Indispensable to the Life of the Church (2)

Introduction: The Indispensability of the Holy Spirit and the Danger of Grieving Him

0:04 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, March 8, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. As a congregation, we are determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in every facet of our life and ministry. These words constitute the eighth tenet or affirmation of our present series of studies entitled, A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church. These words I have spoken in your hearing again this morning direct our attention to a fundamental element of our life together during the past 25 years. They not only declare a perspective.

1:02 They not only declare a perspective and a spiritual commitment which has marked our life in the past, but they set forth a perspective and a commitment which must characterize this assembly in the days to come if we are to have the smile and commendation of our risen Lord as He walks among the lampstands, even His churches. In the opening up of this episode, we will be talking about the Holy Spirit. We will be talking about the Holy Spirit. In this affirmation, we began by expounding two pivotal texts which address this subject of grieving the Holy Spirit.

1:42 The first being the familiar words of Ephesians 4 and verse 30, in which the Apostle, in the midst of a series of exhortations to the Ephesians, writes, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed. And the second text, Isaiah 63 and verse 10, speaking of God's old covenant people. But they rebelled and grieved or vexed His Holy Spirit. Therefore He was turned to be their enemy and Himself fought against them. Having opened up those two pivotal texts, we then examined some of the ways in which the Holy Spirit can and can be and is grieved in the life of the individual believer and how that grieving of the Spirit in the life of the individual believer can have a horrible effect upon the ministry of the church as a corporate body.

2:59 We then proceeded to take up the ways in which the Holy Spirit can be grieved in the corporate life of the people of God. The first three ways of corporate grieving of the Spirit have been opened up in your hearing. They are, one, displacing Christ from His rightful place of preeminence. That will always grieve the Holy Spirit.

3:28 Secondly, refusing to maintain corporate holiness by corrective discipline where necessary. That, too, will always grieve the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, replacing the rightful supremacy of Holy Scripture in regulating the life and ministry of the church. And that, too, will grievously grieve the Holy Spirit.

The Fourth Way to Grieve the Spirit: Not Esteeming His Indispensability

3:58 We are now concerned with understanding the fourth way in which the Holy Spirit can be grieved in the corporate life of the church and one which we must avoid with all watchfulness and spiritual diligence. And what is that fourth way? I've expressed it this way. The Holy Spirit is grieved in any church when His person, presence, and power are not esteemed as indispensable.

4:30 In our study last Lord's Day, I attempted to accomplish but one thing. I attempted to set out the biblical evidence that indeed the person, presence, and power of the Holy Spirit are nothing short of indispensable to the being, life, and ministry of God. Verse 17. The Holy Spirit is grieved.

4:59 The Holy Spirit is grieved in any church when His person, presence, and power are not esteemed as indispensable. of the church. In doing so, we followed three lines of biblical evidence. We saw that the Holy Spirit alone constitutes the church, a temple of the living God, 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17.

5:18 Secondly, that the Holy Spirit alone communicates life-giving power to the divinely instituted activities within His temple, Philippians 3, 3 and Ephesians 5, 18 and 19 and 1 Thessalonians 1, 4 and 5. And then thirdly, we saw that the Holy Spirit alone imparts the gifts and graces essential to the church's identity and to the church's mission. And under that heading, we looked at such text as 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 12, 1. Now, this morning, we move from the biblical evidence which demonstrates that the person, presence, and power of the Holy Spirit are indispensable to the life of the church to take up a second concern. And I've worded it this way, the practical evidence that His person, presence, and power are really, esteemed to be indispensable by any church, namely, by Trinity Baptist Church.

The Practical Evidence of Esteeming the Spirit: Beyond Formal Creed

6:37 Having seen the biblical evidence that His person, His ministry, His power are essential, not the extras, but essential to the very being, life, and ministry of the church, that's the theology of Christ. The work of the Spirit in the church. We come today to the matter of our own experiential absorption of that theology. And we're going to consider the practical evidence that His person, presence, and power are really esteemed by us to be indispensable in any church, yes, even in our own. Even in our own assembly. Now, why do I address this issue? Why will I give an entire sermon to this issue?

7:38 Well, I answer because of the stark reality that we may hold a theology which says amen to that which was established last Lord's Day morning. We may hold a theology in our minds which says an unreserved amen to the individualism, to the indispensability of the Spirit to constitute the very being, to be the very life, and the one who endows for ministry any given church. But you see, our theology is a matter of the head and of the study. And if it is to be theology as God intends it should be, it must also become the theology of the heart and of the sanctuary. Not merely what we believe in the Study, and in our minds, but what is truly regulatory of the heart in the place where we meet with God. A. W. Tozer, among the many burdens

8:51 that was upon his heart when he was still in the land of the living, had a tremendous concern at this very point, expressed in his lesser known books called, The Thesis. Degthis Is Wrong! No, not the pursuit of God, the divine conquest. And he has a chapter called The Forgotten One.

