What Does it Mean to Grieve The Holy Spirit?

Introduction: The Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church and the Eighth Affirmation

0:05 The following message was delivered on January 26, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:15 Now as we have prayed in the singing of this hymn, so let us now draw near to God, continuing in prayer for the Holy Spirit's blessing upon the ministry of the Word.

0:32 O blessed Spirit of the Father, sent through the Lord Jesus, we have asked much of you in the hymn we have just sung, but we know that as God you are able to do not only all that we have asked in the language of this hymn, but exceeding abundantly above all of these things. Will you not come then to take of the things of Christ and to reveal them with power, to take the things concerning your own ministry, and to reveal them with power. Come with light, come with reviving, convicting, cleansing grace. O Spirit of God, come and fill this living temple of your people. We plead in Jesus' name. Amen.

1:29 Now in the month of January, in what to many of you would be considered borderline ancient history, January of 1960, seven, twenty-five years ago this very month, approximately seventy to seventy-five people comprised of men, women, boys and girls, toddlers and a few infants, met in the building owned by the Women's Club of Caldwell, New Jersey, a building on Westville Avenue, approximately some five miles from where you are seated in this building, this morning. And that group gathered on that Lord's Day in January of 1967 in order to worship, to praise the living God and to receive the ministry of his written word. And that group eventually became the Trinity Church of Essex Fells, and then the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, and now some twenty-five years after our inception,

2:45 we are considering those biblical principles, precepts and perspectives which have acted as the very heart, the very lungs, the very brain and spinal cord of our life together as a congregation. And we are doing this as I set before you the various tenets or affirmation of what I have entitled A Manifesto of Trinity Church. A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church. This manifesto or public declaration of our major goals and purposes as a church is being given for two basic reasons.

3:29 Number one, to clarify to all who care to listen exactly what we are committed to, and secondly, to call the congregation in its present complexion to a fresh commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. to a fresh commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. to a fresh commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. to a fresh commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.

3:46 to a fresh commitment to these things in so far as they are taught in the Word of God. to a fresh commitment to these things in so far as they are taught in the Word of God. And thus far we've stated, examined the scriptural roots of, and applied seven such tenets or affirmations of this manifesto. And since it has been about a month and a half, five weeks since our last consideration let me simply name the seven in preparation for taking up this morning the eighth of these affirmations.

4:20 We were back then in 1967, and by the grace of God remains so to this day, we are determined that Jesus Christ shall have his rightful place in the totality of our life and ministry. Secondly, we are determined that all our life and doctrine shall be molded by the word of God. Thirdly, we are determined that we shall maintain a God-centered climate in the totality of our life and ministry. Fourth, we are determined that our life and ministry will unquestionably confirm the unique place assigned to the church in the purpose of God. Fifth, we are determined to strive for a membership composed only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. Sixth, we are determined to pursue a biblically established standard for church officers. And seventh, we are determined to validate in our corporate experience the life and the glory of Jesus Christ.

5:38 We are determined to strive for a membership composed only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. We are determined to strive for a membership composed only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. We are determined to strive for a membership composed only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. This is the life-out-of-death principle essential to real Christianity.

5:46 Now this morning, and God willing, next Lord's Day morning as well, we will address the eighth affirmation of the manifesto, and I've couched it in these words. We are determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit We are determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit our life and ministry. We are determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in every facet of our life and ministry. Now, I am not saying that for the past 25 years, we as a corporate entity have never grieved the Holy Spirit in any facet of our life and ministry. No. To our shame, we have many times and have confessed many times that we have indeed grieved the Holy Spirit in this or that facet of our life and ministry and having confessed our sin, having treated the Lord that His Spirit, in the language of David in Psalm 51, would not be taken.

7:08 from us, but that God would restore His presence in gracious power. So I am not saying in this affirmation that we have never grieved the Spirit. Rather, I am affirming that in the overall life of this assembly, there has been a Bible-based, Spirit-wrought, consciously exercised determination, not knowingly, not knowingly, not knowingly, not knowingly, not knowingly to grieve the Holy Spirit, and when upon discovery that He has been grieved, to do whatever was necessary to be forgiven of the sin of grieving Him and to have His gracious presence restored as the ungrieved Holy Spirit. Now, that is what I am affirming. Now, I do not know how to make it any plainer. By the negative and by the positive, but alas, I'm old enough and seasoned enough to know that in spite of that, someone will say, who do those people think they are? They boast that

