Let's turn to Ephesians chapter
4 and verse 30. Ephesians 4 and verse 30. Here is a text I would like to
be the motto of my life every day and every hour of every day,
a text that ought to be engraved on our hearts, and I pray that
God the Holy Spirit will do that engraving this hour and continue
to do so until we draw our last breath. Ephesians chapter four
and verse 30. And grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, whereby ye are sealed under the day of redemption. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. That's the message of the text.
That's God's message to us. That's my message to you this
hour. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul in this fourth
chapter of Ephesians He's admonishing us to walk worthy of the vocation
wherewith we've been called. He's admonishing us as believers
in Christ Jesus. to keep the unity of the spirit
in the bond of peace. And now he comes to enforce his
doctrine and his exhortation with arguments drawn not from
law, but from grace. Arguments by which he would urge
us to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. Arguments
by which he would urge us and and compel us to Keep the bond
of the spirit or they'll keep the unity of the spirit in the
bond of peace and this is his argument You should be careful
to live in such a way that your lives promote the unity of the
brethren Because everything that hinders the unity of the spirit
And the bond of peace among God's children is grieving to the Holy
Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed unto the day of redemption. The fact that the Holy Spirit
can be grieved is an obvious declaration of his personality. Many have the idea that God,
the Holy Spirit, is just an influence or an emanation of God. There
are folks who deny the Trinity as it's set forth in scriptures,
and they say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are just various
emanations of God. You can't grieve an emanation.
You can't grieve an influence. The Holy Spirit of God may be
grieved by us, and that tells us of His distinct personality
in the Sacred Trinity. Our text also reveals the close
connection between the Spirit of God and the believing sinner. If he is grieved by our shortcomings,
by our failures, by our sin, by our neglect, if God the Holy
Spirit is grieved by us, he must have a very tender interest in
us. You may become angered by something
someone does that you have no relationship with. But someone
who's dear to you, who does the very same thing, doesn't raise
your anger, but rather breaks your heart. You're grieved by
his action, grieved by your action. Oh, how inexpressibly delightful
this thought is to my soul. He who rules the universe, God
the creator and sustainer of all things, God, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost has such an intimate, tender, affectionate relation
to me and I to him. that he can be grieved by me. Grieved by me. You know the difference. A mother has a boy who's obviously
wild and rebellious and runs the path of the prodigal and
she is not so much angered by his disobedience and rebellion
as she is grieved Grieved not by the pain he causes her, but
grieved by the pain she knows his rebellion and his disobedience
will bring upon him. Grief is a special word. It implies a tenderness of heart,
a tender affection. God the Holy Spirit can be grieved
by us. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God. Now understand the language of
scripture. Understand the doctrine of scripture.
The Spirit of God can be grieved only by sinners who are loved
of God. Someone who means nothing to
me can't grieve me. They may make me mad, they may
enrage me, they can't grieve me. Only those who are dear to
me can grieve me. Only those who are dear to the
Lord God can grieve him. That fact ought to make us very
anxious not to grieve him. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God. And let me try to raise and answer
some questions You just keep your Bibles open right here at
Ephesians 430, and I'm gonna stay right with the text. First,
who is this blessed person we're urged not to grieve? It is God,
the Holy Spirit, the third person of the blessed Trinity, the Spirit
of God. That third person of the triune
Godhead may be grieved by us. Obviously, Paul is using words
relating to man, human terms, because he who is God doesn't
have passions like we do, but he condescends to use human expressions
to make us understand something of the intimate care of God for
his people. He who can be grieved by us is
the Spirit of God, our divine instructor, our eliminator, our
comforter. He who takes the things of Christ
and shows them to us. He dwells in us. He guides us
by his power and by his presence, and yet he may be grieved by
us. He is light to our souls, dew
to our graces, light to our minds, and comfort to our hearts, and
yet he can be grieved by us. This one who is the heavenly
dove of peace may be disturbed by you and me. He who is the
wind of heaven, we often resist. Our Lord Jesus Christ has sent
this blessed paraclete, but he is often treated with despite.
