We've been talking for two days now about the vital subject of the unpardonable sin. We found out that some people have actually gone beyond the door of mercy where they no longer hear God speaking to them. They grieve the Holy Spirit, according to the words of Christ, and they cannot be forgiven because they've resisted the Holy Spirit to such a degree. We found some examples of people who have done that very thing and no doubt there are those living right today who have caused the Spirit of God to walk away from them. They've been left in the dark. They can never be forgiven, simply because they refuse to confess and forsake their sins.
Now today we promised to answer the question: How can we know if we have grieved away the Holy Spirit and committed the unpardonable sin? Well, if you're interested enough to ask the question, my friends, you certainly have not grieved the Spirit of God away. Anyone who feels sin pressing down upon him, who wants to be delivered, who is concerned, has not grieved away the Holy Spirit of God, because if you had grieved away the Holy Spirit you would not care. You would be lost, alright, but you would not particularly care about it. It wouldn't make any difference because only the agency of the Holy Spirit can make you care to be saved. So, perhaps, you're thinking, "Well, that's good. You had me worried. I believe I can go home now and just relax." But that's the very thing I pray God you will never do, friends, not if there's any sin in your life; not if there's some light that you're not following. I hope you will never relax and quit being concerned about it. No, indeed!
Have you ever noticed how if you turn an alarm clock off in the morning and you repeatedly don't get up that after awhile when you need that alarm clock to get you awake for a very important engagement, you've found that the clock has run down and you never heard it ring. That's the way it is with the Holy Spirit of God. When the Spirit comes to you, if you will listen always and do what the Holy Spirit leads you to do, you will always hear it ringing clearly. But if you resist it, it isn't long until you don't hear it anymore. The Lord said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." Genesis 6:3. Why not? Because men's sins were so evil that God could not forgive them? Absolutely not. Because they became deaf to the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, friends, let me ask you a question. What good does it do to take an alarm clock and set it for a certain hour and put it in a dead person's room? It doesn't do a particle of good, does it? That's the way it is with the Holy Spirit. When He comes and says something to you and you ignore him and he says something else and you ignore that and you do it over and over again, the day finally comes when He says something to you and you do not hear it. Then the Lord says to the Holy Spirit, "Well, come along, there's no use staying there any longer; that person is deaf to the call." When that may happen, no one can be sure. The poet has put it like this. "There is a line by us unseen, that crosses every path. It is the boundary between God's patience, and His wrath." There is a line, too, friends, and we need to be very, very sure and certain that we keep our relationship with the Lord Jesus so warm and glowing that we do not slip away and go farther and farther until we cross that fatal line.
I want to read you another text here from Hebrews 10. This is a scripture that has perplexed a great many people, and this is what it says. "For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." Verses 26 and 27. A lot of people have read that and said, "My, that text frightens me! Does that mean that if I know a thing is wrong and I do it once anyway that I'm lost?" No, it's not talking about that at all, friends. It's talking about presumptuous sin. It is a continuation in sin when you know better. Let me illustrate it by referring to the tithe for example. We've used this illustration before on our broadcast. Suppose an individual were convinced that he ought to tithe, but he never has done it before. The tenth, of course, belongs to God and this man is convinced of it so he says, "Alright, when I get my check next week, I'll tithe." Then when he gets his check and he begins to figure up his bills, he says, "Oh, I blew out a tire this week. I don't believe I can begin this week. I'll begin next week." And so when the next week comes, he takes his check and begins to figure again and then he thinks, "Well, my little boy had to go to the doctor yesterday. I don't believe I can make it this week." And then the third week there's another excuse and the fourth, another, and the fifth and the sixth and on and on. There will finally come a day when the Holy Spirit will say as he opens that envelope with a check in it, "What about the tithe?" and he won't even hear Him. When that day comes, that man is in trouble, friends. He has become deaf to the Holy Spirit's call. Resisting the Holy Spirit is dangerous because it leads to rejecting the Holy Spirit and when you've rejected the Holy Spirit, you're lost. There's no hope for you at all.
Once upon a time there was an accident. A man had somehow run into a concrete abutment and the top of his head was just sheared off and you could see that man's brains actually; he had been instantly killed in that moment of impact. It was horrifying, friends. And any time you see an accident where limbs are torn off or a person is almost killed, you'll be deeply impressed and feel that nothing worse could ever happen to an individual than that. But you know, friends, there is something far worse than that which can happen to an individual. It is far worse for the Holy Spirit of God to walk away from a man because he is deaf spiritually than it is to see a person actually torn apart right before your eyes. Because after this happens, there is no more hope.
