CHAPTER FOUR
NOT QUENCHING THE SPIRIT OR NEGLECTING THE LORD’S WORD
Scripture Reading: 1 Thes. 5:17-21; Col. 3:16-17; Eph. 5:18b-20
Prayer: O Lord, we thank and praise You from the depths of our heart for gathering us once again. Your Spirit dwells in us, and also Your word is in us. We truly offer up our worship to You from the depths of our being because You have drawn us to seek You and Your word. Cleanse us again with Your precious blood. We trust in Your presence and the moving of Your Spirit; we do not trust in what we can do. Lord, we pray that You bless every one of us. We can sow and plant, but we cannot give life to others or cause them to grow. Lord, only You can do these things. For this reason, we really look to You to take care of the needs of everyone, especially the newly saved ones, that we may be full of light within and have Your word as a base to know assuredly that we have been saved, and that every one of us may become living to flow out Your life from within us.
O Lord, give us the utterance and pour out Yourself again upon us so that Your thought, Your feeling, and Your rich word may dwell in us. May what we speak be only Yourself. We pray that You come to every one of us that we may gain You right now.
O Lord, we can never forget Your enemy, Satan, the evil one. We ask You to crush him, even crush him now from within us. We bind him in Your name; we plunder his goods and release those who are bound by him. O Lord, set every one of us free—from sin, from the bondage of the world, and from the oppression of Satan. O Lord, glorify Your own name. We give You all the honor and glory. In Your own lovely name. Amen.
ABIDING IN THE LORD BEING A MYSTERY THAT CAN BE EXPERIENCED
In the previous chapter we clearly saw that a living way for us to abide in the Lord is to pray unceasingly and to give thanks in all things. The phrase abiding in the Lord is truly a mystery to the Chinese, but I believe that from the previous chapters we all must have gained some understanding. Although abiding in the Lord is a mystery, it is not an incomprehensible mystery. Perhaps we do not thoroughly understand it, but we can experience it. Take the human body as an example. A doctor will tell us that after a lifelong study, he still is very limited in his understanding of the human body. The more a doctor becomes a specialist, the more he feels that he understands so little. The longer a doctor practices medicine, the more he feels that his knowledge is short because the human body is too mysterious. In other words, he does not know all there is to know.
Not only so, there is an abstract system in man. Our heart, lungs, skin, bones, and so forth belong to a tangible, physical system; but our heart, mind, emotion, will, conscience, soul, and so forth belong to an intangible, nonphysical, psychological system. This nonphysical part is even harder to understand and explain. I have lived for over eighty years, but today if you ask me how to distinguish emotion, feeling, sentiment, and love, it would be very difficult for me to answer. Love is something of our heart; hence, it is an inward matter. Then, what is emotion or sentiment? How do we distinguish them from love? It is really hard to explain. Furthermore, in the deepest part of our being there is a spirit, which is an inward matter even more mysterious. The Bible tells us that God is Spirit (John 4:24); it also tells us that God not only stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth but also formed a spirit within man (Zech. 12:1). From this verse we see that the Bible considers the human spirit as important as the heavens and the earth.
The matter of the spirit within man is truly mysterious and difficult to explain. Although the Bible speaks of the heart, its emphasis is still on the spirit. Regrettably, the Western missionaries who translated the Bible into Chinese were not very clear regarding the heart and the spirit, nor did the Chinese scholars who helped them in the translation clearly understand these terms, even though these scholars had high literary degrees. The result is that they combined these two words and produced a compound term, heart-spirit. Hence, this compound word heart-spirit occurs frequently in the Chinese Union Version. It is difficult enough to understand the heart and the spirit separately; putting these two mysterious items together makes it almost impossible for us to understand them.
Some of the hymns, following the usage of the Chinese Union Version, also use this compound word. When we were collecting such hymns for our hymnal, we tried to separate the two words by a comma. The heart and the spirit are not one item but two separate items. Despite the fact that they are hard to distinguish, they can be experienced by us. The same is true with the matter of abiding in the Lord. I trust that after considering these few chapters, you will already have had some experiences of abiding in the Lord. Even though you could not explain them, you surely will have had the taste of them.
