The Spirit Rushes to Success

Well, our message this morning will be from 1 Samuel 16, and just verse 13, though

I'm going to read in a moment verses 1 through 14 of that chapter.

You may recall some weeks ago, I began this sort of abbreviated series in the life of David.

And by abbreviated, what I meant was, we're not going to go through every part of his life.

I'm not going to read or even preach each chapter and each aspect of his life.

But we're going to choose some of the major epochs, some of the major happenings or events that occurred in his

life, and not so much just to understand the narrative, though the narrative is very important and we will talk

about the narrative, but to look for and to see and understand God moving behind the narrative.

The Lord God and how he is pushing a long redemptive history through this history that we have with

David, that great prototype or precursor of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The one who has the name, which was one of Jesus' favorite appellations, son of David.

The one who Matthew, in the opening of his book in the genealogy, takes such pains to make sure we know he,

in his physical humanity, was descended from.

This man, this King David, the one to whom the promise of a king who would sit

forever on the throne was made.

So this is now the third in that short series.

And what we are, in 1 Samuel 16, looking at is this idea of

God's secret will.

Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to the Lord our God.

But that which has been revealed is ours and our children's forever.

So God's secret will, that a man should replace Saul, was not known until he made it

known to Samuel.

And so Samuel went and effected the election, the elective will of God, by drawing out David from among the

sons.

He sanctified that.

He commemorated it, or formalized it, when he anointed him with oil.

And now we're going to come to the final step in that process, where the Lord God comes down and confirms that all this

has been in line with what had previously been his secret unknown will.

Election, this is the one.

Anointing, anointed his king.

And now God, from heaven by his spirit, will confirm that all this has been in accordance with his will.

So that brief introduction, please stand for the reading of God's word.

I will read 1 Samuel 16, 1 through 14.

The Lord said to Samuel, how long will you grieve over Saul since I have rejected him from being king

over Israel?

Fill your home with oil and go.

I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.

And Samuel said, how can I go?

If Saul hears it, he will kill me.

And the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

And invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I'll show you what you shall do.

And you shall anoint for me him who I declare to you.

Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem.

The elders of the cities came out to meet him, trembling, and said, do you come peaceably?

And he said, peaceably.

I've come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.

And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointing

is before him.

But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.

For the Lord sees not as man sees.

Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel.

And he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one.

Then Jesse made Shammah pass by.

And he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one.

And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.

And Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these.

Then Samuel said to Jesse, are all your sons here?

And he said, there remains yet the youngest.

But behold, he is keeping the sheep.

And Samuel said to Jesse, send and get him, for we will not sit down until he comes.

And he sent and brought him in.

Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome.

And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is he.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.

And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.

And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.

And a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.

May God bless the reading of his word and now the preaching of it.

Would you please be seated?

Let us pray and ask God's blessing upon what I just said, the preaching and the hearing of his holy word.

Our Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in

your sight, O Lord.

And may the words that I'm about to speak proclaim the truth of your word.

And may they be pleasing in your sight and you by your Spirit, Father, would drive them into the hearts of those who would hear.

And Lord, you'd be glorified in this place by transforming such as us more and more into the

image of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we ask for these blessings, amen.

So the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.

You know, the working of the Holy Spirit, as we just sang in that hymn, it's among the most mysterious and difficult

doctrines really to get our arms around.

I love that hymn, number 712, I Know Whom I Have Believed, it has to be in my top six

favorite hymns.

And I know not why, I know not how, I know not, I know not, I know not, you know not,

I know not, the how of the Spirit's working.

It's a difficult doctrine, it's a mysterious doctrine.

And yet it is so important that we understand the reality of the Spirit's work in us.

That it's not just an idea, that the Holy Spirit is not just a power or something out there, it is a person

of the Trinity, Father, Son, Spirit, all equally God.

All persons of God in their eternal existence, in their omnipotence, in their

working towards our salvation.

And yet, as Jesus Christ himself told Nicodemus, it's a terribly hard and

mysterious doctrine, really to gather up and to put into simple propositional

truths that we can take away and understand.

Though it doesn't mean we don't try, but Jesus Christ himself said to Nicodemus, the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it

sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit.

So we don't know the how of the Spirit's working.

Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

I hope to God you do.

I hope to God you have been given that new heart that has faith to believe the gospel, to repent of your sins

and trust in Christ and him alone for salvation.

How did that happen?

Well, we can go to Ezekiel 36 and say, well, God gave me a new heart.