8:20 they've never grieved the Spirit in twenty-five years. My friend, you're grieving Him if you're a Christian because you're not speaking the truth. We have not made any such claim. Alas, to our shame, such a claim would not only be a lie, but it would be to claim something that God has never promised any congregation will experience in this present age. Now then, why all the fuss about this matter of determination to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in every facet of our life and ministry? Well, as we seek to open this matter up, I want you to consider with me, first of all, the crucial text which mandates this determination. We're going to spend our time this morning with this one concern to examine the crucial text which mandates this determination. Already, I'm sure in the minds of many of you, you have run, mentally,

The Explicit Command: Grieve Not the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30)

9:35 to Ephesians chapter 4, and rightfully so, where we read in verse 30 of this chapter, penned by the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4 and verse 30, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption. Now, in seeking to open up this crucial text, I want you to consider with me two major categories. First of all, the explicit command, as we look at the text itself, and then secondly, the implicit concern undergirding that command. So, we're going to consider the explicit command, and secondly, the implicit concern. As we take up the explicit command, note with me, first of all, the setting, of this command. When the Apostle wrote, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption, he wrote those words in a particular universe of discourse, or more simply, in a particular

10:55 context or setting. There was a flow of thought, and none of the commentators has captured it more simply and briefly that I have read than does the Apostle. So, I'm going to take a moment to think about this. Then does B.B. Warfield, in his book, Faith in Life, in his excellent treatment of the doctrine of the sealing of the Spirit.

11:14 And Warfield writes, as to the setting of this command, on the basis of the privileges they had received in Christ, Paul had exhorted the Ephesians generally to an accordant inner and outer conduct. And he had presented these general exhortations, both positively, and negatively. Now he has come to details. He has enumerated several of the sins to which they, in their situation, were liable, perhaps in a special degree. Sins of falsehood, wrath, theft, and unbecoming speech. And that begins in verse 25. He says, Now in a special way, the Ephesians may have been vulnerable to those specific sins, so he enumerated them. Shall they, the recipients of this new life, and all these divine favors, fall into such sins?

12:14 He suddenly broadens the appeal to an earnest beseeching, not so to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom they were sealed unto the day of redemption. That they, too, had this sealing, had he not just told them, chapter 1, verses 13 and 14, Nay, had he not just told them, chapter 1, verses 13 and 14, Nay, had he not just pointed them to it as their most distinguishing grace? It is not by a new or merely general motive by which he would move their hearts. It is distinctly by the motive to which he had already averted and which he had made their own.

12:53 It was because he had taught them to understand and feel that they, even they, Gentiles, according to the flesh, had been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise as an earnest of their inheritance, and could count on this being a living and moving motive in their minds, or rather it is because he himself felt this great truth as real as a motive of power that he places it here to move them to action. So having spoken of these particular sins, he then broadens out the concern that would include a much wider, a much wider range of ethical abnormalities and issues the command, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption. So much for the setting as we open up the explicit command. Now notice in the second place the assumptions of this command. If that is the setting as Warfield has accurately captured it, what are the assumptions of this command?

Assumptions and Meaning of the Command

14:03 And I can only mention them in passing and not pause to open them up. But there are two very vital assumptions in this command. First, that the Holy Spirit is a divine person who has the capacity to be grieved. That's an assumption.

14:23 He doesn't pause to prove it. He doesn't say, now if you have false notions of a God who has no passions, a God who cannot feel such emotions, He doesn't say, now if you have false notions of a God who has no passions, such emotions as grief and sorrow and vexation, get rid of them. No, He assumes that they understand that the Holy Spirit is a divine being, a divine person who can experience something analogous to what we experience when we are grieved. And therefore He says, grieve not the Holy Spirit assuming that the Spirit as a divine person can be grieved, and secondly, He assumes that believers are to know that He is such a person who can be grieved, and how to avoid all that would grieve Him. And therefore He says, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption. So much for the setting, those two basic assumptions in this explicit command. Now thirdly, note the basis of this command.

15:32 Now thirdly, note the basis of this command. Now thirdly, note the basis of this command. Now thirdly, note the basis of this command. Now thirdly, note the basis of this command.

15:33 Now thirdly, note the basis of this command. Now thirdly, note the basis of this command. Now thirdly, note the basis of this command. Everything focuses on the word grieve.

15:39 There is the negative, and it's in the imperative form, you are not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Now the word Paul uses for grieve is the standard word in the New Testament, used some approximately two dozen times, often rendered to be, to be sorry, to be sorrowful, or to be grieved. Now most of us are familiar with the account of the rich young ruler, the man that came to Jesus desiring eternal life, and when the Lord was finished dealing with him, he turned away, it says, sorrowing. That's the word that was there.

