Grieving the Holy Spirit — David Wilkerson

...in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, Post Office Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771, or by calling 903 -963 -8626. None of these messages are copyrighted, and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends.

Grieving the Holy Spirit: The Sermon's Central Warning

...the Holy Spirit, grieving the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, we want to know you. We want to touch you. We want to be intimate with you. We don't ever want to grieve you. And I pray, Lord, that you speak truth to our hearts.

Holy Spirit, I ask you to come upon me, sanctify me. Let the words of my mouth bring life and conviction. Conviction first, repentance, and then joy. I pray, Lord, we understand more about the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and our attitude in how to respond to you, Holy Spirit.

We've sung about you this morning. We're going to preach about you. And I need you, Holy Spirit, so that I would not make you what you are not to be, and I would not take away from the seriousness of it, but we would present it the gospel way with truth and life.

In Jesus' name, amen. Grieving the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, you know, is omnipresent, which means he's everywhere at one time. That means he's just as present in New York City as he is right now in Hong Kong.

He's just as real in London, Moscow, all over the world. The Holy Spirit is just the same. Have you ever stopped to think of how amazing it is that the Holy Spirit could abide in every one of us at the same time, knowing all of our thoughts, knowing the mind of God, and knowing the mind of the devil at the same time?

He knows God's plans. He knows the devil's plans. And I'll tell you what, when Jesus said, I'm going to my Father, but I'm going to send you the Holy Ghost, he didn't say he's just going to send his influence.

If the Lord, if the Holy Spirit was just to influence us, you know, just move on our emotions and convict us, he could have done that from heaven. No, the very person of God, the very person of the Holy Spirit has come to abide and live in this body, which is called his temple.

The Holy Spirit Dwells in Believers

This body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. It's amazing, and it's a wonderful thing. The spirit of him that raised Jesus from the dead, the very same spirit that went into that grave, moved on his body, pulled him out of the very clutches of death, brought him to life, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the self, same spirit, who abides in me right now.

He abides in you, all of us here right now. It's amazing the Holy Ghost abides in us. You know, I used to, in fact, there's a message I can't preach anymore. I preached it when I was younger. I'd hear people talk about the Holy Ghost, and I'd say, well, don't take away from Jesus.

I had forgotten, or the revelation hadn't come to me that the Holy Ghost is the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of Jesus Christ. He is the spirit of Christ. He is the spirit of God, and he is the spirit of Jesus, so that when he comes in you and you are worshiping the Holy Spirit, you're still worshiping the spirit of Jesus.

He's there. It's amazing. Don't ever try to categorize God over here and over here and over into three parts. There's one essence, and the Holy Spirit is the very essence of Jesus Christ and God the Father.

But there is a very clear warning. He promised to give us the spirit of God, but there's a prohibition that went with it. Do not grieve him, Ephesians 4 .30, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption.

I want to talk about grieving the Holy Spirit, how we grieve the Holy Spirit. It's almost as if God is saying, and I want you to listen closely now, God is saying, consider who the Holy Spirit is in you, how important it is for you to have him abide in you, that he's independent, that he can leave at his pleasure, and how important it is not to grieve him and not to have him depart from you, which is possible.

I want to talk to you about that this morning. First of all, we grieve the Holy Spirit when we shut off his still, small voice. Now, the Holy Spirit didn't come to abide in you as some passive spirit, idol, just there to kind of cheer you up once in a while when you get down or depressed.

He didn't come to be quiet. He has a voice and he speaks. Look through the New Testament. It says, and they prayed and they fasted and the Holy Spirit said and the Holy Spirit said and the Holy Spirit said.

He talks, he speaks, he's come to lead and to guide, he's come to comfort so he has a voice and he will make his voice known if you want to have that voice known to you. The Scripture makes it very clear.

Walking in the Spirit and Hearing His Voice

Walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. When it says walk in the Spirit, it simply means listen to the Holy Spirit. If you're going to have him in you, listen to him. Acknowledge him.

Seek after his voice. Keep your ear open. Expect him to speak. If you will allow him to direct you and guide you, he will lead you around temptation, through temptation. He will deliver you even when you're in the snare of Satan.

He will deliver you. You will not fulfill the lust of the flesh if you will listen to that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. Does the Holy Ghost speak to us about our behavior and how we walk and how we live?

