A Prayer From the Holy Spirit — Phil Beach Jr.

The Holy Spirit’s Presence and Ministry

Presence. Thank You, Lord, for causing our hearts to be at all this morning as we behold Your glory and as we become recipients of Your incredible ministry, refreshing us, restoring our hearts, speaking life and encouragement into those areas of our life, Lord, where we have felt pain and sorrow, where we have felt parched and dry.

You have watered us with living water. Where we felt weak and broken, You came and manifested Yourself in strength and wholeness. Where there was darkness and despair, You came and revealed that You are the God of light and the God of encouragement.

Lord, You have caused us to rejoice. You have put a song in our heart today, a song that's been birthed by the power and presence of Your Holy Spirit, a song that has put the enemy to flight, a song that has put the enemy to run in, Lord, the song of praise, Lord, the song of rejoicing.

We thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness and we pray, Lord, that now You might enable us to hear the Holy Spirit and to receive deep into our heart the words that You have written, Lord, that have been quickened to us, Lord, that we might be encouraged and edified and uplifted and built up in the most holy faith, that we might understand the reason why You refresh us, the reason why You move in our midst and what Your Holy Spirit would speak to us amidst the overwhelming sense of Your presence.

For, Lord, You not only come to visit Your people with Your presence, but You come to speak to Your people. And with the speaking of Your word comes a revelation of Yourself. And so we commit this into Your hands, Lord, and pray for that word to be brought to our spirits, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen. And amen. In the midst of this wonderful move of the Holy Spirit, I believe that the Lord would want to birth into our hearts, among a number of things, in particular, four prayers, four prayers.

As the Holy Spirit ministered into our midst this morning and into our lives, He overwhelmed us with His presence. He abundantly blessed us with His goodness. But in the midst of that abundant revelation of His goodness and His kindness, He would speak to us and bid us to pray four prayers.

These four prayers, listen closely, beloved. These four prayers directly relate to our relationship with Him. These four prayers directly relate to your relationship with Him on a daily basis. Jesus wants to overwhelm us with His love.

He wants to overwhelm us with a sense of His presence. He wants to overwhelm us, as He did this morning, with refreshing, with encouragement. He wants to speak into our lives. But He's looking for something to develop within us.

Resisting the Holy Spirit

Now, listen closely. First of all, in Acts chapter 4, Stephen was speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And he was speaking to Israel. And he spoke here in verse number 49 of Acts chapter 7.

Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me, saith the Lord? Or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things? Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears.

Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did, so do you. The first prayer that Jesus would want us to pray, because as He comes into our midst and lavishes us with His love and lavishes us with His presence and shows us that His love is not based on our performance and shows us how His heart is so enlarged toward us because He loves us with an everlasting love.

Yet, if we were sensitive to Him and sensitive to His presence, we would discover that as a father or as a parent would lavish His love upon His children, He would also, in the midst of that love, speak into the life of that child.

One of the great reasons why revivals in ages past have gone astray and have gone off the straight and narrow path is because people want to know the presence of God. They want to feel His presence. They want to be lavished with His love.

They want to be overwhelmed with His presence. They want to know, and sense, I've been in the presence of God. But they forget that God's presence is not an end in itself, but God's presence is a means to God and experiencing God.

And we experience God not only on an emotional level, not only on a feeling of, oh, I just feel Him. That's all good. God's not against it. But God's end is that we come to an understanding of His heart.

It is possible to engage in a feeling of God's presence and never come to know His heart. And because of that, the Holy Spirit is so mindful to communicate to us an understanding of what the Lord Jesus would speak to us while He lavishes us with His presence.

Number one, write it down. Write it down in your hearts. If you have paper. Jesus is saying to us this morning as He lavishes us with His presence, restores and speaks into our life, He's saying, resist not, my Holy Spirit.

That does not only apply to a particular time such as gathering together on Sundays, but that applies to our daily interaction with Him and with one another. The thing that breaks the heart of Jesus is the resistance that He senses in our hearts against the Holy Spirit.