9:11 And it's on the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. And he says these very perceptive things. In neglecting or denying the deity of Christ, the liberals have committed a tragic blunder. For it leaves them nothing but an imperfect Christ whose death was a mere martyrdom and whose resurrection is nothing but a myth.

9:32 They who follow a merely human Savior follow no Savior at all, but only an ideal. And one, furthermore, that can do no more than mock their weaknesses and sins. If Mary's son was not the Son of God in a sense that no other man is, then there can be no more hope for the human race. If he who walked, if he who called himself the light of the world, was only a flickering light, then the darkness that enshrouds the earth is here to stay.

10:10 So-called Christian leaders shrug this off. But their responsibility to the souls of their flocks cannot be dismissed with a shrug. God will yet bring them to account for the injury they've done to the plain people who trusted them as spiritual guides. But however culpable the act of the liberal in denying the God, as the prophet of Christ, we who pride ourselves in orthodoxy must not allow our indignation to blind us to our own shortcomings.

10:44 Certainly this is no time for self-congratulations, for we too have in recent years committed a costly blunder in religion, a blunder paralleling closely that of the liberal. Our blunder, or shall we frankly say our sin, has been, to neglect the doctrine of the Spirit to a point where we virtually deny Him His place in the Godhead. This denial has not been by open doctrinal statement where we have clung closely enough to the biblical position wherever our creedal pronouncements are concerned. Our formal creed is sound.

11:29 The breakdown is in our working creed. Formal creed. Working creed. This is not a trifling distinction.

11:43 A doctrine has practical value only as it is prominent in our thoughts and makes a difference in our lives.

11:58 I repeat those words. A doctrine has practical value only as far as it is prominent in our thoughts and makes a difference in our lives. By this test, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is held by evangelical Christians today has almost no practical value at all. In most Christian churches, the Spirit is quite entirely overlooked.

12:27 Whether He's present or absent makes no real difference to anyone.

12:35 Brief reference is made to Him in the doxology and the benediction. Further than that, He might as well not exist. So completely do we ignore Him that it is only by courtesy that we can be called Trinitarian. Well, I bless God that that indictment does not justly apply to you in this place.

13:04 But brethren, it could.

13:08 For there are churches which it not only rightly applies, but there are churches which it not only rightly applies, but there are churches which it not only rightly applies, but there are churches which this indictment describes to a T,

13:23 where massive congregations gather from week to week, and they would have to say with those Ephesians' disciple, we know not whether the Holy Spirit has been given.

13:39 All of the business goes on as usual. The bills are paid and the buildings expand and the drums beat and the opera is played. And the opera is played. And the opera is played.

13:49 And the opera is played. And the opera is played. And the opera is played. And the opera is played.

13:49 And the orchestra is played. And the preachers carry out their show. And everyone's happy. But the Holy Ghost is happy.

13:59 And he's long since been ignored and overlooked. There is no visceral conviction that his person, his presence, and his power are to the very being, life, and ministry.

Practical Evidence 1: Repudiation of Confidence in Human Enablement

14:21 Therefore, brethren, while I say to the praise of God this indictment, this indictment does not apply to us, we must search our hearts now and continually in the light of those things which are the practical manifestations that we truly believe, truly esteem the Holy Spirit's presence and power to be indispensable to the life of our church. And I want to give you three very simple, practical evidences this morning. The first is this. Where his ministry is esteemed as indispensable, here's the first practical evidence. There will be a conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence in any other source of enablement for the church's life and ministry. There will be a conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence in any other source of enablement for the church's life or ministry. Consider with me what I mean by that set of words.

15:39 Turn, please, to Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah chapter 17. God, through the prophet Jeremiah, has been indicting Judah for her sins,

16:05 and among her many sins, God indicts her in verse 5. For this, thus saith Jehovah, cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departed from Jehovah. For he shall be like a heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land, and not inhabit, but shall be inhabited. God says there is a curse upon the man who trusts in man.

16:50 And one of the great curses of the fall is that man is not only natively self-centered and self-willed, he is self-trusting.