What does the Scripture say? When he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. He shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.

Whatsoever he hears, whatever he sees, he will show it unto you. Now what does he hear? I told you he hears the counsel of God. He also hears the counsels of Satan and all the imps of hell. He knows every move the devil's going to make.

He knows the plans and the schemes the devil plans against every one of God's children. He's not ignorant of it. And the Bible says he will show you. He will expose to you every trick of the enemy. If you will allow him, if you will walk in his counsel, he will expose to your spirit everything the devil has in the way of plans to destroy and ruin you and try to block the Spirit of God moving in you.

The Holy Spirit Warns Us About Sin's Consequences

Let me give you an example. If you are on alcohol, you're on drugs, the Bible said what he sees he will hear, what he hears he will show you, and he will show you things to come. Now that's not just prophecy.

He's not going to show you about prophetic events as much as he's going to show you things that have to do with your everyday life. He will bring to your attention, if you're on drugs, as you're walking the street.

He can show you your future. He can show you things to come immediately. He'll show you somebody on the street that you knew once had a job, a life, a good job, and had courage and had respectability.

That person's lost everything. Like the businessman that came to this church. He was CEO of a $5 million company and he owned most of the stock. But he experimented with cocaine, with crack one time, and it hooked him.

This intelligent man got hooked on crack. Came to see me after about three months of using crack. He couldn't even stand where he'd lost his wife and his two children by now. And he said, Mr. Wilson, will you pray for me?

I've got one of the most important meetings tomorrow. I've got our board coming in. They've heard that I have some kind of a problem. They don't know what it is. And I have a presentation tomorrow. And if I don't make this, he said, I'm out.

I'm going to lose my company. I'm going to lose all my stock. I'm going to lose everything. They're going to vote me out. But he couldn't avoid getting high before he went into the meeting. He went into the meeting so disjointed he didn't know where he was.

They had to lead him out of the room. He was voted out. He lost his company. And the last time I saw him, he was on 33rd Street waiting for his pusher, sleeping on the street. You see, he will show you these things to come.

He said, that's you. You continue. That's where you go. And if you listen to it, the Holy Spirit says, take a look. The adultery. If you're involved in adultery, if you're involved in fornication, if you're visiting prostitutes, he will show you.

He'll show you a fallen evangelist and say, look, if I do this with an evangelist, look what I'm going to do to you. I'm showing you things to come. I'm going to show you what it is. He'll show you somebody that's lost everything that's paying alimony and sleeping in some little room where he used to have a nice house, had everything.

It was stripped from him. And the Holy Spirit will show you the end result if you continue in your sin. And then at the same time, he can show you a man who was overwhelmed by a single act of adultery.

He repented. He was forgiven. His wife received him back. His children didn't lose their respect. And the man again has honor and respect. The Lord says, that's where you can go, which is your choice.

He'll show you things to come. We're afraid, however, to really consult the Holy Spirit when under the brink of some alluring temptation. We don't want God. We really don't want to hear him because we know what he's going to say.

Your heart is set on it. You know if you bow your head and seek the Holy Spirit, what should I do? You know what he's going to say. He's going to say, no. Back off. This will ruin you. It will destroy you.

And there's something in you that is set to do it. So you just silence that still small voice and your mind goes into neutral and you're just trying to sleepwalk yourself right through the temptation.

Into it, fall and get involved and indulge. And you shut out the voice of the Holy Ghost and that grieves him tremendously. We're afraid and so we go blindly on our way. Secondly, we grieve the Spirit when we show no remorse for having defiled the temple of the Holy Ghost, our bodies.

Defiling the Temple Without Repentance

Know you not that you are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Him shall God destroy.

Now folks, if that meant that he's just going to let you die, that would be the easy way out. Or he's going to strike you with lightning and you're just going to fall dead like Ananias and Zophar. That's one thing, but that's not what it means.

The word used here means to wither, shrivel up, waste away. God says, if you're going to defile this temple of the Holy Ghost, it means that he's going to have to withdraw. There's no way you can wither and dry and waste away unless the Holy Spirit has withdrawn because he's the Spirit of life and when he abides, life produces life.