And so the admonition comes, grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God. I won't pause to try to demonstrate
or prove his Eternal Godhead, the fact that he's one person
in the Sacred Trinity. There are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these
three are one. And you can't prove that to folks
who are willfully ignorant and refuse to believe God. How do
you know it's so? Because it's written right here
in this book. It's written right here in this book. And we bow
to the book of God. You and I know that the Spirit
of God is much more than a mere power or influence. He is himself
God in every way equal to the Father and the Son. And the Holy
Spirit of God gives us this word of admonition. Grieve not the
Holy Spirit of God. We must never lose the comforting
assurance that God the Spirit has the same interest in us as
the Father and the Son. This is a marvel of God's free
grace. And many are unmoved by the fact,
but as for me, I can't cease to adore him. He is moved by
that which causes anger in others. He's moved by that which causes
others to be ill-tempered. He's moved with tenderness and
compassion. As a parent to an erring child,
so He is grieved by us. This loving grief of the Spirit
may be traced to His holy character because He's the Holy God, and
the Holy One can't be pleased with anything except holiness.
The pure one can't be anything but greed with anything that's
not pure. This grief of the spirit is more than just an indication
of his purity, his holiness, his righteousness in character.
It's an indication of his love for us. He grieves over our sins
because he knows the pain we will bring upon ourselves and
the great loss we will suffer because of our sins, our transgressions. He knows the backslider's way
and the sorrow it will cause. Listen to this word from God.
I would urge you to read carefully the second chapter of Jeremiah's
prophecy and hear this word. Thine own wickedness shall correct
thee. and thy backslidings shall reprove
thee. He knows the pain we bring to
ourselves by disobedience, by ungodliness. He knows the things
we will suffer. And by that, he is greed. Because of that, he is greed
by our behavior. My dear friend, Brother Harry
Graham, I've heard him say many, many times, Sometimes the way
God deals with his children is he'll let you have what you think
you want. And then he'll say, live with
it a while. You just stuck with it a while.
We see it in the lives of God's people in the Old Testament and
in the New repeatedly. All right, this is what you want,
let's see what you get. The Spirit of God is grieved
by things we do, by attitudes we have because he knows the
pain we bring upon ourselves. The Holy Spirit is grieved by
our sins for Christ's sake. He knows the value of the Savior's
blood, the cost of redemption. We hardly have a clue. He grieves
when he sees that sin in us. which is traitorous to our Savior's
love. He grieves when we forget our
solemn obligations to our Redeemer. He grieves over us when we undervalue. dishonor our blessed Savior by
sin, indifference, unbelief, coldness, deadness of heart when
we fail to cherish and glorify our Savior whom He was sent to
glorify. It seems evident to me that in
this fourth chapter of Ephesians, particularly Paul is telling
us the Holy Spirit of God is grieved for the church's sake
when we do evil. He knows how useful we might
be if we just lived up to our privileges. How he's grieved by lazy, indolent,
indifferent preachers. The divine comforter is grieved
when God's servants fail to comfort his people by the word, instructing
them in the word of the gospel as they're commanded to do. We're
sent as watchmen. Watchman. It's my responsibility
as God's servant to be a watchman over your souls. That is not
to watch you to criticize, not to watch you to judge, but to
watch over you. To watch over you. To watch over
you, feeding you with knowledge and understanding. ever taking
the veil from you, taking away that veil by which you would
cover yourself from yourself and expose to you what you are,
that you may be forced by his grace to look away from self
to Christ. We're sent as God's messengers
to perishing souls. But how little do those men sent
as messengers commit themselves to seeking a message from God
for the hour when they stand to preach. Shelby and I were discussing
this one day this past week. It's my responsibility. I've
been doing this a while now. It is my responsibility. to come
to this pulpit prepared with a message from God for you. That's my responsibility. That's the responsibility of
every man sent to preach the gospel. I try my best to encourage the
men that I influence, particularly younger men, God calls them to
preach the gospel. If you're gonna do this, you
give your whole self to it. And if you're not gonna give
your whole self to it, don't pretend to do it. It is the responsibility
of God's servants to give themselves in the totality of their lives
to the preaching of the gospel. That means I don't come here
and just give you something I preached three or four years ago. How
callous, how indifferent, how cold hearted, how negligent that
would be. It's my responsibility, Bill
Raleigh, to seek from God a message for your soul every time I stand
here to preach to you, every time, every time. I ask you to
pray that God will give me grace to seek the message and that
God will give me grace to deliver the message for your souls. We're
sent to sow the good seed of the gospel. But far too often
preachers spend their time, waste the time of hearers, waste the
time of folks who come to hear them. Battering about nothing. Just battering about this thing
or that doesn't mean anything. The Spirit of God came to this
earth to testify of Christ. He came here to show us the things
of Christ. He is the ascension gift of our
Redeemer to his church. And he's grieved. when the churches
do not hear the testimony of the gospel by which Christ is
revealed. God, the Holy Spirit, is grieved
with preachers who ought to labor in the word and in the doctrine
of Christ, and instead waste their time on trivials and nothing. So good to have Amy with us. Your husband does exactly what
I and his pastor have told him to do. Don't ever, ever get upset
because he doesn't have enough time for you. That's what he's
supposed to do. That's what he's supposed to
do. That's just the way it is. That's just the way it is. Well,
if I can't do that, then don't pretend to be a preacher. Don't
pretend to be one of God's servants. Why should we be so careful not
to grieve the Spirit of God? Paul gives the answer very plainly.
