it impacted the Thessalonians, evidenced in their
lives and they became, in verse 6, they became followers of us
and followers of the Lord. They were people who received
the Word. They believed. It's to receive
the Word. Even if there's much affliction,
God's children still receive the Word in much affliction and
with joy. With joy. Much affliction and
joy in the Holy Spirit. And the impact of it in verse
7 and 8, they are examples to all the believers And from them
not only did the Word take root and was received by them, but
from them sounded out the Word of the Lord. So much about the
Word, isn't it? The Holy Spirit who inspires
this Word, the Holy Spirit who wrote the Old Testament, the
Old Testament prophets were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Paul
preached the Old Testament to them. Paul preached Christ out
of the Old Testament to them, and from them sounded out this
word, the word of the Gospel. I love what verse 8 finishes. It says, but in every place your
faith, your faith toward God, your faith Godward is spread
abroad. and they show what manner of
entering in. There is an entering in, there
is a beginning. When the Holy Spirit comes, He
comes with power and He creates. And He begins and He turns people,
they turn from idols to serve the living and true God, verse
9. And they came to a place where
they waited. They acknowledged and saw what
the Son had done for them. That He'd come to this earth,
He'd done His work, He was raised from the dead, He's now residing
in heaven. And he said, Jesus, this Jesus,
even Jesus, which delivered, finished and perfectly, once
and for all, this Jesus delivered us, delivered a particular group
of people from the wrath to come. And there they were, these people
guided and led by the Holy Spirit, waiting, just waiting, anticipating
the return of the Lord Jesus. Just as we are. I love how he
describes them. Just turn over the page to 2
Thessalonians. I love how he describes them.
He describes those who were given over to reprobation in those
previous verses in chapter 2. You can read them and I pray
that God might cause you to read them and tremble. God sends them
a powerful delusion, a strong delusion that they should believe
a lie, in verse 10, because they received not the love of the
truth that they might be saved. The first 13 is one of the wonderful
buts in the scriptures, but we are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. This is what happens
to those who are beloved of the Lord, because God has from the
beginning, His love was from the beginning, God has from the
beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification and belief
of the truth. What a great prescription. Where
unto? What's God's activity in the
lives of His people? And what's the Spirit's work
in the lives of His people? He called you by our Gospel,
and what's the end result of the Gospel? I love how it's described,
isn't it? What a great buck we had in 13,
what a great result we have in 14, to the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, therefore,
if that's what's coming, if that's what God has done in your life
and that's what God has promised to bring, and that's the reward,
isn't it? Obtaining the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast.
And hold the traditions, hold the teaching that you heard.
Don't move a millimeter from the gospel that you heard from
the apostles. Don't be diverted by the world.
Don't be diverted by your flesh. Hold the traditions that you
have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle. And now,
our Lord Jesus. Christ Himself and God, even
our Father which has loved us and given us everlasting consolation
and good hope, how does all this come? People who are going to
have comfort and consolation here and are going to have a
good hope, are going to have it through grace. Not through
works that they have done, but through the grace of God. Comfort
your hearts. What a wonderful word that word
comfort is. This word discomforts people
so often, doesn't it? Stirs us up. Our flesh discomforts
us. Comfort your hearts and establish
you in every good word and work. Starts with words. Starts with
a word. and finishes with God working
it out in the lives of His people. Let's contemplate for a few minutes
this glorious Holy Spirit. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
God goes to such extraordinary lengths in the Scriptures to
reveal Himself personally, as a person, the persons of the
Godhead. It is extraordinary, isn't it?
One of the reasons I disdain from having theological discussions
and especially theological debates with people these days is that
we're talking about a person. It's a personal thing, isn't
it? That doesn't mean that we shouldn't defend the Gospel.