So, if you're going to defile the temple of the Holy Ghost and show no remorse, no repentance, it's a frightful thing. That means the Holy Spirit, if you are set on your sin, you have sinned and you failed him.

There was no grief. There was no godly sorrow. You were not driven to the cross. You didn't run to him. So, God, I sinned against you and I failed you miserably and I want your forgiveness and I want strength and I want you to know, Lord, that I want power to never do this again.

And if that was not your attitude, if that was not in your spirit, then the Holy Spirit has to go to the door because he cannot stand by while you defile his temple. He will not coexist with that evil.

So, he withdraws. Remember the scripture says about, in Song of Solomon, he's at the door. I see him out the window. The Holy Spirit withdraws because of his grief, because he sees no repentance. That doesn't mean he still doesn't love you.

It means he still will strive with you. He's there loving, reaching out to you with everything within his power. But the well of life springing up is not there anymore. There's no source of life, no joy.

Everything begins to wither. Where there was joy, there's no emptiness. Where there was strength and power, there's nothing but depression and weakness. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is grieved because this sin is indulged in over and over and over.

He slapped us on the wrist and we didn't listen. He convicted us here. He convicted us here. He sent somebody here, a message here. We were reading the word and we were convicted and we just went ahead and didn't obey him.

And in his grief, he had to step to the door. No wonder David in his sin cried, Oh God, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Because he knew the kind of death it produces in mankind. He knew he would wither and die without the Spirit of God in him.

He said, I would be a shell of a man. I would be a shell. I would have no life in me because the Spirit of God would have departed from me. I might as well be dead. That's worse destruction than dying on the spot.

To live an empty life. Folks, listen to me please. There is no way on earth to know how your sin has grieved God without the Holy Spirit showing you. There is no conscience. There is nothing in you. There is no emotion in you that can make you understand or feel the grief of God for your sin.

There's something in all of us. Once we sin and fail God, we want to do penance. We want to pay the price. We know we should feel bad because that's bad in us, in human nature. We know we fail God. We should feel bad.

And so we go around trying to feel bad and we feel bad for about a week. And then it just tapers off and we forget what we did. We forget the exceeding sinfulness of sin. We forget how we have grieved the Holy Spirit.

But I'm telling you, there's no way on earth until you pray, Oh Holy Spirit, open my eyes and let me see what I've done through the eyes of God. Let me see how He feels about it. Let me feel His grief.

Understand His grief. Not how I've just perhaps tainted my own spirit. Not just because I may have hurt my family or my reputation, but what does God feel about this? And there's no way on earth, there's no emotion that we have.

David repented. But he knew there was something in him that said, God wants more than I'm sorry out of me. You know, that's the easy part. Repentance is the easy part. God is ready and willing to forgive at all times.

That's what the blood is all about. And there's a repentant heart. But David said, I've got to find out why I did this. There's something wrong. It's not just Bathsheba. If it hadn't been Bathsheba, it would have been somebody else.

There's something in me. He said, you're designing truth in the inner man. You're trying to get to my heart. You're trying to show me. You know what Jesus said, if your eye offends you, puck it out. If your arm offends you, cut it off.

Don't think for a minute that's your particular sin that you just fell into. Because if it wasn't that woman, if it wasn't that drug, if it wasn't something else, it'd be something else. You could cut off your, you could cut off that thing that you're looking at.

No, God say, I want to go to your heart and cut off that thing that is the source of that, that's causing that. We get the idea that if, in fact, I'm going to preach a sermon one day called Don't Run to Cyprus.

When the Syrians came down against Israel, the Samaritan leaders were saying, we're going to go to Chittim, which is Cyprus. And the Holy, God said, you go there, but you're not going to find any peace because it just went past and done preaching.

Wherever you go, there you are. Same problem. You can't run. If you're an adult right now, say, well, if I could just get out of New York, she's here, and I go here, or he's here, I go way across the country, I'll get away.

No, it's still in your heart. We have all kinds of people on drugs, say, I'd get out of New York City with that mother, she'd call us, say, get my boy, get my girl out of New York because that'll get them away from their drugs.

No, you can send the littlest town in Texas, they're going to find a pusher because it's in their heart. David said, behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

He said, now God searched me. Get to the root of my problem. Not just one sin, but get to the root of it. Why even think of these things? Get to the root of my lust. Folks, the bottom line is lust. God plucked the lust out of my heart.

