Grieve Not The Holy Spirit

“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. 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. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” —Ephesians 4:25–32

The most important part of this entire section is verse 30, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” The term, “grieve” means “to give pain.” Give not pain to the holy Spirit of God. How may we pain Him? By walking in disobedience to any of the admonitions that are given us in this particular section. We have here the walk that should characterize a believer. We have seen in this epistle something of our wonderful privileges, our great blessings in Christ in the heavenlies, and now we are considering that part of the epistle which stresses for us our practical responsibilities.

It is a poor thing to talk of living in the heavenlies if we are walking with the world. It is a poor thing to glory in our privileges in Christ if we are behaving according to the flesh. And so in this part of the epistle, the apostle emphasizes the importance of true Christian living. He says in verse 25, “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” We have seen how the exalted Christ in glory turns our hearts back to consider the blessed example sets us by Jesus as He walked through this scene, that we may consider the truth as it is in Jesus. They came to Him on one occasion and said, “Whom makest though thyself?” And he said (using the exact rendering), “Altogether what I say unto you.” What a tremendous statement, nothing covered, nothing hidden, no sham, no pretense; He was exactly the same in the presence of God as He was before men. This indeed is truth in life, and you and I who have put our trust in Him are called to put away everything that is false.

The word translated “lying” is simply the Greek word that we have taken over into the English, pseudo—“that which is false.” We are to put away everything that is merely pretense or sham and speak every man truth with his neighbor. The Christian is called to be punctilious, to be honest even in little things, not to make bargains that he does not keep. If a businessman, he is not to overstate the case when trying to sell something. In Proverbs we read, “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth” (Proverbs 20:14). Even that is contrary to the Holy Spirit of God. The Christian is called on to be true in everything. True in his behavior, true in his speech.

Notice the motive given, “For we are members one of another.” He is thinking especially here, of course, of our relation to fellow believers as though he would say, “Why should you attempt ever to deceive a fellow believer? Why should you ever be false to another child of God. Why should you pretend to something that is not true when dealing with another Christian? Why should you be unfaithful to a member of the same body to which you yourself belong?” Can you imagine members of our natural bodies being false to one another? What is for the good of one is for the good of all; and so in the body of Christ, what is for the good of one member is for the good of all, and the Christian is called to see that he never defaults in any way in his dealings with a fellow Christian.

Then we read in [Ephesians 4] verse 26, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil.” This verse has perplexed a good many people. Some imagine that it is always wrong to be angry. There are circumstances under which it would be very wrong not to be angry. Our  blessed Lord though absolutely perfect in His humanity was angry on more than one occasion. He saw the pretentious Pharisees going in and out of the temple of God with a great air of sanctity and yet He knew some of them held mortgages on widows’ homes and when occasion arose, they foreclosed on them and turned them out into the world because they could not meet their obligations. Our Lord’s indignation was aroused, his anger flamed up and He said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation" (Matthew 23:14). If my spirit would not be stirred to indignation by anything of the kind today, I am not the sort of Christian I ought to be. If I were to see a great brute of a fellow abusing a little child and were to pass by with that sweet simpering Christian Science smile that says, “Oh well, everything is lovely, God is good and good is God, all is God and God is all, and there is nothing wrong in the world,” and would not be stirred to anger, I would be a cad and not a Christian. There is an anger that is righteous. We read that our Lord Jesus on one occasion “looked round about them with anger being grieved at the hardness of their hearts.” How then am I to be angry and sin not? A puritan has put it this way, “I am determined so to be angry as not to sin, therefore to be angry at nothing but sin.”

You see, the moment self comes in, my anger is sinful. You do me a wrong and I flare with anger. That is sin. But you blaspheme the name of my Savior and if I am not stirred to anger, that is sin. If I am wholly reconciled as I should be, it will arouse my indignation when I hear His name blasphemed or see the truth dragged in the dust. But so far as I am concerned, I am to suffer all things, I am to endure all things. Men may count me as the offscouring of the earth, they may do the worst they can against me but if I become angry, I sin, for self is the object there.