That doesn't mean that we shouldn't take every opportunity to have
the Gospel. But when there's opposition, we don't have to
stand there and squabble with them. We spread out the net of
the Gospel and let God do His work. The whole business of apologetics,
every time I see something that's about apologetics now, I was
speaking to a person up near Tamworth and they have a friend
and he's given himself over, his ministry now is a ministry
of apologetics. It's so much better to have a
ministry of proclamation and leave the apologetics to those
who want to debate things. We have. We have been led by
the Spirit, I believe, and by the Word of God to go from a
place where we did want a debate, and we do want to discuss, and
we do want to proclaim the Lord Jesus, and we're talking about
matters of eternal life and death. But if they're going to argue,
they need to go back and talk to God about it. The Holy Spirit
is a person. The Holy Spirit is a divine person. He is God and He is personal. He is the Spirit of God. And
as the Spirit of God, he, like the Lord Jesus and like the Father,
he has life in himself. And because he has life in himself,
he is the creator. He's the creator of all natural
life and he's the creator of all spiritual life. Job in Job 33 verse 4 says, the
Spirit of God has made me. the Spirit of God has made, but
we don't want to deny anything of the the ability of our glorious
Saviour to create. But our God, the Holy Spirit,
is God in all of His attributes. He is God in life. He preserves all spiritual life.
He is responsible for creation. The Spirit of God in Genesis
1-2, He hovered over those waters of chaos in exactly the same
word as used as He came, in the sense He hovered over Mary, and
into Mary came the Lord Jesus. He creates all spiritual life.
He is absolutely sovereign. Some of us have been discussing
the beauties of John chapter 3. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus,
the man who's come out of darkness, come out of the darkness of Pharisaical
religion, come out of the darkness of all of those traditions of
men that they held on to. And the Lord Jesus takes him
to passages of scripture that he knows off by heart and doesn't
have a single clue about. He takes him to passages like
Ezekiel 36, He says in verse 5, I say unto
thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
you must be born again. Then he describes the Spirit's
activities. The wind blows where it wishes,
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst
not tell whence it cometh, or whither it cometh. So is everyone
born of the Spirit. I was talking to my cousin as
we left Vismore the other day and we were having this discussion
and she's a non-believer. She's been read in religion that
she's been a non-believer for the last 40 something years. Never was a believer. But there
she was trying to sort of talk to me about what it was like
to stand before people and to proclaim the Gospel. And it's
really fascinating because she was trying and trying and trying
and the best she can do is actually use worldly illustrations and
look and seek some sense of worldly comfort that Christians get out
of this glorious, glorious Gospel. And everything about the Gospel
is supernatural, isn't it? We're talking about supernatural
things and someone who has no light is fumbling around in the
darkness and trying to explain things that I'm doing and trying
to explain and trying to understand it, trying to be gently critical
of it. How could you know that you have
the truth? And then she even gave a description
of the Jesus that she thinks might be the Jesus that she doesn't
want to believe in, but other people believe in. And this God
scatters his little ones like petals on the ground and watches
them all grow and flower and flourish and then he gathers
them all. It was an interesting conversation.
She is courageous. I'm very fond of my cousin and
I'm praying that there will be another opportunity to talk. But he is absolutely sovereign.
The Holy Spirit, this person, this person who is God, is sovereign. He blows. He goes where he wishes. and you cannot tell. You hear
the sound of it and you cannot tell. It is He, He who gives
gifts, doesn't it? He who gives gifts in 1 Corinthians
12, He who gives gifts to His church. to the church that's raised up
through him bringing the gospel with power to the hearts of people. And all these work the one and
the selfsame spirit dividing to every man severally as he
will. 2 Corinthians 12.11. as He will. He is sovereign. He is sovereign in the creation
of spiritual life. He is sovereign in the distribution
of spiritual gifts. And it's interesting isn't it,
it's wonderful this King James translation. If you're looking
down at your copy you'll see one of the most extraordinary
movements in this last 30 or 40 years again has been this
whole rising up of the Charismatic and the Pentecostal movement.