17:05 He feels that to take his place of dependantness is to dehumanize himself. That's why men in their arrogance call religion a crutch for weak-minded people. One of the horrible realities of sin is that the creature made a dependent creature and made to glory in his dependentness to acknowledge that he had his life and breath, his sanity, his ability to relate to his world and to all that is in it and to the God, who placed him in it. All of it was both given by God and upheld by God, and that was man's glory to take such a posture of dependantness. Sin has so twisted and warped man that he has wrenched himself loose from communion with God, from the rule of God. He has turned inward upon himself, and he struts around as though he is the master of his own fate and the captain of his own soul. And even though in the work of conversion God strikes

18:21 a mighty blow at fundamental self-confidence, as with every other sin, its remnants acting in the heart of true believers will act according to its own inherent nature, and this hard fibrous core of self-trust is yet found in us, though dethroned. When God saves us and we are converted, it is nonetheless active, always seeking to bring us to a posture of creature-dependence as opposed to God-dependence. And God in this text says, Cursed is the man that trusts in man, a good man, the best of men, himself, others, and himself. And when God saves us and we are converted, it is nonetheless active, any group of men. Cursed is the man whose trust in any way terminates upon fellow dependent creatures. For it is impossible to trust in man, and not to do what the next phrase says, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Jehovah. These things stand or fall together.

19:44 The moment there is misplacement, mistrust in the creature, there is apostasy from God. Now, not the thorough and the final apostasy which no true Christian can fall into, but a partial apostasy which can grieve the Holy Spirit and cause him to withdraw dimensions of his mighty presence and activity. This text ought to stand...

20:17 And before us, like a red blinking light at a dangerous intersection, the moment human trust in any way replaces that sole, singular trust that should be in God the Holy Spirit for the very being, life, and success of the ministry of this church or any Christian church, we should hear the words, Cursed is the man that trusteth in man. And maketh flesh his arm.

20:53 Turn to Isaiah, chapter 2, in verse 22, for another text that we ought to bring to remembrance. Some of you have asked at times what are good and profitable things to meditate upon when I prepare for worship. I'm giving you a little catalog of texts that would certainly be suitable for such meditations. The last verse of Isaiah 2, Cease ye!

21:20 from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of? And in the context, God has been speaking of the coming day of Jehovah, when all the pride of men will be leveled by God's judgment, when men who in the luxury of a day of lesser manifestations of the wrath of God could be comfortable with their idols and with their idol worship. In that day, before the unveiling of the majesty of Jehovah, they'll cast away their idols as an unclean thing. And it's in that context that God says, cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils. And how long is it there? It's in, it's out, it's gone. Trust in a creature whose breath is in his nostrils.

22:18 And if he's going to draw another breath, Acts 17 says, he gives to all life and breath. There will not be the passage of any more air through the nostrils unless God gives it. Cease from such a weak, pathetically impotent, dependent creature. Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of? Well, we turn to Psalm 44 in verse 6. And see an expression of the opposite disposition when the psalmist is contemplating past deliverances of God and the need for present deliverances from God. He confesses in Psalm 44 in verse 6, for I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. Yes, there are adversaries and we must be involved in the battle to defeat them. Verse 5.

23:20 And through thee will we push down our adversaries. Yes, we're going to be involved in the battle, but our confidence while we use bow and sword and the weapons of war, our confidence is not in our weapons of war. Our confidence is in the living God. Thou hast saved us from our adversaries. Thou hast put them to shame that hate us. In God have we made our boast all the day long. Yes. Yes, we came back with tried and proven steel, with the blood of our enemies. Yes, we came back exhausted from our involvement on the battlefield, but we'll not mention our trusted steel or the strength of our arm or the courage of our hearts. We'll boast in our God. He

24:12 and he alone has given us the victory. When we turn to the New Testament, it comes to us in the language of the New Testament. It comes to us in the language of the New Testament. It comes to us in the language of the New Testament. It comes to us in the language of the New Testament. It comes to us in the language of the New Testament. It comes to us in the first Corinthians chapter three, this conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence in any other source of enablement for the church's life and ministry. Paul is dealing with the problem of division in the church at Corinth, a division polarizing around the preachers that God had used in their midst. And in order to slay this and to have all the power to of their hope and expectation and confidence properly placed. He tells them, What are ministers at the end of the day? Verse 4 of 1 Corinthians 3, For when one saith, I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollos, are ye not men? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Ministers through

25:13 whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, zero, neither he that watereth, zero, but God, one hundred percent, that giveth the increase. That's the point he's making, that when you gather, your hopes and expectations are not to be in the very direction of the Lord. In the instruments, a misplaced trust will lead to a misplaced loyalty. And if you only understand that under Apollos or Paul or Cephas, you've been brought to life, and that life is nurtured, it is God who gives the increase, whether to conversion or edification. And if your trust is only in the living God, then your loyalty to that God will be enhanced, whatever the instrument. Brethren, it is this disposition that caused the Apostle Paul to cry out in 2 Corinthians 3, 4 to 6, regarding his ministry as a new covenant minister, not that we are sufficient

