"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you."
One day, in a fit of boyish temper, I spoke hot words of anger,
somewhat unjustly, against another person, and this deeply
grieved my mother. She said but little, and though her sweet face
has mouldered many years beneath the Southern daisies, her look
of grief I can still see across the years of a third of a
century. And that is the one sad memory of my childhood. A
stranger might have been amused or incensed at my words, but
mother was grieved--grieved to her heart by my lack of generous,
self-forgetful, thoughtful love.
We can anger a stranger or an enemy, but it is only a friend we
grieve. The Holy Spirit is such a Friend, more tender and
faithful than a mother; and shall we carelessly offend Him, and
estrange ourselves from Him in spite of His love?
There is a sense in which every sin is against the Holy Ghost. Of
course, not every such sin is unpardonable, but the tendency of
all sin is in that direction, and we are only safe as we avoid
the very beginnings of sin. Only as we "walk in the Spirit" are
we "free from the law of sin and death" (Romans viii. 2).
Therefore, it is infinitely important that we beware of offences
against the Spirit, "lest any of you be hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews iii. 13).
Grieving the Holy Spirit is a very common and a very sad offence
of professing Christians, and it is to this that must be
attributed much of the weakness and ignorance and joylessness of
so many followers of Christ.
And He is grieved, as was my mother, by the unloving speech and
spirit of God's children.
In his letters to the Ephesians, Paul says, "Let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good
to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the
hearers." And then he adds: "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking,
be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to
another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of
God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath
loved us, and hath given Himself for us" (Eph. iv. 29-v. 2).
What does Paul teach us here? That it is not by some huge
wickedness, some Judas-like betrayal, some tempting and lying to
the Holy Ghost, as did Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 1-9), that
we grieve Him, but by that which most people count little and
unimportant; by talk that corrupts instead of blessing and
building up those that hear, by gossip, by bitterness, and
uncharitable criticisms and fault-findings. This was the sin of
the elder son when the prodigal returned, and it was by this he
pierced with grief the kind old father's heart.
By getting in a rage, by loud, angry talking and evil-speaking
and petty malice, by unkindness and hard-heartedness and an
unforgiving spirit, we grieve Him. In a word, by not walking
through the world as in our Father's house, and among our
neighbours and friends as among His dear children; by not loving
tenderly and making kindly sacrifices for one another, He is
grieved. And this is not a matter of little importance. It may
have sadly momentous consequences.
It is a bitter, cruel, and often an irreparable thing to trifle
with a valuable earthly friendship. How much more when the
friendship is heavenly? when the Friend is our Lord and Saviour,
our Creator and Redeemer, our Governor and Judge, our Teacher,
Guide, and God? When we trifle with a friend's wishes--especially
when such wishes are all in perfect harmony with and for our
highest possible good--we may not estrange the friend from us,
but we estrange ourselves from our friend. Our hearts grow cold
toward him, though his heart may be breaking with longing toward
us.
The more Saul ill-treated David, the more he hated David.
Such estrangement may lead, little by little, to yet greater sin,
to strange hardness of heart, to doubts and unbelief, and
backslidings and denial of the Lord.
The cure for all this is a clean heart full of sweet and gentle,
self-forgetful, generous love. Then we shall be "followers of God
as dear children," then we shall "walk in love as Christ loved
us, and gave Himself for us."
But there is another offence, that of quenching the Spirit, which
accounts for the comparative darkness and deadness of many of
God's children.
In I Thess. v. 16-19 the Apostle says: "Rejoice evermore. Pray
without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit."
When will the Lord's dear children learn that the religion of
Jesus is a lowly thing, and that it is the little foxes that
spoil the vines? Does not the Apostle here teach that it is not
by some desperate, dastardly deed that we quench the Spirit, but
simply by neglecting to rejoice and pray, and give thanks at all
times and for all things?
It is not necessary to blot the sun out of the heavens to keep
the sunlight out of your house--just close the blinds and draw
the curtains; nor do you pour barrels of water on the flames to
quench the fire--just shut off the draught; nor do you dynamite
the city reservoir and destroy all the mains and pipes to cut off
your supply of sparkling water, but just refrain from turning on
the main.
So you do not need to do some great evil, some deadly sin, to
quench the Spirit. Just cease to rejoice, through fear of man and
of being peculiar; be prim and proper as a white and polished
gravestone; let gushing joy be curbed; neglect to pray when you
feel a gentle pull in your heart to get alone with the Lord; omit
giving hearty thanks for all God's tender mercies, faithful
discipline and loving chastenings, and soon you will find the
Spirit quenched. He will no longer spring up joyously like a well
of living water within you.
But give the Spirit a vent, an opening, a chance, and He will
rise within you and flood your soul with light and love and joy.