16:22 What did he feel? He wanted eternal life. He knew there was something more to life than bucks and what his bucks could bring him. He had a God-son, a shaped hole, and it couldn't be filled up with all of his passbook accounts.

16:39 Couldn't be filled up with anything money could buy, and he yearned for it, but he didn't want it bad enough to have it on Christ's terms. And few things are more pitiful than someone who knows there's something more to life than what you can taste and feel and touch and enjoy with your five senses, and longs for it, and yet doesn't want it at the price God says it's to be had. He went away with that kind of grief. That kind of inward pain.

17:06 That's the word that is used. It's used of our Lord Jesus later on in the chapter we read from this morning in verse 37. When he goes into Gethsemane he says by Matthew's account he began to be, here's our word, sorrowful, sorrowful. He began to be grieved.

17:24 What did he feel when the cup full of our sins and the judgment of God against them, the felt pangs of separation and reliction that would be his portion. That's what he felt. That's called grief. Sorrow.

17:42 It's the word used in the familiar incident when the Lord Jesus meets with Peter by the seashore. He's going to restore him after Peter's denied him and he asks him three times do you love me, do you love me? And it says in John 21 and verse 17 and Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time do you love me? And he's going to restore him into salvation in a grief.

18:08 Lord I've already told it twice. Am I so perverse and wretched that I've got to say. That's the word that's used. The feeling of grief that Peter felt and it's used most frequently in a concentrated section of the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 7 in that whole section on the repentance of the Corinthians.

18:28 You sorrowed, there's our word, with a godly sorrow unto repentance not to be repented of. upon someone who sees his sin in its true light as offensive to a holy God, as grievous to a holy Savior, as ruinous to his own soul. What a man feels of sorrow and pain and holy remorse in true repentance. That's the word.

18:58 So you get an idea, a feel for the flavor of the word? Here then is the command, grieve not the Holy Spirit. The point is that removing all that is sinfully motivated and selfishly defiled or carnally expressed in human grief, the idea of grief, that emotion of internal wounding and hurt, is not foreign to the infinite God-Him. It is not.

19:36 If it were, then God is throwing a curve at us using a word which He uses in these other settings, the meaning of which we can relate to. And if God's grief is something so wholly other than God has confused us and not enlightened us by giving us a command, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. We are to do nothing, that will cause Him that internal wounding and hurt and pain that is akin to the grief that Peter felt when the Lord kept pressing his question. That the Corinthians felt when they owned their sin with respect to that impenitent man who was now made a penitent man. The grief that our Lord felt when He went into Gethsemane. Gethsemane. Now, having spent a few moments on the setting of the command, the assumptions of the command, the basic meaning of the command, now notice, fourthly, as we just try to open up the command, the motive for compliance.

Motivation for Compliance: Who the Spirit Is and What He Has Done

20:49 What motive is pressed upon the people of God in this text? Well, the motive is twofold. Who the Holy Spirit is and what He has done. You see that in the text?

21:03 And grieve not. The Holy Spirit of God in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption.

21:16 The motivation for compliance with this command is twofold. First of all, who the Holy Spirit is. And here He is designated as the Spirit, literally, the Holy One. We are so accustomed to using the two words, the Holy Spirit, as though they were like the first in life, the last name of a person.

21:38 The way we distinguish the various Pastor Martins around here, we speak of Pastor Lamar Martin, Pastor A.N. Martin, that's the names. And we need at least two to distinguish.

21:50 And often we think of the third person of the Godhead as the Holy Spirit, as though holy were His first name and Spirit His last. I don't mean to be irreverent. But that's not the thought of the text. The thought of the text is here to draw our minds by way of motivation, to who it is that we are not to grieve.

22:10 We grieve not the Spirit, the Holy One. The One who, being God, is possessed of all the blazing, burning, white, incandescent holiness of God. The very holiness before which seraphim veil face and feet and cry one to another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of hosts. And then He is called the Holy One of God.

22:49 That is, He is the Spirit who is God, shares in all the essential attributes of God-ness. The essence of God is not divided so that a third of God is found in the Father, a third in the Son, and a third in the Spirit. All that is God-like, of God is in each person of the Godhead. You say, I can't understand it, neither can I.

23:19 We're not asked to understand it. Faith may swim where reason may only wade. But Paul seeks to motivate these believers by saying, don't grieve one who is deity himself. Don't grieve the Spirit, the Holy One, the Holy One of God, the Spirit who himself is God.

