To Quench the Spirit

1 Thessalonians 5 and the Call to Await Christ

Well, we continue in 1 Thessalonians 5, if you'd like to go ahead and turn there. 1 Thessalonians 5. As you turn there, we've been in this series about awaiting Christ, and Paul in 1 Thessalonians gives much instruction on how we should wait for Christ.

And here, as he closes his letter, as he normally does, he gives many general commands. Of course, these are set in that context of waiting for Christ's return. Give me just a minute here. There we go.

Beginning here in verse 12. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves, and we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do Not Quench the Spirit

Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil. Dear Holy Father, I ask that you would bless the reading of your word this morning, and I pray that you would pray that you would open our hearts and minds to receive from you everything that you have for us.

I ask that you would help us, that we would not quench the Spirit. Pray that by the Spirit's power, you would give us life, and energy, and zeal for your truth. Pray that you would give us the discernment that this passage calls for, and that by your word, we would be washed and cleansed.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right. So I'd like to ask you, do you know someone who has zeal, but no knowledge? It's a very common thing. I know a lot of people with much excitement over something, but really have no idea what they're talking about.

You know, if you've ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, where, you know, people who are new to some kind of field, they have a lot of confidence that they know everything, and then as they experience more in the field, they realize, oh no, I don't actually know that much.

And so perceived knowledge and actual knowledge form a very odd relationship. Now, do you also know someone who has knowledge, but no zeal? Maybe someone who you would say, you know, that person could really do something with their life.

They just put some energy into it. Now, I know people in both categories. You know, people who are bulls in a china shop, and then people who— they could really do something if they just put their mind to it.

Now, in reality, I think perhaps what is most frequent is someone who has neither zeal nor knowledge. They don't really know what they ought to be doing, and they wouldn't have the energy to do it if they did.

So you have many people who have zero purpose in their life, not really doing much, just living day-to-day. But yet God has a great purpose for our life that requires not just that telos, that end, that goal of purpose.

You know, as we read before, this is the will of God in you to rejoice always, etc. Not just that end, but also the means by which to accomplish that end, the knowledge and the zeal. God has given us the Holy Spirit so that in the Christian life, while there's no guarantee that outside of the Christian life we'll have all the knowledge we need to become a great scientist or all the physical energy we need to become a great worker, there is assurance that those who come to him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will have sufficient zeal and knowledge to do the work that God has set for us, to be able to fulfill this purpose that he's described of rejoicing always, coming to him with prayer and thanksgiving.

We can accomplish these things by the power of the Spirit. And so Paul brings this charge to the Thessalonians, and he brings this charge to all of us, that we ought not to quench the Spirit. So let's go ahead and take a look at this passage, beginning in verse 19.

Simply, do not quench the Spirit. Now, I think it might be worth taking a few moments to talk about the Holy Spirit, who he is, and why he appears the way that he does in the typical Christian life. So, first of all, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, proceeding from the Father and the Son.

He is that agent that causes our hearts to turn to Christ and to repent and believe. He is fully God, and so he is worthy of all glory, even prayer and praise. Though it is not something common for someone to pray directly to the Holy Spirit, he is worthy of such prayers.

Now, in what I just said about praying to the Holy Spirit, you know, that's not something commonly done, there is this common question of, why isn't the Holy Spirit more of a sinner of attention in Christian worship?

Now, there is a reason for this, and I think it's a common misunderstanding and charge, especially against churches of our variety, that, you know, that there's no emphasis on the Holy Spirit. And I've heard people say, you know, in Reformed churches, their Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Scripture.

Have you ever heard that before? So there is, there is indeed, in Reformed theology, an emphasis on the Holy Spirit. We appeal to him for many things, and we understand that it is only by his power that we can come to the Lord.

And I think that's something that many groups misunderstand. However, the reason why you don't see such a focus on the Spirit, including in the Bible itself, is because the Spirit's goal in working in our lives is to point us to Christ.

And Christ's purpose in interacting with us, his goal is to show us the Father by pointing us to himself. And the Father, in sending the Son to earth, is to teach us about him by pointing us, once again, to Christ.

So, it is God's intention that our focus be on the Son so that we might know the Father by the power of the Spirit. There's a reason that there is an ordering in the Trinity such that, in Christian worship, there is a focus on the Son of God, the image of the invisible God.