26:31 of ourselves to think anything as from ourselves. With respect to the efficiency, the efficacious working of the ends of the ministry, he said, we do not regard anything as from ourselves. We regard any of it as having its origin in ourselves. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. And then he focuses particularly upon the Holy Spirit, who hath made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. The sufficiency of God by the ministry of the Spirit. And in the Apostle there is evidence of this conscious, this resolute repudiation of confidence in any other source of enablement, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as from ourselves. That is the language of conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence

27:41 in any other source of enablement but the Holy Spirit. And his very trial with that thorn in the flesh is the language of conscience. And in the Apostle there is evidence of this conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence in any other source of enablement but the Holy Spirit. And in the Apostle there is evidence of this conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence in any other source of enablement but the Holy Spirit. What is this thorn in the flesh? When you read the passage carefully, it was right at this point. 2 Corinthians 12. Whatever this thorn in the flesh, this messenger of Satan, Paul said, it is going to be destructive of my usefulness. It stands as an impediment to the accomplishment of my ministry. Therefore, he said, I sought the Lord thrice. Lord, I cannot do what you have called me to do. This messenger of Satan, this stake in my flesh, whatever it is, it is an impediment to my usefulness. Now, I want to understand this message. I want to understand this message. I want to understand this message. I want to understand this message. To my accomplishing your purposes.

28:20 And God says, no, Paul.

28:23 Pride that will misplace your confidence will be an impediment to your ministry. And because of the abundance of the revelations given, and I see the tendency of your heart to latch on to that and to begin to trust yourself, to be puffed up, God says, no, I'm going to keep you consciously weak so that you will constantly see in this impediment mirrored your utter dependence upon me. And in the midst of your felt weakness, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect not to replace weakness, but in the midst of weakness. Then he says, most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me, for when I am weak, then am I strong. What's he saying? He says, when God allows, He allows the circumstances to be, as it were, sacramental pointers to this truth that I must consciously, resolutely repudiate any confidence in the arm of flesh in that state. I'm a safe man because the power of Christ then tabernacles about me.

29:44 And in my weakness, his strength is made. So, brethren, I ask you, do you have in your heart this morning, this first practical evidence of a true estimation of the indispensability of the Spirit's presence and power in the life and ministry of the Church? If so, there will be this conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence in any other source of enablement. Our confidence must not be in the past reputation, of the Church.

30:27 It must not be in our attempts to move more and more as God gives us light to the purity of worship which He demands. Our confidence must not be in His servants, no matter how much they may have been used in our lives. Our confidence must really and truly be in the person, presence, and power of the Spirit, and it won't be unless, there is a conscious, resolute repudiation of all other objects. As you sit under the Word, do you consciously say, O God, come upon the preacher, come upon my mind, O Holy Spirit, author of the book. Are you conscious intermittently in the midst of preaching, of lifting up your heart in prayer, that the Spirit will come and give light, that the Spirit will come upon those who stand and minister to you, and grant unction and liberty, and incisiveness? Do you know what it is to repudiate all confidence in your own unaided mental faculties to receive the Word, and the unaided faculties of the preacher rightly to deliver the Word? Do you know what it is to say as you sit before the services

31:53 in the language of Psalm 62 and verse 5, my expectation is only from Him? Oh Lord, my expectation is from You, only! and as the people of God, we need to cultivate this spiritual disposition until it becomes a second nature to us as reaching for ones crutches becomes second nature to the paraplegic who is going to get out of his chair and go from the living room into the kitchen it becomes second nature for him to reach for his crutches, because he has no nature for us. his strength in his own legs. No doubt in the beginning it was a discipline he had to learn, and for years he was able, when his brain said time to get up and sent a signal to his legs, his legs responded. And I can only imagine the agony it must be for someone who's gone from being ambulatory and active to being a paraplegic, how much more a quadriplegic, and the brain sends the signal to the legs, get up, and the signal goes, but the legs don't move. And he says, oh, and he grabs his crutches. But after he's done it for weeks,

33:09 when the brain says the signals to move, the hands reach instinctively for the crutches.

33:15 Is that the way you are spiritually? Have you had enough barren seasons under preaching which has blessed others to learn that God may be cursing your creature confidence, your confidence in yourself, your confidence in the preacher or teacher? Have you had enough? Have you had enough seasons when the dew of God is distilled upon others and your heart has been left like a dry, parched piece of earth? To learn the lesson, cursed is the man who trusted man. He shall be like a heathen. He shall inhabit a parched. That's the first practical evidence that we really esteem his presence to be indispensable, conscious, resolute repudiation of confidence.

Practical Evidence 2: Specific, Importunate Prayer for the Spirit's Presence and Power

34:10 In anything other than himself. But secondly, there will be specific, importunate prayer for increased measures of his presence and power upon all facets of the life and ministry of the church. There will be specific, importunate prayer for his increased measures of his presence and power upon all facets of the life and ministry of the church. Turn to Psalm 62 again for a moment. I quoted from that just a few minutes ago. Psalm 62.