23:47 That's part of the motivation, who he is. But then, the second strand of motivation is what he has done. The text says, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption. Now, of all the things he could have said about the work and ministry of the Spirit, he takes up only one, but what a one. He could have said, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, by whom all creation came into being. That would have been true, Genesis 1. The Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the one. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created, celebrated in the songs. He could have said many things about the Spirit, but

24:38 the one thing he highlights is this. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption. A direct reference back to chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. We're celebrating in this great eulogy, this marvelous salvation that is ours in the Lord Jesus, of which you heard in some greater detail last week. We're celebrating in this In whom ye also, verse 13, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom having also believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is an in earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory. Here the Holy Spirit is said to be the one. By whom we were sealed in union with Christ, we were sealed by the Holy Spirit. And notice

25:49 he doesn't say some of you were sealed who had a second higher level of Christian experience. The teaching abroad in our day that not all believers are sealed by the Spirit will not stand up to the exegesis of the word of God.

26:08 No, all believers are sealed by the Spirit. The teaching abroad in our day that not all believers are sealed by the Spirit will not stand up to the exegesis of the word of God. Ephesian believers who heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation, all who had been brought to faith, they had all been sealed. There's the trilogy of inseparable spiritual experience on the threshold for every true Christian. He hears, he believes, he is sealed.

26:32 And as Warfield has, I believe, so accurately stated, the sealing binds together two inseparable concepts, authentication and security. When something was sealed with the signet ring of the king, it authenticated if it were a letter that indeed it came from the king, and it would be kept secure and inviolate by the power of the king and his army, authentication and security. Or we might say ownership and pledge. If you were making a document that was assuring that a full payment were to come on a piece of property, and that document were sealed, there was both the seal of ownership and the pledge of the full payment, or to use another couplet, possession and protection. Where the Holy Ghost has not given us an infallible exegesis of the precise connotation and denotation of a word, it is right for us to bring a family of people to God, and to bring a family of people to God, and to bring a family of words together to try to express the biblical concept. Authentication and security. Ownership and pledge. Possession and protection. And that's very clear in this passage, for he says in chapter

27:54 one, that this sealing of the Holy Spirit is an earnest, a down payment of our full inheritance. Therefore, the very fact that the Holy Spirit has been given marks us as God's true people, and assures us we're going to have everything Christ purchased for us as his people. And that's why he can say in chapter four, in verse 30, in whom you were sealed,

28:23 unto the first time you have a lapse in your faith, unto the third time you have a moral lapse, unto the seventh time you have a devotional lapse. No, you were sealed unto the day of redemption.

28:38 Once God put his spirit with in you, and put his stamp of ownership upon you, he committed the entire Godhead to preserve you to the final consummate blessings of redemption that will come at the last day. He alone can show us our sin. He alone can reveal Christ. He alone can bring us to repentance and faith. He alone can keep us with remaining sin, ready to die for the Lord. He alone can bring us to repentance and faith. Every remaining spark of divine life in the soul. He is the one who keeps it alive within us.

The Implicit Concern: Vexing the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63:10)

29:23 And if we're the real thing, God has marked us out by giving us his spirit, authenticating we are his, and pledging the security that we shall be preserved until the final day of redemption. Well, there's the explicit command. I've not given you a greatly detailed exposition, but according to my present light, that's what the text is mandating. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption. Now, having looked at the explicit command, I said, secondly, we would consider the implicit concern. Now, what's the difference between explicit and implicit? Well, something that's explicit is out there for all to see. Something implicit, it's there, but you've got to dig down and lay it bare before you'll see it.

30:20 My tie is explicit. My handkerchief right now is implicit in my pocket, right there. Once I take it out, then you see it, all right? Now, there's something not only explicit in the command, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, but there is an implicit concern that throbs and bristles in that command. Why would the Apostle Paul say that? Why would the Apostle Paul say that? Why would the Apostle Paul say that? Why would the Apostle Paul say that? Why would the Apostle Paul say that? Why would the Apostle Paul say that? Why would the Apostle Paul say that? Why would the Apostle issue such a clear command? A command, as I've said, bristling with such powerful motives. What's the big deal, some would say? Well, in order to understand the great concern, we must turn to a passage in the Old Testament, now hear me carefully, which was most likely in the mind of the Apostle when he penned these words. And if they were not consciously in his mind, they were obviously in the mind of the

31:16 Holy Spirit, who is the ultimate author of the Old and the New Testaments, and has determined that the only infallible interpreter of his word is his own word in other places. And so I ask you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 63, to a passage which was most likely, I will not go any further than that, in the mind of the Apostle, and if not in his mind when he wrote Ephesians 4.30, certainly was in the mind of the Apostle. And so I ask you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 63, to a passage of the Holy Spirit. Here in Isaiah 63 and verse 10, the only direct parallel passage in all of the scripture to Ephesians 4.30, Isaiah 63.10, but they rebelled and grieved, or you may have a translation that says, vexed his Holy Spirit. Therefore he was turned to be their enemy and fought against them. Here is our parallel terminology, and grieved, or vexed his Holy Spirit.