Who is there then that is sinless? No one. That is why he says, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” If you are stirred to sinful anger, if you flare up, see then that you do not retire to your bed at night before you confess your sin. If you have given vent to indignation before another, see that you confess it to him. Many people have said to me, “I have such a bad temper. I have tried so hard to overcome it but I get angry and say things that I regret afterwards, and I make up my mind never to do it again but I am sure to fail.” I usually ask this question, “Do you make it a practice, when you have given utterance to angry exclamation, to go to the person before whom you sinned and confess it?” Sometimes I get this answer, “No, I never cherish anything, I flare up and then it is all over. Yes, but the memory is not all over. The other person remembers it. If every time you sin through anger you would go immediately to that one and confess and ask forgiveness, you would soon get tired of going so often and you would put a check upon yourself. It would not be so easy to fly off the handle. But as long as you can flare up and pay no attention to it, or, while you may confess it to God, you do not do so to your brother, you will find the habit growing on you.

This expression, “Be ye angry, and sin not,” is a direct quotation from the Septuagint translation of Psalm 4:4. Our English version reads, “Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” The Hebrew word translated, “stand in awe” is a word that means, “tremble,” and our translators rendered it, “Stand in awe”—tremble at the presence of God. But that is not necessarily all that it means. The Septuagint made it read, “Be ye angry, and sin not.” These words were probably recorded at the time that David was fleeing from Absalom, his own son, and his heart was stirred as he through of the unfilial character of his son’s behavior. That son for whom he had so often prayed was bringing dishonor upon the name of the Lord, and it moved his hear to indignation. But he said, “I am not going to go to sleep tonight until all that indignation is quieted down—‘stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.’” Just get quietly into the presence of God and then you will be able to look at things from a right standpoint and as you think of your own failures, of the many, many times that God in grace has had to forgive you, it will make you very lenient as you think of the failures of others and instead of getting up on the judgment seat and judging another believer it will lead you to self-judgment and that will bring blessing whereas the other is only harmful to your own spiritual life.

“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil.” Why? Because anger cherished becomes malice and Satan works through a malicious spirit. He seeks to get control of Christians and have them act in malice toward fellow believers. All this grieves the Holy Spirit of God. These are searching things, and we have to take them each for himself. “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Let us not avoid it but face it honestly.

“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth,” (Ephesians 4:28). There is many a person who steals who would not like to be called a thief. We have names for stealing that sound much better, for instance, “pilfering,” and “purloining.” They mean the same thing but do not sound quite as bad as “stealing.” But the Spirit of God covers them all in this, “Let him that stole steal no more.” Let him that appropriated what he had no right to, steal no more. The Christian is to be intrinsically honest. You know, it is easy to become slack along these lines. It is easy, if you are working in an office, for instance, to say to yourself, “Oh well, they don’t pay me anything like what I am worth and therefore there are certain little things about the office I can claim.” I knew one young man who had a habit of stealing lead pencils until he had accumulated a gross of them and then his conscience smote him and the day came when he had to go back to the boss with the lead pencils and say, “I am a Christian and I am returning these pencils to you.” Christians are called upon to be faithful in very small things, things that others may not pay any attention to at all. What a pity that sometimes Christians cannot be trusted anywhere, one who will be faithful in another man’s things just as much as in his own things.

But it is not enough that we refrain from thievery. The Law says, “Thou shalt not steal” but grace comes in and how much higher is the standard set under grace than that under Law! It is not only, “Let him that stole steal no more” but he adds, “but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” I could live up to the righteousness that is in the Law if I refrained from taking what is another’s, but I cannot live up to the holiness of grace except as I share with others what God in His kindness gives to me. What a wonderful standard is that of Christianity.