He took out that stony heart.

He removed that black heart, what was impervious to his word that wanted to sin.

And he replaced it with a heart of flesh.

And I would answer you, okay, that is what the scripture says.

How?

Too often it's that we can't understand the how that leads people to take a

lot of variance with the what.

I can't explain how he did it.

And if it's that subjective, then the what that he produces in me, the what of any decision I make

at any given time is sort of subjective and up to me since I can't explain on the other side.

So we feel free to do what we want with what we think the Spirit of God might lead us.

How often have you heard a Christian say that they are on this or that course or has decided to go left when the word of God is actually

screaming to them?

No, turn right.

You're going the wrong way.

Turn around, repent, get away from that.

That's against God's will.

You show them with good reasoning with scripture that they're on the wrong course, that the word of God, the

Spirit of God having inspired this word would say different than where they're going.

And how often have you been able to show them that?

And they answer with you this trump card.

Ah, but I prayed.

And the Spirit of God told me that I go this way or that.

Have you heard that?

I have more times than I can count.

And I have to ask you, how many times have you or I done the same?

Where we determine I want to go this way and I'm gonna find it in the word and I'm going to perhaps mangle

the word but I wouldn't do it intentionally or consciously.

And some brother or sister comes along and tries to advise us.

And even though we would detest this in others, we ourselves say, oh, but I've prayed.

And I feel that dangerous word, I feel.

I feel that the Spirit of God has led me in this directions.

How many times do we attribute to the Holy Spirit what I want to do?

And having done that, ignoring the goads of conscience that he, the Spirit, gives us in his

ministry to us.

So we're in 1 Samuel 16.

1 Samuel 16, where Samuel brought the will of God into history when he anointed David as Israel's next king.

Now anyone could have said, here is the Lord's choice.

Anyone could have poured oil on him and anyone could have done all the pomp and ceremony of an anointing,

but only God could confirm that Samuel had followed his will when he took David from amongst his

brothers.

And this is where we are in the narrative as I explained before.

And I want us to look at this working of the Holy Spirit.

I want us to understand this day how the Holy Spirit works.

And though our narrative is short on details and we're just in this one verse, 1 Samuel 16, 13,

it really does have a wealth for us in understanding this working of the Spirit within us

and what that impinges then upon us in terms of following his will and knowing

his word.

So I want to look at this in three sections.

It's just one verse, so it's not gonna be divided up into long passages, but the first thing we're gonna deal with is how the Holy

Spirit rushed upon David.

The Spirit of God rushed upon him.

And the second thing is going to be the permanence of this work of the Spirit in the believer's life, in your life,

if indeed you have the Spirit of God.

And third and finally, what does this mean to us in our life with Christ, this rushing of the Spirit

upon us?

You see, it is by the power imparted to men by the Spirit of God that God accomplishes his

purposes for men.

Let me say that again.

It is by the power that is imparted to men by the Spirit of God that God

accomplishes his purposes for men and through men.

And often he intervenes by miraculous changes in the natural order of things, such

as when the son stood still so that Joshua could finish his battle against the Amalekites, but those are rare.

In the normative sense in our Christian life, it is the Spirit of God who's working through men, by which I mean men and women,

through Christians, through you, through me.

By that power imparted to us by the Spirit of God, God accomplishes his purposes here in your life,

here in this church, here in this world, in the entire universe, really.

Even Jesus, when he went into the wilderness, he was driven there by the Spirit of God.

That's Luke chapter four, verse one.

And after his temptation, he went forth where or how?

In the power of the Spirit.

It was no different for David, and it is no different for you or for me or for anyone who believes in the

Lord Jesus Christ.

This rushing of the Spirit of God upon you.

We need to find out what this means.

We need to look into this brief verse.

Then the Spirit of God rushed upon David from that time forward, rushed upon him.

It sounds like a wind, like a strong wind that suddenly appeared and went whoosh!

And there it was, upon David.

Now we're not told what Samuel or anyone else actually saw.

We don't know what they heard.

We do know that the Spirit of God did this.

He rushed upon this one, upon David.

But it's sort of like Acts chapter eight, verse 17, where you read of Peter and John who went to Samaria

to see if Philip the Evangelist's evangelism had truly brought conversion.

And we read there that they saw the Spirit of God fall upon the Samaritans.

And that's all we're told.

We don't know what phenomena they saw.