GIVING THANKS IN ALL THINGS
In addition to abiding in the Lord, we need to give thanks in all things and to pray unceasingly. Here we must first say something about some language problems. Those who read the Bible know that the problems with language come from the tower of Babel. In the Greek text the clause in everything give thanks does not have the notion of blessings as the Chinese translation indicates. The Chinese translators rendered this clause as in everything thank the blessings because, according to its strict sense in Chinese, the word thank is a transitive verb and therefore requires a direct object; there would be no justification for not having a direct object. For this reason the word blessings was added. But such an addition distorts the meaning of this particular clause. In our experience we should not “thank the blessings”; rather, we should thank the Lord Himself. It is not “thanking the blessings”; it is giving thanks.
To pray unceasingly means to use our spirit, to exercise our spirit. For example, we use our feet to walk and our mouth to eat and talk. Likewise, we use our spirit to pray, and when we pray, we use our spirit.
The many years of my speaking for the Lord in serving Him may be divided into several periods. Before 1943 the emphasis of my messages leaned heavily on the truth. I spoke on many truths, such as God’s selection, predestination, sanctification, and justification. Forty-two of the sixty topics in the book entitled Basic Truths in the Bible were written by me in 1943; in the previous year I had spoken on these forty-two topics, resulting in a great revival. When the revival came, I began to suffer persecutions. First, the Japanese put me into prison and tortured me for a month before releasing me. Due to this kind of treatment, after I got out of prison, I became ill with tuberculosis, and I rested in bed for half a year according to my doctor’s charge. At the time of my release the Japanese would not let me go but still required me to report all my movements subsequent to the release. But then when I became sick with tuberculosis, they relented and let me go. After a year my health improved a bit, and I then escaped to Chingtao to rest there for another year and a half until my health was recovered.
During the period of my recuperation, the Lord shined on me, showing me that although my preaching from 1932 to 1942 resulted in a great revival, there was a great shortage of life in my messages. There was much truth but too little life. At that time the Lord showed me the tree of life and that this line runs through the entire Bible. The Bible begins with the tree of life and also ends with the tree of life. The Bible is altogether concerning life. The Lord Jesus said, “I am…the life” (John 14:6); He also said, “I am the true vine” (15:1). Therefore, we can conclude that He is the tree of life. He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly (10:10). This enlightening and seeing caused me to have a great turn.
In 1946 after my health was restored and I was able to travel for the ministry, I went to Nanking. At that time, due to the flow of the revival in Chefoo, Nanking also had a revival. I arrived in Nanking and began to minister, speaking the word of life. I kept speaking from Chefoo and Chingtao to Nanking, then to Shanghai, and eventually to Taiwan and southeast Asia until 1960. For about twenty years I kept speaking on life. But honestly speaking, although I spoke of life there was not much life, because, I feel, I was not that living. Therefore, I prayed, asking the Lord what the problem was and how it could be that I spoke of life yet I was not living.
A CHRISTIAN NEEDING NOT ONLY TO HAVE THE LORD AS LIFE BUT ALSO TO LIVE IN SPIRIT
Then the Lord showed me that it is not adequate to have life and yet be without the Spirit. From then on I began to speak about the Spirit. At the same time, I also wrote a number of hymns. Under the Lord’s leading eighty-five hymns were written within two months. Every morning when I rose up, the first thing I did after I prayed was to write hymns. At that time in my reading of the Bible, the light that came to me was all concerning the Spirit. I came to Numbers 21, which says that when the Israelites were thirsty in their journey, Moses told them to dig the well for water. While they were digging, they sang, “Spring up, O well! Sing to it! / The well, which the leaders sank, / Which the nobles of the people dug, / With the scepter, with their staffs” (vv. 17-18). As a result, they dug out the living water. I received an inspiration from this, seeing that today we also must dig the well. Thus, I wrote Hymns, #250: “Spring up, well, with water; / Dig Thou, Lord, completely; / Dig away all barriers / That Thy stream flow through me.”
In this way I spoke exclusively of the Spirit. Deep down in me I saw that Christians in general had made a serious mistake; they did not care one bit for the Spirit. It seems that it does not matter to them whether or not there is the Spirit. They think, “We have already been washed in the precious blood of Jesus, and since He already died for us on the cross, we have been saved through faith in Him. Now we need only to look to Him to take care of us so that we may be good persons, fearing God, reading the Bible, and praying. This is good enough, and there is no need to care for the Spirit.” For this reason Christians in general became deadened; this led to the rise of the Pentecostal movement in the middle of the last century.
