GRIEVE NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT

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TEXT: EPHESIANS: 1 – 32

What is “To Grieve”?

“And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
(Ephesians 4:30)

It is very touching to note that Paul said, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” and not “Do not make the Holy Spirit angry” The term “Grieve Him not” is more delicate and tender.

There are some men of so hard a character, that to make another angry does not give them much pain; and indeed, there are many of us who are scarcely moved by the information that someone is angry with us

The question is, why is the heart so hard, that it is not moved when we know that we have caused others grief?

Grief is a sweet combination of anger and of love. It is anger, but all the gall is taken from it. Love sweetens the anger, and turns the edge of it, not against the person, but against the offense.

When you offend a friend who is not patient there is a sudden snap and he bursts out in anger. If you offend a loving father in the same manner he is grieved.

There is anger in his bosom, but he is angry and he sins not, for he is angry against the sin; and yet there is love to neutralize and modify the anger

The loving father looks upon the sin itself as being the problem. He grieves for the fact that you are already injured by the offence.

Grief is a heavenly compound, more precious than all the ointment of the merchants.
There may be the bitterness of myrrh, but there is all the sweetness of frankincense in this sweet term “to grieve.”

Anger in its pure state generates HOSTILITY but grief generates PITY, and pity is neighbor

The tem Grieve not the Spirit can be better understood in these different statements:
Do not excite His loving anger,
Do not vex Him
Do not cause Him to mourn

For us to appreciate why we should not grieve the Spirit we will examine
The love of the Holy Spirit
The Seal of the Holy Spirit
Grieving THE Holy Spirit

THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT

When you are persuaded that someone loves you, every effort will be made not to displease him or her

He loved us without beginning. In the eternal covenant of grace, he was one of the high contracting parties in the divine contract, whereby we are saved. His love is:
Eternal
Infinite
Sovereign,
Everlasting
Cannot be dissolved,
Cannot be decreased,
Cannot be removed from those who are the objects of it

It is His love that whispers inside us as we grow to avoid mischief despite our stubbornness and finally led us to our Master, Lord and Saviour

His love is manifested in His various attributes clearly seen first in His names and subsequently His actions towards us:
Elohim Creator
Adonai Sovereign
Jireh Provider
Nissi Banner
Ropheka Healer
Shalom Peace
Tsidkenu Righteousness
Mekadishkem Sanctifier
Sabaoth Lord of Host
Shammah The Lord is here
Elyon Most high
Rohi Our Shepherd

IT IS BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WE ARE SEALED.

The Spirit himself is expressed as the seal, even as he himself is directly said to be the pledge of our inheritance.

The sealing can be perceived as having a three-fold meaning.
Sealing of attestation or confirmation

That I am truly a child of God “The Spirit itself also beareth witness with my spirit that I am born of God”.

After that we have believed on the Son of God, the Father seals us as his children, by the gift of the Holy Ghost. “Now he which hath anointed us is God, who also hath sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”

Sealing of appropriation

When men put their mark upon an article, it is to show that it is their own.

The farmer brands his tools that they may not be stolen. They are his. The shepherd marks his sheep that they may be recognized as belonging to his flock. The king himself puts his broad arrow upon everything that is his property.

So the Holy Spirit puts the broad arm of God upon the hearts of all his people. He seals us. “Thou shalt be mine,” saith the Lord, “in the day when I make up my jewels.” And then the Spirit puts God’s seal upon us to signify that we are God’s reserved inheritance—his peculiar people, the portion in which his soul delighteth.
Sealing of preservation

Men seal up that which they wish to have preserved, and when a document is sealed it becomes valid henceforth. Now, it is by the Spirit of God that the Christian is sealed, that he is kept, he is preserved, sealed unto the day of redemption

THE GRIEVING OF THE SPIRIT,

The Spirit of God is in your bears, and it is very, very easy indeed to grieve him, Sin is as easy as it is wicked.

You may grieve him by
Impure thoughts
Indulgence in lascivious expressions
Covetousness
Tempting others to go into iniquity by our evil example
Neglecting prayer, if our closet door is cob-webbed
Forgetting to read the Scriptures,
Your unbelief

Indicators when the Spirit is grieved

The Spirit bears long before deciding on an appropriate action
Suspends His operations
Leaves completely
Leaves your life behind but takes away His actual presence

When the Spirit of God goes away from the soul and suspends all his operations what a miserable state we are in.
He suspends his instructions

When we read the word, we cannot understand it; we go to our commentaries, they cannot tell us the meaning; we fall on our knees and ask to be taught, but we get no answer, we learn nothing.
He suspends his comfort

We used to dance, like David before the ark, and now we sit like Job in the ash-pit, and scrape our ulcers with a potsherd. There was a time when his candle shone round about us, but now he is gone; he has left us in the blackness of darkness.
He takes from us all spiritual power

Once we could do all things; now we can do nothing. We could slay the Philistines, and lay them heaps upon heaps, but now Delilah can deceive us, and our eyes are put out and we are made to grind in the mill. We go preaching, and there is no pleasure in preaching, and no good follows it. We go to our tract distributing, and our Sunday-school, we might almost as well be at home.

There is the machinery there, but there is no love. There is the intention to do good, or perhaps not even that, but alas! there is no power to accomplish the intention.

MEN WHO GRIEVED GOD
Ananiah and Sapphira (Acts 5: 1-10)

Their wrong actions
The man and his wife pretended to the brethren (Sought for recognition by fraud)
Giving should be willingly – 2Corinthians 9:7
Giving is not for show off – Luke 18: 10-14

Dr. Udoh
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