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Grieve Not the Spirit of God By Richard Wilson

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let us remember that.
Our considerations today.
I'm going to take two passages from one Samuel.
I must admit I never really have come to really understand where Samuel, sorry, Saul,
and this is a story about Saul, where he started well and finished poorly.
He was one that so grieved the Spirit of God that an evil spirit was replaced from a good spirit.
And it's a very difficult passage, this portion, but he persisted in disobedience.
I've often said, oh, this man was never a Christian, never a believer from the start,
and yet God in His wisdom used him even an unbeliever.
When we look at the lament of David's prayer at the end of his life,
when David's soul fell by the sword, even to the point of suicide,
he lamented concerning Saul and spoke of him as being a believer.
Very often we find ourselves reassured by stories like this.
Our security of our redemption is secure as long as we are saved.
But very often our lives can be so turned upside down that very often our witness is very poor.
So in the theme of grieve not the Spirit of God, I've taken this as an example,
as scripture is littered with examples of people who in my estimation are indeed believers,
but were never able to really live as they ought.
And maybe the grace of God is the one that is the triumphing part
in this, not just the testimony of such a life.
So with that introduction, maybe we could have a discussion about this
around the dinner table at times and see how we would understand this.
The first portion is from chapter 15 and verses 10 to 35.
And then I want to take another portion that speaks of the Spirit of God
departing from Saul in chapter 16 verses 14 to 23.
And we've also taken a New Testament passage from Matthew chapter 25
which speaks of the ten virgins and the necessity of keeping your lamps trimmed.
Well as we turn to Ephesians 4 and we're coming to the end of the series of sermons
and we've been looking at practical holiness and how this is to be established
by putting off the old man and putting on the new.
And we've seen last Lord's Day particularly how the language of death
is often symptomatic of a heart that is unregenerate.
And the language of death is the kind of behaviour that in thought, word and deed
that would develop and present themselves in anger, in adulteries, in bitterness and wrath,
in clamour, in speaking malice.
All these things are indeed the language or the behaviour in our lives
that is the language of death.
But instead the language of life and the immortality that has come to light within our hearts,
the necessity of being regenerated by the Spirit of God within our hearts
develop another lifestyle that is characteristic of the children of God.
The kind of lifestyle that tells the truth in love,
that renounces the practices of the world,
that is able to manifest the fruits of the Spirit
that we see quite clearly spoken of in chapter 5,
I think, chapter 6, that speaks of love and joy and peace and patience
and all those other languages of the heart that expresses in all our life
and every part of our life which is sacred unto the Lord that we give glory to Him.
And then he says and, which means that it continues in relationship
and in the sequence of the verses that before.
In other words it's a conjunction.
It's something that he says and on top of all these things
and as it were the capstone of the sequence of injunctions that he has given to us,
commands that he's given to us, the imperatives.
He's not talking about the indicities of the Christian faith
but the imperatives of the Christian faith that he says
and all these things will be accomplished
and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
And he goes on,
Let bitterness and wrath and anger, clamour and evil speaking
and be put away from you with all malice and so on.
Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another,
even as Christ forgave you.
Now the words that issue from our heart, we may not even mouth these words.
They can come forward in our minds, attitudes, expressions of the heart
need to be monitored and need to be dealt with properly
by putting off our sin and putting on righteousness
so that we are conforming to the righteousness that has been purchased for us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is the way in which we are to walk, as it says in verse 17 of the same chapter,
we are to walk no longer, as the rest of the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them,
because of the blindness of their hearts.
So there's a heart matter here.
We are to walk in these things, not as the Gentiles do.
In other words, our entire life has had to got this general direction,
this general posture that is wholly separated from this world
and yet living within this world.
We see this in verse 1 also, that we are to walk worthily to your calling.
In other words, we are to live consistently.
If you are Christians, therefore you will behave like Christians.
If you are justified by the Spirit of God, you will walk in the way in which your sins are forgiven.
And if you are redeemed, therefore you are the Lord's, not your own.
We have been bought with a price and that's the price of the blood of the Lamb of God.
And we are called upon in verses chapter 5 also to walk.
In other words, here we find we are to walk circumspectly, as wise people, not as fools.
In other words, we are to have a demeanor that is looking like Christians
and people on the outside will look into our lives and say,
this person is not a hypocrite, this person is a genuine article.