32:34 Now it's interesting, when you look at the setting of this parallel passage, what is its setting? Well look at verse 7. I will make mention of the loving kindnesses of Jehovah, and the praises of Jehovah according to all that Jehovah has done for me. And I will make mention of the loving kindnesses of Jehovah, and the praises of Jehovah, and the praises of Jehovah, and the praises of Jehovah hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them, according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not deal falsely. So he was their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them and bare them and carried them all the days of old but they rebelled and grieved his spirit you see what the setting is it is a highlighting of the peculiar redemptive mercies of God to the nation of Israel you see that it's a highlighting of the peculiar redemptive mercies verse 7 I will make mention of the loving kindnesses of Jehovah and these were loving kindnesses and mercies that were

33:56 redemptive in terms of God's dealing with the nation that does not mean that every individual Israelite was saved with everlasting salvation no that is not the teaching here or elsewhere and to put it here would be to contradict what the rest of scripture teaches but as a nation they were the recipients of God's great redemptive mercies in bringing them out of the land of Egypt and into the land of Canaan and God conferring upon them this trust saying surely they are my people children that will not deal falsely so he was their savior their deliverer and again and again he came to their deliverance and he empathized with them he was not a distant deity in all their affliction he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pity he redeemed them so here is Israel amidst all of these unique redemptive privileges rooted in the sovereign free loving kindness and mercy of Jehovah God now in that setting what happened we read verse 10 but they rebelled and grieved his holy spirit now the word here

35:24 for grieve is stronger than the Greek word found in Ephesians 4 and verse 30 and this is why some of your translations have as the translation vexed the holy spirit John Owen commenting on this word says the expression of Ephesians 4 30 seems to be borrowed from Isaiah 63 10 where mention is made of the sin and the evil here prohibited they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit and then giving the Hebrew word Apsahv is to trouble and to grieve and is to be used when it is done unto a great degree the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament the Septuagint when you see a Roman numeral in the LXX that's referring to that translation of the Hebrew Old Testament that translation relation from the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek a couple hundred years before the coming of Christ to the Septuagint the Septuagint rendered hereby paroxsouness which is just so grievous also to irritate and provoked to anger and indignation because it has respect under the rebellions of the people in the wilderness which are apostle expresses which are apostle expresses and then used in the Old Testament as words in the Old Testament and then used in the New Testament as words in the New Testament

36:51 is the very same words in the New Testament describing the rebellion of the Old Testament wandering of the Israelites. To vex, therefore, is the heightening of grieving by a provocation unto anger and indignation, which sense is suited to the place and matter treated of, though the words signify no more but to grieve. So the point Owen is making is that in using this word, they vexed his spirit, that it was grief carried on in its causes to the point where the grief merged into righteous vexation and anger. And in the light of what we've been reading for months and months in the prophets, you know how that vexation and anger was finally manifested by God when He prophesied and then sovereignly, sovereignly directed the nation to go into captivity first, the northern kingdoms into the Assyrian captivity, the southern then into the Babylonian captivity, and God manifested this righteous anger and expression of His vexation, which was the outgrowth of a grieving over an extended period of time.

38:17 And now as we read the subsequent context, you see what happens to Israel when God, when God is vexed. Notice, therefore, because they rebelled and vexed His Holy Spirit, therefore, He was turned to be their enemy and Himself fought against them. Then He remembered the days of old, Moses and his people saying, where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is He that put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them that caused His glorious arm to go, at the right hand of Moses?

38:56 Now, verse 14, as the cattle that go down to the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused them to rest, so thou didst lead thy people to make thyself a glorious name. That's what God did. But because the Spirit was vexed, He is turned to be their enemy. What then happens?

39:13 Look at verse 15. Where are thy zeal in thy mighty acts? The yearning of thy heart and thy compassions are restrained. Thou hast been toward me.

39:25 Thou hast shown thy compassion and thy mercy in the past, but now that thy spirit is vexed, thou art not manifesting the yearnings of thy heart. Again, verse 17, O Lord, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways and harden our hearts from thy fear? Think of it. He says, God, thou hast hardened our hearts so that we don't fear you.