34:49 I had occasion to read this psalm in one of my pastoral visits this week and brought afresh to my mind how some of these principles are beautifully expressed in this psalm. Verse 8. Trust in him at all times, ye people. Pour out your heart.

35:14 Before him.

35:17 In the parallelism of this verse, these two things are brought into the closest, the most intimate connection. Where there is trust in the proper object, where there is constancy of trust in God, where there is repudiation, resolute repudiation of all trust in any other object, what will be the practical expression of it? There will be a pouring out of the whole of our hearts before him. And particularly in the light of what is stated in verse 11.

35:53 God has spoken once, twice have I heard this, that power belongs unto God. Power is ability to do, ability to move, to effect, to change. And when we bring those things together then surely if there is this deep inward experience of conscious resolution. God will make those changes manifest. Those changes will manifest.

36:16 And I will, I will say truth be told, they will manifest. What I'm trying to say is that, the moment God comes, the moment God comes and we don't want to be alone, we don't want to be alone and we don't want to be all alone. We have the possibility of being alone. We have the ability absolute repudiation of every other object of trust it will bring in its train specific importunate prayer for increased measures of his presence and power upon all facets of the life and ministry of the church and i am so thankful to god that one of the texts that people who come among us and are with us probably you don't need to be around here more than a month to hear it quoted somewhere in some service in a prayer meeting or in a service of worship luke chapter 11 and i ask you to turn there with me this is the passage of of all others and it's from this passage that i've taken the word specific importunate prayer for increased measures of the presence and power of the spirit the disciples have overheard the lord praying and they've said lord you you just to pray verse one of luke eleven he gave them a basic framework for prayer and then he illustrates the manner in which they're to pray verse five and he said unto them which of you shall have a friend and he shall go to him at midnight and say friend lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and i've nothing to set before him and he from within shall answer and say trouble me not the doors now shut my children are with

37:45 me in bed i cannot rise in give thee i say unto you though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend friendship can wear thin when somebody comes at midnight banging on your door begging for bread though the bonds of friendship wouldn't get him out of bed and and in the eastern fashion this was no ruse this was no stretching the truth to get the guy away he probably was sleeping on the floor with his kids either side of them i remember being in some pakistani homes where people told me where they slept in how many kids slept on one side and on the other must have been a situation very much like this in this he contemplates tried to step over those kids in the dark and stepping on the one that one-day wake-up they don't go back to sleep for two hours and he thinks of getting up to pick track of the pieces bogoff friend shit fine but not at this time not with all of the impediments i say and you know you will not rising given because he is his friend yet because of knowledge maybe to bring you aERD love and grace with children this retreat may be a unreason but really aซuy Virtua ли Maker ilton If you're at work tomorrow maybe ał Crilerm pal Derek Ralph will come back in the night to flowering a half hour until you come for breakfast. I say unto you though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend yet because of him he will not rise Yet because of his importunity, his shameless insistence, he will arise and give him as many as I need. In other words, he would not be turned away. He kept on banging, kept on banging.

39:02 He said, well, I've weighed all the problems of getting up and stumbling over my kids and going out to the kitchen and getting the bread. But I tell you, they're nothing compared to this guy. He's going to keep banging until his knuckles wear out or until he wears a hole in the door and the door comes down. Now, he's determined that he's going to go back with bread.

39:21 And his determination is so evident that I'll go through the inconveniences, give him his bread. Now the Lord says, and I say unto you, in that spirit of shameless insistence, in that spirit of intense importunity, knowing what you need, not for yourself but for others, ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be given. And it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh in the setting asks how?

39:52 Saundering up to the door, a little bit of rap, and when you hear nothing say, oh, well, I tried and go home. No, not in the context. Everyone who asks with that determination to receive, it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.

40:08 Everyone that asks receives, and he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks it shall be opened. And then those well-known words, which of you that is a father shall give his son the ask a loaf? Will he give him a stone? Here's a hungry son who says, Daddy, I need a little barley cake.

40:28 He says, here, son, and throws him a stone. Cut your teeth on that. Of course not. No earthly father would be so cruel to his son.

40:37 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent, that which would harm him? Or if he asks an egg, will he give him a scorpion, that which would kill him? If you then, being evil, in spite of the influence of sin perverting your affections and emotions, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give? And what is the gift we ask above all else?

41:04 The Holy Spirit, to them that ask Him. Our Lord assumes that of the good gifts our heavenly Father can give us, they are either, if we list them, that the head of the list, the Holy Spirit, is the supreme good gift, or more likely, in giving the Spirit, all other things are given with Him. But He is given to those who ask, and in the contest, ask how. Not ask as though He were a luxury we could do without if we don't have Him.

