Yet believers may grieve the Holy Spirit, and grieve Him “to the heart”. They may fall into sin, and bring discredit on their profession. And professing Christians may make shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience. What then is the nature of this sin? It is not the presence of sin in the heart that grieves the Divine Spirit. It is a wonderful truth that He is not dishonoured in dwelling in the heart in which there is sin — sin which has been atoned for, sin against which sentence of death has been brought forth, sin which is mortified, but still sin. Such is the glory of the cross that the Divine Spirit is not dishonoured in dwelling there. Nor is it a deep painful sense of the power of sin that grieves Him. This is one of the very fruits of His grace, one of those things in which He has pleasure, that the soul’s groanings should be heard, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
But the Holy Spirit may be grieved (more openly or secretly), first by the indulgence of sin — the sins referred to in the context, and such like. He is the Spirit of holiness. Now we are not to infer that the Christian can live in the practice of any of those sins which are specified, or of any known sin, so that he might be fitly called an impure, a vindictive, or a covetous man. The contrary is directly expressed: “This ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.” (Eph. 5: 5, 6). But it is plainly implied that the Christian is in danger of falling into any one of these sins at any one time: and if, through neglect of keeping the heart or through the violence of sudden temptation, he should do so; if he should seem again to put on the old man which he has put off; if he should violate the sacred obligations of truth, or be guilty of an act of dishonesty; if any corrupt communication should proceed out of his mouth; if, after having begun to make acquaintance with the Lamb of God, he should cherish an unforgiving spirit against an offending brother; if he should fall into intemperance, or into the vile sin of impurity — a sin specially opposed to the nature of God — then, while he defiles his conscience, brings death on his spirit, and (if his sin be an open one) a scandal on the cause of Christ, he grieves the Holy Spirit to the heart. Oh how base thus to requite the good Spirit of the Lord? Let him among us who thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.
The Holy Spirit is grieved by the believer’s giving entertainment to whatever unbefits the presence of such a Guest. If we had a guest who was worthy of the highest honour, how anxious would we be to avoid whatever might seem to indicate disrespect or occasion one unpleasant feeling, though if he were greatly our superior we might feel under some restraint in his company. There is no restraint engendered by the presence of the Comforter; where He is, there is liberty: but there is a holy fear that becomes the child’s familiarity. Is it a truth that He, the Spirit of holiness, dwells in His people? — shall we defile His temple? Is He the Spirit of love? — shall we cherish feelings of envy and malice in His sight? Is He the Spirit of gracious liberty, and shall we engage in His service as though it were a slavery or bondage, or as though it were not the beginning of heaven? Do we thus requite the Lord’s Spirit? Has He ever been “a wilderness to us or a land of darkness?”
He is grieved by ingratitude or indifference, by the want of a deep sense of obligation to His love and grace. If there were a poor wretched man who had good done him by one whom he had hated and counted an enemy; if through the pure and self-denying exertions of such a one he had been rescued from poverty, shame, or death; and if his benefactor had reason to know that after all there was not a spark of genuine gratitude in his heart, would not this pain him, and the more acutely just in proportion to the tenderness of his own feelings and the loftiness of his principles? Who can estimate the obligations of the believer to the grace and love of the Holy Spirit, who visited him when he was an enemy, quickened Him when he was dead in trespasses and sins, washed him with the washing of regeneration, showed him the love of God in Christ, and gave him to taste of the Lord’s graciousness? Surely the feeling which, above all others, should be ever ascendant in the Christian’s heart is gratitude — a sense of obligation and of admiring wonder in contemplating the grace of God. And, as already noticed, this is characteristic of the Christian. The love of the Holy Spirit is wondrous to him, as is the love of the Father and of the Son. But oh! if he should lose in a great measure this sense of obligation; and if things should come to this, that he is found compassing holy duties and engaged in holy services while his heart is cold and he is contented that it should be so, is there no grieving of the Holy Spirit here?
Again, the Holy Spirit is grieved by the want of concern on the part of His people to fall in with His great design in dwelling in the heart. That design is to keep them awake, earnest, laborious in watching against sin, and in following holiness. When we make precious privileges a pillow, instead of finding in them a stimulus and encouragement to diligence; when we give place to lethargy, sloth, and unwatchfulness as though it were not said, “Sleep not as do others;” “Do with thy might whatsoever thy hand findeth to do;” “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation;” then we grieve the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is grieved when His blessed motions and suggestions are not cherished. When He comes to stir up the soul to hear the voice of Jesus, “Open to me, my sister, my love, for my head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of the night;” and when, instead of responding, “The voice of my Beloved!” we say, “I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?” or when after a gracious breathing on the soul (perhaps at a communion season) such as was vouchsafed to the two travellers to Emmaus, when the Stranger spake to them till their hearts burned within them, — when after some true enlargement of heart in the work of God, some view and experience of the Glory of the cross, we do not constrain Jesus to abide with us, but are prevailed against by the deceitful, sluggish heart and the cares of the world to let Him withdraw Himself — oh, do we not grieve the Holy Spirit?
Once more, we grieve Him when we do not employ Him to do His own work in us as the Glorifier of Christ. Which of the saints, indeed, fails not in this? But there are two special sins to which God’s people are liable: want of sense of need of, and thirst for, the grace of the Spirit (when should the Christian be without such a sense of need and such thirst?), and want of trust in the Spirit’s power and love. And therefore we ask little, and we expect and receive little from Him who is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”
There are various degrees in this sin, as there are various degrees of declension in the child of God; and there are degrees in the severity with which the Spirit of grace manifests His holy displeasure. (Isa. 63: 10). There is the withdrawal of all consolation — this invariably attends the regarding of iniquity in the heart; there is a withering of the soul’s graces; and there is a total and final withdrawal of the Holy Spirit. True, this will not happen in the case of any of His people; but a surer mark of a graceless state cannot be, than to keep hold of such a hope as this while the soul cleaves to sin, while it is not striving to be delivered from all sin.