39:54 You have hidden your ways from us. We have no light. Verse 18, Thy holy people possessed it, but a little while our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. The place of God's special presence was left unattended, and God gave His people no power to protect it, as though God Himself were indifferent to it.

40:18 Verse 19, We are become as they over whom thou never bearest rule, as they that were not called by thy name. We've become just like a pagan nation that never had Jehovah as its God. My friends, you listen to me. That is the implicit passionate concern undergirding the Apostle's exhortation, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.

Consequences of a Grieved and Vexed Spirit in the Church

40:55 Verse 20, As though Scripture clearly reveals that no individual believer hath the Holy Spirit so taken from him as to be lost and to come back under the wrath of God and to have his union with Christ severed, the Scripture does make plain that a congregation can so grieve the Spirit that the Spirit will depart. A congregation will be as though it were never a living temple indwelt by the living God. And what is said in chapter 2, that you are builded together to be a habitation of God by the Spirit. God says in the book of the Revelation, certain churches had become synagogues of Satan. And He says to the Ephesian church, unless you repent, I'll remove your lampstand. I'll disenfranchise you as a church.

42:08 Now dear people, do you see why we make much of this matter of grieving the Holy Spirit? Why I say as part of the manifesto, upfront, no secondary concern, we are determined because of the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in all of our lives. In all of our life and ministry. For when He goes, then all that is unique to us as a living organism has gone.

42:46 And we are nothing but an organization and a religious club. In trying to illustrate this, I thought of how many pictures we've seen in recent days of the tearing down of the statues of Lenin that were all over the USSR when it existed as the USSR. And people would make their pilgrimages to see the body of Lenin laid out under glass and unusually preserved. And when you look at Lenin, you'll see all the form of the man who initiated that whole mess.

43:25 The shape of his nose, his temple, his eyes, the length of his body. But he was just a shell. No living animate life. The moment he breathed his last, it was gone.

43:42 And that's exactly what happens to churches who grieve the Holy Spirit and continue to grieve him and grieve him to the point that he becomes vexed. And when he's vexed, ultimately it's said, we have become as those over whom thou never bearest rule. Does that scare you? It scares me.

44:08 Because when He goes, what goes? Well, let me just give you a few little hints. The first thing that goes is all the life, and the power, and the reality of our corporate worship. As we saw in the earlier hour, true worship is worship of God by the Spirit.

44:29 Philippians 3.3 The Father seeks a people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And when the Spirit no longer inhabits a church, the worship is bereft of life and power and reality. The same hymns are sung, but the heart never throbs with holy joy.

44:53 The same words are used in prayer, but there is no living breath of spiritual passion and light and reality. And Christ may still be preached as the only Savior of sinners, but He is not preached with a warmth of devotion and love and intimate self-communion between the preacher and the Christ preached and the congregation and the Christ proclaimed. My friend, it's the Spirit alone who can give life and power and reality to our worship. And if we greet Him to the point that we vex Him, and vexing Him He leaves us, we're left without any life, reality and power in our worship. Furthermore, He alone gives life, power and reality to our prayers. We know not how to pray, as we ought, Paul said in Romans 8, but the Spirit helpeth our infirmity. Right in this epistle, he goes on in the sixth chapter and says, praying with all prayer and supplication, verse 18, in the Spirit...

46:01 Oh, what a wonderful thing it is when gathered together here and on Wednesday nights when we pray and whoever is the mouthpiece at the throne of grace is given access and we feel that we're taken, as it were, on the coattails of the brother who leads us in prayer into the very throne room of God as the breast that we breathe on our own hands and can fog up our glasses with it. But I tell you, when the Holy Ghost goes, all life and power and reality and prayer is gone. Is gone. And then take the whole matter of preaching. He alone gives life and power and reality to preaching. First Corinthians 2, Paul said, I was with you in weakness and fear and trembling, but my speech and preaching were not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

47:12 First Thessalonians 1, 5, our gospel came not unto you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. Peter says, who preached unto you the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. What do we do when we preach? We speak about a God we cannot see.

47:33 We speak about a law we cannot see. We speak about a hell we cannot see and a heaven we cannot see and a Christ we cannot see and a Gethsemane and a Golgotha we've never seen and an open tomb we've never seen. We speak about the clouds of glory and the coming of the Son of Man which we've never seen. Who is it that takes those unseen realities and brings them home with felt power to the heart?

48:04 It is the Holy Spirit. Our gospel came not in word only. We didn't simply talk about God and His law and Christ and His cross and His tomb, but as it were materialized in your heart so that you could touch them and feel them with the fingers of the soul. You could taste them with the tongue of the soul.