There can be no explanation about this person other than what God has been doing in his life.
No person of the natural flesh can do these kind of things, like forgive your enemies,
to love those who persecute you, to be those that will walk patiently
in the midst of incredible provocation.
This is what the life of the Spirit allows us to do, walk circumspectly.
And then he says in verses 17 and 19 that we are to be filled with the Spirit.
In chapter 5 verses 17 to 19, what a wonderful capstone to this kind of thing here.
He says we are to be not drunk in wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart.
That is the language of love, the language of the Spirit, the language of wisdom,
the language of life itself that comes from a life that is being transformed on the inward parts
by the inner working of God's Spirit that we have got now a new heart
that leads us into this manner of life that is enabled to do the things that we need to do as Christians.
Now this subject of the practice of holiness in the body of Christ,
the Church of God, is performed solely and is initiated and powerfully performed
by the energy of God the Holy Spirit himself.
And we are those who walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
The flesh has been crucified with Christ and is now in the grave.
The difficulty with us is we like to hop into the grave sometimes and we fall into sin
and we grieve the Holy Spirit as we saw in the life of Samuel
and we could look at the life of Peter when he was so presumptuous
that he could do what the Lord was doing.
I would die, he says, but Satan came and would sift him like wheat and he denied him thrice.
He also was found wanting.
The Spirit to grieve the Holy Spirit will have catastrophic effect in your spiritual walk as Christians.
And let us not be playing around with the whole issue of practical holiness.
Let us not play around with kind of behaviour that is becoming to worldlings
rather than spiritual people that have been redeemed by the Spirit of God.
If we do so, we will find that this possibility, indeed in many ways throughout the Christian's life,
the probability of us grieving the Spirit of God.
And we need to be careful of this.
Now my point here that I want to raise is just quite a simple one.
The Spirit of God is a Holy Spirit and we are possessed by that Holy Spirit.
If we are Christians, we have within us the Spirit of God.
Those who haven't got the Spirit of Christ are not of Christ.
And the Apostle and the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
you cannot even accander the kingdom of God unless you have been born again of the Spirit.
Now we saw last week that the interplay between the Word and the Spirit
is of essential essence of how we are to walk in this manner.
Wherever the Word of God is, the Spirit of God enables us to do the Word of God.
All we've got to do is to exercise faith in that Word.
And as we exercise faith by doing the Word, the Spirit of God always gives us the impetus,
the energy, the strength to be able to do this of the Word of God
so that we are giving glory to Christ our Lord.
So His power energizes us toward holiness.
Without holiness you cannot see God.
And I'm not talking about this airy-fairy puritanical view of holiness
as some Christians would see this sort of impossible ideal.
I'm talking about putting off that which is evil in your life
and putting on that which is good, righteous.
It's quite practical, every day you can assess, am I doing what God is doing?
Am I doing what God's Word requires me to do in the situation?
Hang the consequences, let the consequences, hand the consequences over to God.
It might hurt me, it might bring me into a very difficult situation,
but what I've got to do, I've got to do and I've got to obey God's Word.
Then the Spirit always comes in and gives you the ability to do.
Don't say I can't do it, because you can't do it.
Only God can do it. God works and wills His good pleasure within us.
There's no excuse.
As you are walking by faith, there is no excuse.
God is more than able to do what is required in your life and the daily life.
All we've got to do is live by faith in Christ.
That is the essential ingredient to our life.
So it always leads us to holiness.
And holiness is always putting on righteousness.
And righteousness is always keeping the law, by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
So you can see the kind of interplay we're seeing here.
The Word and the Spirit is absolutely indispensable to each other.
And His sovereign work in creating us as children of God, we have already seen.
Because it says in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13 and 14,
it says it quite clearly here, that in Him you have trusted.
After hearing the Word of the Truth, in other words we heard first the Gospel,
as we heard the Gospel, salvation.
We came to realize that our sins had to be forsaken.
We had to surrender all that and put our faith in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
His finished work upon the cross,
believing that He was a Son of God in the flesh,
believing that He rose again from the dead for our justification,
believing that He is seated at the right hand of the Father.
This is the Gospel historically for us.
He was the One who became our substitute.
He was the One who bore our sins on our behalf.