And then in verse 29 we have the care of the tongue. The psalmist says, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my lips, keep the door of my mouth.” And James says, “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body” (James 3:2). I have met some “perfect” people. I knew they were perfect because they told me so; but when I was with them a while and listened to their speech, heard their careless worldly chatter, noticed how critical of other people they were, heard the unkind, cutting remarks they could make concerning other people, I knew their perfection was all a delusion.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Here the apostle says, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.” Corrupt communication that comes from the old nature which is corrupt. You see the new nature produces holy communication—the old, the corrupt nature, produces corrupt communication. “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.” “Oh,” says somebody, “this is where my trouble is. My tongue is always getting me into difficulty. I make up my mind never to say anything unkind and the next instant my tongue seems to be set on a pivot.” Very well, when you find that you just must talk and you cannot stop, say, “Now Lord, this tongue of mine wants to get going, help me to say something good.” And then quote some Scripture and speak of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, tell that which is good for the building up of your hearers and you won’t go away with regrets and at the close of the day have to get down on your knees and say, “O Lord, forgive me for my careless chatter and un-Christianlike words today.” We are not cut out to be dumb, some of us like to talk but we are to talk about good things, we are to let Christ be the burden of our speech, to present Him to others.

I have known men with whom it was a delight to spend a little time because I never went from their company without learning more of the Lord Jesus. I am thinking of a friend of mine in whose company I have never been for ten minutes but what he would say to me, “You know, I was thinking of such and such a Scripture, and while I was meditating the Spirit gave me such and such a thought.” How different it is with others at times. How different it has been many, many times with this tongue of mine. What sorrows it has brought upon me, speaking unadvisedly with the lips. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying—that is, for the building up of those to whom you speak—that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”

And now we come to the crucial text—“And grieve not—pain not—the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” As we have already seen, the Spirit of God dwells in each believer, a divine Person, a blessed heavenly guest, and He is listening to everything you say and is taking note of everything you do. All that is said, all that is done contrary to the holiness of Christ and to the righteousness of God grieves that blessed indwelling Holy Spirit. Have you ever known what it was to have someone in the house who did not approve of anything you were doing? Perhaps they did not say anything but you had the sense that they did not like things. That is the way it is with the Spirit of God if a believer is not walking in accordance with the truth.

Do we read, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, lest you should grieve Him away?” No, you are not going to grieve Him away. Jesus said, “I shall send you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever.” When He comes to indwell a believer, He never leaves. David, in the Old Testament dispensation, said, “Take not they Holy Spirit from me,” but in the glorious dispensation of grace, that prayer is not becoming to our lips for when He comes to indwell us, He never leaves us until we are presented faultless in the presence of the lord Jesus Christ. But the point is just this, He does not leave, He dwells within but is grieved all the time that we are walking in disobedience to the Word. That is why many of us are never very happy; that is why we do not enjoy communion with God, that is why we are not singing songs of victory. You see as long as the Holy Spirit dwells in me ungrieved He is free to take of the things of Christ and show them unto me and that fills my heart with gladness. But the moment I begin to grieve Him, He stops doing the work He delighted to do, He is not free to open these things to me. He has to occupy me with my own failure and sin until I confess it.

Then, I have the joy of knowing that I am sealed—how long? “Unto the day of redemption.” What does he mean by that? I thought the day of redemption was the day Christ died on Calvary’s cross. That was when Jesus died to redeem my soul. But there is the coming day of the redemption of the body when the blessed Lord will return again to transform these bodies of our humiliation and make them like unto His own glorious body. It is the redemption referred to in Romans 8:22–23. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to-wit, the redemption of our body.” We are sealed unto the redemption of our bodies. When we get that, the old nature will be gone, we will not have to be on our guard any more against grieving the Holy Spirit. It is here and now in this body that we need to watch against this thing.

He concludes this section by saying, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” I wish that as Christians we would let the Word of God have its way with us! Is there any bitterness in your heart against any one on Earth? Do you say, “But you don’t know how I have been tested, how I have been tried, insulted, offended?” If you had not been offended there would be no reason for the bitterness at all but he says, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all—a-l-l—malice.” Now, you see, if you do not live up to that, you are not living a real Christian life. This is Christianity in the power of the Holy Ghost. And we are not merely told to put these things away but there must be the positive side.

“Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” To what extent must I forgive? “I have forgiven over and over and over again, and I cannot go on forgiving forever.” Wait a minute, what does the apostle say about the extent to which we are to forgive? “Even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Can you ever get beyond that? Has anyone ever wronged you as much as you wronged God? But if you have trusted the Savior, God in Christ has forgiven you all your trespasses. Now this is the standard for Christians, we are to forgive one another even as God in Christ has forgiven us.