Now, think about that. We can't right now see Jesus because he is not physically present with us, but yet one day we will be able to. And God has sent Jesus to earth in the incarnation so that we might be able to physically see him.

You know, there is something special about seeing Jesus. Our attention, even though he is not here present with us, the highest goal in our worship is to have our focus on the Son so that we might know the Father by the power of the Spirit.

If it's ever bothered you that there doesn't seem like there's enough emphasis on the Holy Spirit, perhaps there are some things that have rightly triggered your concern, but perhaps also you should consider that just because there are three persons of this one God does not mean that our job is to focus equally on all three.

God would have it to be so that we would focus on his Son. And so thus we do. Week to week we speak of all three persons, our songs about all three persons, but they are most especially about Christ because it is through Christ that we can know God.

Otherwise, we would not have such a full knowledge of him. And yet, the Holy Spirit comes, dwells in us so that we might know him and have our eyes turned to him. And so we have the statement not to quench the Spirit, and if you didn't catch it, you know, quench implies that the Holy Spirit is like a fire.

You know, use the word quench for different things. It's not talking about thirst here. It is talking about the Holy Spirit being like a fire. On the day of Pentecost, this is how he appeared to people, so that people would see this this consuming energetic activity of the third person of the Trinity, that we might know who he is and see him as this operative force—not an impersonal force, but a personal one who brings life and energy and knowledge.

And so we are not we are not to quench the Spirit. Now, another question that may arise at this time is, well, you just said that the Holy Spirit is God. If he is omnipotent, then how could someone quench him?

If he is all-powerful, you know, what could possibly threaten him? Well, the answer is that God has decided that the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit has decided that he should only operate in situations that would draw glory to God.

He has chosen to work through specific means so that glory would not be taken away from himself, that glory would not be taken away from God. You know, the Holy Spirit could use anything to stir someone's heart, but he has chosen the Word of God.

As it says in Romans 10, how can they how can they believe in him whom they have not heard? God could have decided that that he would make it so that people would believe even without hearing, but he did not do it that way.

He designed it so that the Word of God would be proclaimed and people would hear and see that it is through this proclamation of Jesus Christ that sinners are changed, that hearts are changed, that that life is given.

God has ordered our world in such a way that the Holy Spirit brings glory to himself, to all persons of the Trinity, by operating through specific means, one of those means being the Word of God, which he himself inspired.

So it is not a matter of his omnipotence, of his power. What is the concern with quenching him is his glory. And once again, his inherent glory cannot be defiled, but as it is recognized by man, it can be lowered, and it often is.

And so he chooses to glorify himself in those means where Christ is upheld. So I think it's an important question to ask yourself, have you quenched the Spirit? You know, maybe you're living your life.

Well, you know, it's possible that you aren't a Christian and you don't have an eternal purpose in your life, and you don't have, you know, knowledge of what Scripture would have you to have knowledge of.

You don't have a zeal to accomplish those things. Well, then certainly you don't have the Spirit, if that is the case. However, it may also be the case, like Paul is describing here, where you have trusted in the Lord as your Savior, and yet you see a lack in the sanctification, a lack in the growth and holiness, and the knowledge of God and the and good works that one might expect coming to Scripture and seeing what the Christian life ought to look like.

You look at your life and you see, you know, I don't really know the Lord that well. I don't know, I don't know the Bible that well. Or maybe I do, but I'm just lacking in a zeal for any of this. This is something I remember back when I first became saved, and there was just such a desire and an energy, and now that's all lacking.

You must ask yourself, here's the answer right here. Have you quenched the Spirit? You know, your life is like a steam engine. You know, it's chugging along because of the heat of the engine, and if those coals die out, you know, it's still gonna move, but it's not gonna move as fast.

Do not quench the Spirit. If you want to reach this destination, do not quench the Spirit. And so he says how we are not to quench the Spirit. He says in verse 20, do not despise prophecies. So we are not to despise prophecies, so that we may not quench the Spirit.

Now, why is it that prophecies guarantee that we would not quench the Spirit? It is what I've already said. It's because the purpose of this word is to point to Christ. It is through Christ that we have eternal life.