And so, therefore, we must pray that a vital, vital part of our relationship with the Lord and our maturing in Him and our growing in Him is the freedom that we must find through His power not to resist the Holy Spirit.

In context, verse number 51, ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit. Listen carefully. The essential nature of resisting the Holy Spirit is found through not allowing or praying that the words of God would go deep into our heart and thereby bring about a change by the power of His presence.

The uncircumcised heart that Stephen is referring to was that condition that Israel was in when they heard the word of God. They heard it, but it didn't penetrate. And the Lord would warn you and I in this hour that we live in, beware of resisting the Holy Spirit.

That is, beware of being a hearer of the word and not a doer. Beware of allowing that which is sacred to become common, that which is holy to become common. Beware of allowing the precious word of God to become something that you only allow to get lodged into your mind, but don't allow you to be brought to your knees and before the Lord, ask Him, Oh God, your word is precious.

Your word is a sword. Your word is precious, Lord. God, I pray that you'll take your word, albeit whether you're studying before the Lord or whether you're in a setting where you're around a table or talking with friends and someone shares the word or in a setting like this where the word comes forth.

Anytime the word of God is brought to the hearing of your ear, we can resist it by simply allowing it to become common to us. Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Every word of God ought to be precious to us. Every word of God ought to cause us to pray earnestly that that word might be lodged in the depths of our spirit and affect us in a transforming manner. The word of God must affect us.

In a way, different than the word of man does, words have become cheap in this hour that we live in. We have become conditioned to hear, to hear the voice. We turn the TV on, we turn the radio, we turn the music on, and then we turn the word of God on.

And we've got the same attitude almost with the word of God as we do anyone else. We go on the radio, a talk radio program, a music program, a sports program. Oh, there's a preacher on. Oh, yeah, pretty good.

Let's go back to sports. And we're just like, you know, we're surfing. We're surfing. We hear a word here, we hear a word there. Then we hear God. Oh, then we hear another. God, have mercy on us and bring us to our knees where the word of God is no longer something common to us, but it has the effect of causing our hearts to be brought down low into the presence of God.

Quenching the Holy Spirit

Lord, help me not resist your Holy Spirit. Number two. First Thessalonians, chapter five, beginning in verse number sixteen. 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. Firstly, we are to pray, God, help me not to resist your Holy Spirit. And secondly, we are to pray, Lord, help me not to quench your Holy Spirit. You see, resisting and now quenching directly relate to our relationship with him.

Now, to quench the Holy Spirit is very simple. To quench the Holy Spirit is to simply fail to allow his movement in our life, to fail to allow his movement in our life, to accomplish his own ends, to quench, to stifle.

Hardening the Heart Against the Holy Spirit

You know, when you quench another person, you stifle them. You prevent them from expressing themselves. Quench not the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, Hebrews, chapter two, beginning in verse or Hebrews, chapter three, beginning in verse number six.

But Christ is a son over his own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness.

The third prayer that we must pray firstly, God, help me not to resist your Holy Spirit. Help me not to quench your Holy Spirit and help me not to harden my heart against your Holy Spirit. Now, when the scripture speaks of hardening our heart against the Holy Spirit, the word means to make hard or stiff, to harden.

In the New Testament, it's applied figuratively to the heart and mind. Here's what it means to harden your heart against the Holy Spirit. Yes, Lord, I hear what you're saying, but I don't want anything to do with it.

It's too costly. It's too humiliating. It's too fearful. And that posture causes us to harden our heart. When you harden your heart against an individual, you basically don't want interaction with that person.

Grieving the Holy Spirit Through Corrupt Speech

You don't want to become vulnerable to them. Resist not, quench not, harden not. And lastly, Ephesians 4, 38. Sorry, I'm sorry. What did I say? I'm sorry. Verse 30, beginning in verse number 29, which is very important.

Let no corrupt. That means putrid, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.

