Living Waters
Lesson 3
“Sins against the Holy Spirit”
I. Into Our History
A. Suggestion and preparation for the Leader: There are seven areas that could be covered in this study. Please pray about which topics your group would most benefit from. May the Lord give you discernment of the Holy Spirit in dealing with these topics.. This study has applications for non-believers and believers regarding sins against the Holy Spirit. To begin, invite your group to think back to the past where they were rebellious. B. Suggested Ice-breaker:
- Do you agree with the following statement?
“Let your conscience be your guide”
– Jiminy Cricket (prophet and apostle)
- What are some of the dangers of allowing your conscience to be your guide?
- We would have to assume that our conscience is working the way it was designed. Just as a compass should be your guide when it is working properly, so it is with the conscience.
- If this assumption is wrong and our conscience (humanity viewed collectively) is working poorly, then there is a significant chance that what we view as good and bad will be tainted, and this evaluation will be reinforced by our community, which suffers from the same dysfunction.
- If the conscience is working very badly, a person will have no other markers to indicate the rightness or wrongness of something, and it is completely self-deceived.
- What does the Bible say about the health of our conscience?
Jeremiah 17:9-10: 9 “ The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 10 "I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.”
Proverbs 28:26: “ He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks wisely will be delivered.”
- Transitional Question: If the state of our conscience is this bad, how do we recognize the depth of our sinfulness as to embrace Jesus as the Savior from our condition?
II. Into the Bible
A. The Work of the Holy Spirit:
B. Sins against the Holy Spirit:1. Read John 16:7-14.
“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world, concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.”
“Convicting” - is a legal term which means to not only charge someone with wrong-doing, but to demonstrate or prove with adequate proof a perfect prosecution.
2. Question: What is the relationship between the Holy Spirit’s conviction and a person’s conscience?
The convicting work of the Spirit either aids or repairs the malfunctioning conscience to enable to see with more clarity the degree of badness that lies within.
“A good conscience is the palace of Christ; the temple of the Holy Ghost; the paradise of delight, the standing Sabbath of the saints.”
- Saint Augustine
3. Transitional Question: What are some ways that unbelievers resist the work of the Holy Spirit?
1. The Sins of Unbelievers.
2. The Sins of Believers.a. The Sin of Resisting the Holy Spirit.
Read Acts 7:51
“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” What do you suppose the descriptions “stiff-necked,” “uncircumcised in heart” and “resisting ears,” reveal about the heart of those who persist in unbelief?These adjectives indicate a person who is unyielding and insensitive to the Holy Spirit
When Stephen alludes to “your fathers,” what does he have in mind?
Stephen is referring to the children of Israel, who persisted in unbelief despite the clear and unmistakable signs of God’s presence in their midst.
b. The Sin of Blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
Read Matthew 12:30-32
“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.”
What is this sin?
In Matt. 12:24, the particular transgression occurred when the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons using the power of Beelzebul, or Satan.
Can someone commit this sin today?
There is a question as to whether or not this particular sin could be committed today. There are those who say that people who had witnessed the miraculous ministry of Jesus could only commit this sin. The idea behind this view is that Jesus’ miracles so clearly demonstrated that he was the Christ, such a person who would deny this undeniable evidence to the point of attributing the miracles to Satan had crossed the line. Others say that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is to be regarded as unbelief in Christ (refusing, in any age, the Spirit’s testimony about Jesus to each individual), in which case, every person who dies without faith in Jesus has committed this particular sin.
a. The Sin of Grieving the Holy Spirit.
Read Ephesians 4:29-32
“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to then need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
“Grieve” – “to give pain to, to pain, distress, grieve, vex, annoy.”
- In what ways can we grieve the Spirit?
- Is the believer’s conscience affected by this?
b. The Sin of Quenching the Holy Spirit.
Read 1 Thessalonians 5:16-20
“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances.”
“Quench” - “ literally extinguish, quench, put out something, as fire (MK 9.48) or lamps (MT 25.8); metaphorically, of an activity cause to cease, thwart, block (MT 12.20; EP 6.16); figuratively stifle, suppress, restrain. (1TH 5.19)”
III. Into our Lives
A. Application:
Since the work of the Holy Spirit is key to our walk with the Lord… What areas can we confess we are weak in so we can grow as believers? How can we minister to any unbelievers we may come across this week that are resisting, insulting, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. How can we show His love in word and action?
B. Pray:
Ask the Lord to show us where we can improve our relationship with the Holy Spirit this week. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead us in dealing with unbelievers in a kind way, along with asking Him to guide us on what to say to them, that they might come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Notes:
“We must guard against the feeling that there is ‘safety in numbers.” It is natural to feel that if all men are as bad as the Christians say, then badness must be very excusable. If all the boys plough in the examination, surely the papers must have been too hard? And so the masters at that school feel till they learn that there are other schools where ninety per cent of the boys passed on the same papers. Then they begin to suspect that the fault did not lie with the examiners… It is wise to face the possibility that the whole human race (being a small thing in the universe) is, in fact…an isolated bad school or regiment inside which minimum decency passes for heroic virtue and utter corruption for pardonable imperfection.” (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 56)
One may argue that parents, peers, or the laws of the land will supplement a person’s malfunctioning conscience. However, this assumes that the person believe that he or she ought to defer to parents, peers, or the laws of the land. Typically, a conscience that is severely malfunctioning will view everyone else as suspect, being fully convinced of their moral sanity. Now, this person may defer to others to avoid pain, but in this case, fear of punishment, and not conviction of conscience, curbs a person’s behavior.
See also - Genesis 6:5 “ Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Job 15:14"What is man, that he should be pure, Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15 "Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones, And the heavens are not pure in His sight; 16 How much less one who is detestable and corrupt, Man, who drinks iniquity like water!” Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” Ecclesiastes 9:3 “ This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men. Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. Afterwards they go to the dead.
Elegcho "one who pleads another's cause before a judge, a pleader, counsel for defense, legal assistant; an advocate": Demosthenes, p. , 11; Diogenes Laërtius 4, 50, cf. Dio Cassius, 46, 20.” “ universally, one who pleads another's cause with one, an intercessor:” E.g., Matthew 18:15 "If your brother sins, go and show (elegcho)him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.”
For the unbeliever who remains so, the conscience is merely heightened to see with more clarity the evil that lies within. But this is insufficient to move him or her to repentance. For the unbeliever who becomes a believer, the conscience has been transformed or renewed so that it sees the evil of sin and is moved effectively to embrace Christ. (cf. 1Cor. 2:6-16)
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon.
We may go through life unused by God, a dead branch offering no fruit to anyone. Un-confessed sin can eat away at us over time, as well as rob us of God’s power to minister to others, thus, we remain un-cleansed, not pruned, not connected to the ‘vine’ as the Word is not in us.