Hallelujah. Thirdly, we grieve the Holy Spirit by corrupt communications. Now, just if you, in Ephesians 4, 29, it says, grieve not the Holy Spirit, but in the verse before, in verse 28, it 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.

Corrupt Communication and Sexual Sin

Now, the whole thing about grieving the Holy Spirit is in the context of corrupt communication, which in the Greek means filthy, rotten talk. Filthy, rotten. Now, of course, that includes gossip. But folks, it goes a little deeper than that.

It has to do with the language of your sin. Every sin has a language. Ask the drug addict. He's got his own language. That means that you can't even talk about it. Your old habit. It's this language when you go back and you just say, would you give me a bag?

Give me a nickel bag. It's the language. It's the language of the doctors when they get on the telephone and they talk to each other. It's the language. The corrupt communication between two people is not indulging.

It has to do with Christians today who think that somehow God's going to excuse them picking up and dialing those porno numbers. We had somebody that used to work in one of our teams that stayed for a few nights in one of the staff homes and they got their phone bill and all these telephone calls.

They called to find out who these numbers were. It was one of those pornographic telephone calls that he was charging it up to. Come here and praise the Lord and run back there and turn that telephone on.

It has to do with those videos that you read. You know, you talk about grieving the Holy Spirit. Corrupt communication is not just what you talk because everything comes out of your heart. What the Bible says, your mouth speaks what's in your heart.

And I don't understand how anybody can sit in their living room or in their home and watch any kind of movie that takes the name of Jesus in vain, takes God's name in vain, or is pornographic in any measure.

I don't believe you can serve God and I believe you grieve the Holy Spirit right out the door. I don't believe the Holy Spirit can abide because you're taking this temple of God and you're causing spiritual adultery.

You're causing idolatry in your own soul. This body, God will not permit it. Now we've got another kind of corrupt communication. It's video, computer sex. They've got a new program now where you can do your own pornographic movies right on your computer.

It was in Time Magazine just a few weeks ago. It was in the New York Times. And what they explain about this new communication highway sounds like a lot of rotten, filthy communication, corrupt communication.

The Lord said you should have no part of it. And the more wicked this generation, the more pornographic, the more vile, and rotten, and filthy, the cleaner, and more righteous, God's people ought to become as a witness to this filthy world.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. How would you feel if God allowed the whole congregation of the pastors to be tuned in to every one of your telephone conversations? Would it be alright?

Would there be honesty? Would there be righteousness? Or would there be treachery? Now let me tell you it gets worse. There's a step beyond grieving the Holy Spirit. If we just grieve the Holy Spirit, that's one thing.

But there's another step that's very, very clear. The Puritans knew this. This generation doesn't know anything about it. It's called vexing. Listen to the Scripture. Isaiah 63, 10. But they rebelled and vexed His Holy Spirit.

From Grieving to Vexing the Holy Spirit

That word vexed to be displeased and irritated to the point of anger. Now let me illustrate what I mean by vexing the Holy Spirit. You move from grief, grieving Him. And when God adds anger to His grief, it means He is vexed by what you've done.

Now listen closely. You take a child, a loved one, someone you know that falls into sin. A teenager, husband, wife, everything. And they were overwhelmed. Just suddenly they were swamped. It was not premeditated.

It was something. They got caught up and they sinned. This godly sorrow. And your heart, though, you're grieved by that because the only person can grieve you, really, is somebody you love. I'm not grieved by what people do or say about me out in the street.

But I am grieved by those close to me when I see sin. And they hurt me. And the closer you are to Jesus, the more capable you are of grieving the Holy Spirit. And you say, Well, I forgive because I see a sorrow there.

Even though you're grieved, there's a tendency to reach out and to heal. And you say, I forgive and everything's going to be fine. But next week they do the same thing. And this time they're trying to excuse it.

And there's a little anger rises up in you because you say, Well, wait a minute. I forgave you and I warned you and I loved you through this and I still love you. But are you going to continue with this?

Is there are you set? Is your heart set on this? And you see something happening and you hear him say, Well, I just can't help it. I'm over. I have to do it. I can't help it. The devil made me do it. There's something rises up in you third, fourth and fifth time and you go to them.