The birth of the Pentecostal movement was due to the fact that there were some believers who felt that Christians in general were too dry. They felt the need to pray with loud voices and in a particular way, even to pray without food or sleep, praying all day and all night continuously for several days. They believed that by praying in this way Christians could obtain the particular experience of having the Spirit of power from above come upon them suddenly that they might receive the baptism of the Spirit which would enable them to speak in tongues. In this way they would receive the Holy Spirit. When I first believed in the Lord, someone asked me if I had received the Holy Spirit. I felt bad and also perplexed because I was not clear whether or not I had. I asked him how to receive the Holy Spirit, and he said that he did not know either. Actually, both of us had the Holy Spirit but we did not know it then.
When the Pentecostal movement came to Northern China, at first those in the Southern Baptist denomination resisted it because of their theological belief, but eventually they succumbed to it because the tide of the movement was too strong. Therefore, in 1932 in a Southern Baptist congregation, I attended such a Pentecostal meeting for the first time with the desire to receive the Holy Spirit. Eventually, when I saw them shouting and jumping, I simply could not say amen from within. Therefore, I gave it up and set about to do my own research.
GOD PASSING THROUGH VARIOUS PROCESSES TO BECOME THE LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT
When the Lord led me to sense my need of the Spirit, I applied special effort to carefully pursue this matter, praying and studying the Bible diligently. As a result, I saw that it was clearly revealed in the Bible and also confirmed by my experience. The Bible tells us that on the one hand, it is not enough for us merely to fear God and behave properly as good human beings; and on the other hand, it is also not enough solely to seek for power from on high to be poured upon us so that we may speak in tongues. The Bible reveals that the Triune God has a plan. In the Old Testament He did all the preparation work. Then at the beginning of the New Testament He Himself was born to be a man and lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years. Eventually, He went to the cross and was crucified there in His human body in order to bear our sins and redeem us by shedding His blood for us. He also died for us to terminate the old creation and to accomplish redemption. Then He was buried, and He rested, and on the third day He was resurrected from the dead.
In His resurrection He was transfigured from the flesh into the Spirit. This is what 1 Corinthians 15:45 means: “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” As such a Spirit, He is the breath, or pneuma in Greek. On the evening of the day of the Lord’s resurrection, the disciples assembled in a room with the doors and windows shut for fear of persecution from the Jews. They were sorrowful because they had seen with their own eyes the arrest and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, who had been with them in His flesh, and they also had seen Him buried in a tomb. They thought now that all was finished. It was at this juncture that the Lord Jesus came into their midst and breathed into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). Then He disappeared.
The Bible tells us that afterwards the Lord Jesus was with the disciples for forty days in this manner, training them to know Him as the Spirit. The disciples felt that the resurrected Jesus was truly marvelous and mysterious—suddenly He would come and suddenly He would leave; unexpectedly He would appear and unexpectedly He would disappear without any trace; yet He had a physical form. They did not understand how this could be. They were at a loss; they could not comprehend what this was all about, and they did not know what to do. This was all due to the fact that they were still ignorant concerning the Spirit, that He was now within them; and they were not clear that as the Spirit the Lord was with them and that once He came He would never leave. Sometimes the Lord would manifest His presence to them, but that was because He cared for their weakness. In this way the Lord trained them in their faith. He wanted them to know and be accustomed to His invisible presence.
To the disciples this lesson was very hard. They were already accustomed to the Lord’s visible presence. When the Lord was in the flesh, they followed Him closely. They journeyed with Him, lodged with Him, and followed Him everywhere in His ministry. To them this kind of visible presence was very good; He was visible and touchable. But now He could be visible in an instant and then invisible in the next. He had resurrected, yet they could not always touch Him. Finally, one day Peter could no longer bear it. He, the head sheep of the flock, said to his brothers, “I am going fishing.” They replied, “We also are coming with you.” They went and got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing (John 21:2-3). Ordinarily, night is the best time for fishing, and Peter and John were experienced fishermen, but that night they caught nothing. This was because the Lord drove away all the fish by His authority. They did not catch any fish, but they did gain the Lord Jesus (v. 4).
