Blaspheming the Holy Spirit
About this sermon
Pastor Dean Odle presents “Blaspheming the Holy Spirit” as both a warning and an invitation: believers should commune and cooperate with the Holy Spirit rather than resist, quench, grieve, or malign his work. Moving from Jesus’ promise in John 16 to Pentecost and later New Testament examples, Odle argues that the Spirit still guides, empowers, heals, gives gifts, and helps believers pray. He challenges traditions that restrict these works to the apostolic age.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle frames the subject as a spectrum between fellowship with the Holy Spirit and resisting his work. Pentecost introduces the Spirit as Christ’s promised empowering presence, not an optional doctrine to be ignored.
From John 16, the sermon emphasizes the Spirit’s personal guidance, conviction, and revelation of Christ. Odle argues that New Covenant believers may know God’s presence and hear his direction through a relationship grounded in Scripture.
Examples from Acts and Hebrews support Odle’s contention that the Spirit’s filling was not restricted to the Twelve. He challenges traditions that dismiss tongues, prophecy, healing, and deliverance as merely first-century signs.
Odle reviews how leaders acknowledged Jesus’ miracles yet rejected him and attributed his power to evil. Modern attacks on Pentecostal experience are discussed as a parallel that requires sober biblical discernment.
The sermon distinguishes several levels of opposition: unbelievers may resist, while Christians can quench the Spirit through unbelief or grieve him through persistent sin. These warnings call believers to repentance and cooperation.
Paul’s former ignorance is contrasted with the knowledgeable Pharisees of Matthew 12. Odle argues that the gravest danger is knowingly calling the Holy Spirit’s genuine work satanic after encountering the truth.
Reading Matthew 12 in context, Odle highlights Christ’s deliverance of a demonized man and his explanation that Satan does not cast out Satan. Binding the strong man displays the arrival of God’s kingdom.
First Corinthians 13 is read to show that tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, and sacrifice are empty without charity. Odle insists that love corrects misuse but does not abolish the Spirit’s gifts.
Odle disputes the claim that “that which is perfect” refers to the completed Bible. He interprets the passage as Christ’s return, when partial knowledge gives way to seeing face to face; until then, the gifts remain needed.
The closing exhortation encourages prayer in the Spirit and openness to the Spirit’s baptism and gifts. Listeners are warned to test manifestations biblically while avoiding contemptuous speech about what Scripture attributes to God.
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Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
- 0:00:00
And we want to welcome everyone this morning, the Fire and Grace Church, those of you here, those of you watching and listening, praise be to God. I'm going to tackle a subject this morning that's really misunderstood, I think, in the body of Christ. It has to be, and I've heard so many different things about this topic over the years. But, you know, this is really kind of a continuation of last week, talking about, you know, the storms of fear and doubt and talking about stepping out of the boat, you know, stepping out of the boat into the miraculous of God. And how much of the church just absolutely refuses to step out of the boat. They're quite satisfied to sit in the safety and security or relative safety and security of the boat and not step out there on the storming waters with Jesus to see the miraculous, to see the powerful things that God wants to do. And so I want to talk to you today a little bit about, I've entitled this, the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, but I could also call this communing with the Holy Spirit. You kind of have this wide spectrum, I mean, what I'm kind of giving you is what we should be doing, communing, cooperating, partnering with the Holy Spirit, versus blaspheming resisting, quenching, grieving the Holy Spirit. We're going to look at all of this today, and we're going to look at the Bible. So we can start with the PowerPoint here. We're going to go first to John chapter 16. Again, we've entitled this today, Blaspheming the Holy Spirit. There's an artist illustration of the day of Pentecost when the Bible says the Holy Spirit came. The promise of Jesus, I will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. And on the day of Pentecost, 120 disciples were in the upper room, not just the 12 apostles, but 120 were in the upper room. And the Bible says the Holy Spirit came, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. It said he came like a rushing mighty wind. He filled all the house where they were sitting, cloven tongues like as a fire set upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them other tongues. Now this is the Bible, yet we've got people who call themselves Christians that fight this, resist this, and blaspheme this operation of the Holy Spirit. We're going to talk about that today, because frankly, I'm going to be honest. I think I've been far too nice. I've been far too nice with the so-called Christians who blaspheme the Holy Spirit. So we're going to look at what Jesus called, not what Pastor Dean called, but we're going
- 0:03:02
to look at what Jesus called, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Now I want you to turn. I know I said, John, hold your spot there. We can go ahead and... Well, we can go to 2 Corinthians chapter 13 first, and let's just look at this word first, communion. Everything when you say communion, you're talking about taking the elements, the bread and the wine and having the Lord suffer, but it's much more than that, much more than just the bread and the wine. Now let's read this here. This is 2 Corinthians chapter 13, 10 through 14. Here's what it says, therefore, Paul said, I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification and not to destruction. Finally, brethren, farewell, be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss, all the saints salute you. Now look at the verse 14 here, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. How many of you have read that and just skip right over that? How many of you have ever stopped and looked at this word? What does it mean? I mean, we will talk about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and we talk about the love of God, but do we talk about the communion with the Holy Spirit? Now as I'm going to talk about the Holy Spirit today, I want you to understand that I do believe in the Trinity. I've been accused lately that I'm a heretic concerning the Trinity. Now, I just don't take the unscriptural definition that's used that God's three persons are three different people. He is one God and has three very distinct parts of Him. And those very distinct parts are very important. It's very clear that we make a distinction that there are three very distinct aspects to God. He is a triune God. That is just fact. But, you know, again, this same individual I'm going to be discussing today called me a heretic because I don't give the traditional fourth century church doctrine statement of person. And you know that this issue anyway was hotly debated within the church. Many good Christian brothers and sisters who accept the deity of Jesus Christ that Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily debated hotly. This issue of the nature of God is a triune being and how that works and what that means and all of this. But I think you're clearly within orthodoxy and biblical to say God is one. Does it not say in Deuteronomy, Here O Israel, the Lord thy God is one. There is no other. Isaiah said the Lord Yahweh is one.