41:42 But ask like the man who's determined that he will not violate one of the unwritten laws, the unwritten elements of the covenant of friendship in that Eastern society. And that is, when someone comes to visit you, you must provide them food. Failure to do so is, in essence, a de facto repudiation of the friendship. That's why He was so insistent at that unearthly hour, willing to test to the nth degree the bonds of friendship.

42:16 A friend of mine is come. I have nothing to set before Him. Bread is indispensable. And it was the indispensability of it that caused Him to overcome every difficulty, and to knock, and to knock until He had as much as was needed.

42:38 And our Lord says, how much more shall He give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? Not who ritualistically and formalistically simply, occasionally, usually mention our need of the Holy Spirit in our prayers, but who recognize that His presence and power and ministry are indispensable. So indispensable that having repudiated confidence in any other source of enablement, we engage in specific, importunate prayer for His increased measures of power, and grace to rest upon Him. By way of application, do you see how crucial are our stated seasons of corporate prayer? How crucial are our seasons when we gather on a Wednesday, and we plead with God to send His Spirit upon His servants throughout the world, to own their labors, to make them effectual, when we conclude every prayer meeting, pleading that God will come on the Lord's day? Do you see how crucial it is when you rise, Lord's day morning, to take some time to get alone with God and plead with Him,

44:02 to send His Spirit upon the gathering of His people, to send His Spirit upon His servants, to give the Holy Spirit copiously and powerfully? To what end? Not that people may be jumping in the aisles and falling over in this so-called nonsense of being, slain in the Spirit, no. But in the decent, orderly administration of God's own ordinances, Christ Himself will come to us.

44:33 That the Spirit will take of the things of Christ and make them real. That when we seek to express the language of praise, the heart will rise with our words, and expand with the wonder of God's grace and His goodness to us. And when our brethren who lead us, lead us in prayer, the Spirit brings us, as it were, as a great company of new covenant priests, on the wings of His own power, into a more intensified, felt awareness of God's nearness in prayer. Do you see how crucial it is that by the grace of God, we be a people marked as those who, specifically, importunately pray for the Holy Spirit? Do you see how right it would be for God to withhold blessing if we do not value it enough to pray for it? It's like a great benefactor comes to a hovel, where there are people in great need, and out of the goodness of his own heart, he says, I have everything to impart to you graciously and freely, to fill your hungry hearts, to fill your hungry hearts, to fill your hungry hearts,

45:55 bellies, to clothe your bare backs, to fix up your hovel into an attractive home, but I don't ever want you to have these gifts without the realization that they come from my person. Therefore, I'm not going to write out to you one big large check. I'm not going to have a big truck come and dump all these things once and for all and then food once a week, but every day I'll appear outside your door, and if you will but open the door and come to me and make known your needs for that day, I will gladly give them. Suppose he stands there Monday and no one comes, and Tuesday and no one comes, Wednesday and no one comes. They go on living in their squalor, living in their poverty, living in their filth, living in a hovel that doesn't shelter them from the elements. As much as he would long to give them more, he goes away grieved, saying, I guess they are happy with their present state. They place no value upon that which is theirs for the

47:08 asking. Ye have not because what? Ye ask. Why must we ask? Did not God come sovereignly without any cooperation on our part in the initial work of the Spirit when He redeemed generated us yes and if he hadn't done it we'd still be dead in our trespasses and sins but my friend god did it to the end that we might lovingly embrace our posturous dependent creatures and god doesn't want to parcel out his gifts apart from communion with his person and therefore he stands outside the door with all we need and says ask and it shall be given you ask and in the asking

48:08 we have a fresh focus upon the giver and we are brought to a fresh awareness of our relationship to the giver our depends upon the giver and god is determined in the scheme of redemption not just to parcel out what we need but to parcel it out in the context of communion with himself they shall all know me from the least to the greatest this is the second fundamental everlasting that we do really esteem the Holy Spirit's presence and ministry indispensable, it will be our specific, important prayer for increased measures of His presence and power. And then very quickly, and you've already anticipated, I'm sure some of you, the third. What will be the third practical evidence of this estimation of the Spirit's work? There will not only be resolute repudiation of all confidence in the arm of flesh, specific, importunate prayer for increased measures of the Spirit, but there will be frequent, fervent praise for His gracious presence and His powerful works.