It is through looking to him that we might have this activity of the Holy Spirit as he glorifies God and bringing us spiritual zeal, spiritual knowledge as we turn to Christ. These are the reasons. You know, Jesus Christ came and he died for sinners, all those who trust in him.

And in Luke 24, Jesus himself said that the law, the prophets, and the Psalms all point to him. The Word of God all points to Jesus Christ, and it is this reason that prophecies are so important. Now, there are a lot of things today that are called prophecies, that are far from it.

Something very common, when I talk to people who believe in certain kinds of modern-day prophecy, they say that, you know, prophecy—to become good at prophecy, you have to kind of have a sense of when a thought arises in your mind that doesn't really feel like it originated from you.

You sense this thought and you say, oh, you know, that's not a thought I would normally have. This must come from the Holy Spirit. You know, that kind of divination is nowhere described in the Bible. That kind of mysticism is far against the kind of discernment that the Bible would have us to exercise.

And if you're practicing such kinds of things, what assurance do you have that that is a true spirit and not a false spirit? That is not the kind of prophecy that we should be following. Secondly, another kind of modern-day prophecy that people promote as prophecy is an uncertain prophecy, where I have given you this, these words, by emphasis that I've received from the Holy Spirit, but it comes with a caveat that it might be that I'm misguided.

You know, I'm not a perfect prophet. If that's the case, then if there's any chance that this word is not true, why would we be obligated to follow such things? The Bible is certainly and perfectly true.

We are obligated to follow it because of this. And if you look in the Old Testament, you see that those prophets who prophesied falsely, even on one occasion, were— it was commanded that they be stoned.

Now, I'm not saying we should practice such things outside of the theocracy of Israel, but we should hold the same prophecy up to the same standard, that it must be a sure and certain word from God. And as you look at church history, what you see is not that.

In fact, until the, I don't know, not really until the 1900s that you have groups remotely close to orthodoxy claiming that the Holy Spirit speaks in modern-day prophecies the way he has in the Bible.

And so, I don't have time to give a full proof for the cessation of prophecy. However, just consider these things, that historically such things have only been promoted by heretical groups until the 1900s, in which you have, you know, orthodox groups promoting modern-day prophecies.

And then secondly, secondly, consider that Ephesians 2 .20 says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and Ephesians 4 calls apostles and prophets different gifts of the Spirit.

And I know not every person under the banner of Christ believes that, but most believe that the apostle, that apostleship has ceased. Second Peter 1 .16 says that the apostles were ones who saw Jesus Christ and aren't just following cleverly devised myths, and Paul is the last one to see Christ, and so they are not, they're not continuing apostles.

And if they are part of that foundation, and the prophets alongside of them, then it perfectly fits that prophecy should also cease. And consider this one more thing, is that this is not the first time that prophecy has ceased.

At the end of the Old Testament, you have, with the close of the canon, with the close of the the table of contents of the Old Testament, you have a cessation in prophecy for 400 years. And this is just something that Israel accepted, that, you know, this revelation is completed, we're entrusted with the scripture, and prophecy along with it ceased until John the Baptist arrives, and you have a new revelation.

Many of those words recorded down in scripture, and so with the cessation of the New Testament, you likewise have a cessation in prophecy. Now, a lot of people would say, well, Conley, aren't you putting God in a box to say that he can't prophesy now?

I believe God has—this is kind of a weird way of saying it—but I believe God has put himself in his own box. He has determined what he will do, and for someone to demand that he do otherwise is instead the one who constrains God, who attempts to constrain him.

So, yeah, this is a large topic, and a lot of people have a lot of emotions invested in it. So I'm sorry if I didn't resolve, you know, everything that comes to mind, but it's an important context for this passage as we come to it, and we know what it means to not despise prophecy.

Because when we're commanded not to despise prophecy, it doesn't mean that we are to accept the modern-day prophets who come to us with with thoughts that they have in their heads that they don't identify as coming from themselves or from uncertain things that they aren't aren't sure about, but they want to bind us.

Instead, the prophecy that we are not to be despising is the Word of God that we have before us. It's the Bible. These are many prophecies that have been given to us. In fact, I would argue that someone who so frequently feels a need for a fresh word does indeed despise this word that has been given.

This word is before us, and we are not to despise it. We are not to think lowly of it. You know, that's what the word despise means. A lot of people, I guess in English today, the way we use the word despise is usually with like a seething hatred.

