Since people seemingly are going to resist the Holy Ghost anyway, I thought I would help them out and give them some pointers on how to do this effectively. These methods work well for churches, leaders and individuals as well.
1. Simply do not believe. Much of the church effectively resists the Holy Ghost by just not believing in Him. This works best when you stay in the Old Testament which seldom mentions the Spirit and away from the New Testament where He is mentioned quite often.
2. Minimize the Spirit. You can do this by staying ignorant and keeping others ignorant of His work or power. If the subject comes up, just give Him some flattering lip service and then change the subject. You can also do it by simply ignoring Him. This trivializes Him in the minds of most people.
3. Focus on man. Stay focused and keep others focused on the comfort and pleasure of man. This will effectively keep the Spirit at a distance. Carefully guard against a surprise break through of the Spirit for it will upset religious folks. This often mean a loss of tithes and even church members.
4. Redefine who he is. Resist the Holy Ghost by making Him out to be anything but God. Call him the “force”, the power, an angel, etc., anything but God.
5. Redefine what he does. Never admit that we are saved by an act of the Spirit whereby He puts a new spirit within us. Give the credit for this to anything or anybody other than the Spirit. And, for sure, don’t let it out that the purpose of having a new spirit is so the Spirit could dwell there.
6. Redefine benefit of cross. Do your best, when it comes to the cross, to either keep the focus on man’s sin, or, on the suffering Jesus on the cross. Never admit that the work of the cross was done in order to give us the Holy Ghost.
7. Redefine how to know Lord. If you should lead people to salvation, have them confess Jesus as Savior or something else, but never Lord. Say things like “Dear Jesus come into my heart, be my Savior”. Keep the verse hidden that says no man can call Him Lord except by the Spirit. Do not, under any circumstances tell them the way to salvation is to confess that He is Lord.
8. Refuse Holy Ghost baptism. Resist this any way you can or else you will be faced with the disruptive power of God. Just tell people this happened once, in the Bible days, but no more since then.
9. Legalism. Never tell people that the Holy Spirit is our new law, the “law of life in Christ Jesus”. Use a lot of pop-psychology, self-improvement stuff or man made formulas. If you are a preacher and don’t know pop-psychology, go to the book store, get some books of that nature there, and just copy from them. Or, you can resort back to using condemnation and repentance demands with a lot of “or else” threats thrown in.
10. Substitute anything for the voice of the Spirit. This could be prophets preachers, teachers, or the Bible. Do not tell anybody that the early church did not have a Bible published by an publishing company, that they just had an ear to to hear the Holy Ghost. This is important because if people start hearing God for themselves, it can ruin your ministry as a preachers or prophets if you have presented yourself as God’s voice. Worse, it will cause the Bible to take on life and power.
11. Accuse the Spirit of division and confusion.. If revival should break out, as quickly and loudly as possible blame it on the Holy Ghost. This will keep revival from spreading. Tell people, “we don’t want that kind of revival” otherwise some important religious folks may get offended, leave the church and take their tithes with them.. Be extra careful not to tell them they need to repent or they may turn on you and get you fired. They will not only blame the Spirit, they will blame you.
12. Refuse to worship the Holy Ghost. Be careful not to admit that He is God for then some might realize that if He is God, then He must be worshiped. Skip over the passage that says that “God is a Spirit” and that we are to worship Him in that form. Read it and say “amen”, then move on quickly.
13. Refuse the gifts. Do not tell people the gifts of the Spirit are the “testimony” of Jesus or that we are to not come behind in these gifts until Jesus comes. If they should start operating in the gifts and become effective in their testifying of the Lord, it can cause real problems.
14. Refuse speaking in tongues. If someone should point out Scriptures about speaking in tongues, nod your head in agreement and then tell them to only do it in private but not in church. You don’t want people talking to God in church, especially in a language only He understands. If that doesn’t work, drop back on the old standard that every message in tongues must be interpreted. That will ultimately discourage this. And, if that doesn’t work, you might just have to run them off, calling them troublemakers or something like that.
15. Deal with sin without Him. Push people hard to stop sinning and fulfilling the lust of the flesh but do not tell them that the way to not sin, or fulfill the lust of the flesh, is to walk in or have a relationship with the Spirit. This will keep condemnation at a nice high peak.
16. Never tell them what faith should stand on. For example, tell them, with convincing tones, that their faith is to stand solely upon the Bible, or maybe the “gospel”. Never, ever, tell them the Bible says faith should stand on the demonstrations of the Spirit and the power of God.
17. Always teach Christianity from a past or future tense perspective. (This will turn it into religion). Focusing on Jesus on the cross, God in the Old Testament, even the second coming of Jesus, while studiously ignoring God already manifested among us. You can do this with great enthusiasm, every word being true. Of course, this means you have to come up with some way to explain away Jesus leaving but sending the Comforter to take His place.
18. Resurrection teaching. It is okay to say there will be one, but don’t let people know that they can experience the power of resurrection right now and thus be assured of resurrection. You don’t want them to know that the Spirit is resurrection power, and that He likes touching us with resurrection power, even before we are dead. If, by chance, someone should get a touch of resurrection power, during church, it could be bothersome to those who want order in the building.
19. Stay away from New Covenant. If the subject comes up about a “new and better” covenant, change the subject quickly. Quickly skip over the matter of being redeemed from the curse of the law so we could have the blessing of Abraham and the Holy Ghost. If you are a preacher and people find out you have been teaching them out of the wrong covenant, it could jeopardize your future.
20. Repentance. Repent and keep others busy repenting of everything you can think of except turning to a full embrace of the Holy Ghost.
If all these things fail you and you find yourself confronted with the Holy Ghost, in spite of these best efforts, you might consider just surrendering. Then, if you live long enough, you will find yourself in the majority for one day the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.
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