Practical Evidence 3: Frequent, Fervent Praise for His Gracious Works

49:37 Frequent, fervent praise for His gracious presence and His powerful works. Yes. As prayer is the initial looking away from men and looking only to God for blessing, so praise is looking back to God in the acknowledgement that the blessing asked has been received. And God is determined that we shall not only look up to Him and ask in order to acknowledge constantly our dependence upon Him, but He is determined that having received, we shall look back to Him and praise Him in order, as it were, to clinch the nail at the level of our consciousness, that all that comes to us in the way of blessing comes graciously and freely out of the heart, dispensed by the hand of a gracious and a loving God. Hence, unthankfulness in the Bible is labeled as a grievous sin. Grievous sin. Look at several texts with me quickly.

50:49 Luke 6 and verse 35. Here the Lord, in a section similar to the end of Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, commands His followers to love their enemies, to do them good, never despairing. And after giving the command, He says, And ye shall be in this way, you will show yourselves to be sons of the Most High, for He is kind toward the unthankful and evil. How are those who do not know Him as their loving Father, how are they described?

51:33 You say they are described as evil. Yes, but they are also described as unthankful. And no little part of their evil nature is their unthankful disposition. God continues to send His rain, and His sun upon them, and He doesn't even get a grunt of conscious gratitude.

51:54 He continues to do it. He says, Be like I am, even when you show kindness to your enemies and those who act as though you didn't exist. Be like your Father. He continues to send blessing on the head of the unthankful and the evil.

52:12 And it's that conjunction of evil and unthankful that I want you to see. 2 Timothy 3, 3 speaking of the kind of wickedness that will mark the period between the first and second coming of Christ, and perhaps be intensified the closer we come to the end. Notice the description of the grievous times made grievous by the sins of men. 2 Timothy 3, 3 without natural affection, implacable, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good.

52:55 What a horrible, horrible picture of people. You want to see what sins come just before that? Just glance up to verse 2. Unthankful, unholy.

53:12 UNTHANKFUL! Unholy. Evil, unthankful. Unholy, unthankful.

53:20 And then you remember, of course, the sin of ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, ungratefulness, The light of general revelation, as it is said of them in Romans 1 and verse 21, because that knowing God they glorified Him not as God neither gave thanks. If God expects thanks from those who've never seen the lids of the Bible, who've never heard a word of the gospel, who have His revelation above them and outside of them, pressing in upon them from God's creation, and then pressing up from within them in their own moral constitution, if He expects them to be thankful, how much more those who've come not only within the orbit of the sound of the gospel, but who have become the recipients of gospel blessings,

54:46 and who continue to receive by the application of the Holy Spirit, to their hearts of ever-increasing measures of the redemptive privileges purchased by Christ, if unthankfulness is culpable among those who are dead in sin, blinded by the God of this world, no light but that of general revelation without and within, how much more heinous a sin is it among the redeemed, who've had their eyes opened, who know the source, who know the source of all their blessings, and it's right for the Holy Spirit to be grieved and withdraw, where He stands at the door and confers when people ask, but they're so giddy in enjoying what He gives that they never look up and say thank you. They insult Him by ingratitude.

55:47 Dear people, one of the marks that we have of visceral, working theology of our true dependence upon the Holy Spirit is that we have a visceral, working theology of our true dependence upon the Holy Spirit. will be our frequent, fervent praise for His gracious presence and His powerful works, so that on each Lord's Day, to whatever measure we have known the presence of the Spirit, we'll be jealous at the end of that day to thank God. We prayed that the Spirit would be present in our assemblies, and we will not pillow our heads until our hearts have been lifted up in thankfulness to God. And with the petition, but Lord, we know we've not exhausted the measures that You can give. Grant us more of Your presence when we gather again.

The Lamentable Results of Grieving the Spirit

56:40 Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Do not grieve Him in our corporate life. Do not grieve Him by failure to esteem His person, His presence, and His power as indispensable to the being, life, and ministry of this church. And if we are to keep that injunction, let us seek to cultivate a disposition of repudiation, of all confidence in the arm of flesh, a pattern of importunate prayer for the Spirit to be given, and then the discipline of consistent praise when He has been graciously granted to us. I was interested in reading a sermon of Scripture, which was preached by one of the surgeons when he was twenty-five years old there in London. It's volume five of the New Park Street Pulpit. And his last head on a text preaching on a sermon, preaching on Ephesians 430, was on the lamentable result of the Spirit being grieved.

57:55 Grieve not the Spirit of God, for if you do, you will lose all your power. If you pray, it will be a weak prayer. You'll not prevail with God. When you read the Scriptures, you'll not be able to lift the latch and force your way into the inner mysteries of God's truth.

58:14 When you go to the house of God, there shall be none of that devout exhilaration, that running without weariness, that walking without fainting. You'll feel yourself like Samson when his hair was lost, weak, captive, and blinded. In my Old Testament devotional reading this week, I read afresh the story of Samson, and I confess without shame when I was done, I sat in my reading chair and wept. It's one of the saddest stories in the Bible.