Oh, if I should be addressing a young Christian who has come to know the Shepherd’s voice, the preciousness of the promise of a new heart, the preciousness of the courts of God’s house, of His ordinances, and of the way of holiness, let me counsel him — if he would have Bible evidence of being a true Christian, one of the sanctified ones; if he would not join the crowd of mere professors of Christ’s name; if he would follow the footsteps of the flock and do something for the great end of life, the glory of the Redeemer — let me counsel him to seek, as above rubies, a tender conscience, a conscience made and kept tender amidst all the deadening and corrupting influences to which he is exposed, and to be more afraid of losing his first love than of any temporal suffering.
Let us endeavour now to apply the subject.
1. Will not the Christian’s language be, “Who can understand his errors?”
Who can understand his sins against this Divine Person, not only in the days of his ignorance, but since he obtained mercy? Who has “rendered unto Him” according to the grace manifested? Who is he, whose conscience has been ever tender, and whose heart has been ever wakeful and watchful, and filled with an overpowering sense of gratitude? May not some of us recall special seasons when we were guilty of grieving Him, if not by open sin, yet by our coldness, our sloth, our selfishness, our ingratitude, our forgetfulness of the vows made in the time of trouble or at a communion table, our forgetfulness of signal interpositions on our behalf when we said “our foot slippeth” and His mercy held us up, our little sense of the preciousness of Christ, our feeble and inconstant seeking of the salvation of others? Who but He who changes not could have borne with us? What reason to adore the forbearance of the Divine Spirit! And what a call to confess and sorrow over this sin, to supplicate mercy and grace to heal our backslidings and to keep us from the evil!
2. Is there one now addressed who has to look back to a time when it was good for him to draw near to God
when he delighted in prayer, when he saw a preciousness in the Bible which could not be told, when he felt it laid upon him by the Lord to keep his heart, and to live to Christ’s glory, when he felt the value of time and sought daily communication with an unseen Saviour; but the tempter came, and the world came, and the lusts of other things came, and he was less in his closet, he found less and less time for the Word and for self-communing; — and then came a sad change over the inner man; Christ was no longer a present, precious Christ, but a distant object; the prayer, “Lift up on me the light of thy countenance,” gave place to the sad cry, “Who will show us any good?” But the Lord, by His Word and Providence, has so far awakened him that he is now an unhappy, wretched man, saying, “Oh that it were with me as in months past!” Friend, if those days are ever to return, if you are to know that you were not then deceiving yourself, that return must be brought about in connexion with your being exercised as David was exercised, when he said, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions;” “Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.” (Ps. 51: 1, 11). Tremble at the thought of going to the Lord’s table while sin separates between you and God. But “give not rest to your eyes, or slumber to your eyelids,” till that which has made the separation be taken away. The blood of Christ can cleanse it away. The Spirit of Christ can make your heart contrite.
3. The Holy Spirit, who is often grieved by His people, is resisted and vexed by sinners.
He strives with them, for He is a compassionate and a loving Spirit. And they resist Him; for they choose death, and forsake their own mercy, and will not come to Christ for life. He strives with the impenitent, when He brings the solemn command and call to repentance near to them, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?” “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” They resist Him when they continue as indifferent and insensible as though hell were a fable, or as though their “heart could endure, or their hands be strong, in the days when God shall deal with them.” (Ezek. 22: 14). He strives with them when He wakens up conscience to give its response to the Word, so that they tremble in the apprehension of a judgment to come. They resist Him when they say, as many do, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee.” He strives with them more powerfully still when He brings the righteousness and salvation of Christ very near to them, and causes them to realize that their eternity turns on their accepting or rejecting an offered Saviour. They resist Him when, preferring the world and sin to Christ, they continue Christless and unbelieving still.
Fellow-sinner, resist not the good Spirit of the Lord. He strives with thee, because He has no pleasure in thy death, because there is a precious Saviour to whom He would unite thee, with whose grace and love He would make thee acquainted. He strives with thee, because He is willing to enter thy heart, to purify it, to dwell in it as the Comforter. Oh! resist Him not; for He will not always strive. He may cast thee off for ever, and leave thee, as others have been left, to be altogether “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin,” to walk in utter unconcern to the end after the course of this world, or to waken up at the last only to find that it is too late, and that the door is shut. Harden not your heart. Or if you should say that it is too strong for you (would God that you felt this aright, that you felt your need of the omnipotent energy of the Holy Spirit!), then know, that just as free as Christ is, so free is Christ’s Spirit. He is willing to be your Renewer and Sanctifier, to deliver you from the heart of stone. “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.” (Prov. 1: 22, 23). Look up to God, then, through the Mediator, and pray, pray for the Holy Spirit; for it is “according to his will” to give His Spirit.
Or, if you will have the same gospel in another form, Jesus, who came to save the lost, who died for sinners, who is “exalted a Prince and a Saviour,” has the Holy Spirit in all fulness to bestow. Look therefore unto Him, who is as ready in answer to the cry of a perishing sinner to send His Spirit, as He was ready in the days of His flesh to hear every cry of distress, and to manifest Himself as full of compassion.