Look through the word despise in the Bible, and you will oftentimes find examples of it being used just to mean to think lowly of, to think little of. So how might someone despise prophecy today? You might despise prophecy by not reading your word.

You might despise prophecy by those examples I gave where you think that, you know, either by some other means of receiving a supposed word of God or by, you know, sitting in your own room, spending times away from the means of grace which God has appointed, you know, the preaching of the word, other kind of communal receptions of the word of God that you're going to spend time with yourself, maybe not even in the word of God at all.

And somehow this will deepen your communion with God. That kind of thing goes against what God has said and does despise prophecy. Another way you could despise prophecy is simply by not reading the Bible on your own yourself.

Or maybe you could despise prophecy by not cherishing it with your family. You know, what does Deuteronomy 6 -7 say? It says, when you lie down, when you rise up, when you sit, when you stand, at all these times the word of God is to be on your lips.

The word of God is to be cherished at all times. And one who is not following this is, in essence, despising it. You know, and so we— it's very easy for a Christian to imagine that they love the word of God, especially because it's very easy to compare yourself to other Christians who love the word of God a little less and say, well, I am one who loves the word of God, but that is just not always the case.

And so consider in your heart what is the case for you. When I was little, I guess, I don't know, seven, probably seven or eight, I thought I really love the word of God because I— my parents taught me the word of God.

I went to Sunday school, and I learned a lot. And, you know, compared to some of my other friends, I really seemed to know the Bible a lot better than they did. And then I was part of one of those like, I guess, a Christian version of Boy Scouts, you know, where you have to get different merit badges and stuff like that.

And one of the merit badges I had to get was I had to lead people through a Bible study. I'm like, oh, this will be easy. I know the Bible well. And then I started trying to pick the passage, and I realized, I don't know a lot of this.

Well, maybe Jonah. You know, I know Jonah. And I go and I read the book of Jonah. I was like, I don't think I've ever read this before. A lot of this was incredibly foreign to me, and I I was just kind of shocked because I assumed that I had read it, but apparently I'd only learned about it from flannel graphs in Sunday school.

And then later on in my life, once again under this delusion that I really love the word of God, I had I had been enrolled in some kind of a Bible memorization competition. I'd even gone to the nationals, and I believed that if I had not choked up so much, I was incredibly nervous, buzzing in at all the wrong times.

I think I may have been able to place in the nationals. But then later, I realized that a lot of those verses, I didn't even understand what they meant. And if some of you know my testimony, at some point I got involved with a cult, not realizing that it was a cult.

And when they told me that they believed baptism was necessary for salvation and only their baptism counts, the only thing I could appeal to to contradict that was Ephesians 2 .8 .9 that says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, not of works.

And so I say, no, you know, works, you don't—there's no work to save you. It's only by faith. But I realized that that was a very minimal defense, and I was in serious danger. And if I hadn't had that one verse, you know, maybe something worse could have happened to me as I got sucked into this teaching.

And so here I was on a second occasion, you know, really thinking, I knew the Word of God, but you know, here I am, national—close to a national championship or whatever, and I really didn't know the Word of God.

I despised it. I did not consider it highly enough to really spend time in it and study it. And later on, similar story, once again leading a Bible study on a more regular basis, and I realized that, you know, there are just a lot of hard questions here that I didn't have answers to because I didn't really spend time, and I made a lot of corrections in my life, and I prioritized Bible reading, and I'm not saying that I've arrived and I now no longer despise the Word of God at all and consider it perfectly, but there were so many stages of self-delusion along that path.

Do not, likewise, be delusional and think that you love the Word of God because you hear it occasionally. Someone who loves the Word of God has it on their lips when they rise, when they sit, when they sit—when they stand, when they, et cetera.

Forget the fourth one. When they walk by the way— let's move on in this passage. Verse 21, but test everything. Hold fast what is good, but test everything. So this is the alternative to despising prophecy, right?

You might think, well, the antithesis of despising prophecy is to accept all prophecy, right? And just to accept every prophecy that comes your way. No, that is not the case. We are to test it. That is the antithesis—to receive it critically in the sense of examining whether or not it is truly from God, and then uncritically once we have determined this is from the Lord.