- 0:06:03
There is no other God beside Him. Right? There is no other Savior beside Him. So you have to deal with one God. Galatians says He is the fullness, Jesus Christ, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Fullness, not the right hand as been said, not just the Son. That's one title. But He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Very distinct, different parts, but one God, not three different people. And by the way, in describing the triune nature of God, let's just go ahead and get this out here. In describing the triune nature of God, the word persons, three persons, is not used in the Scripture. I dare anybody to show me that one. It's kind of like the word rapture is not used either. There's a lot of words that aren't used. Oh, but anyway, and then it's funny, I got accused too. I actually happened to see yesterday that I got accused of the video where I was teaching this for two hours and going through the Scriptures on it from taking the video down. I said, oh, he took the video down. He knows he's in there. The video is still there. These people will just lie. I mean, they will just lie to you. And you know what? If you got a lie, you're the one with the agenda, not me. Liars have their part in the lake of fire anyway, so you better stop the line. Well, let's look at this word communion of the Holy Spirit. It's a simple word here, kononia. We've all heard it. I hope you can see this. We're going to read down. This is the Strong's Greek dictionary. Here it talks about partnership, participation, social intercourse, benefaction, communicate or communication, fellowship. I mean, you see this word. It's pretty awesome. Fellowship, association, community. I love the fact that it says communicate, partnership, participation. I mean, here Paul is saying to the Corinthians, I pray that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. That's good. I pray that the love of God be with you. That's good. But I also pray that the communion, the partnership, the communication that you can have with the Holy Spirit, that that's in your life as well. Communication. Folks, what does communication mean? If me and you, Marlene, are communicating, is it just me talking or are we talking together? That's right. If we're communicating, I am talking and listening, right? I'm listening to you talk to me and you're listening to me talk to you. That's communication. It's never, ever God wanted this relationship with him to be one way where he's silent,
- 0:09:03
where he only speaks through the Scriptures. He doesn't have any interaction with us. I can't even tell you the truth. Fathom Christians who would believe that nonsense. That somehow the Holy Spirit is going to be in you. You're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit and there's going to be no communication, interaction, or supernatural things going on in your life. Except you got saved. You were born again. That's it. It all ends there. He's supernatural enough to regenerate you, wash your sins away, make your dead spirit alive to God, but nothing else can happen. That's modern Christianity for you. That's the Baptist and the Methodist and the Presbyterians and the Lutheran. Pretty much stops in salvation. Your communion, fellowship, participation, communication with the Holy Spirit. Let's look at the word communion. This is just the definition here in the, just Google the definition. And it's interesting. The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level. Isn't that interesting? And of course, it talks about the service of Christian worship which the bread and the wine are consecrated and shared and the Lord's Supper. But that's not what we're talking about today. He's talking about the communion of the Holy Spirit, not the communion of bread and wine. He's talking about the communion with the Holy Spirit. So he talks about, again, let's read that. The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental and spiritual level. We should have an exchange of thoughts and feelings with the Holy Spirit when we spend time with Him. When we spend time in prayer, when we spend time fasting and seeking His face, when we spend time in worship, singing and worshiping God, when we get in our private time, reading the Scriptures, talking to Him about what we're reading, there should be an exchange of thought and feelings. Intimacy with the Lord is what I'm talking about. Now, do you think that you can have that with the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus Christ? Do you think you can have that kind of relationship, that kind of communion and partnership and relationship if you're at the same time resisting, quenching, opposing, grieving, and even blaspheming? No, that can't happen, right? Let's keep going.
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Read and search the complete transcriptThe summary and overview attribute the sermon’s interpretations to Pastor Dean Odle. Historical, medical, political, institutional, and deliverance claims reflect the speaker’s presentation and were not independently verified.