And so much of it is based on a word that's not even in the
scriptures. You hear them talk about spiritual
gifts all the time. If you look down at your translation
in chapter 12 verse 1 you see the word spiritual brethren. See, gifts is not there. In many, many, many places where
it's talked about, where it's been used and misused, the word
gifts are not there. The Holy Spirit gives, He divides
unto every man as He will. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy
Spirit is a person. Talk to Him. It's like the Lord Jesus, isn't
it? He's not a thing. He's not an
object. He's a person. We are meant,
we are, as we'll see in a little while, we're in the most extraordinary
relationship, not just with the Lord Jesus and God the Father,
we're in the most extraordinary intimate relationship, brothers
and sisters. with God the Holy Spirit. He is God in all of his divine
attributes. He has all the attributes of
omnipotence. And David in Psalm 39 says, where
can I go from your presence? He's omnipresent. He knows all
things. He discerns all things. in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, there
are verses that we use often, doesn't there? But God, in verse
9 it says, but as it is written, eye has not seen nor ear heard,
neither has it entered into the heart of man the things which
God has prepared for them that love him. And in reference to
that it's talking about things that God has prepared for them
that love him here and now. Chapter 15 will tell us what
things God has prepared for us into the future. But God has
revealed them unto us, how? He reveals them unto us by His
Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things. He has knowledge of all things,
yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things
of a man, say the Spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the
things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually
discerned. And that was the division in
the Thessalonican church, in that Thessalonican town, wasn't
it? There were this chosen group. The Gospel came sent by the Holy
Spirit. The Gospel came with the powerful
working of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel came to those the
Holy Spirit has every right to enter because their sins are
taken away and God, that holy thing, can indwell them. They
have no sin before God. So a believer, a chosen child
of God, is a right and fit place for God the Holy Spirit to live. Let's turn over to John's Gospel.
There's some glorious things in John's Gospel in describing
the Holy Spirit and His activities. There's so much more to say about
Him. But I love with the Lord Jesus
how He leads these disciples in this last night when so much
is going to bring trouble to them, not just that night, but
for the next three days. And so much is going to trouble
them into the future of their lives. He says in verse 16, and
I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comforter
that He may abide with you forever. That word another means of the
same kind, another comforter, another one just like me, distinct
from me but exactly like me. that he may abide with you, live
and remain living with you forever." Isn't it wonderful to think that
the Lord Jesus prayed, as the great high priest he prayed,
what prayers the Father delighted to answer from his Son. He may
abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the
world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth
Him. But you know Him, for He dwells
with you and shall be in you." And then in verse 18 remarkably
he says, I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit,
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name,
He shall teach you all things and bring all things to
your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. So ends any discussion
about the authenticity and the reliability of the New Testament. They are arguing again with God,
they are not arguing again with us. He is a great teacher, isn't
he? Turn over to chapter 16. This is a verse that I quote often. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall
not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he
speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me,
for He shall receive of Mine and show it unto you. All things that the Father has
are Mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine and show
it to you." What an extraordinary thing. He'll take of the Lord
Jesus. He'll take Him as God the Son. He'll take Him as the covenant
keeping mediator. He'll take Him in all of His
acts, His divine acts of creation, His divine acts and His glorious
acts of redemption, His extraordinary sin bearing death. He'll take
all of the things of mine and He'll show them unto you. He'll continue to reveal them
unto you. He'll show them and He'll show
them and He'll keep showing them to you. He'll show us the Lord
Jesus and His perfect righteousness, that we might be clothed in the
righteousness of God. He'll show us again and again
His sin-bearing death. A teacher. He is a teacher. What glorious things He has to
teach. He is a comforter. John 16 verse 17, this comforter
will come. And verse 8, He is the one that
reproves the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. He is the reprover. He is the
teacher. He is a comforter. He is a revealer. He reveals. the Lord Jesus. He reveals the
Lord Jesus in the Scriptures. He takes the Scriptures and He
shines a light on them and that light is a light to our paths
and a light to our souls. He takes the things of the Lord
Jesus and He reveals to us that we, according to Ephesians 1.13, We are sealed. Sealed with the
Holy Spirit of promise. Sealed and guaranteed. He's a guarantor. He is a witness
in heaven. He witnesses with our spirits. He bears witness according to
Romans 8. He bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. God's children know from the
Spirit's work in their lives that they are the sons of God. I can't know that about other
people, but God's children know it about themselves. Religious
people presume it again and again and again. But God's children,
because of the Spirit's work in their lives, taking this Word,
revealing the Lord Jesus, taking that Gospel and making it powerful,
the things that we read that happened amongst the Thessalonians. That's the witness, isn't it?