48:38 See them with the eyes of the soul. That's what makes preaching in the Holy Ghost so glorious. It's God's ordained means of taking those realities bound up in words and bringing them by the Spirit with life and power and reality to our heart.

49:04 He goes, you may have eloquence, you may have accurate exegesis, sound theology, and captivating oratory. I've heard some men whose skill in speaking I would do anything to have. And if I have any discernment there will not drop a Holy Ghost on to my body. It was beautiful.

49:33 But so is Shakespeare beautiful. And so are many musical compositions beautiful. They move me to tears and to goose bumps. It has nothing to do with spiritual realities.

49:49 And you can have preaching that is accurate, exegetically, theologically, beautiful, rhetorically. And yes, if the Spirit is grieved and gone, there will be no life, no power, no reality. No young person will ever leave believing that the hell he's heard about is real and spend a sleepless night and cry, oh God have mercy. No one will hear about a dying Savior and see Him beautiful.

50:21 A risen Savior and see Him worthy of trust and obedience. My friend, this is not of secondary concern. Breathe not the Holy Spirit of God. Because His presence in our corporate life is essential to give life, power, and reality to our worship, our prayers, our preaching.

50:45 And I could go on and demonstrate from the Scripture the same is true to our witnessing Acts 1-8, to our praise Ephesians 5-18, and following every dimension of our life. But oh, if he's grieved, he will be restrained in his actions. And if he's grieved to the point of vexation, he will withdraw his powerful presence and his working. If he continues to be grieved and vexed, he will become angry and he will bring judgments.

51:23 You mean God judges His new covenant community? Yes. Let us examine ourselves. If we judged ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord.

51:33 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and not a few sleep. And if Christ doesn't judge His churches, you explain Revelation 2 and 3 to me where the risen Christ speaks to the seven churches and says, I hear what I say, repent or else I will come. Christ threatens. And I tell you, His threats scare the living out of me.

Call to Corporate Determination and Self-Examination

51:58 His threats scare me. Because He has the power to make them good. Now do you see why I include this in the manifesto? And say that from the beginning of our life, 25 years ago, with pitiful, repentable measures, but nonetheless real measures, we have been determined.

52:30 We have been determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in every facet of our life in our ministry. The crucial text which mandates this determination, we've looked at the explicit command and I've tried to open it up, I hope, convincing your judgment. And then we've looked at the implicit concern that flowers before our eyes when we turn to the tap roots of Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4.30, in Isaiah 63.10, and the context. God willing, next week, we'll deal with the specific ways that the Holy Spirit is breathed in the life of a congregation. And we're going to deal with those specific things for two reasons. That we may examine ourselves and if any of those things are in any way true of us, that we'll deal with them and repent to them now, while we still enjoy some measure of the Spirit's presence.

53:27 And then I want to deal with them for the second reason, that if we're not guilty of them, they may be like signposts saying, beware, beware, beware, for the Scripture was given, according to Psalm 19, that by them thy servants might be warned, and in the keeping of them there is great reward. But I close this morning by just appealing with all of my heart to you who are the members of this assembly. Do you see how crucial it is that we have, with an intensified corporate determination, not to grieve the Holy Spirit? Do you see why this must be our corporate determination? Why whatever measure we have had must be not only maintained but increased? Because the pressure of a godless society is increasing. The pressure of a carnally run, man-centered church program increasingly exerts its pressure, and more and more we will be like an island in a sea of man-made, man-gelical religion.

54:41 When we are determined that we have no backup system, either God the Holy Ghost is present or the stink of death will go out from us in a very short time. We've got no stored bottles of ecclesiastical perfume somewhere in the basement of this church to sprinkle on these pews when God the Holy Ghost goes and the smell of death begins to make people sick. We trust the stink will be bad enough to drive those who knew what it was to have the fragrance of His presence to pray until He comes back. And if He makes it plain that it's irrecoverable, go somewhere where your sniff is present. And don't any of you try to find a bottle of perfume!

55:36 It'll give the smell of life when there is no life and there's nothing but death. Beloved, I believe that the Lord carries the things we're considering have implications for decades to come. And that's my appeal to you. Pray, oh God, help me to feel the weight of what was preached this morning.

56:01 Today was 90% didactic. I know that. But I thank God that with all my failures, a dear preacher friend who's a very critical listener of preachers says one thing I appreciate with Pastor Martin. He doesn't exhort till he's planted his guns in exegesis.