And by now they don't even want to talk to you because they say, Look, this is my problem. Just leave me alone. This is something between that's just in my own mind and you can't do anything about it.

You see that hardness. There's the vexation. The vexation of spirit. There is an anger in you saying this person is walking against love, sinning against light and sinning against love. There's something here that I can't endure.

There's something that is wrong and there's a vexation because your grief has been add to your grief has been added anger and that equates vexation of spirit. God becomes indignant. He becomes vexed. Yet still he strives.

He still labors to convict and to guide deliver from the devil snare. Though God is displeased with the stubborn willfulness and sin, yet he still sends the Holy Spirit to rule and to convict. He will continue to strive and to send prophets and ministers and the word still trying.

But then there comes a time the Bible said my spirit will not always strive with man. He endured 120 years of that stubbornness with Noah's generation. 120 years of preaching, of example. But see, suddenly there comes a hardening of the stubborn will.

It says, this is the way I'm going. God looks at this person and he suddenly realizes no conviction is going to touch it. No preacher is going to touch it. No prophet is going to touch it. This man, this woman is set in their sin.

They're set in their way. They're not going to let it go. It's when the Bible says he departs. The spirit of God departs. Let me show you what happens when grief turns to vexation and God's spirit leaves because it's that point the Lord not only leaves but also becomes your enemy.

Now read this again. And they rebelled and vexed this Holy Spirit. Therefore he was turned to be their enemy and he fought against them. His people. God, an enemy? To somebody that one time was right before him?

Yes. Samuel said to Saul, why do you ask of me seeing the Lord has departed from you and he's become your enemy? Why are you seeking guidance? Why are you still asking God for direction when you know he's left?

Holy Spirit's gone. As your enemy, he doesn't just leave. He comes in and he picks up everything he had once deposited. He takes his joy. He spoils what he once built. He takes with him joy and peace, direction.

He takes away the candlestick which is discernment, which is the knowledge of the things of God. And now suddenly truth becomes a lie. Right becomes wrong. Wrong becomes right. Everything is twisted and the man is blind and walks in blindness because the Spirit of God is gone and not only is he gone, he's the enemy and he will fight against you.

New Testament Warnings About Apostasy and Judgment

Now I'll tell you 95 of the preachers in America would get angry and walk out of me at this point because they don't believe that. They say, no, under grace, God does not work in the new covenant like that at all.

God does not work like that. Well, then tell that to Ananias and Zeviah. Tell that to Hymenaeus and Alexander who Paul delivered over to Satan and they blasphemed the Spirit. Read John's message to the church in Pergamos.

Repent or I'll fight against you with the sword of my mouth. New Testament, new covenant. To the land of sin, I'll spew out of my mouth. And then when he leaves, the fiery judgments of God fall. Now, they're not physical.

They can't resolve in physical because of the spiritual. But then the judgments of God. You know, when God departed from Saul, his own confession said, God doesn't answer me anymore. No prophet speaks to me anymore.

No dreams anymore. I don't know which way to turn, so he turns to a witch. The very people he had once destroyed become his counselors. And now he falls into this great spiritual judgment. That stubborn will becomes flint.

The worst kind of hardness, a madness strikes. Folks, there's no sinner who sins worse than one who was once a Christian, knew the Lord, turned away from the Holy Spirit. Nobody sins as wildly and as madly as that kind.

They go crazy because there's no restraints. The nights become a foretaste of hell. The conscience turns to darkness and horror. The utter desperation of the soul and the mind, a feeling of being lost.

Folks, when you lose the presence of Jesus, you've lost the reason to live. I would rather die. I would rather die right now than to lose the presence of Jesus. I've said that many times. The minister's wife wrote, her Pentecostal husband left her for a younger woman, a pianist in the church.

Left two children and wife and went. He said, I'm sick of the ministry and walked out. Left the ministry, left his wife and children. This woman was going to bring him joy because she understood him. That's the kicker right there.

Somebody to understand me. That's baloney. Only the Holy Ghost is ever going to understand you anyhow. I don't want anybody to understand me all the way. I want God to understand me. I want the Spirit to understand me.

You don't have to understand me. Just put up with me. She said within a year he was cursing God. He used to preach His name. Now curses Him. And the woman was supposed to give him so much help, has been nothing but misery and pain to him.