That word grief, grieve not, simply means to make sorry. Did you know that you can make the Holy Spirit sorry? But in order to understand the real nature of how to make the Holy Spirit sorry, all you have to do is read in context.

You make the Holy Spirit sorry by engaging in verse number 29 the wrong way, by allowing corrupt communication to proceed out of your mouth, to allow things to come out of your mouth that do not minister grace to the hearers.

And in this way, we bring sorrow to the Holy Spirit. Now listen, please. Jesus is so kind and so marvelous and so wonderful, and He abundantly blessed us with His presence. But He so longs that these unmerited, unrelated to our performance visitations that He so freely bestows upon us, would indeed delight our soul, would indeed cause us to weep before Him, would indeed affect us in a way where we sense a sense of restoration and renewal.

But He would long that not only would it affect us in that way, but it would affect us in the way where we would actively begin to pray, Lord, help me not to resist You, help me not to quench, help me not to harden my heart against You, and help me not to grieve You.

It is by these resisting, quenching, hardening, and grieving, it is by these things that we find ourself in a condition where that love relationship is hindered. These four become gateways and entrances into our life whereby the enemy can get a foothold.

Resisting and quenching and hardening and grieving the Holy Spirit gives the enemy a foothold and can hinder our relationship with Him, can hinder our relationship with each other. Now it's very possible that we can engage in these four things, not only, listen closely, not only in our relationship to the Lord on a personal level, but we can also engage in these four sins if we improperly respond to one another.

Responding to Correction and Circumstances

Because many times the Holy Spirit is speaking into our life through other people and through circumstances. And so I'd like to ask you a question, how well are you doing in letting other people speak into your life?

You might say, well, bless God, I pray and I hear the Lord, God speaks to me in His Word. Well, that might be all well and good, but how well do you allow other people to speak into your life? Do you blow up every time somebody has constructive criticism to offer you?

Do you get an attitude toward people if they feel that they need to talk with you? Do you resent circumstances that force you to maybe relinquish and let go of some of your plans? Maybe some of your plans are being frustrated now.

You can be resisting the Holy Spirit. You can be hardening your heart against the work of the Lord in your life simply by improperly responding to these things that are coming into your life. And so you see how the Lord Jesus so desperately wants our hearts to be a place where we're before him.

And we're tender toward him, say we're tender toward him. Have you seen resistance in your life? Quenching, hardening, grieving the Holy Spirit? Jesus would want to heal us from that. And he would want times of refreshing to result in renewed faith against these things so that our lives, you know, I appreciate what David shared where he said the Lord was showing him not to be in a hurry.

That is so true. But I'll tell you, I'll take it a step further. And that is the Lord would speak that to us not only when we gather here together for a few hours on Sunday morning, but he's actually saying y 'all need to slow down in your life.

And take time to listen. Take time to be refreshed. Listen to him. Seek his counsel. You know, many times gatherings are so quick. It's because gatherings can't be any more spiritual than the people that are in the midst.

You see, you know, oftentimes people are frustrated. You know, people, you know, throughout the generations, you know, ministers and preachers are saying, I just don't know what's wrong. We hold our prayer meetings at church and there's no prayer.

That's because prayer meetings can't be. We can't become something when we come together in church that we're not in ourselves throughout the week. We can't be something we're not. That's why it doesn't work.

The reason why there's such a fast pace in the church today, you go to churches and boy, people get uncomfortable. If you sit and wait 30 seconds to see what Jesus is saying, I mean, Hey, you know, people will say, get, do something.

So I want to get up, do something. People will leave. People will get impatient. You know, we, we, in other words, the church is catering to the culture. The church is catering to, to what she knows everybody's addicted to that fast pace.

So we've got to have entertainment and fast movement, and we got to fill in all the spaces with something because people aren't used to just sitting in the presence of Jesus and worshiping him. That's not good enough.