The Lord knew that they went fishing for their livelihood; they were hungry and hoped to catch some fish for their food. “Then Jesus said to them, Little children, you do not have any fish to eat, do you? They answered Him, No. And He said to them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some. They cast therefore, and they were no longer able to haul it in because of the abundance of fish” (vv. 5-6). Then John said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Peter heard that it was the Lord, he came to his senses. Immediately he threw himself into the sea and went quickly to the Lord. Later when the disciples got out onto the land, “they saw a fire of coals laid there, and fish lying on it and bread” (vv. 7-9). They went fishing for their livelihood, yet the Lord prepared cooked fish for them. After they were fed, the Lord left without saying goodbye and disappeared.
It was in this way that the disciples were trained by the Lord for forty days. Then the Lord charged them “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said,…you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:4-5). Following this, the Lord ascended to the heavens. Not many days from now refers to the feast of Pentecost which would be ten days later. The day the Lord resurrected was the Feast of the Firstfruits. Then He was with the disciples for forty days, and ten days later was the Feast of Pentecost. The disciples, after learning their lessons from the Lord for forty days, obeyed the Lord’s word not to be scattered or to go fishing but to pray together in one accord for ten days. Then when the time arrived, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and was poured upon them.
THE SPIRIT TODAY BEING IN US AND ALSO POURED UPON US
I like to tell you that on that day of Pentecost God’s work to save us was completely accomplished. God not only had become a man, lived the human life on earth, and died on the cross to bear our sins, but He also resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit, entered into His disciples, and poured out the Spirit. Therefore, this Spirit is the Triune God—the Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit. The creating and redeeming Triune God has become the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, who is omnipresent.
From that day to the present, for close to two thousand years, He has always been on the earth and has never left. If we read world history, we will see a remarkable thing that from Christ’s ascension to the present day the name of Jesus Christ has been widely proclaimed as the gospel. For the past two thousand years war, famine, and death have occurred incessantly on this earth, and they are on the increase. However, at the same time another thing has also been happening continuously; that is, the gospel of Jesus Christ has been and still is being preached throughout the whole earth. Therefore, it is marvelous to realize that today the name of Jesus Christ and the gospel have been preached to every race and nation in every place and corner of the world. Furthermore, every believer of Jesus has the desire to preach the gospel. Another wonderful thing is that although there are oppositions to the gospel in various parts of the world, where the opposition is stronger, there the preaching of the gospel is stronger and the number of those who believe is also greater.
Why is the gospel being widely preached? Why do we, the saved ones, desire to preach the gospel? The reason is that within us we have a mysterious and unexplainable Spirit. Anyone who has this Spirit has the desire to preach the gospel. As Christians, we all have the desire to preach Jesus. We feel good when we preach Him; all our illnesses are gone and our worries are forgotten. We feel healthy mentally and physically when we talk about Jesus.
Believing in Jesus is also a wonderful thing. We are saved ones, but we cannot explain why we have believed in Jesus. Although we do not know what this is all about, we just believe in Him and love Him. All this is a story of the Spirit.
Today this Spirit is the Triune God Himself, who passed through the steps of the creation of the universe, incarnation, death, and resurrection for the accomplishment of redemption, and who also passed through ascension to become the unlimited Holy Spirit to enter into us, to be poured upon us, and to move on the whole earth. Wherever the name of Jesus is preached, He is there. His name is He Himself, His person; Jesus is His name, and His person is the Spirit. Today the Spirit comes to us whenever we call on the name of Jesus, praying to Him and praising Him. This is the story of the Spirit.
NEEDING TO DIG THE WELL THAT THE LIVING WATER MAY FLOW
Dear brothers and sisters, simply speaking, this Spirit has already descended. The second stanza of Hymns, #250 says, “Christ, the Rock, is riven; / Living water’s flowing.” This Rock is the Lord Jesus, and the living water is the Spirit. Today the Holy Spirit is filling the whole earth. Whenever and wherever anyone would open his heart and his mouth to call, “O Lord Jesus!” there and then the Holy Spirit enters into him whether or not he knows it. This is the experience of our salvation, and this is the gospel of God. The gospel is that God created the heavens and the earth; then He became flesh and passed through death and resurrection to become the Spirit moving on the earth. When you hear the gospel and call on His name, the Spirit enters into you, and you become one spirit with the Lord. Then it is too late for you to change your mind, and you cannot give Him up even if you wanted to. Not only will He not leave you, but He will also be in you to transform you continually.