We don't know if the Samaritans suddenly sang out in chorus and gave praise to God, if they spoke in

tongues, if they bowed down before him, prayed, we don't know what happened.

But it was something that the apostles, Peter and John, saw, and it was confirmable.

In Acts chapter 11, Peter reported that he knew that this meant that God had given the Gentiles the same

gift of the Spirit that he'd given to them.

The Lord had confirmed that the Samaritans had truly been saved, that his will had been rightly discerned by Philip the Evangelist

when he reported Samaritans had been saved.

What did they see?

We don't know with that any more than we know with David.

By some confirmable phenomenon, the Lord certified that David was indeed the one he intended.

Rushed, the Spirit of God rushed upon David.

He'd been elected, drawn out from the brothers, he'd been anointed, and now the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and it's from the

Hebrew word salach.

Salach, and that means to be strong, to be effective.

It means to be powerful.

It means to be prosperous.

It means to accomplish satisfactorily what was intended.

All in that single word, salach, rushed upon him.

Now, an early example we have of that in King Saul's life is in 1 Samuel chapter 11.

In there, King Saul, early in his reign, heard that the Ammonites had attacked the city of Jabesh

Gilead, and we read that the Spirit of God rushed upon him.

The same phrase that we have in chapter 16 with David.

It rushed upon him, and the next thing we hear is that the Ammonites had been

scattered by Saul's army, and that city had been saved.

Abraham's servant, when he was sent to find a wife for Isaac, he wondered if the Lord would give him

prosperous success, if God would give him salach.

And I'll just give you one more example.

I want you to understand how important this word is here in understanding how the Spirit works in you or in me.

It's in Isaiah chapter 55, familiar to most of us.

For as the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to be empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.

It shall succeed, it shall salach.

It shall succeed in that for which I sent it.

So success, prosperity, strength, power, all those words there, the

Lord's intentions are accomplished.

And the next thing we know of David, in 1 Samuel 17, which God willing will

open up beginning in the afternoon in a couple of Sundays here, but the next thing we hear of David, where do we see?

He's standing over the dead body of Goliath, having had power, having accomplished God's

intentions and God's will that that giant be slain and prospering in taking his armor,

his sword and his shield particularly.

There are a lot of terms that we use for the Spirit of God and they're good terms, they're proper terms.

We call him our paraclete, which means the one who walks alongside of us.

We call him our comforter, those are very common.

We call him our helper, we call him our advocate.

It is he, the Spirit of God in Romans 8 26, who looks at our weakness and intercedes for our prayers.

It's the Holy Spirit who translates God's secret will into human experience.

Just as I've been explaining from 1 Samuel 16, God's secret will brought into history.

Chapter one, verse four of Ephesians says that God, the Father chose you, the believer

to be in Christ and he made this decision, this election of you before the foundation of the world, his secret will

as to who will be saved, his secret will that you might be saved.

But then Ephesians 1 13 to 14 tells us that the Spirit of God rushed upon you,

that's my word, it doesn't say that in Ephesians, but the concept is correct, rushed upon you and

made it known to you.

Our theological word for that is simple, he applied salvation to you.

So God's secret will as to who would be saved, just as God's secret will as to

who would succeed Saul, made known when he speaks that word, spoke it

personally to Samuel and anointed David, speaks it to you in the word and we have his word

that men would be saved and then the Spirit of God applies it to

you.

He makes known to you that previously secret will that you will be saved.

So we can call the Holy Spirit by another name.

It's not in scripture, this is my name for him, from Selah that he rushed upon, he brings

success, he's our achiever.

The Holy Spirit is the one who achieves in us that which God would have us to do, that which would

bring us to Christ's image, those things which you or I in our own power could never even come

close, never even begin to accomplish.

The Holy Spirit brings that success, brings that prosperity, brings that power.

He brings success and prosperity, God's will, by revealing it to those to whom it was intended, to you if

you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

How did that happen?

Again, it's inexplicable.

Did that happen?

Do you know that you know that you know that Jesus Christ is Savior, that he is your Lord, that he

truly did save you from the agonies of eternal suffering, which he

on the cross took upon himself in your place?

Do you know that you know that you know?

How do you know this?

Can't tell you.

Do you know this?

Yeah, you can know that objectively because the Holy Spirit witnessing to your spirit that you're truly

children of God, he is our achiever.

How did that happen?

My favorite hymn, I know not how this saving faith to me he hath made known, but I know

whom I have believed.

I don't know how, but I know he did.