Some years ago a sanctified woman of clear experience went alone
to keep her daily hour with God; but, to her surprise, it seemed
that she could not find Him, either in prayer or in His word. She
searched her heart for evidence of sin, but the Spirit showed her
nothing contrary to God in her mind, heart, or will. She searched
her memory for any breach of covenant, any broken vows, any
neglect, any omission, but could find none.
Then she asked the Lord to show her if there were any duty
unfulfilled, any command unnoticed, which she might perform, and
quick as thought came the often-read words, "Rejoice evermore."
"Have you done that this morning?"
She had not. It had been a busy morning, and a well-spent one,
but so far there had been no definite rejoicing in her heart,
though the manifold riches and ground for joy of all Christians
were hers.
At once she began to count her blessings and thank the Lord for
each one, and rejoice in Him for all the way He had led her, and
the gifts He had bestowed, and in a very few minutes the Lord
stood revealed to her spiritual consciousness.
She had not committed sin, nor resisted the Spirit, but a failure
to rejoice in Him who had daily loaded her with benefits (Psalm
lxviii. 19) had in a measure quenched the Spirit. She had not
turned the main, and so her soul was not flooded with living
waters. She had not remembered the command: "Thou shalt rejoice
before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thine hand
unto." But that morning she learned a lifelong lesson, and she
has ever since safeguarded her soul by obeying the many commands
to "Rejoice in the Lord."
Grieving and quenching the Spirit will not only leave barren and
desolate an individual soul, but it will do so for a Corps, a
church, a community, a whole nation or continent. We see this
illustrated on a large scale by the long and weary Dark Ages,
when the light of the Gospel was almost extinguished, and only
here and there was the darkness broken by the torch of truth held
aloft by some humble, suffering soul that had wept and prayed,
and through painful struggles had found the light.
We see it also in those Corps, churches, communities, and
countries where revivals are unknown, or are a thing of the past,
where souls are not born into the Kingdom, and where there is no
joyous shout of victory among the people of God.
Grieving and quenching the Spirit may be done unintentionally by
lack of thought and prayer and hearty devotion to the Lord Jesus;
but they prepare the way and lead to intentional and positive
resistance to the Spirit.
To resist the Spirit is to fight against Him.
The sinner who, listening to the Gospel invitation, and convicted
of sin, refuses to submit to God in true repentance and faith in
Jesus, is resisting the Holy Spirit. We have bold and striking
historical illustrations of the danger of resisting the Holy
Spirit in the disasters which befell Pharaoh, and the terrible
calamities which came upon Jerusalem, and have for twenty
centuries followed the Jews.
The ten plagues that came upon Pharaoh and his people were ten
opportunities and open doors into God's favour and fellowship,
which they themselves shut by their stubborn resistance, only to
be overtaken by dreadful catastrophe.
To the Jews, Stephen said: "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost"
(Acts vii. 51); and the siege and fall of Jerusalem, and the
butchery and banishment and enslavement of its inhabitants, and
all the woes that came upon the Jews, followed their rejection of
Jesus and the hardness of heart and spiritual blindness which
swiftly overtook them when they resisted all the loving efforts
and entreaties of His disciples baptised with the Holy Spirit.
And what on a large scale befalls nations and people, on a small
scale also befalls individuals. Those that receive and obey the
Lord are enlightened and blessed and saved; those that resist and
reject Him are sadly left to themselves and surely swallowed up
in destruction.
Likewise the professing Christian who hears of heart-holiness and
cleansing from all sin as a blessing he may now have by faith,
and, convicted of his need of the blessing and of God's desire
and willingness to bestow it upon him now, refuses to seek it in
whole-hearted affectionate consecration and faith, is resisting
the Holy Spirit. And such resistance imperils the soul beyond all
possible computation.
We see an example of this in the Israelites who were brought out
of Egypt with signs and wonders, and led through the Red Sea and
the wilderness to the borders of Canaan, but, forgetting,
refused to go over into the land. In this they resisted the Holy
Spirit in His leadings as surely as did Pharaoh, and with quite
as disastrous results to themselves, perishing in their evil way.
For their sin was as much greater than his as their light
exceeded his.
Hundreds of years later, Isaiah, writing of this time, says: "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 He bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But
they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit; therefore He was turned
to be their enemy, and He fought against them" (Isaiah lxiii. 9,
10).
We see from this that Christians must beware and watch and pray
and walk softly with the Lord in glad obedience and childlike
faith, if they would escape the darkness and dryness that result
from grieving and quenching the Spirit, and the dangers that
surely come from resisting Him.
"Arm me with jealous care,
As in Thy sight to live;
And, Oh, Thy servant, Lord, prepare,
A strict account to give.
"Help me to watch and pray,
And on Thyself rely,
Assured if I my trust betray,
I shall for ever die."
"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"