That's the assurance that they talk about in chapter 1 verse
6. The Gospel came with power and
much assurance that this was the truth, that Paul wasn't speaking
words of men, he was speaking words of God. God was speaking
to them through Paul. The Spirit bears witness with
our spirit. But we are the children of God,
sons of God, Romans 8.14. And not only does that work begin,
it's a work that continues. In Romans 8.27, I love what it
says, isn't it? He that searches the heart knows
what is the mind of the spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints. according to the will of God,
Romans 8, 27. We are being prayed for in heaven
right now by God the Holy Spirit, and He makes intercession according
to the will of God. In the previous verse, likewise
the Spirit also helps our infirmities. Romans 8.26, helpeth our infirmities
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the
Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot
be uttered. An intercessor. I need an intercessor. What an intercessor we have in
the Blessed Holy Spirit. I need a helper. I have nothing
but infirmities in my flesh. Someone who understands, a comforter,
a teacher, a revealer, a helper. Someone who understands,
someone who pleads, and he pleads on our behalf as the Lord Jesus
does. He makes verse 34 of the same
chapter, Christ. that died, yea, rather that is
risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who makes
intercession for us. As we said earlier, in this Thessalonican
church, He'd raised them up, He'd protected them, He'd kept
them, and He is the giver and the distributor of gifts to men. The Holy Spirit makes and creates
a group of believers who have all the gifts necessary for them
to function as a body of believers, all of the gifts. And remarkably,
as I said earlier, He indwells His people. He lives in us, abides
with us forever. What a remarkable God we have,
a triune God. They are distinct. The Spirit
is sent, the Son is sent. And in so many pictures, and
especially at the baptism, we have this extraordinary picture
of there is the Lord Jesus, God in human flesh. And there is
the voice of the Father speaking from Heaven and the Holy Spirit
descends so that we would know that there is a Father who is
really God and has all of God's attributes. There is a Son sent,
a Son who came willingly with a joyous epicurean. He came for
His bride, He came for His own, He came for the glory of God.
He came as a person that we would know that God is a person. He came as a man that He might
die. He came as a man that He might
bear the sins. He came as a perfect man that
He might be a perfect substitute. The Holy Spirit takes those things
of the Lord Jesus and He reveals them to us. As I said, he's a
person. And God is revealed to us as
someone who has personal feelings. The Holy Spirit loves, Romans
15.30. The Holy Spirit can be grieved. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God, whereby you are sealed. The Holy Spirit can be rebelled
against. He can be vexed. He can be provoked. He turned upon Israel in Isaiah
63.10, and He became their enemy. He can be lied to. Ananias and Sapphira in Acts
5.3, Peter says to them, why have you lied to the Holy Spirit?
You've lied to God. You've pretended to do some religious
service to which you want to get some reward, some esteem
of men. He can be lied to. He can be
blasphemed. He can be sinned against with
that unpardonable sin. When those Pharisees saw the
works of the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus birthed and indwelt
by the Holy Spirit, and then they turn around and say that
the works that the Lord Jesus is doing, the miraculous works,
are the works of Satan. unpardonable sin. He can be treated with contempt. Hebrews 10.29 is an extraordinarily
sobering verse, especially in this world in which we live.
He's talking about the punishment, the punishment that was received
under the Old Testament. And people say that we need to
move away from the God of the Old Testament and move to a softer,
quieter, kinder God of the New Testament. The whole purpose
of Israel is to say that His mercy lives now than it was for
people at Mount Sinai. Verse 29, of how much sorrow
of punishment shall he be thought worthy who has trodden underfoot
the Son of God? How do you treat him underfoot,
according to Hebrews 10.29, has counted the blood of the covenant
wherewith he was sanctified, wherewith he thought himself
set apart from the others, counted it an unholy thing, a common
thing, common to all men. And what's the cause and what's
the result of that? He has done despite unto the
Spirit of Grace. The Spirit of Grace who takes
the things of the Lord Jesus and reveals them to people, to
have people who claim to be His and deny His particular redemption,
deny the work that we read about that He saved His people from
the wrath to come by bearing their wrath, to say that that's
a common thing. Efficient, sufficient for all
and efficient for the elect is the modern way of just translating
that phrase, isn't it? Has done despite. He is a person. He does love. He can be grieved. He can be lied to. He is God. The Holy Spirit says, today if
you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation
in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers
tempted me, says the Holy Spirit, and proved me. God, the Holy
Spirit, tested and tempted. And so to our verse, to these
few words, The Holy Spirit is a person, the Holy Spirit is
God, the Holy Spirit reveals the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit
comes to his churches and he comes with power and he does
his mighty work. And then he says, quench not
the Spirit. Quench not the Spirit. Just to think for a little minute
about what it means to quench that spirit. In Revelation, Paul
writes, John is given those letters from God to the churches, isn't
he, and one of the ones, it's a sobering one, about the Ephesians.