56:17 And we've got to start there, folks. I have to convince your conscience from the Word of God. Now meditate upon what we've considered. Pray over Isaiah 63.

56:25 Come next week, God sparing us, saying, Lord, show me if in any way I'm contributing to a corporate grieving of the Spirit. And then, Lord, immunize us and fortify us as a church that we may not grieve Your Spirit. Amen. Amen.

Warning to the Unconverted: Do Not Resist the Holy Spirit

56:42 And then I have a word for you who are not sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. My friend, I want to say something in a way that I hope will shock you at least to listen. You know and you've been told, children, adults, you've been told you cannot be saved without Jesus Christ. And that's true.

57:05 If He did not take your place, the place of sinners, in life and death, there'd be no salvation. My friend, it is just as accurate to say you cannot be saved without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit didn't die for sinners. The Holy Spirit did not covenantally represent sinners, place Himself under the law and live a life of perfect obedience to that law.

57:31 No. Those were the unique prerogatives and responsibilities of God the Son in the economy of redemption. But hear me, the Holy Spirit's ministry to you is just as essential in its place as is the ministry of the Lord Jesus in its place. And when God attends His Word as He is often pleased to do in this place, and you know as much as you'd love to deny it, that when we speak of heaven and hell and God and the cross and the open tomb and the clouds, things are real.

58:13 You taste the powers of the world to come under the preaching of the Word. Oh, my friend, don't trifle with the only one who can bring you from that mere tasting into a saving reception of those realities. I used to wonder when I'd read the old Puritan evangelists pleading with sinners not to grieve, not to quench the Spirit. I questioned whether what they were doing was right.

58:42 I now understand better. They were right and I was ignorant. They understood this principle. God says, My Spirit will not always strive with men.

58:52 He's stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. He do always resist the Holy Ghost. There is a resisting of the Spirit as He comes in the preaching of the Word. My friend, what you're doing if you resist His influence coming in the preaching of the Word?

59:11 Cutting your own throat. For if He says, I've striven long enough with that man, that woman, that boy, that girl, I've come, as it were, to give you of the heart. And there I've pressed the claims of Christ again and again. And I keep getting rebuffed and rebuffed and rebuffed.

59:34 And that person says to me, Holy Spirit, go away. Leave me in my sin. Leave me to my idols. Leave me to my thirty pieces of silver.

59:43 And yet he comes again and again and again until finally you say, go away, once too often. He says, alright, I'll do exactly what you say. And that's not just a scare tactic. I've been taught in many passages of the Word, one of the clearest being Proverbs chapter 1.

60:00 And then God says, a time will come when you'll say, oh God, those things really and then God will say, no. You cross the line back there, it's all over. God says, then shall they cry and I will not answer. They will call and I will not hear.

60:19 It's one of the most frightening doctrines of the Bible. My dear children, boys and girls, listen to me. When the devil tells you, oh, the devil that little sin there, little lie here, little bit of lust here, it's in, oh listen, listen, listen, that might be the beginning of a process of hardening that would bring you to the place where you couldn't repent if you wanted. Don't you trifle with God coming into preaching with outstretched hands saying, children, come to my Son.

60:54 Come to my Son. Embrace my Son. Embrace the Savior. Trust the Savior.

61:00 Trust the Savior. Turn from the world. Turn from your sins. Give yourself up to the Lord Jesus.

61:09 What he says to children, he says to teenagers and adults, he says to us all, may God grant that we will not stifle his voice, stuff the fingers and the ears of the soul and say, God, go away and leave me. He just may do that. Thank God in mercy for our stupidity. But not always.

Closing Prayer

61:37 Not always. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for your Holy Word. We do thank you for the person of the Holy Spirit.

61:54 We thank you for the reality of his presence and ministry with us as a church over these many years. We acknowledge that we are unworthy that he should still dwell among us. That we have sinned enough and grievously that we should have left us long ago. But we thank you that he has not left us.

62:19 We thank you that you have brought us again and again to deal with the issues that would have grieved and vexed him and turned him into our enemy. And we pray that until the coming of the Lord Jesus, this congregation, if you give it existence, will not grieve away the Spirit. And, O Father, our hearts yearn for the unconverted among us this morning. What can we say, Lord?

62:54 We have tried to entice them with the marvelous, wonderful privileges of a felt Christ, of a felt forgiveness, of unknown acceptance in your presence. We have sought to warn them. We have sought to warn them of their own sin and bring boys and girls and men and women broken and believing to the feet of Jesus. Seal your word to our hearts, accept our thanks for your presence, and may your blessing continue to rest upon us on this your day.

63:37 We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.