And now he can't sleep at night. One of those many men who are afraid to close their eyes unless they slip into hell in the middle of the night. Moses Berg, you've heard me tell of him. He was an acquaintance and friend of mine years ago.

Used to have, he worked with Teen Challenge. He had our Teen Challenge program at Huntington Beach. He had about 30, 40 young people. But Moses Berg was full of lust. He was just a lustful man, an adulterer.

God spoke to him the first time he did it and his wife forgave him. But then he kept eyeing young ladies that were on in that Huntington Beach group. And then he invented a theology to cover his lust.

He went into the Word and misread the Scripture and then started a cult, the Children of God. And in this cult he had a new ceremony where he got the first night with every bride. That man eventually wound up with 5 ,000 hooked into his cult.

Went downhill, downhill, downhill. Till finally, in his mole letters, he used four-letter words, cursed a blue streak in his preaching. Two of his sons died, one of suicide, the other by accident. One day he went to an old Indian because the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him and he was almost a madman.

This old Indian was full of demons. And he said, I want to know where you get your power because he was well known for his power among the Indians. And one of the demons spoke out, gave his name, and he invited that demon power to possess him.

That demon came in him. Moses Berg went absolutely insane. About five years ago, I don't know how, no, it had to be more than that before I came here to New York. His wife and daughter had escaped and they came to one of my crusades.

And they told me this pitiful story of this man, how he ended up in a little trailer over in North Africa, doesn't sleep, couldn't sleep, but like a wild lion, back and forth, back and forth like this, possessed.

He couldn't get any pleasure out of anything, not out of food nor intimacy. He got no pleasure out of anything. He was a dead man walking back and forth night and day without sleep. Totally demon possessed because God became his enemy.

A man who was once a powerful teacher. How does that happen? Vexing the Holy Spirit because of hardness and total refusal to repent and turn to the Lord. Now folks, before I close, I've got to say something to you.

Running to God Instead of Hiding in Shame

I misrepresent the Holy Spirit and God forbid. I want you to know what I'm talking about. Those who grieve him, of course, the most of those who love him the most when they won't repent. But we compound his grief.

He can be grieved at us. He can even be vexed. But there's a point that comes where we compound his grief. We make it worse. And here's what it is. We sin. And like Adam and Eve, we want to run and hide from him.

We can't believe he'll forgive us. We can't believe. Now you've got to understand this about the Holy Spirit or else you're going to walk out of here and not understand that he has come as the love of God.

He has come to love us into the kingdom of God. His message is love. His message is compassion. His message is comfort and hope. There comes a time when you sin and you grieve God. You're far past temptation.

I very seldom preach about temptation anymore because 95 of people have already passed that point. They've already done it. Forget preaching temptation. Americans, they've fallen left and right. Go to the issue.

I have fallen. I've sinned against God. Now what do I do? If you run from God, if you run from the Holy Spirit, rather to him, you run away from him and you say, well, I can't help it. I'm weak. I'm no good.

I grieve God. I've hurt the Holy Spirit. I don't blame him for leaving me. I'm just going to wait for the judgment of God to fall on me. That's a worse sin than what you did. That is far worse. That grieves the Holy Spirit more than your sin, more than your fall, more than your adultery, more than your falling to drugs or alcohol or whatever you have done.

That grieves him more because he's calling after Adam and Eve sinned. He came calling. And folks, it's that hiding from his presence. It's that running away from him. You see, the Holy Spirit only leaves those who harden their hearts.

He only leaves those who don't want him. The Holy Spirit comes running to those who confess their sins. He comes running. He comes. He's right there. He's there immediately. The moment there is godly sorrow, the moment you turn to him and say, oh God, this is bigger than me.

I got swamped. I got swallowed up. Forgive me. Cleanse me. Give me power. I can't do it myself. The Holy Spirit will come running. He does not leave those who turn to him. He only leaves when he knows that you will not turn to him no matter what he does.

That you have set your heart on your sin. You will not repent. None of my preaching, nobody's preaching, no prophet, nothing will ever work upon your heart. That's when he says, there's no use because I will not force myself on him or her.

I've got to have contention before I close here now. God put this on my heart. The Holy Spirit doesn't want to leave anybody. That's the last thing he would desire. That would be the grief of all grief to the Holy Spirit.