We, the saved ones, have the Spirit in us; this is an accomplished fact. Therefore, we do not need to ask again for the Spirit to come into us. Moreover, we do not need to ask for the Spirit to come upon us. What we need is to “dig the ground.” To “dig the ground” is to pray and confess our sins. If we desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we must pray. When we pray, God, who is light, will shine on our condition and make manifest our thoughts and intentions. Then we must confess and ask the Lord to forgive us of the evil thoughts within us. This kind of confessing will cause our inner spirit to be living and strong. The problem today is that we do not pray, and as a result the “mud” piles up and obstructs the flow of the river of living water within us. Therefore, in the Old Testament types, there is not only the water flowing out of the smitten rock but also the digging of the well. When the mud is dug away, the water gushes up from the well. This is the experience we need today.
Some of the largest farm lands are in Texas. I was in Texas for a while, and I visited a special region where there is good agricultural production. The production there depends not only on the rain from heaven but also on the water drawn from the flow of water under the ground. There is a city in New Mexico which also has a large underground water flow. Part of California was a desert previously, but now all of Southern California is irrigated by the underground water drawn by electric power. This is a method of production in the southern part of the United States. In the same manner, today we do not depend on the Spirit to strengthen us from outside because the Spirit is already in us. We only need to pray, and even pray unceasingly; then the Holy Spirit will be flowing unceasingly in us. If we do not pray, we do not feel that we are dirty. The more we pray, however, the more we will see our filthiness, and the more we will then confess our sins. Just as in house cleaning, if we do it superficially, we will not see that things are very dusty, but if we do it carefully, we will see that the place is full of dust.
Stanza 3 says, “I will dig by praying, / Dig the dirt entirely, / Thus release the Spirit, / Let the stream flow freely.” When we first begin to pray, we are inexperienced and awkward like those who have just learned to walk. If we practice daily, however, we will become skillful. If we do not pray, we will not become skillful, but the more we pray, the more skillful we become. To pray is to dig the well. When you first practice to pray, you may not have any feeling, but if you pray a little longer, the love toward the Lord will gush up from within you. Sometimes you will even weep because you see that although you are so wicked, the Lord loves you so much. This is the release of the Spirit. Then when you continue to pray according to the feeling within you, you have a sweet experience. If you stop praying, however, you will be like a car whose ignition is turned off and needs to be restarted. Initially you may not like to pray, but the more you practice, the more you will taste the sweetness of praying, and the more you will like to pray. This is to dig the well.
TO ABIDE IN THE LORD REQUIRING US NOT TO QUENCH THE SPIRIT
By thus digging away all the obstructions, the living water will flow, and spontaneously we will be abiding in the Lord. First Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” In the Chinese Union Version this verse is translated, “Do not quench the inspiration of the Spirit.” Fifty years ago when I read this verse, I felt I did not know what was meant by the inspiration of the Spirit, so how could I quench it? Gradually, I realized that the Spirit is inspiring us every moment. He is in us like the air. If we do not have air, we will die. Likewise, within us, the saved ones, is the Spirit, who inspires us every day.
Many have a mistaken understanding concerning the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They think that the Spirit’s inspiration must involve a great act or event. Actually, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is like the movement of the air within us. We always have air within us for whatever we do; without air we would stop breathing and thus could not do anything. Likewise, in our daily living, the Holy Spirit is moving within us all the time. If instead of acting according to the Spirit’s moving within, we act according to our own desire, this is to quench the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; that is, we quench the Spirit.
For instance, for the sake of the Lord’s work I need to know the world situation, and therefore I read the newspapers. The content of the newspapers is a big temptation; therefore, I read only the headings to get the major points and avoid reading the rest. But some of the brothers simply like to read the newspapers; the more they read, the more they like to read, and the more they read, the more they lose the sense of the Spirit. The Spirit within them is clearly saying, “Do not read anymore,” yet they keep on reading. This is to quench the Spirit. Another example is that some sisters like to go shopping and enjoy the pleasure of buying things, but they do not realize how much they quench the Spirit in such shopping trips.