There are so many wonderful things happening in the life of the
Ephesians, but they had forsaken their first love. They had done
all these things well, but love had diminished. Love had grown
cold. That's not something that troubles
you and something that is not a cause for prayer in your life.
I pray that it might be because I know that it will at some stage. It's a prayer that I have for
myself that this whole business of the Gospel can become too
tiring and troublesome and the world says every time we meet
them they say, Surely there's another way. You don't have to
be so serious, you don't have to be so dogmatic, you don't
have to be so particular, you don't have to describe the Lord
Jesus and the Gospel with that level of detail and that level
of particularity. You can join with us. That's
what they're saying to us, aren't they? As they walk into their
other places of worship, they are saying to us again and again,
come and join us. There are so many of us. We have
such fun. Quench not the spirit. May God fan that flame and stir
up that flame. It is interesting to think, isn't
it, that the fire is talking about a... to quench is a word
that's related to a fire, isn't it? And how is a fire quenched? It's quenched in two ways, isn't
it? One is you just leave it. and you just withdraw fuel. People
have used that illustration of a bed of coals, isn't it, and
they're all glowing warm together and you remove one and it ceases
to be warm and others and it just gets cold. But the fire
can be quenched by the withdrawal of fuel. And the other way a
fire is quenched is by pouring on water. There are the two ways
we quench, that the Spirit is quenched by the fire is quenched.
You remember in Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit came upon
these people as tongues of fire. John the Baptist said, when the
Lord Jesus comes he shall baptise you with fire and with the Holy
Spirit. And it's interesting the way
the Holy Spirit has given us these words, isn't it? He says
quench not. In fact what he's really saying
is that there is a quenching activity going on, there is a
quenching activity going on, but really what he's saying is
cherish. Cherish the Holy Spirit. Cherish
what He's brought to you in His Word. Cherish, as we've seen
in Thessalonians, cherish what He has done amongst you. Cherish
what He's done in preserving you, keeping you in the faith,
keeping you faithful. I just wrote down a few things
that cause me to think that the Holy Spirit is able to be quenched. And one of the ones, of course,
is that it's about fellowship. So much of this letter is about
fellowship. Paul is longing for fellowship
with these people. It was taken away from him before
the due time in his own mind, but God has His purposes. But
the Holy Spirit can be quenched, isn't it, when we exchange fellowship
with Him for anything else. when we seek our sense of being
and our sense of meaning and our sense of identity from what
we do, from what we have, from what we have done in the past
or what we will do in the future. The Lord Jesus in Matthew 13
spoke about that parable of the sailors and the pleasures of
this world choke the word. His Word ceases to function in
the lives of us with the power that it wore us. His promises
become less, less driving and less controlling and less gripping
and gratifying. I love and I keep reminding you
about Abraham. Abraham looked at the circumstances
of his life. An old man, nearly 100, his wife,
old and barren and barren for all of her life, hopelessly barren. And he staggered not at the promise.
He had a promise from God. through unbelief, and was strong
in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that,
what he had promised, he was able also to perform. We have this book which speaks
in the most extraordinary ways about the promises of God to
comfort us and to encourage us. Promises about Him working all
things for our good. What extraordinary promises.
What extraordinary, amazing, supernatural, miraculous promises. It wasn't for God making them,
and God signing them and signalling them with His blood, and God
testifying to them, and God causing them to live in the hearts of
His people. You can't believe. Unbelief. There's so much unbelief in our
faith. So much unbelief. May God stir
up, fan into flame is what Paul is saying. Don't let it be quenched.
Stir it up in every way you can. Let no man, these men who were
around them, whose men were going to continually As we see in the
letter to Colossae in the Corinthian letters, they're going to continue
to beguile and continue to incite us. In Colossians 2, he says
to the people just down the road, he said, let no man beguile you
of your reward in voluntary humility. Isn't that extraordinary? We
have so many humble people. They're voluntarily humble. and
worshipping of angels, intruding into those things that he has
not seen, vainly ploughed up in his fleshly mind, and not
holding the head from which all the body, by joints and bands
having nourishment ministered, are knit together, increase with
an increase from God. Let no man judge you, verse 16,
No man judge you in meat or drink or in respect to a holy day or
a new moon or Sabbath day. They'll judge us, won't they?