Explain it to me objectively.

I cannot, but I know he did.

You can't prove it to me.

You know, brother, sister, the Spirit of God witnesses within me, and I have an answer to you for the

hope that lies within me, but I can't prove to you how God did this,

only that he did.

Titus chapter three, verse five, he saved us by the washing of regeneration, renewal of the Holy Spirit,

and Jesus, I wanna repeat what he said to Nicodemus because he said, we're never going to understand this.

Remember this, the wind blows where it wishes.

You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

You know, back then, they didn't have barometers.

They didn't have satellites that could track or even know of the jet stream that has such effect on the wind.

They didn't know high -pressure zones that would blow wind into the low -pressure zones.

It was mysterious to them, and it's just as mysterious to us today, the working of the Holy

Spirit.

If the way of the Spirit is a mystery, the confirming fruit in a life of repentance, of growth

and holiness, of taking ever greater strides in moral excellencies, mercy, and

grace, these are observable, objectively observable proofs of

the Spirit's invisible operations.

To display from the depth of our being, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self

-control, one description of the Christian and what he works in you.

How?

Can't tell you, but what?

Love, joy, peace, patience, long -suffering, kindness, goodness.

If God succeeded, if God salok, if you will, in

saving your eternal soul by infusing in you faith to believe and faith being

that indispensable cornerstone of salvation, faith being that thing that is totally foreign to you.

You're not born with faith.

You don't put your faith in Jesus Christ.

God gives you faith in Jesus Christ.

How did that come about, this cornerstone?

Well, if he succeeded in giving you something so different than your natural state,

can we not say he will also succeed in completing that work that he began when he gave you that

faith to believe in Jesus Christ, that he would complete this work also through faith?

Philippians chapter one, verse six says, he who began a good work in you, that is salvation.

That's the start of the journey.

That's when the Holy Spirit rushes upon you and makes you able to believe, makes you want to believe.

You can say, I chose to follow Jesus.

And in our circles, no, you didn't choose.

God chose you, that's true.

How did I choose to follow Jesus?

Because God gave me a heart that wanted Jesus.

God gave me a heart that wasn't mine.

God gave me a heart that I would have detested until he yanked out the old heart and gave me the new one.

He who began that good work in you, who made you want to be like Jesus, he will bring it to

completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Romans 8, 29 says that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son.

How is all this work in you?

It's worked by that invisible, mysterious operating of the Holy Spirit within.

He rushed upon you to make you able to believe.

He rushed upon you to give you the power to conform yourself more and more to

his image.

Do you conform yourself to his image?

Yes, you do.

Can you do it without the spirit?

No, you can't.

Do you have responsibility to follow the word, to obey the word, and to do it?

Yes, you do, because that is transformative.

Can you do it on your own?

Absolutely not.

It all works hand in hand together.

It is God who is doing this work.

It is God who makes you able to accomplish this work.

It is God who, when you obey his word, uses that to transform you more into his son, into the image of his son,

and that by spirit.

Not of me, not of you, but we do the working.

But God gets all the glory.

God alone has that power to save you, to transform you.

Jesus said that without him, we can do what?

Nothing.

Let me hear that.

Without him, we can do what?

Nothing.

He said it's all by his spirit.

It's all as we are attached to him, the true vine.

But Jesus Christ himself also said in that same vein, in that same discourse, he said, truly, truly, I

say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he

do, because I'm going to the Father.

That's early in that discourse.

As you read that for homework this afternoon, read all the way through to chapter 17 of that discourse, which ends just,

and then he goes to be arrested and to the cross.

You'll see that what he's saying here, the greater works that you will do, how will you do these?

Well, you're gonna lift up your hand, and you're gonna do the work.

You're gonna put your hand to the plow.

How?

By the power of the spirit.

By that invisible, mysterious working of the spirit, you actually do that work that transforms you more and

more into his image.

All by God's spirit, all to his glory, and yet we have to put out the effort.

You will indeed succeed in growing into Christlikeness.

You will indeed do greater works than even Jesus did, not by might or power, but by my spirit, says the

Lord.

Now, oftentimes, we let a humility, and I would call it a false humility, overshadow this great promise that Jesus

gives.

You and I get no credit for it, only Christ does, but to not strive for this spiritual prosperity, this spiritual

success, this submission, if you will, to the power of the spirit, and to do the things that the spirit would lead

you, which are given to us in his word, is a false humility,

to not strive for that prosperity.