So we've got to do all this kind of stuff to keep things moving. And the Lord wants a people who don't need to do that, who don't need to do that, who are just content with him, who just love him. And so therefore the, the, the measure that, that we'll have in success, if I might use those words, the measure of success that we'll have when we come together as a company of believers will be in direct proportion to the measure of success that we're having when we live our daily lives in a practical way.

We'll pray together. If we're praying at home, we'll wait together. If we're waiting at home. And so the Lord is trying to break down this whole realm of making a distinction between what we are when we're alone in our homes and then what we try and become when we gather together.

The Lord wants to destroy the distinction so that there's no difference. We're praying people irrespective of where we are. We're awaiting people irrespective of where we are, you see. And so this is what the Holy Spirit is wanting to do in our lives.

And he's after the heart. He's after the heart issues in our lives. And so always remember, always remember that when he lavishes us in his love and in his goodness and his kindness, he always wants us to realize that he wants a heart issue dealt with.

Testing Prophecy by Love and Loyalty to God

If you'll remember in Exodus, just turn to Exodus chapter 19 for a moment. This is just something that I feel is very, very important for us. I'm sorry. It's Deuteronomy 13. Deuteronomy 13. Just listen to this.

There's a lot of prophecies going around today. And most of the church agrees, and I agree, that the way that you test a prophecy is if it's accurate. If somebody prophesies something and it's not accurate, then you would want to, you know, question and say, I'm not sure whether this is good.

We need to question, okay? But did you know that the Bible teaches that that's not only the proof to determine whether something is from God or not? That's what I want to touch on today because I hear a lot of this going on in the church today regarding prophets and ministers and ministries.

This is what people say, but it's the word they preach. It's the word. It's so full of the word. Here's what, here's, here's something we need to pray about. If there arise among you, Deuteronomy 13, a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder what?

Come to pass. Whereof he spoke unto thee saying, let us go after other gods which thou has not known and let us serve them. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Ye shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and ye shall serve him and cleave unto him. Now, not only is it true that we mustn't follow a prophecy that doesn't come to pass, but we also must beware if there is that which is coming forth that appears to be true, that appears to be coming to pass, but it is turning our hearts from the Lord.

Just because somebody speaks the word or prophesies and it comes to pass, if in fact, the effect of that ministry, minister or word, though it is true, is turning your heart from the Lord and turning your heart from him and turning your heart from a revelation of him and turning your heart from obedience to him and turning your heart from simply coming to him and seeing him and loving him and walking in his commandments and it's turning your heart to follow after strange gods or idolatry, you know, pursuing money, turning your heart from humility and humble dependence upon the Lord into a posture of boasting and pride, turning your heart from sensitivity to God's heart, then even though it come to pass, we mustn't follow it.

Closing Call to Exclusive Devotion

And so, I want to say in closing, beware of any influence in your life, even the influence that appears to be godly, that appears to be true. Beware of any influence, even if it appears to be scriptural.

If in fact, it is turning your heart from God, then you need to pray that God will sort things out in your life, sort things out in your heart, because the bottom line is that Jesus wants a people who are committed to him, who love him, who obey him, whose hearts are toward him and nothing else.

So, remember, quench not, grieve not, resist not, and harden not. Lord, help me. And then, Lord, help me not to be under the influence of anything, even if it appears, Lord, to be something that is true, if the effect is lulling me to sleep or turning my hearts toward other gods.

Lord, I only want to be under the influence of you and your Word and your Spirit, and I want to be under the influence of that which drives me to my knees, that which works in me a sense of awesome reverence for you and a hunger to obey you by the power of your Holy Spirit.

That's what we need in our lives and in the church today. Father, we commit this into your hands. We ask that you would search us, you would continue this great work of restoration, this great work of encouraging us and ministering to us, and equally you would continue this great work of changing our hearts.

Deliver us, Lord, from any spells that have been cast upon us that are that is causing us to be lulled to sleep. Burn like fire, refiner's fire in us, Lord, so that we can become that people along with others who call upon your name out of a pure heart and who receive the reward of the inheritance.

Grant it, Lord, I pray.