By Him ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Now those
words imply a great deal. Let me give you some of it. They
certainly imply the Holy Spirit's great love for us. As I said
in the beginning, the idea of being grieved by me, clearly
indicates tender care for me. If he is grieved by what I do,
he's grieved by what I do because of his love for me. If he is
grieved by what you do, he's grieved because of his love for
you. The Holy Spirit's love for us.
was as early as the love of the Father and the Son. We were chosen
by God in eternal love in Christ Jesus through sanctification
of the Spirit. That is to say, even in the covenant
of grace, God, the Holy Spirit, stood for us as did the Father
and the Son for our everlasting salvation. The Father chose us,
the Son volunteered to redeem us, the Spirit of God says, I
will go, I will seal them, I'll preserve them, I'll call them,
I'll keep them, I'll present them before you in everlasting
glory. And that by the work of God,
our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. All that may be said of the love
of the Father and the love of the Son for us may be said of
the love of the Spirit. Not only that, not only that,
we were placed in Christ by the election of God the Holy Spirit
and united to Christ by the new birth, by the work and power
of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is that one who
kept us even before we were converted in the days of our youth. How
frequently he rebuked our consciences and kept them tender rather than
searing them. It was the Spirit of God who
graciously brought us under the influence of the gospel. How
he arranged things to do it. how he arranged things to do
it. I can't tell you how often I have seen this happen. God
used this fellow or this lady to bring somebody to hear the
gospel and they're all religious and excited and the fellow, the
woman they brought, God saves them and then the one who brought
them got no interest at all. Isn't that amazing? The Lord God graciously by His
Spirit arranges for His people to come under the influence of
the Gospel. Children of God, how wondrous are the mysteries
of His love. We ought to marvel at His prevenient
grace, that grace He exercised for us and toward us before ever
we knew Him. We're told in Jude 1 that we
were sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ
and called. Even before we knew our Redeemer
or had an interest in knowing him, he graciously kept us. How often some of us, he kept
from a course of rebellion and vice by which we would have destroyed
ourselves, but he wouldn't allow it. Many of us are here rather
than in prison or some other place worse than prison between
here and hell. We're here only because he powerfully
hedged up our way and said, I will not let you go. We blaspheme the name of God.
Despised the righteousness of Christ. Stubbornly resisted the
sweet wooings of the spirit. But his love was never repelled. No, not for a second. Many waters
cannot quench love. Neither can the floods drown
it. The older I get, the more I think
I'm able to see the workings of God, the more astounded I
am, the more delightful I am, the more thankful I am in seeing
how that God the Spirit graciously overrules even our obstinate
rebellion for our soul's everlasting good. Oh, wonder of wonders, Oh, grace
of grace, God the Holy Spirit out of his pure love for us and
nothing else has brought us safely and effectually to the time of
our calling and called us by his grace and forced us into
the arms of our Redeemer. Others object to that. Others get upset hearing that.