It's almost to say that God's word will not have the success in that for which it was sent.

How many times have you known a Christian who says, well, I've gotten saved, well, now I'm gonna go home and just live

the way I want to, because I've got Jesus, I'm going to heaven, and now Sundays are for

carousing, for my pleasure, for my recreation, and now

I can continue in the way I wanted to go and whatever I want to do, whatever carousing kind of

life I had before, good to go.

How many times have we seen that?

No, to stop there is as false as the false humility, which says I can do nothing, and therefore I will do nothing.

No, we can't have it both ways.

If the power of the spirit is in you to have transformed you and made you believe in Jesus Christ, that same

spirit wants you to be in the image of that Lord who saved you, to grow more and more like

him, to obey the word, to know the word more, and to follow it more closely.

That's success, that is selah.

That is why the Holy Spirit rushed upon you.

He's given us the means of success, what we call means of grace.

He's given us prayer that flows freely and often.

He's given you service in ministry that steps forward.

You can step forward, and even in this place, you say God has provided this church with a foot or a hand, and it's me.

God has provided an ear that is needed to listen to someone's sorrows.

Whose ear is that?

It is mine, a hand of mercy to the hungry.

Here is mine, all led by the spirit, but in time and space, in

history, done by you, and it's transformative to obey, to step

forward, put your hand to the plow, and to do the works that the spirit would lead you.

Paul wrote to Titus that Christ's purpose in redeeming a people of his own was for them to be zealous for good works, not

for the sake of the works themselves, but for the transformative power of faithful obedience as we walk

in the works that God prepared in advance, and that's Ephesians chapter one, verse 10.

So he's given you service.

He's given you preaching and the Lord's table.

Sitting under solid biblical preaching is to sit at Jesus' feet in that sense.

It is to encounter the living word, and in that word, our risen and living savior.

May we never come away the same as we began, James 125.

May we never look at the law of liberty and then forget what it said, what your pastors plead for you to remember

and to apply, and why do we do this from this pulpit?

So we can compare your progress to a predetermined measurement, and so be assured that we've succeeded, that you're having

success, that you're having selach?

No, not at all, because your pastor's plea to God before we preach and to you as we preach

is that the Holy Spirit will bring success to the word that God in Christ has sent,

that what is preached so far as it is true to Christ will bring the success and prosperity of spiritual growth,

to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and

fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in

deceitful schemes.

I was asked just recently, how is it that the catechism says that the Lord's

table and baptism are means of this sanctifying grace, of this growing in the Lord?

My answer, my answer to you, if you've ever wondered that, is because by those ordinances, not

just in obeying them, obedience being a good thing in and of itself, but by those ordinances,

you see the gospel played out.

I call it a living parable, that's just my term.

When we take the Lord's table in a little while, you're gonna remember the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, his

suffering on your behalf and the broken bread, his life given for yours in the wine, which is his

blood of the new covenant.

When you see a baptism, you see someone join Jesus Christ going into the earth, under the water, and rising

again to new life, you're confirmed again in that gospel.

And that's transformative, as again and again and again, you see that played out.

And remember, okay, this is not just a skit, this is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,

played out before my eyes, him, once again, as Paul told the Galatians, clearly portrayed as

crucified and risen and living and returning.

That's a means of grace.

He's giving you repentance and daily doses that trust God's forgiveness and restoration, 1 John 1, 9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

You know where Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will come and convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment?

Do you know that's not just a one -time shot?

When the Holy Spirit, Selah, when he rushes upon you, did he not convince you of your

sin and of Christ's righteousness and of the judgment to come?

Would you have escaped that fire?

You've been plucked as a burning brand from it by the power of the Spirit?

And so repentance and daily doses is constant transformative desire to be like Jesus as we recognize our sin.

You see, the Holy Spirit's success in overcoming your sin has to be followed by progressive success, prosperity even,

in growing into Christ, of conquering one sin after another after another after another, in

basking in the sure knowledge of Jesus's pleasure in seeing us follow in his footsteps.

Here's a gospel success.

Here is your best life now.

Here is health for your soul.

Here is prosperity for your spirit.

Here is a treasure trove in heaven guarded by God against any rust or moth.

To become like Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, not a moving target.

He's the same.

He is God.

He is Yahweh Tzva 'ot, the Lord of hosts.

It is by him and through him and for him and because of him that all things are created.

And it's by him and through him and because of him that you are saved.