58:47 I wept. He wished not that the Spirit, let the Holy Spirit depart, and assurance is gone, doubts follow, questionings and suspicions are aroused. Grieve the Spirit and usefulness will cease. The ministry shall yield no fruit.

59:10 Your Sunday school work will be barren. Your speaking to others about Christ will be like sowing the wind. Let a church grieve the Spirit of God and all the blights that shall come within her fair garden. Then her days of solemn assembly shall have no acceptance with heaven.

59:29 Her sons, although all of them ordained as priests unto God, shall have no acceptable incense to offer. Let the church grieve the Spirit, and she'll fail to bless the age in which she lives. She shall cast no light into the surrounding darkness. No sinner shall be saved by her means.

59:49 There shall be few additions to her number. Her missionaries will cease to go forth. There shall be no marriage feast of communion in her house. Darkness and death shall reign where all was joy and life.

60:04 Dear people of God, there's joy and life in this place. The day may come when there'll be darkness and death, and it will come if it does, but it will come when there'll be darkness and death, and it will come if it does, but it will come when there'll be darkness and death, because somebody failed to heed the warning. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. And if we were to grieve Him at no other point than failure to constantly acknowledge and esteem His person, presence, and power as invincible, manifesting it by resolute retaliation of confidence in the arm of man, constant, importunate prayer, for increased measures of His presence and power, and abounding in thanksgiving for all that He does, we could grieve Him away until this fair garden becomes a barren waste. And you who are not the Lord's people, I close quickly with this simple word. Hear what Stephen said to those of his day. Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit.

Exhortation to Unbelievers: Do Not Resist the Holy Spirit

61:19 The Holy Ghost, your problem is not that you grieve the Spirit. That text applies to the people of God in whom He dwells. But you resist Him. He deals with you through the preaching of the Word.

61:34 And as the Word impinges on your conscience, He deals with you in His own ordained means of coming to sinners, indicting them about their sin, and holding before them the only remedy for sinners. And my uncle, My uncle, my unconverted friend, do not resist Him to your own destruction. To resist Him is to cut off the only hand that can feed you the bread of life. Only the Holy Ghost can bring the bread of life who is Christ to the mouth of a sinner.

62:08 And when you resist Him, it's as though you're whacking off the hand which alone can bring you the bread of life. Only the Spirit can bring Christ to you as the water of life. He is the chalice in which Christ is brought. And you dash the chalice to the earth.

62:27 My friend, go on doing it. It would be right for God to say, no more. My Spirit shall not always strive with man. He is the Spirit of God whom you resist.

62:45 Children, young people, adults, why resist Him any longer? He's not seeking to bring to you anything but that which is in your highest interest. Your everlasting highest interest. This day, resist Him no longer.

63:06 Find a secret place and shut yourself up with God and take the place of a needy publican saying, Oh God, be merciful to me. Oh God, I who have slapped and hacked at the hand that held the bread of life. Oh God, the Holy Ghost forgive me. Show me the Son.

63:29 Take up your habitation in my heart. Oh God, the Holy Ghost forgive me. Show me the Son. Give me the rest of my life.

63:34 God, the Son, I express thanksgiving to you for the grace he has dealt me. REV. And now say, my friend, my grace is with you, that I may love and serve the savior all the days of my life. Let us pray.

Prayer of Confession and Supplication

63:47 Our Father we bow in Your presence and thank You forever sending the Holy Spirit to Your people. And we confess with shame that we have all together too often consciously or unconsciously failed to repudiate all confidence in man and with God's love. In man, forgive us for this sin of creature confidence. Forgive us when we have failed to ask with focused importunity and earnestness, as though we truly did believe his presence and ministry were indispensable.

64:32 Forgive us, we pray, and then forgive us for the many times when you have sent your Spirit to us in increased measures, personally and corporately, and we have not been humbled to a new level of gratitude and praise. O Lord, forgive our sin, our evil of unthankfulness, and help us as a congregation to cherish these dispositions of the soul. Enable us by your grace to cultivate them, work them in us, that rather than decline, and become a barren wasteland, days of fruitfulness will dawn upon us that will astound and amaze us and cause us, O God, to fall before you, saying, This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. O Lord, we do not despise what you have wrought to this hour, but we confess, we know that there is much more that you can give, and we know that there is much more that you can give, much more that we need of yourself and of your presence, and therefore we take the posture of those who are grateful, but those who yearn and hunger and thirst for more of yourself. Seal your word to every heart,

66:00 and help us to return again tonight with expectancy and dependence upon you, and with earnest prayerfulness that your Spirit will come, O Lord, come and do things that will gladden our hearts and humble us with gratefulness before you. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.