not God's saints. Grace, tis a charming sound harmonious
to my ears. Heaven with the echo shall resound
and all the earth shall hear. Grace led my roving feet to tread
the heavenly road and new supplies each hour I meet while pressing
on to God. It is God the Spirit who comes.
and sheds abroad the Savior's love in our hearts, causing us
to know that we're God's. It is God the Spirit who comes
as a spirit of adoption, giving us faith in Christ. And our blessed
Spirit comforts our hearts. by taking the things of Christ
and showing them to us. He takes the things of Christ,
just pulls them out of this book and shows them to us so that
we see the glory of God in the face of His Son in all His work,
in all His operations of grace, in all His work of providence. And the Spirit of God, on top
of all that, dwells in us. He is our constant companion,
always with us and always in us relentlessly. And Paul says,
don't grieve Him, the Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed
unto the day of redemption. In the first chapter of Ephesians,
verse 14, We're told that we were sealed with that Holy Spirit
of calling. The Holy Spirit of God sealed
by Him, that is all the blessings and promises of God in the covenant
were sealed to us. The sealing implies that we are
gods. The seal is God's stamp, this
is mine. The seal is a seal of assurance,
telling us that we are gods. And the seal is a seal of preservation
and safety, keeping us as gods. just as circumcision in the Old
Testament said to Abraham's sons, you're God's covenant people.
And everything I promised Abraham, that's yours. Everything I gave
to Abraham, that's yours. Everything I did for Abraham,
that's yours. You're my covenant people. But
that was only a picture. We are the circumcision. And
this sealing of the spirit is that circumcision made without
hands. When he sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God, giving
us faith in Christ, he says to you who believe, you're God's. and seals to us all the promises
and blessings of God's grace, and preserves and keeps us. He preserves and keeps us. For
many years, as you know, Shelby and I raised a garden back here.
I did, everybody called it Shelby's Garden. Once in a while, I'd
do a little something. But we put up a lot of beans. And we'd come putting up beans,
I'd help her break them up. Picking them she did, but I'd
help her break them up and then we'd can them. And I had a job
when we'd can them. My job was to salt and seal.
And I'd take a teaspoon or whatever that little spoon is of salt,
whatever she gave me, and I'd dump it in each quart. And then
I'd put the lid on there and tighten that thing down and set
it in the canner. and Little Wile would take it
off and listen for them to peen, and the beans were sealed. Now,
you know what she would do? She'd take those beans when she'd
start to serve them. I seen her do it a lot of times.
Before she'd ever let me taste one of them, she'd pop the lid
off and taste it, be sure it's all right. And there always were,
but she'd always check it, be sure it's all right. They were
all right because they had been sealed, preserved, kept. That's what the Spirit of God
does for us. He seals, preserves, and keeps us in spite of ourselves
unto the day of redemption. What's that refer to? John Gill
suggested, I think he's right, it refers to the day of death. For the believer, oh, what a
deliverance that hour will be. And it refers to the day of resurrection
when Christ comes again in his glory. Oh, when these bodies
are delivered from corruption and from mortality and from the
grave. And it even refers to the day
of judgment, which our Lord Jesus speaks of as the day of redemption. Oh, your redemption is nearer
than when you believe. Your redemption draws nigh in
that day of judgment. we shall at last be delivered
from all the consequences of sin into the glorious liberty
of the sons of God when he makes all things new. Now you have
got to be asking, how is the Holy Spirit grieved? How is he grieved? And I spent a lot of time studying
that. How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? And I can give you a
long list of ways by which we grieve the Holy Spirit. But I
tell you what I know about every one of you who know God. You
know, without me saying a word, when you do or think that which
grieves the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is grieved
when we put Him in the place of Christ. He came to glorify
Christ. He came to glorify Christ. Now,
I stress that in this day because most of the religious world today
of conservative folks are just wrapped up in the doctrine of
the Holy Ghost. They talk about miracles and
tongues and signs and wonders and they just get all excited
about that. There's no miracle like the wonder
of God's grace. And those signs and wonders and
miracles given to the apostles ceased with the apostles. I'm
not the least bit interested in listening to anybody talk
about any of that nonsense. The Spirit's purpose is not to
point us to the Spirit, but to point us to the Redeemer. Not
to teach us to trust in the work of the Spirit, but in the work
of the Redeemer. To look out of yourself to the
Savior to trust the Lord Jesus Christ. And we grieve the Spirit
of God by the corruption and lust and
evil that's in us and pops out of us all the time. Particularly
in this chapter, the corrupt communication. And the corrupt
communication you're talking about, Merle, is not talking
about cussing. And I appreciate fellas not cussing. I just, I
don't wanna hear it, but that's not what we're talking about.