And by him and through him and because of him that we grow into more Christlikeness.

Now the Holy Spirit who rushed upon David and brought him success is the same as he who brought you to

faith and brings success daily to God's word within you, growing you into his

image.

Well, the last verse I read, 1 Samuel 16, 14, that's one that causes trouble for a lot of

Christians.

It causes terror to some Christians if we're honest about it.

And it says, now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.

So we ask, will the spirit leave me?

If only by the spirit I could do anything that would happen to me if he departs or when he departs.

The spirit left Saul, of that there is no doubt.

In Ezekiel 10, the glory of the Lord departs from the temple consigning it to destruction by the Babylonians.

And therefore from that, from many other passages and verses, we might conclude, well, if I

grieve the spirit, if I commit that unforgivable sin, whatever that might be, well, he's gonna get fed up with me and

leave.

He's gonna depart from me.

In Psalm 51 verse 11, David pleads that God won't take his spirit away from him.

And therefore we conclude, well, God can remove and does, in fact, when he's fed up with us, when he's

just lost all patience, remove his spirit from me.

And now, 1 Samuel 16, 14, the spirit who had rushed once upon Saul just as he had David

is done with and rid of Saul.

And so that is what could happen to me.

So I walk through life with my head down and my hands over my head to protect me from a

lightning bolt that God might smite me with from heaven because I might do something bad.

I might tick him off for the last time.

His patience has run out and he's just gonna do away with me, take the spirit away from me and

consign me to destruction.

Do these kinds of thoughts ever trouble you?

Do you know people who they trouble?

Does it make you fearful?

Many of us have to nod our heads, yes.

That this security we have in the Lord, perhaps it's just too wonderful to be believed.

That God the Father would send his beloved, his only begotten son to

die for my sins, to bring such as me into his

glorious presence, to give me joy forevermore in heaven before

him and join the angels calling out, holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty.

Will that spirit leave me?

John wrote that perfect love casts out fear.

God's love for poor, wretched, broken, wandering, woefully inconsistent sinners like

you and like me.

His love for sinners shown in the life and the death and the burial and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, none of these verses I read, and I know there's others that could be lined up to support this idea that the spirit would

leave a true believer.

But none of these verses I read, just these three, actually would teach that God would remove his spirit.

Now, first of all, Ephesians 4 .30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

It's an admonition to strive for holy living.

It's not a warning that the Spirit of God would actually depart, it's an admonition, it's an

encouragement to strive to be holy, to strive to be morally perfect, to

always reach out for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Don't do those things which are against his will.

Don't do those things which the Bible would say don't do.

Live right.

Doesn't say that the Holy Spirit would leave.

He's got a certain level of grieving.

Here's a cup of grief, and when it goes over the top, done, you're out of here, or I'm out of here.

That's not at all what it teaches.

I want to spend a little bit of time in Psalm 51.

In Psalm 51, 11, take not your Holy Spirit from me.

That really causes people some trouble.

I want to go through this a little bit quickly.

So don't even look in your Bibles, but I'll read them to you.

But I want to go through this.

I want you to understand this.

This is David begging God's Spirit to not depart and abandon him.

Take not your Holy Spirit.

And how do we understand this?

Well, the best rule in any understanding of the Bible is context, is it not?

Context is a ruling principle.

So what's the context here?

Well, David is crushed by his sin, his sin with Bathsheba and all the things that came after that.

And crushed by his sin, he's asking God to continue his work of repentance in him.

So in Psalm 51, starting at verse seven, he says, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Verse eight, let me hear the joy and gladness.

Let the bones you have broken rejoice.

He's just speaking of a continual work.

He could say, keep purging me so that I'm clean before you.

Let there be a constant flow of joy and gladness as you restore me from brokenness, the brokenness that you for my

good brought upon me.

Keep doing this, Lord.

That's verses seven and eight.

Then in verse nine, 10, and 12, we'll come back to 11.

These verses speak of an act of God, as if to say when he says, hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquity.

Verse 10, create in me a new heart, O Lord.

Renew a right spirit within me.

Verse 12, restore to me the joy of your salvation.

Uphold me with a willing spirit.

These are speaking of acts of God, as if to say, hide your face now.

Blot them out this moment.

Give now a heart clean from the old sins and determined not to find new ones.

Because brethren, when we repent from sins, what's one of the signs that our repentance is true and real?

We stop finding ways to sin.

We turn away from that one that we've confessed and we hold fast to Jesus Christ,

who's obviously in the other direction from any sin.