We must test all things. And so how do you test things? One thing also that's very common that I hear is how we know that something is from the Lord is that it doesn't contradict scripture. I hear that often, and I'm always a little amazed that people think that that's a sufficient test because there are all kinds of things that don't contradict scripture.

If you're deciding whether or not to—you know, let's say you get offers from the different FAANG companies around here, if you don't know that acronym FAANG— Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, I think.

Let's say you get, you know, offers from all these different companies, and you have a prophet come up to you and tell you, you know, you need to take the Netflix job. Well, that doesn't contradict the word of God now, does it?

So by that test that we just put forward, well, you have to obey this prophecy. Saying that it does not contradict the word of God is not a sufficient test. There must be not just a negative test, but a positive test to say that this is the word of God.

In Acts 17, 11, when the Bereans are commended as more noble than those in Thessalonica, because they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things are true, you know, see that comparison.

They received it eagerly, yet they were also testing it. They weren't just saying, you know, does this not contradict scripture? They were saying whether or not the things he was saying were indeed true.

You know, is it prophesied that this is how the Messiah would come? Well, yes, everything lines up. Therefore, this must be a true apostle. This must be the word of God. So do not be deceived into thinking that if it doesn't contradict scripture, it then is true prophecy.

There must be a positive case. God himself must attest that this is true. Also note that signs are not a sufficient test, right? God often, especially in the New Testament, you know, it talks about in Hebrews 2, 4, that God confirms his word by signs, but the sign is not enough.

There are plenty of false signs that scripture describes. 2 Thessalonians 2 describes the Antichrist coming with false signs. Jesus said that many would come to him and say, Lord, Lord, haven't we done miracles in your name, etc.?

If these are not truly from him, they are not true signs. And so signs are a confirmation of the word of God, but they are not a sufficient test. We must have more discernment than these very limited tests.

We must be able to discern from the word of God that this new revelation is the word of God. And so I would, I would submit to you what I said before, that given what we see in scripture, we are not to anticipate any new revelation prior to Christ's return.

And testing right now means holding this up and rejecting other things because they are not in God's plan. Now, just to make sure that there's no misunderstanding, I am not saying that there are not miracles today.

I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit does not lead us into all truth. I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit cannot bring God's truth to mind, even by miraculous means. I've been listening to a podcast lately about early Reformed Baptist history and, you know, many of the journals of early Reformed Baptists, and many of them have stories about dreams where some truth of God was brought to their mind in such a way that it just impressed upon them, you know, this truth.

Now, I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit can't operate in these different ways, but that is different than a new revelation or a verbal revelation that with certainty binds people. You know, I believe the Holy Spirit does guide us.

I believe that the Holy Spirit does often bring to mind things, sometimes even in miraculous ways occasionally. But even with all that, I do not anticipate any verbal or certain revelation—new revelation—from God prior to Christ's return.

And so we are to test. You know, if you do not test things, you lose that sense of discernment, right? If you eat a lot of junk food, you start to not like healthy food. There was a season in my life where I lived with my grandparents for a long while, and my grandparents at the time—I don't think they do this anymore—but at the time, they drank a lot of soda, and so they always had soda on hand.

My parents weren't really around to supervise me during this season, and so I drank a lot of soda until it got to the point where water just tasted really gross. Maybe you've experienced that kind of thing before too, but this is what happens if you just accept everything.

If you don't test it, then you don't appreciate the world of God. You begin to despise what actually is true, what actually is good, as you receive all these things. And various organizations that consider themselves just so led by this Spirit because they've had these special revelations and you know, these words from prophets and ecstatic moments, test to see whether or not they really do have such fruit.

I speak to people who claim to have such prophets, etc. When I talk to them about the Word of God, there's very little interest in really talking about the Word of God. You know, they're experienced in the—most often they're interested in all these other flashy things and then not in what is truly good because it is not flashy to them.

It's not, you know, the soda that they've become used to. He continues on in the same verse, but test everything, hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil. And so this is the end of this.

Hold fast what is good. What is good is the true Word of God. All the revelation that comes from it, all its truths, those things are good and ought to be cherished. And what is evil? We are to abstain from.

We are not to engage in any form of evil. And I think it's interesting it says abstain from every form of evil because now it seems to be expanding this. You know, it was talking about revelations from the Spirit, and now it's talking about every form of evil.