The Triune God became flesh and died for us on the cross, bearing our sins; then He resurrected and became the life-giving Spirit. When we called on His name, He came to dwell in us and we were saved. This is a real fact, not a theory or philosophical doctrine. The Spirit’s indwelling us is not a matter of His being high or mighty; instead, He is lowly and gentle and is often wronged by us. We often ignore Him, disregard Him, and even quench Him; yet He remains with us.
For us to abide in the Lord, the most crucial thing is to not quench the Spirit. When you talk with your wife, do not quench the Spirit. If the Spirit forbids you to continue talking, you must not reply, “Lord, let me say two more sentences, or at least let me finish this sentence.” If you continue to talk on and on, you eventually will completely forget the Spirit. Although the Spirit will not leave you, you will quench the Spirit. To abide in the Lord, first of all we must not quench the Spirit.
First John 2:27 says, “The anointing which you have received from Him abides in you;…His anointing…is true and is not a lie, and even as it has taught you, abide in Him.” The anointing ointment is the Spirit, and the anointing of this ointment, that is, the moving of the Spirit, never stops. You may quench Him, but He will not mind and will still keep on anointing you within. If you argue, He anoints you silently; when you calm down, He moves you again, causing you to repent and confess your sins.
For us to abide in the Lord, we must learn to not quench the Spirit at all but to cooperate with Him completely and to not argue with Him. Sisters, when you pick up an item in the department store and within you He is telling you to put it down, you should simply put it down quickly. When He tells you not to buy, you should quickly get into your car and go home. If you do this, you will not quench the Spirit or reason with Him. If you obey the Spirit, you may feel sad when you first get into your car, but when the car starts to move, you will begin to have joy and will be able to open your mouth to praise the Lord. But if you quench the Spirit and buy that item, you may be happy at that moment. When you get into your car, while driving home you will sense that you have a heavy burden and you will become sad. Upon arriving home you may consider throwing the item away, but you may feel that this is too wasteful. However, if you keep the item, you will feel that it is a bothering, and when you use it, you will have no peace at all. Eventually, you simply have to repent and confess to the Lord.
NOT TO QUENCH THE SPIRIT BEING NOT TO NEGLECT THE LORD’S WORD
If you argue and quench the Spirit, the result will be that you cannot pray when you want to pray. You will also have no peace in your heart or have any desire to attend the church meetings. Thus, you are not abiding in the Lord. If, however, you do not quench the Spirit, you will abide in the Lord and will not neglect His words. In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” The Lord’s Spirit and the Lord’s words cannot be separated. Therefore, when you do not quench the Spirit, it means you have not neglected the Lord’s words; but when you neglect the Lord’s words, you quench the Spirit. These two things are one.
First Thessalonians is on the Christian’s daily life, Colossians is on the life of experiencing Christ, and Ephesians is on the life of experiencing the church. To have these three kinds of lives we need to pray unceasingly and give thanks in everything. Not only so, Colossians tells us that a life of experiencing Christ depends on our letting the word of the Lord dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16); Ephesians says that for us to have the church life, we must be filled in spirit (Eph. 5:18b). When we have the Spirit of God filling our spirit within and the word of the Lord dwelling in us, spontaneously we can give thanks at all times for all things.
According to 1 Thessalonians, if we are unable to give thanks, it is because we have quenched the Spirit and neglected the prophecies (5:18-20). Prophecies are the words given by the Spirit, which are also the words of the Lord. The Bible is the Lord’s word in written form, and the prophecies are the Lord’s speaking in us. Therefore, do not quench the Spirit and do not despise prophecies mean do not quench the Spirit of God and do not neglect the words of the Lord. We have the Spirit, and often we also have the instant words of the Lord within us. If we quench the Spirit and neglect the words of the Lord, we will come out of the Lord. But if we neither quench the Spirit nor neglect the instant words of the Lord, we will abide in the Lord. When we abide in the Lord, spontaneously we can exercise our spirit, pray, and give thanks in everything. This is a practical way for us to abide in the Lord.
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