And also, we become less and less adept at finding new ways to

sin, at covering them up, at hiding them from your pastors, from your brother, from your sister, brothers

and sisters in the Lord, husband or wife.

Verse 11 is a scary one, right in the middle.

Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

I would paraphrase this for us.

Lord, do not take away this working of your spirit that has forced me to confront my sin.

Lord, keep doing this work of cleansing me with the hyssop.

Keep doing this work of crushing me by showing me how deep and how bad my sin really is.

Cast me not away from your presence.

Don't take your spirit away from me, but keep doing this work for it, Lord, because it's a good work.

Because as I'm forced to confront my sin, as I repent of my sin, as I

feel the flow of God's forgiveness once again, what happens?

I grow in confidence that the Spirit's working within me, though I can't explain how he did it, is a

real work.

And I know that I'm growing more and more in the image of Jesus Christ, not that he ever had anything to repent of, but as

I repent, as I am purged, as God cleanses my heart more and more,

I become just that increment, more like Christ, a lifelong endeavor.

No perfection in this life.

None of us are gonna come close.

It's the goal that's important.

He's asking God to not take his spirit away from this working he's doing in him, not to abandon him to hell,

not to cast him away from his presence.

No one is able to snatch you out of my Father's hands, except the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Least of all, yourself.

Least of all are you able to snatch yourself out of the Father's hands.

And that's Samuel 6, 1 Samuel 16, 14, that odd little verse.

Little else in scripture to help us understand it.

So I wanna know what it does not say.

It does not say that God sent an evil, for example, demon to Saul.

God is of two pure eyes and to behold evil, nor can he be tempted by evil.

And God's not gonna have a cadre of demons before him and pick a demon and send that to

Saul.

God would not do such a thing.

God, Jesus proved this when he faced the evil one's temptations.

So what's this troubling spirit?

It is God who troubled Saul so as to show him his sin.

And this is exactly the ministry of the spirit today to convict us of our sin, to prompt us to repent.

God's sending this spirit that troubles you, that won't let you rest until you finally

say, yes, this is what has floated to the surface from this quagmire.

This is what I was holding down, repressing, lying about,

not acknowledging, unwilling to admit even in my private prayer closet

to the Lord God who knows my heart, Jesus Christ who knows all things.

I believe that God sent him a spirit to show him his sin.

That's Saul.

And does he not do the same for you and me?

Did he not successfully show you your sin to bring you to salvation?

And then does he not clearly portray to the eyes of your heart Jesus Christ and him crucified?

Did he not goad the Pharisee Saul's conscience even as he tried to destroy Christ and his church?

In one of Paul's testimonies about that, he said, Jesus told him, it's

hard to kick against the goads, the goads of conscience that the spirit of God brings.

It's a mercy to never be ignored when the Lord sends you these evil thoughts, this troubling spirit

that leads you away from your sin and back to your Savior's ever open arms.

So you might say, the spirit departed from Saul says so clearly, and I would agree, it did.

It does say so.

No doubt about it.

So why did he?

And why, preacher, are you telling me I can be sure he won't do that with me?

Well, my first answer, at the risk of oversimplifying, is very simple.

He departed from Saul because he chose to.

The spirit of God is God.

Jesus Christ himself said, he goes where he wishes.

He does what he will do.

He is God.

He's not it.

He's not that.

He's God, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God.

So he departed because he chose to.

But if you believe that he departed from Saul because of his sin, then I have to ask you, does that mean that whenever I sin,

the spirit can and will depart from me?

If your fear is born from this verse, then you need to ask, what would bring him back?

Reconversion, rebaptism, good works?

Would you do more good things, a penance as the Catholics would have you do?

What work would you do that would bring him back to you?

Not of works, lest anyone should boast, says the Apostle Paul, so that doesn't work.

And what would that do if you could bring him back by doing something good to Romans 5 .1, therefore have me justified by

faith.

Justified by faith and faith alone, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

A once for all time justification, bringing a peace that comes and goes every time I sin?

How could that be?

I mean, as often as I sin, even God might get tired of that.

No, that's not at all what happens.

So why can I say that the Holy Spirit will not depart from the believer?

Because of the cross of Jesus Christ, because of his cross.

Jesus said in John 7 .39, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried, if

anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

Now this he said about the spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the spirit had not

been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Do you see how important his resurrection is?