That's not what we're talking about. The corrupt communication here
is talking bad about each other and talking bad to each other.
That's the corrupt communication by which he's grieved. He's grieved
by us, by our coldness. and indifference to our Savior. The Song of Solomon will never
be understood until you understand this. And I urge you to sit down every
now and then and read those eight chapters at one sitting. Read
them and hear God speak to you. It is a song of love. from Solomon
to the Shulamites. A song of loves from Christ to
his church. And the song is all about this. His constant faithfulness and
our constant wavering. His constant faithfulness and
our constant unfaithfulness. His constant goodness and our
constant sin. You have a picture. in chapter
five, him knocking. Don't, go away. Don't bother
me now. He says, all right. Now, I'll
go away. You're gonna wish I hadn't, but
I'll go away. I'll leave you for a little while, and you'll
know that I've left you, and you won't want me so much. You'd die to have me. And constantly,
constantly, constantly, while we live in this world, We live with this thing called
sin, by which we constantly grieve God the Holy Spirit. And He graciously
seals us still. He graciously preserves us still. And He graciously, sweetly forces
us again into the arms of our Redeemer. The Holy Spirit is greed whenever
we forget the Lord Jesus. By the indulgence of any sin,
when we lose sight of the sufferings our Savior endured, he's greed. Communion with God is interrupted
and the agonies, the blood and sweat of the Lord Jesus are forgotten
when we indulge ourselves in our lust. Vowing gratitude keeps us from
prayer. Keeps us from the worship of
God. Keeps us from the word of God. And the Holy Spirit's grieved
by our unbelief. Oh, my soul, why can't I learn
to believe God? Why can't I learn to believe
God? He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt
be saved. It's just that simple. It's just
that simple. I believe him. But Brother Don,
I feel. I didn't, I did, I haven't. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And I'm gonna tell you a little
secret. I'm gonna tell you a little secret about your pastor. Most of the time, I don't much
feel saved. Most of the time. Most of the time, I don't much feel righteous. Most of the time, I don't sense
nearness to God. Most of the time, most of the
time. You will find our Lord Jesus
riding his stallion in the valley among the myrtle trees. That's where you always find
him, because that's where you always find his people. You always
do. Shelby and I lived for nine years
in the mountains of West Virginia. And that's a very mountainous
state. I doubt you could find a mile of flat land in the whole
state. There's mountains all over. But they're not really
mountains. They're not very mountainous.
I thought they were, but they're not very mountains. Down in North
Carolina, we've got Mount Mitchell, highest mountain east of the
Mississippi, but it ain't much. It ain't much. It's just a little
hill. It's just a little hill. How
do you know? Because I've been on top of them. I've been the
highest points of them, and there's still lots of stuff growing.
There's still lots of stuff growing. Now, if you want to see some
mountains, you go out west, and you get up just so high, and
there's nothing there. At least nothing you won't take
home. There's nothing there. Things just don't grow up there.
There's just nothing there. Nothing much grows on top of
the mountain. The air's thin and nothing much is accomplished
up there. And all this notion with regard to mountaintop religion
and all the fits and nonsense people promote, God has seen fit to keep His
children in the valley where things grow. And yet He urges us, grieve not
the Holy Spirit of God, constantly pointing us to our responsibility
and our sin. Oh, let us not grieve Him, the
Spirit of God, You know I can't help it. I can't help it. I can't help it. Hold me by your grace. Only as you keep me from grieving
you shall I not grieve you. O Spirit of God, keep us ever
in Gethsemane with our Redeemer, ever at Calvary's hill, beholding
Him who died in our stead, ever at the throne of grace, seeking
mercy and grace from you, that we grieve not the Spirit of God. who has sealed us. Oh, thank
you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the seal of God
that can't be broken. Amen.