DON’T RESIST HOLY SPIRIT
Acts 6:1-14
1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint
against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily
distribution.
2 Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we
should leave the word of God and serve tables.
3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy
Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;
4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and
the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from
Antioch,
6 whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.
7 Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem,
and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.
8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.
9 Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians,
Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen.
10 And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.
11 Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words
against Moses and God.”
12 And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized
him, and brought him to the council.
13 They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous
words against this holy place and the law;
14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the
customs which Moses delivered to us.” 15 And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at
him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
Acts 7:1-60
1 Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2 And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham
when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,
3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will
show you.’
4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his
father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.
5 And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when
Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants
after him.
6 But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they
would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years.
7 ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they
shall come out and serve Me in this place.’
8 Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised
him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.
9 “And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him
10 and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of
Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
11 Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers
found no sustenance.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
13 And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became
known to the Pharaoh.
14 Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people.
15 So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers.
16 And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum
of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.
17 “But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people
grew and multiplied in Egypt
18 till another king arose who did not know Joseph.
19 This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them
expose their babies, so that they might not live.
20 At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his
father’s house for three months.
21 But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own
son.
22 And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and
deeds.
23 “Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of
Israel.
24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed,
and struck down the Egyptian.
25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by
his hand, but they did not understand.
26 And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile
them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’
27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a
judge over us?
28 Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’
29 Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had
two sons.
30 “And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a
bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.
31 When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the
Lord came to him,
32 saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look.
33 ‘Then the LORD said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is
holy ground.
34 I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning
and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.” ’
35 “This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one
God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the
bush.
36 He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the
Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
37 “This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you
a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’
38 “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him
on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us,
39 whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to
Egypt, 40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out
of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’
41 And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works
of their own hands.
42 Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the
book of the Prophets:
‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness, O
house of Israel?
43 You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, Images which
you made to worship; And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’
44 “Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing
Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen,
45 which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed
by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David,
46 who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built Him a house
48 “However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
49 ‘Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the
LORD, or what is the place of My rest?
50 Has My hand not made all these things?’
51 “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as
your fathers did, so do you.
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold
the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers,
53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”
54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their
teeth.
55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus
standing at the right hand of God,
56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of
God!”
57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord;
58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at
the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
60 Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.”
And when he had said this, he fell asleep
Resist – antipiptÅ – collide, fight against, strive against, oppose, struggle against
I. WAYS WE RESIST
1. Quench Him
1 Thessalonians 5:19
19 Do not quench the Spirit
Quench – sbennymi (spen yi me) – put out, stop, extinguish
2. Grieve Him
Ephesians 4:30-31
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day
of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from
you, with all malice.
32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God
in Christ forgave you.
We grieve the Spirit by living like the unbelievers (4:17-19), by lying (4:25), by
being angry (4:26-27), by stealing (4:28), by cursing (4:29), by being bitter (4:31),
by being unforgiving (4:32), and by being sexually immoral (5:3-5).
3. Fight Against Him
You are not aligned with His agenda.
II. CAUSES OF RESISTING HOLY SPIRIT
1. When He doesn’t come the way, we imagined he would
2 Kings 5:9-14
9 Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of
Elisha’s house.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven
times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”
11 But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself,
‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his
God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’
12 Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the
waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went
away in a rage.
13 And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the
prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How
much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”
14 So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying
of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he
was clean.
2. When He chooses to use someone seemingly more than he uses you
John 12:17-19
17 Therefore, the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his
tomb and raised him from the dead, bore witness.
18 For this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done
this sign.
19 The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “You see that you are
accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him
3. When our hearts have been hardened by pride
Matthew 12:9-13
9 Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue.
10 And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him,
saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—that they might accuse Him.
11 Then He said to them, “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and
if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?
12 Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to
do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and
it was restored as whole as the other.
Luke 13:10-17
10 Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
11 And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years,
and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.
12 But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are
loosed from your infirmity.”
13 And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and
glorified God.
14 But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had
healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which
men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the
Sabbath day.”
15 The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on
the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it?
16 So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has
bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the
Sabbath?”
17 And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all
the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him
4. When we are in pain
Luke 7:18-23
18 Then the disciples of John reported to him concerning all these things.
19 And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are
You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”
20 When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to
You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’”
21 And that very hour.
III. HOW NOT TO RESIST HIM
1. Soft Heart and Tender Spirit
A few names given to rebellious Israel.
Stiff-necked. Acts 7:51
Stubborn Rebellious generation Ps 78:8
Stubborn and rebellious heart. Jer. 5:23
Hard hearts Psalm 95:7-11
2. Love God more than self
Luke 9:23
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me
3. Pray He won’t let you miss Him
Psalm 19:12-14
12 Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults.
13 Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have
dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, And I shall be innocent of great
transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in
Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.