When Jesus Christ was glorified through the resurrection and later through his ascension back to the father's right side, that's when

the spirit was given.

Because of his cross, because of his death, his burial and his resurrection.

Can we reverse the resurrection?

No more can you reverse the resurrection.

Can you reverse the cross that led to that death that led to the resurrection?

Can you reverse the working of the spirit within you if you truly believe in Christ?

He said in 1526 of John, when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the father, the spirit of truth who

proceeds from the father, he will bear witness about me.

Bear witness of what?

Exactly, of the cross, of forgiveness that the cross won.

Bear what witness?

Exactly, of our Lord's resurrection three days after the cross.

Bear witness of what?

Exactly, to your spirit, that you are truly children of the living God.

And he said later, the Holy Spirit will glorify me and he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

So where's God's glory?

It's in the cross, which awaited Jesus Christ just a few hours after these words he spoke.

Putting all this together, the spirit was given when Jesus was glorified by his resurrection, John 739,

and is that to which he bears witness, that's John 1526, thus glorifying God's beloved son

and the spirit.

The Lord spoke of the abiding residence of the spirit within you.

And I will ask of the father and he will give you another helper to be with you until you make me mad again.

No, to be with you until you fill up that cup of grief and there's one drop over and my spirit departs from you.

He will give you another helper to be with you.

I'm just tired of you and I'm gonna go to a more holy, but no, it doesn't say that.

What does Jesus say?

Get ready to repeat.

I will ask the father and he will give you another helper.

That's the spirit.

To be with you forever.

To be with you how long?

Forever.

Can you reverse that?

Can you change that promise?

No, you cannot.

The Lord said no one can snatch a believer from the father's hands.

Least of all you yourself, least of all any human, least of all God who would have to then go back on

his own word by his son, Jesus.

To depart from you would be to undo the work of the Trinity itself in their greatest work, which is the resurrection.

Galatians 1 says that God the father raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Romans 8, 11 says the spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead.

In John 2, 19, Jesus said, I will raise myself up from the dead.

All of that cast aside if, if it is possible for the Holy Spirit to vacate a believer just because of their sin.

It's for sin that Jesus Christ died.

It's for sin that he by his spirit resides in you to draw you further and further away from that sin.

When it's the ongoing work of the spirit to show us our sin, to point us again and again to its only answer, which is the cross, the

resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and repentance and knowing God's forgiveness.

And he who loves me said Jesus Christ will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself

to him.

Unless of course you mess up again.

Unless of course you do that one more grieving thing.

Unless you have a sin greater than God's forgiving love.

Unless you're able to find the limit of God's compassions for our weakness.

Unless the psalmist lied when he wrote in the 139th Psalm that the Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve.

The father, Jesus says, will love those who love his son unless your sin is greater than the Lord's cross and

resurrection.

You all see where this is going.

If you've ever feared the spirit of God would leave you and stop doing this work within you, cast aside that fear.

Your perfect love casts out that fear.

Know that Jesus Christ himself said he will be with you forever.

And how do you know?

I don't know how he does it.

But as we exhibit more love, joy, peace and the rest of that to each other, as we follow in his works,

as we join together in love with one another because of our love for the Lord Jesus Christ who binds us together and edify one

another and encourage one another and draw one another up into his image.

You know from those objective proofs that that spirit of God, even though we don't know how he did it, he

is indeed doing it.

You will never bloom fully in the Lord Jesus Christ if you live in fear of his spirit being taken away.

We can't walk in the paths he prepared beforehand if we're stooped over and cringing with our hands over our head in case we should get

fed up.

He should get fed up with me and smite me from heaven.

I would go so far as to argue that such fear actually impugns the character of God and the transforming power

of his spirit by the gospel.

So brethren, you can see where this was going.

The spirit of God rushes upon you and brings success to God's word in bringing you to Christ.

The spirit of God rushed upon you, stays with you from this day forth, drawing you evermore and

evermore and evermore into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So I'll close with this.

And the spirit of God rushed upon you on the day he gave you faith to believe and he will never leave you or forsake you

and all that for Jesus' sake, amen.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.

And I thank you, Father, that your word shows so clearly the security that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And may we ever grow more and more in his image.

And that you, Father, will keep your spirit within us and that spirit that is promised to stay in us.

Father, continue this good work.

Show us our sin.

Draw us ever closer to Christ Jesus.

Make us ever quicker to repent and more appreciative of the forgiveness in him that we have.

And we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen.