Quench
Not the Spirit
By
Warren Dayton
Our Lord
Jesus Christ is ever moving by His Spirit, bringing to pass His Divine purposes in His creation; in the lives of His children,
both individually and corporately. He does so as He chooses, even when not convenient for us! A great lesson concerning ministry
and serving Him,
is learning to yield to the flowing of His anointing. If
we would be led by His Spirit, we must learn to recognize His true anointing, and gladly follow with a
submissive heart.
Another important lesson is to "strike while the iron is hot." If God is moving in a given situation, don't hesitate, but be quick to seize the moment. Our human nature is often cold and unyielding
as steel, but the fire of the Holy Spirit will burn in us to overcome the power of coldness and
hardness of heart. When God’s fire is burning in your spirit, yield and cooperate with Him! Cease from hesitating and drawing back.
1 Thessalonians 5:19: “QUENCH NOT THE SPIRIT.”
Many times
the Holy Spirit is quenched in meetings by insensitive leadership. A classic
example is the closing of meetings for the sake of convenience. Such often hinders
our Lord from moving among His people.
Man often
foolishly attempts to control meetings with an “iron fist.” What
folly! It is man whom the Holy Spirit wishes to control! For all who will yield gracefully to His gentle promptings, He will be pleased to bring such under His
Divine moving and working. The Adamic nature
seeks always to “control.” Of course this is never the way of the true shepherd, who has learned to lead gently
by example. To fully realize the deeper realms of the Holy Spirit, we must abdicate
all propensity to rule and control in and of ourselves, and welcome the control of our Lord
to be manifested in our gatherings.
John 5:19-20, “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can
do nothing of
Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth: and He will shew Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.'”
Jesus did only what He saw His Father do: He is the pattern
for His corporate Body. Philippians 2:6 declares of Jesus: “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery [Gk. = a
thing to be grasped after] to be equal with God.” He did not contend for the Father's control, but rather wholly submitted unto it! The true spirit
of sonship flows out from a heart of true submissive love. (This is the universal
factor.) Stanley
Frodsham has said: "God is love and He is so lovable.” All ministry must be governed and tempered by the unfeigned
love of our Lord Jesus: All else is clanging brass and jangling cymbols!
1 John 4:7-8, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He
that loveth not knoweth not God, for GOD IS LOVE.”
1 John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the love that
God hath to us. GOD IS LOVE; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."
1 John 4:19, “We love Him, because He first loved us.”
Matthew 22:37-39, “Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the
LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Matthew 23:10-11, “Neither be ye called masters: for One is
your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. But he that is
greatest among you shall be your servant.”
1 John 4:20, “If a man say, 'I love God,' and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not
seen?”
Our Lord wishes to use us as His conduits,
channels, and vessels through which to flow out to a lost and dying world. This
is true ministry. Anything less is a cheap sham of professionalized ecclesiasticism. Those who truly love the Lord Jesus will also love the members of His Body, their
neighbors, and even the most unlovely persons with whom they come in contact. The
natural man is incapable of such, but as He flows through us, employing our faculties as an extension of His grace to others,
the deed will be most easily accomplished. This shall be best evidenced by those
living in the experience of 1 Corinthians 13 (The Great Love Chapter
of the NT), which is placed directly between chapter 12 (The Power Chapter) and chapter 14 (The Order Chapter). "Let all things be done decently and in order." 1 Corinthians 14:40.
All early Revivals enjoyed great success, not because of their accompanying manifestations
or the leadership of gifted men, but because people yielded to God and took their hands off of things! An early Revivalist has reported that: “when flesh became tired, and man let
go, then God would start to have His way, and after most of the fleshly activities ceased, and much of the crowd had gone
home, the true meeting would start, often after midnight.” This is an indication
of a corporate devotion unto the Lord, rather than man’s contrived substitutes for true, Holy Spirit inspired worship and ministry.