We'll be judged by them. Judged and accused of licentiousness. Judged and accused of all things.
Let no man, let no man judge you. Let no man, let no man beguile
you. We quench the spirit when we
cease to take our eyes off the Lord Jesus and take our eyes
off the extraordinary providences that he has brought. This world
is the unravelling of an eternal covenant. We should and do at
times see the hand of God and the things around us. And it
doesn't cause us to walk by sight, but walk by faith. But sight
gives us encouragement. And that's what Paul is talking
about in these Thessalonians. He had seen and borne witness
to the fact that God had done a work in their lives. And he's
not telling them to look to themselves, he's telling them to cling to
the Lord Jesus and his promises. He who works all things for good. We should look and be thankful. Being thankful is one of the
antidotes to that fire being quenched. We see them just here
in these verses around us, don't we? Rejoice, verse 16, rejoice
evermore and don't quench the spirit. Pray without ceasing
and quench not the spirit. In everything give thanks for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you and quench
not the spirit. See, it's His people. It's the
gathering together with His people. It's that fellowship, that oneness,
that group of people who say like David when he was rebuked
by his brothers, there is a cause, brothers and sisters. You see
how many times he's talking about comfort one another. Verse 11,
he says, comfort yourselves together, edify one another, build one
another up. Comfort one another, build one
another. How do we do it? We talk to people about the Lord
Jesus and how glorious He is, and how wonderful His finished
work is, and how we have found yet again another thing in His
Word which just stirs our hearts and stirs our passion. Comfort
one another. Know them. Esteem them. We exhort you brethren, warn
the unruly, comfort the feeble-minded. Don't render evil for evil until
we follow after good. among yourselves and with others. There is a body being built together. Quench not the spirit. You stir
it up, he says to Timothy, you stir up that gift which is in
you. You have that fire that's flaming
and you stir it up. Only that which has fire can
be quenched. It's only where there is a fire
can it be quenched. It may be a smouldering flax. It may seem as weak as a brewer's
reed. But what do we read in Song of
Solomon, what do we hear from God in Song of Solomon in chapter
8? He says, many waters. Many waters
cannot quench love. God's love cannot be quenched,
neither floods drown it. God's body, that work that he's
begun, it will not be quenched. It will not be quenched by the
world which continually, continually calls to us that look at what
we have and look at what you can have in it. Look at what
pleasures you can have in it. We are continually in this body
of flesh, as Romans 7 and Galatians 5 says, isn't it? We are continually
in this war, this battle that's going on between our flesh and
the Spirit. Our flesh is constantly wanting
to quench the Holy Spirit. What a wonderful thing that the
fans of that flame are in the hands of God and he fans them. The devil, with his evil schemes,
he's unrelenting. He sleeps, he doesn't sleep,
he never rests. He's continually wanting to quench
the Holy Spirit. I love what John says of us,
and we're just about finished. John says in chapter 4, verse
4, he says, you are of God. I love the description of us,
little children. You are of God, little children,
and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you
than he that is in the world. Isn't it extraordinary, isn't
it wonderful, that there are sinners in this world who God
must and will save. And even though the Spirit seems
quenched, and sometimes seems quenched beyond life in our lives,
God will never, ever let His children go. Like the prodigal,
they might wander, they might wander into places where only
God knows, and God will let them wander to a certain place, to
a certain time, to a certain set of circumstances, and they'll
be left with nowhere else to go but to go home. like Onesimus, he ran away from
the Gospel and he ran all the way to Rome and he ran into the
arms of Paul and was saved. And us, God has pursued, pursued
us. He's pursued us even when we
were like Gomer. We resisted and resisted and
resisted. until she had nowhere else to
go but back to Hosea. What a delightful, delightful
providence of God that is there. Drawn by irresistible grace,
regenerated by God the Spirit, brought to faith, kept in faith
by God through the gift, the gift of His grace, caused by
the Spirit, to repent, caused by the Spirit to live again. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest. Blessed are the chosen ones. Blessed are the elect. Blessed are the called of God. Blessed are the ones you choose,
and cause to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. May God work in our hearts. That
little flickering flame, now it's stirred into a never burning
fire, let's pray.