This is the Gospel of salvation.
We have come to trust this.
And this has been reckoned unto us as righteousness,
in whom also, having believed, you were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.
In other words, the Lord Jesus said to us that we would be those
that would not be as orphans any longer,
but that we would be those that would be given the Spirit of God.
Now I know that we dwell these earthenware vessels,
these bodies that are to pass away after threescore and ten,
and if you're strong, a little longer.
But it will pass away as the seed that has dropped into the ground,
it gives a way to life itself.
And as the life comes up through the soil,
the new plant of regeneration is established within that plant's life.
That's exactly what happens when we come to the Lord in regeneration.
We have the Word of God come into us.
It's not a dead word, but it's a word of life.
And it transforms and it gives away.
Our old bodies will give away.
And the new is established in the Spirit of God.
And we find life not from outside to conform us,
but life from within, performing all the work that God wants us to do.
And so in chapter 8 of Romans we see this kind of teaching that we find here.
Chapter 8 of Romans, and it says in verse 9,
it says,
But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit,
if indeed the Spirit of God dwells within you.
Make sure it is.
Make sure you've not settled for anything less,
because many Christians who would be Christians do settle for something less.
I've joined the church, therefore I'm a Christian.
No, no, no, my friend.
Unless you've been born of the Spirit,
and you have the Spirit dwelling within you,
the Spirit of redemption that is sealed in your hearts,
you're not a Christian at all.
And we need to understand that.
And need to search it out.
God comes within our hearts.
And now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,
he's not one of His.
And if Christ is in you,
the body is dead because of sin,
and the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
See this sin and righteousness,
putting on and putting off.
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead
dwells within you,
well the possibilities are limitless, isn't it?
The very same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead
in the redemptive work that He made upon us
is at work within you.
He raised Jesus from the dead
is also giving life to your mortal bodies
through His Spirit who dwells within you.
You can't get it more blatantly
and more clearly taught than that.
And so here we find that His whole,
the total oneness,
there's a total oneness of God, Christ and His Word,
who in application of all His graces
that He has performed within us,
He is one that is able to bring about within our hearts
all that Christ purchased on our behalf.
Now it can be said that Christ accomplished
redemption for us,
and we can all see it,
the whole history can see it,
it was placarded for us there in history,
but it's no good to us
unless we have had that put into our lives.
It's no good saying I know all the doctrines of Christ.
Knowing about Christ is a far different thing
to knowing Christ personally.
It must be something that is part of your life
and this is where the work of God the Holy Spirit
comes into our lives
and He applies by faith
all the graces that He purchased there in history
and He is giving us all,
not just out of His hand as a gift,
but He gives according to the riches of His grace
into our lives.
And that should make a big difference,
the difference between life and death,
the difference between being lame
and not able to walk in the things of God
and now walking in the things of God,
the difference from being blind once upon a time,
but now I see, I see the things of God
and so it goes,
if I could not hear, but now I do hear,
I hear the voice of the shepherd calling me,
instructing me and blessing me,
through the word of God
and through all the means of grace that God has given us.
Now if a Christian says,
I am bored to read the word of God,
I really haven't got any real interest in the word of God,
I like some of the verses that give me some,
some encouragements in terms of the flesh,
but really I do not,
I do not feed from the word of God,
I just pick and poke at the word of God.
If somebody is like that,
I know many Christians that don't even open their Bible
from one Lord's Day to another, personally.
The reason why they are like that
is either they are deeply backslidden
or they are not a Christian at all,
they are just going to the club
and meetings every Sunday,
because that is when the club meets.
But otherwise really there is no real connection
between God and their hearts.
If you really did enjoy the things of God,
the things that really would impress you,
the things that would feed you,
is good theology,
good spiritual life,
the fellowship among genuine believers,
they don't bore you any longer,
they used to but they don't any longer bore you,
and good solid preaching,
and I cannot get enough of it.
Nothing satisfies my life that a good solid sermon,
it's like getting tonic from heaven for my soul,
and yet there is another person sitting beside you,
when is he going to finish?
That's the kind of attitude that some have.
Now my friends, this is a spiritual work,
you will never love the word of God,
if you haven't got the spirit of God in your heart.
You will never be interested in the things of the kingdom,
if you haven't got the spirit of God in your heart.
