OFFENSES AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT.

• Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh? Gal. 3,3.

• Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did so do ye. Acts 7, 51.

• Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of Redemption. Eph. 4, 30.

• Quench not the Spirit. I Thes. 5, 19.

• Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. Acts 5, 3.

• Whosoever blasphemeth against the Holy Spirit, hath never forgivenness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. Mark 3, 29.

We gather from the Scripture that the Holy Spirit may be offended in many ways.

1. Ignoring the Holy Spirit is one cause of offense. Many Christians are ignoring Him. Some do not recognize Him in any part of their life — they seem to be left as orphans with no Comforter at all. Others seem to see Him present with them to protect and take them to heaven, but do not receive Him for their purifier, or indwelling power for service, and ignore Him in His power to save.

2. Despising the Holy Spirit is another offense.

To do despite, is to treat him shamefully. Many do not honor the Holy Spirit as God. They call Him it, an influence from God, while He is God who has come to administer in our affairs. Many despise His presence but want His gifts.

3. Resisting the Holy Spirit is Offensive to Him. My Spirit shall not always strive with man. Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye. The words lust against, strive against, fight against, seek against, are all used to express the operations of the carnal mind in resisting the Spirit who shall not always strive with man.

4. Another offense is to vex the Holy Spirit. The Jews rebelled and vexed the Holy Spirit in the wilderness. “How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness and make Him angry in the desert.” This means to annoy the Holy Spirit with little excuses, made-up reasons for disobediences. How many Christians are vexing the Holy Spirit as in the day of provocation in the wilderness.

5. Grieving the Holy Spirit is another method of offense. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. That sin is generally committed by advanced Christians, not only born but sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. We do not get the full meaning of this word Grieve. You grieve a friend. The dearer the friend, the greater the grief, a companion or a mother may be grieved, but the Greek word means sorrowful and sorely troubled. Just as Jesus was in Gethsemane. The Holy Spirit is in sorrow for us as Jesus was in the garden. The greatest sufferer in the world to-day is God, the Holy Spirit. And there is no question but the holiness people, who were sealed unto the day of redemption are grieving Him, sorely grieving Him.

6. Hardening the heart. “To-day if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your heart.” Notice the emphasis, “to-day, to-day, today,” The Children of Israel, redeemed from Egypt, refused to listen, shut their ears, hardened their hearts and were finally cut off, but this hardening process did not end there. It recurs again and again. Do you hear his voice, and refuse to listen, refuse to obey, then you are hardening your hearts.

7. We may offend the Holy Spirit by lying to Him. In the case af Ananias and Sapphira, their sin was lying and tempting the Holy Spirit. They tempted the Holy Spirit not merely to smite them with death, to execute judgment, but to leave the church and abandon His work. The church was consecrated so as to have one mind and one heart. They were all for Christ, but here were two persons who loved the praise of man, pretended to give all when they knew it was not so, claimed to be consecrated when they knew they were not. In these times when consecration has become popular, we all need to be watchful lest we fall into this temptation of lying and offend the Holy Spirit. Let us quit lying to one another and to God.

8. Quenching the Spirit is another offence. “Quench not the Spirit” is a scriptural warning. The Spirit gives us power to pray, to praise and to prophesy! Putting out the fire of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in the hearts of others is fatal to service. There is a double offense. We may put the fire out in our own heart and also in the heart of other people. We may put the fire out of our own hearts by preferring other things: the praise of men, the place of ease, the place of power, the place of fame and the fire goes out. Compromising with self, with the world, the flesh and the devil and the fire goes out. Compromising with a cold church, the fire goes out in our own hearts.

Then being careless of others, or despising testimony of others, they will be chilled, discouraged and the fire will go out. Quench not the Spirit.

9. Defiling the Temple is another offense. Your body is the temple of God. Notice it is the body that is the temple. There are two purposes of a temple: (1) Localization of God. The Lord is in His temple and He is there for manifestations. (2) The other purpose is the worship of the located God. The truth is this, our body has been made for the purpose of locating God in this world, it has been built for a temple for Himself. Then when it is built and is consecrated, we worship and glorify God in our bodies which are His. Beware of defiling the temple with a lustful spirit, a cross spirit, or a worldly spirit.

10. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. There seems to be three degrees of blasphemy. Two of them are preparatory to the final one. In Mark, 3rd chapter, it is said, the friends of Jesus went out to lay hold on Him, for they said He was beside Himself. He was risking His life, destroying His usefulness, opposing the church, and they said He is beside Himself. Charging the Spirit, with which Jesus was filled with being insane. That is the first degree of blasphemy. Then Mark goes on a little further. The Scribes said, “He hath Beelzebub and by the Prince of devils casteth He out devils.” That is His power was the power of the devil. This was the blasphemy in the second degree.

Then they went on and said He had an unclean Spirit. He was indecent, impure, wearing a cloak to deceive the people and He said whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin “because they said He had an unclean Spirit.” Rejecting the Holy Spirit, charging Him with insanity, and calling Him a wicked, deceitful and unclean spirit that is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost that hath neither forgiveness in this world nor the world to come.

An old illustration of the work of the three persons of the Godhead in man's salvation shows why sin against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable.

The Father is like a physician who by his wisdom has discovered the only cure for a deadly disease.

The Son is like another physician who alone by his skill prepares the medicine thus discovered. The Spirit is like a third physician that goes about administering this medicine to the dying. Here it is seen that it is only by the work of the third physician that the work of the other two can be made effectual.

The sick may not like the first physician and may dishonor the second, but if they will obey the third physician and take the remedy, they will get well and then they will love both the other physicians.

Though the first and second physicians may have done their work perfectly, if the sick reject the third physician and refuse to take the remedy, their disease will be fatal and deadly to them. They commit the unpardonable sin, for there is no other Administrator of the Grace of God but the Holy Spirit and to reject Him is fatal to the soul's salvation.