So there's an implication. You know, what you consume as far as, you know, the Word of God goes leads to whether or not you abstain from every form of evil or whether or not you embrace some forms of evil.

You know, this isn't just about what you intake from the Word of God or what things you call the Word of God and intake. This is about the remainder of your life. Your life will be full of evil if you receive evil prophecy.

Your life will be full of good if you receive good prophecy. There are implications to these things. Find someone who is not discerning about what teaching they listen to, what televangelists or prophets or whatever, or find someone who listens to all kinds of unsound teaching and see the fruit that arises from their life.

It's not just those prophecies that were false that they are consuming that are evil. It is the fruit that arises out of their life that is likewise evil. And then not only do you have, you know, this knowledge and actions, but also the real fire, the real zeal that the Holy Spirit grants to do these good works.

There's a word that people use in the history of theology that people used to use, ascedia. It means essentially spiritual sloth. It's this idea of maybe you're energetic in your day-to-day life, but when it comes to spiritual things, you just feel just without desire, without a love for the things of God, without zeal.

That ascedia is an evil that slips in when you aren't stoking that flame, when the Holy Spirit is being quenched. And we do not want to be a people of ascedia. We want to be a people that embrace God's truth, love God's truth, and are excited and zealous for it because we are experiencing it often and knowing its goodness often.

Testing the Spirits by Christ-Centered Prophecy

Now once again, I've said this several times, but I think it's worth coming back to it one more time. Why is this the case that, you know, prophecy is the means by which the Holy Spirit grants us this zeal and knowledge?

Why is it prophecy, not some other means? Because prophecy points to Christ. I'd like us to look at 1 John 4, and I'll read one through three, I think. 1 John 4 says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Okay, so here John's giving the same command. Test the spirits. And spirit here means, you know, the spirit of prophecy. What spirit is behind this word being spoken? By this you know the Spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist. Now once again, a lot of people misread this to come up with a very minimal test.

Oh, you know, if this person says that Jesus is from God, well then everything they say is true prophecy. That's not what John is getting at. He is bundling a lot into that Jesus is from God. There is a lot of meaning to that.

For example, someone could say that Jesus is from God, but he's not actually divine. He's not actually the second person in the Trinity. Is that person's prophecy true? No, it's not. It conflicts with much of scripture.

But what John is getting at is that true prophecy glorifies God in the person of Jesus Christ. That the true spirit of prophecy is glorifying the Father in the person of Jesus Christ. Here you have the whole Trinity coming together, and God is being glorified in prophecy as we discern it and as our eyes are turned to the Son of God to appreciate his glory and the wonderful salvation that he has accomplished, saving us who are not deserving of his mercy by his death and resurrection.

Jesus is the answer to our lack of knowledge and our lack of zeal. He is the light that has come into the world, as John 1 says. Now, many men do not love this light and they love the darkness instead, but he has come that we might have life and delight.

It is through him that we can have true knowledge, and if the Holy Spirit is stirring us to look at him rightly, we will have that knowledge. And Jesus came to give us not only to be that one that we look at and know the Father, but he came to also, through his death and resurrection, merit for us this salvation by which we receive the Holy Spirit so that we would have this divine agent within us, this Spirit of Christ turning our eyes to him.

You see, Jesus has accomplished this not only by being the one that we look at and know who God is, but by granting us the Holy Spirit to stir our hearts to look at him and know who God is. Jesus Christ has accomplished a great salvation for us, and I feel like I say this too often, but it's more than just mere forgiveness.

Mere forgiveness is too little salvation. But he has granted us a great salvation that includes growing in holiness and a great glorification and sight of God that does not come apart from that growing in holiness, and these things he has accomplished by giving us his Spirit so that our eyes might be turned to him.

Once again, if you do not know the Lord, if you have not put your faith and your trust in him, then you will not have any real purpose in your life except for one that serves others, one that—any purpose except for one that glorifies God by your own destruction.

But if you have placed your faith in Christ, then you must not quench the Spirit. You must go to his Word. You must engage in the communal means that the Word is proclaimed, such as this preaching, so that the Holy Spirit would not be quenched, so that you would have the zeal and knowledge that you needed in order to accomplish the purposes that God has set before you.