The Azusa Street Revival, beginning in 1906, was hugely successful, because for more than three years it was permitted to continue unhindered by man. Daddy Seymour (the
Pastor) guarded the meetings carefully from human tampering and manipulation. Only
those truly anointed vessels were permitted behind the pulpit. It is a fact that
those meetings ran around the clock, so it is obvious that no impatient manipulators were present to shut the meetings down. Another great Revivalist sarcastically mocked certain cold Pentecostal churches, who
were “in on time and out at 9:00.” Such was a standing jest in those
times of great Revival. How could one “pull the switch” at nine o’clock,
when the Lord was moving so mightily by His Holy Spirit: Saving souls, healing
sick bodies, delivering the oppressed, baptizing seekers into the Holy Spirit, etc?
At a particular Bible School in the early Twentieth Century, during an outpouring
of the Holy Spirit, the kitchen staff put a pot of beans on the stove and turned up the flame, before going into the meeting. Upon returning, several hours later, and expecting to find the beans burned and charred,
to their amazement, the beans were beautifully cooked to perfection with no sign of burning. How often have we quenched the Spirit with our own eating schedules!
At Zion Bible Institute of Providence, RI, when Christine Gibson was President, there were times when they had no food! Upon one such occasion,
the Lord sent an unexpected guest, bringing enough Turkeys to feed everyone at Thanksgiving.
Another time, a bread truck broke down near the school. The driver came
to the door and excitedly offered all of the fresh bread and baked goods to the school.
Little did he know that they had been praying for food for two days! God
had answered! Such lessons of faith occurred often at “Old Zion.”
Another great account is when they had been without food for several days and
the whole school was on a forced fast. Suddenly there was a screeching of brakes,
a sounding of horns, and a crashing of vehicles. There had been an accident directly
in front of the school, in which a huge truck involved in the collision had turned over.
The rear door had flown open and all sort of provisions and groceries were spilling out onto the busy street. Again, an exasperated truck driver came to the door: “Please, help me. I need to clear the street. You can have
all of the groceries, if you will just send students out to help me clear the intersection, so the truck may be towed-in for
repair.”
Truly anointed meetings must be birthed in the Holy Spirit, by travail and intercession. Our Lord is the Spirit of Life. "NOW THE LORD IS THAT SPIRIT: And
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." - 2 Corinthians 3:17. Life
begets life, in and through His Holy Spirit. As our Lord moves upon
and within you, He brings forth His life, His order, and His expression. Jesus
is the Life (John 14:6). Therefore, the Life present in anointed meetings is birthed in the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:11, “But if the Spirit of Him That
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit That dwelleth in you.”
Not only will he quicken us (make us alive) at the Resurrection of the Dead, but even
now will He quicken us and make us alive by His Holy Spirit.
Often during our Lord’s visitation, our spirits are ministered to mightily without
a cognizance or understanding by our human faculties of reason. Many are
often blessed, delivered/healed (set free) just being in the presence of the Lord. The anointing of the Holy Spirit is often all that is necessary to minister to and meet the needs of His
people. This happens most often in meetings where our Lord is welcome unconditionally,
and where the manifest presence of His Holy Spirit is evidenced.
Brother Gustav Hoyer spoke often of the proper manner in which one should come
before royalty. It takes a humbling and a “sobering down” to come
before the presence of our great King. This concept speaks of acceptable relationship,
reverence, love, and adoration for our Lord.
Matthew 11:25-26, “At that time Jesus answered and said, 'I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast
hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight.'”
The most intelligent person in the world cannot know the Father, except by Divine revelation. Yet, our Lord Jesus deigns in His great love and condescension to manifest Himself
to us by Divine Revelation!
Let our prayer be: “Dearest Lord Jesus, teach me to come acceptably into your presence with a spirit of
reverence and worship, and teach me how to yield unto your Holy Spirit, and not quench your love and benevolence through hardness
of heart and presumption. Amen and Amen.”