I want you to notice with me another text now, 1 Thessalonians 5:19. "Quench not the Spirit." Just four words. "Quench not the Spirit." That's interesting, isn't it? The Holy Spirit is a fire that burns in the heart and the conscience, and the apostle is saying here, "Be careful that you don't put it out." Sin is the water that puts it out and when the fire goes out, you're lost. It doesn't take an awful lot of water , just a little stream, constantly upon it, will soon extinguish it. Maybe it's a cigarette, the use of tobacco; it can put out the fire of the Holy Spirit just as sure as the fact remains that you're listening to this broadcast. Maybe it's Sabbath breaking, breaking the holy day of God, a part of the Ten Commandment Law; that can put out the fire of the Holy Spirit completely. Maybe it's taking the holy money of the tithe that belongs to God. Beware, you can put out the fire by breaking any of the commandments of God. It could be something altogether different, perhaps criticism, harsh judgment, faultfinding, temper tantrums. You know some people excuse their temper and say, "Well, Grandfather had one and Father did, and so I have one." But anger and temper can put out the fire of the Holy Spirit, friends. We must work with God to overcome it or it will put out the fire. There are many other things. I could make the list extend completely over to the wall. Any of those things in our lives that we cherish and refuse to turn loose can and will put out the fire of the Holy Spirit unless we let them go. And when the fire is out, that's it; that's all. And we can blame no one but ourselves.
In Acts, chapter 7, there's a sermon by a great man of God, a martyr by the name of Stephen. He was the first Christian martyr. There he was before the Council and he knew that they were going to kill him. This had come to him already by revelation and so he turned and preached a powerful sermon. I would have given anything, friends, to have heard that sermon. It must have been a stirring, gripping thing , it's gripping enough as you read it from the Bible but from the lips of a dying man, it must have been very forceful. In this sermon he told them how they were sinning against the Holy Spirit. This is the way he put it. "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do ye. Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it." He said, "You knew what you ought to do and you didn't do it." And that's the way they had sinned against the Holy Ghost. They kept on refusing to keep the commandments of God, the Law of God.
Now let's bring it right down to a point here, friends. Let's consider Sabbath keeping, for example. There's no Scripture in all the Book of God that points out that there's any other day holy than the seventh day Sabbath. It just isn't there. Thousands of dollars have been offered for such a Scripture but it cannot be found. One day is holy, the seventh day of the week, the Bible says, is the the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. And yet so often people in the study of the Scripture and in their seeking after Christ, come along very well until they get up to Sabbath keeping, and then they begin to stumble and say, "Well, I, I, I don't know." You see, friends, they begin to realize this is going to cost something. Why, it might mean the loss of friends; it might even mean the loss of a job, the loss of future security, the loss of many things. Yes, it's a big step, friends, and people will come up to it and say, "I just can't do it."
You know we ought to study more in the book of John. It's one of the greatest books, if not the greatest in the Bible. Study John, chapter 6 and chapter 9 and chapter 12, those three chapters point out what it meant for a person in Christ's day to follow Him. Oh, we're so great today in saying, "Oh, if I just lived back then in the days of Jesus, I would have followed Him. I can't understand why they were so blind and rebellious and fearful." But I wonder, friends, if we would have. Let me tell you something. If you will not follow Christ now, neither would you have followed Him back when He was here upon the earth.
Do you know what it meant for a person to follow Him then? Why, friends, way back there, if you followed Christ, it meant you lost your friends; you were ostracized from your family; boycotted in your business; and you were simply put out of the church. Read it for yourself in John 9:22. And when people realized what it really meant, they began to back out. Oh, it was wonderful to follow Him when He was casting out devils and healing and working miracles and preaching and things like He did in the Sermon on the Mount, but when He began to go further and the people had to stand up and be counted, they had to take a decided stand and they saw it would really cost them something, they began to back up.
Oh, friends, people are still looking for a cheap religion today but there is no such thing as a cheap Christianity. Jesus said, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me." John 6:66 says, "From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him." The same thing is true today. Many people will follow along to a certain point and when they begin to realize that it does cost something to follow Christ fully they begin to turn aside; they begin to look around for excuses; they begin to try to justify themselves in disobedience. Oh, this is the reason the great Ten Commandments of God are being broken in such a universal manner in these days. That's why young people are reluctant to keep those Commandments because it requires them to give up some of their selfish desires and some of their own ways. It's only because people want to have their own way that they refuse to follow Christ and be saved.