You will not have the strength
to bring up your family to serve Christ,
if the spirit of God is not in you.
And he continually works with us,
he never leaves us or forsakes us.
As we live by faith in him, step by step,
and the early steps of faith are very childlike,
and sometimes it's very much mingled
with a whole lot of the world in your ignorance,
I mean for many weeks after my conversion,
I was still going down to the pub,
drinking with my friends, telling them about the gospel.
I just realised that that's probably not the best thing to do.
The Lord understood, I was quite oblivious
to the stupidity of my heart at the time,
and he brought that to understanding.
Living by faith doesn't look for the life of perfection,
living by faith lives for the life of perfection,
lives for Christ.
We will make many mistakes on the way,
but living by faith is essential for us to grow in grace.
And this will only be done as we live by the spirit.
He will reform our thinking.
We had thoughts about the second coming of Christ,
and we read it from some trinket books,
and we thought, oh well this is interesting.
And then we look into the word of God and we say,
oh dear, the thoughts I had about the second coming of Christ
are not just fitting with my views, then we'll reform.
We realise the word of God is shedding more light
on this whole thing.
I had a view about salvation that was incorrect,
I read into the word of God and somebody taught me,
oh, I've got to change my view on this one.
This is what we call continually reforming our doctrines
according to the word of God.
The spirit is the one who teaches us in these things,
and we bring conviction in our heart concerning these things.
The spirit revives us when we get very low.
Sometimes we can go into the pit of depression at times.
We can be walking through the valley of the shadow of death
at other times.
We can be doing it hard going up the hill of life,
as though we're pushing a cart in front of us
with square wheels on it.
And it's tough going.
It requires all the patience and all the endurance
that our heart can muster.
But the spirit of God gives us that reviving grace.
He restores our soul and feeds us afresh
with the delectable things that are on the table of God.
He guides us, and many of us are finding at the moment
there's big decisions we're making at the moment,
and He guides us.
We knock on doors, it opens.
We go to the next door, knock on that door,
and it stays closed.
We go to the next place, look to the Lord by prayer,
and we find ourselves guided by the Spirit in this way.
So here, the Spirit of God actually establishes Himself
as a resident in our hearts.
I was only speaking to a lady who came for tutoring
who is a traditional Roman Catholic.
They even, everything's spoken in Latin in their church,
and very, very traditional, and I said,
oh, I want to get hold of this Roman Catholic.
I really want to talk about it.
And we talked and talked, and I said,
look, you are at one extreme.
I tell you what, I am a Protestant of the Protestants.
Oh, she says, this is interesting.
I said, we couldn't be further apart.
She said, yes, but I've got respect for you
because you believe what you believe.
And I said, well, look, we talked about it,
and when I started talking about the religion of the heart,
how we are to be those who are born again in the Spirit,
and the very life of God is in my heart.
She says, aren't you just talking a bit like a Pentecostal?
And I said, oh, the Pentecostals talk about it,
but they don't do it.
We do it because the Word of God is there.
She says, I'd like to talk more about this.
Then I gave her a book by Banner of Truth,
and I said, it's called Salvation, the Bible and Roman Catholics.
She says, I don't know whether I want to read this,
but she'll be so curious, she'll have to.
And I just prayed for that woman.
But it was all around the, she says, you've always been a Christian?
I said, no, I didn't become a Christian until I was 23.
I said, how did it happen?
And I told her how it happened.
And she said, well, oh, that's your religion.
And I said, no, that's the religion.
You can see the point.
And she saw that there was a difference between us,
and I'd left her with that.
No doubt in the fullness of time when I'm tutoring their children in English
that she will want to just sort of ask this question or that question.
Let's pray for her.
She said, her husband is very strong in these things.
I said, well, I'd love to have a chat with him.
So you can see here the Holy Spirit makes us holy in these practical ways.
Now, we've come to the point, now, what does it mean to grieve the Spirit?
The Spirit that is resident within us,
the third person of the Trinity, resident within our hearts is within us.
He says, I believe that he is grieved when his sanctifying work in you
is hindered by your abuse of the very gift that God has given you.
The gift that God has given you is something that is so,
is a gentle dove that has come within us.
He can be grieved.
God can be grieved by our behavior.
Now, it's not saying that our security is in doubt.
