CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST Return to Bulletins 2010
January 17, 2010
25424 Aldine-Westfield, Spring, TX. 77373
www.blakehart.com/cypresswoodbulletin.htm
PRAYER REQUESTS:
God’s will for our congregation The spread of the good news
Various friends, relatives and co-workers Our nation, military and leaders
QUENCHING THE SPIRIT
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).
The Holy Spirit plays an important role in the book of Ephesians. Among the ideas expressed, He is a guarantee of our inheritance (1:13-14). Twice Paul says we are “sealed” with the Spirit. A seal was used by officials in the Roman world indicating that the message or that which was sealed had the importance of the one whose seal was attached. The Spirit is God’s seal to and on us. How then could we grieve or quench the Spirit?
Paul might have had Isaiah 63 in mind when he wrote to the Ephesians. Keep in mind that the Old Testament was the Bible of the New Testament church. Let’s see what this chapter has to tell us about grieving or quenching the Holy Spirit.
Our text will be Isaiah 63:7-19. This section of Isaiah begins in chapter 40 through 66. In particular, it is written to a nation who has yet to face Babylon captivity but will return from their “hard service” to the land. Isaiah begins by telling of the “kindnesses of the Lord.” God has done many deeds and good things for Israel. An appeal is made by the prophet to Exodus 34:5-6 when he speaks of God’s good things done “according to his compassion and many kindnesses.” Isaiah appears to recall Egyptian slavery and how God led them out through Moses to the Promise Land. “In his love and mercy he redeemed them.” We remember that God led them by pillars of fire and cloud and provided for them in the wilderness for forty years.
Then comes a powerful statement. “Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.” The wilderness was a difficult journey, not only because of the harshness of the land, but because the people constantly moaned and groaned against God, wanting to return to Egypt. They rebelled time and again against God. The golden calf, the Korah rebellion, the time God sent snakes among them, are just a few. By doing this, they grieved the Holy Spirit.
In Isaiah’s day and the immediate future, they look back to Moses and ask where is God who gave His Holy Spirit? They found rest in the Spirit of God as they found guidance. Looking forward, when in Babylon, they would look back and see God’s deliverance, and then ask, what about us? The rest of Isaiah 63 is an appeal to God to be their God again. One can see that a people away from their home land in captivity would have this desire to return under God’s leadership to Jerusalem.
Israel was in captivity for a number of reasons. Idolatry, not caring for the helpless, greed and abuses of people, immorality were all part of the reason for Babylon. Much of this is seen in how they spoke to one another and about God. They had rejected God and His holiness and their purpose; to be a light to the world of God’s covenant grace.
How does this apply first to Ephesus? Ephesians four is found in the second half of the book. “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (4:1). The calling is explained in chapters one through three. Chapters four through six explains the worthy life. The immediate context of 4:30 includes 4:25-32 and has to do with how we speak. Notice, Paul is concern with them speaking truthfully, being careful with anger, no unwholesome talk, bitterness, slander or malice. Going back to Moses, one can see these complaints among the rebellious in the wilderness. Isaiah admits that he was a man of unclean lips and lived among a people with the same problem (Isaiah 6). It appears that they too had a similar problem with language.
The Ephesians were struggling with speech problems. It might have been partly because they were a coastal city and influenced by the foul language of sailors. Yet there were many other problems, so much so that Paul sent a letter to Timothy dealing with those problems (1 Timothy and possibly 2 Timothy as well). In the book of Revelation, and in particular 2:1-7, the Ephesian church had lost its first love. It had lost its focus on a worthy life and the reason for it.
Grieving the Holy Spirit then is doing things, especially in speech, that are disgraceful. How about today? Needless to say, we have a problem with speech as well. This is typical of humanity. As Christians, we should be working to improve our speech and the attitudes behind it. While I think that politically correct speech is more about shutting down speech and ideas that some do not agree with, it is not an excuse to be abusive in our speech. Calling sin sin is not harsh speech though some may see it that way. Jesus used harsh speech when He pointed out the sins and hypocrisy that He found in His day. Paul did too.
What I am talking about for us is how we have been abusive toward each other. We have labeled people with terms that are meant to cause doubt about someone. We have been too casual about using terms that those terms have become meaningless. For instance, liberal is one such word. The word “liberal” as a theological term means one who denies the power and activity of God such as in miracles or the resurrection. It questions God’s role in Biblical history. A liberal often denies the redemptive activity of God. However, we often use liberal simply as someone who I disagree with because they have another view or idea of a text of scripture or a teaching of scripture. Everyone understands that a liberal is a bad idea, so to call someone a liberal means that they hold a bad idea. It doesn’t matter if that person holds to the authority of scripture and recognizes that God is active among His people. In fact, there are those who think that if God is active among His people, they must be liberal because in some way they are denying scripture.
Gossip and slander are other problems we have with speech. We are always ready to believe the worse about someone than to try to understanding what that person is saying. I have heard people say that some of our religious leaders reject the authority of scripture because they belong to a denomination. They are conservative believers who accept the authority of scripture. We just do not agree on certain doctrines.
Using bad speech like the above usually means we have run out of any good arguments so we try to poison the well, that is, we try to cause doubt rather than deal with the issue. This grieves the Holy Spirit and quenches His work. Interestingly, those who often use such speech often deny that the Spirit is active today in our lives. We call this deism which is that God sent His Spirit to give us scripture, and when He was finished, went back to heaven and left us on our own. This rejects what Paul is writing about the Spirit in Ephesians and certainly can be considered as quenching or grieving the Spirit.
The Bible certainly encourages us to seek and recognize God’s role through His Spirit in the life of His people. Let’s seek Him out to lead us rather than quench His activity.
George B. Mearns