Our security in Christ is, of a believer, is guaranteed.
And therefore, obedience, as we are obedient to the Word of God,
fears and doubts will vanish from us.
And that the Spirit of God will fall upon us in various measures
to accomplish the work of God.
And we call that the fullness of the Spirit of God that comes to you day by day.
As you look to the Lord and as you live obediently by faith,
God fills us with the Spirit.
We often pray, fill us with the Spirit of God in greater measures.
It's not two experiences.
It's not the first experience and the second experience.
It's the whole one experience that we're having.
We were first sealed in regeneration.
But as a result of this, we have the indwelling fillings of the Spirit of God every day.
As it were, the Christian's fillings with the Spirit of God is constant
and continuous as we live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need the Spirit of God every day.
That's why we, who hold to the Bible, are true Pentecostals.
We may not be Charismatics, but we are true Pentecostals.
And therefore, we are kept by the Spirit of God.
And the purpose of the Spirit of God is not so much to remind us of the guarantee that we have,
but it is so that we can render our lives in gratitude that all that we have received before God.
We are now not our own.
We are being bought for a price and we are to be therefore serving God as servants.
And therefore, in fuller and fuller worship,
we are now being able to grow in holiness and the graces of God
and be filled with the Spirit of God as we become more and more entrenched with the things of God.
And therefore, it is possible for us to grieve the Spirit of God.
We can grieve the Spirit of God in our prayerlessness.
We can grieve the Spirit of God in being simply disobedient
when we know that we should be obedient in certain aspects of our lives.
We can grieve the Spirit of God by not attending at worship on the Lord's Day.
We can grieve the Spirit of God by not properly supporting the family in family worship.
We can grieve the Spirit of God by being harsh and brutal and not seasoned with grace.
We can grieve the Spirit of God in not being forgiving as we have been forgiven
and failing to love when we should have loved.
In other words, if we persist on disobedient walk,
not walking circumspectly as wise,
not walking worthily to our calling,
not walking in holiness
and all the other things that we are called upon that we are not walking in,
to that measure, the Spirit of God withdraws.
He doesn't withdraw from our heart, but he withdraws from his activity in our lives.
See the point?
And therefore, we become impoverished.
We become less effectual in our Christian lives.
The peace of God withdraws from us and we become worried, we become depressed,
and we become utterly unaffected as we live in such a condition.
We have a deep sense of God's rod upon our back
who seeks to correct us.
Now scripture is littered with people like this, even King David,
when he committed adultery with Beersheba.
He says in Psalm 51,
Take not thy spirit from me, he says.
Fifty-one.
He says, in verses eleven, he says, Cast me not away from your presence.
See, this is an experience that he was terrified of.
And do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of my salvation
and uphold me by your gracious Spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your way.
The sinner shall be converted to you.
And so here, the great King David was able to see the horror of,
he could deal with the rejection of men,
but he couldn't deal with the withdrawal of the Spirit of God in its fullness.
He would be vulnerable.
His joy would not be as complete as it should be.
The peace of God would not be as it should be in his life.
King Saul, as we saw there, he was disobedient.
He would not obey God's clear command to obliterate and exterminate the Amalekites.
But he took various things from him. He let a few people out.
He did not exterminate them properly.
You might say, well, that's pretty harsh. That's very un-Christian.
But when the God commands it, we are to do it.
And he had special revelation and a prophet to tell him this is what he had to do.
He didn't do it.
He said, oh, this is good enough for God. Attitude.
And it cost him his office as a king in Israel.
And it cost him a depressed spirit.
And they had to get David to play the fiddle and play music to them.
You know, I reckon a lot of young people are playing music to themselves just to get a depressed spirit out of them.
If they trusted in God, they wouldn't need all this junk music that they've got.
And they would be able to cheer their hearts in being obedient to God
and the fullness of the spirit.
But no, it's not like that at all with them.
They've got to depend upon external stimulus to keep their lives somehow in a sort of satisfying position.
Jonah was the same thing. He saw Jonah the prophet.
He was told to go to such and such place.
He went to another place because he reckoned that would be all right.
He found himself in the bottom of the sea.
Then he found himself in a big fish's belly.
And he groaned within himself.
He said, oh, Lord, I repent.
And of course he was cost up.
. . .
If you're not the one . . .