Grieving the Holy Spirit

The Chaff Driven Away

Spurgeon begins by carefully defining the "ungodly" — not primarily the blasphemer or the open rebel, but the far larger class of respectable, church-attending people who live without a genuine eye to God, who have no love for him, no delight in prayer, and no dependence on Christ's blood — and then works through the fearful negative of Psalm 1:4 clause by clause, showing that the ungodly lack the special providence that watches over the righteous, have no perennial river of consolation to draw from in times of drought and death, bring forth no fruit and stand under the curse of Meroz for doing nothing, will find their leaf withering when trials come, and have no promise that what they do shall prosper. He then lingers on the terrible comparison to chaff — sapless, fruitless, light, unstable, and utterly worthless — and draws particular force from the nearness of chaff to grain, pressing home the solemn thought that ungodly fathers, sons, and mothers sit side by side with God's people, wrapped around them like a husk, and that the great winnowing day will sever these closest relationships forever. He closes with the awful prophecy — the wind drives the chaff away into unquenchable fire — and pivots from thunder to gospel, urging every ungodly hearer to cherish any spark of desire toward Christ, yield to the Spirit's movement, and look to the crucified Savior who came to save the lost and will in no wise cast out any who come to him. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on October 23rd, 1859.

Come and Welcome

Spurgeon builds the sermon around four elements of Revelation 22:17 — the water of life itself (God's free grace that pardons sin, overcomes the love of sin, satisfies the soul's deepest longings, and ends in eternal life), the breadth of the invitation ("whosoever will," with no reference to understanding, past character, feelings of repentance, or worthiness — the only question being whether you are willing), the cleared path ("let him come," meaning every obstacle — Satan, doubt, over-scrupulous preachers who pile up conditions, the sinner's own sense of unworthiness — is commanded to stand aside by the voice of Omnipotence), and the one condition that destroys all conditions: "freely." He lingers especially on "whosoever will" to demolish every excuse that keeps seekers back — you may be ignorant, hard-hearted, a notorious sinner, unable to repent as you wish — but none of these are the question; the text asks only about the will, and if you are willing, you are invited without exception or qualification. He closes with an equally emphatic refusal of all payment or worthiness as a price for the water, insisting it is to be taken without money, without merit, without stint, and without limit — Christ is more pleased to give than the sinner can be to receive — and urges every willing soul to come at once to the bleeding Savior on the cross, since none who come will ever be cast out. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on October 16th, 1859.

Grieving the Holy Spirit

Spurgeon builds his case for not grieving the Holy Spirit on two foundations: first, the Spirit's love — surveyed through his early striving with us before conversion, his patient perseverance when we resisted him, his work in quickening and teaching us, his help when we cannot pray, his indwelling despite our constant sin — arguing that this record of tender, costly, persistent love makes grieving him a particularly shameful ingratitude; and second, the Spirit's sealing, by which he attests the reality of our faith, marks us as God's own property, and preserves us unto the day of final redemption. He then identifies the ways believers grieve the Spirit — impure thoughts and outward sins, neglect of prayer and Scripture, ingratitude, unbelief — and traces the effects of his withdrawal: the Word becomes dark, comfort vanishes, power for service dries up, and all the graces wilt like flowers without water, leaving the believer in a misery no worldly thing can fill. He closes with both a personal and corporate application: urging any backslider to search out and slay the specific sin that drove the Spirit away and cry for his return, while lamenting that many churches have similarly grieved him into near-absence, and calling God's people to humble themselves, purge whatever is contrary to his Word, and plead for a revival that will open heaven's windows again. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on October 9th, 1859.

The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant

Spurgeon works through the Everlasting Covenant systematically — identifying the contracting parties as the three persons of the Trinity (not God and man), the stipulations as the Father promising to give his elect to the Son and the Spirit promising to quicken and preserve them, the Son promising to live, die, rise, and intercede until every one is safely delivered — and insists that its "everlasting" character means it is older than creation, surer than any human structure, immutable rather than a revolving door of the believer going in and out of grace, and guaranteed to run on into eternity since it promises the endless happiness of all its objects. He then traces the fourfold relationship of Christ's blood to this covenant: it is Christ's fulfillment of his side of the agreement, it is the bond that now legally obliges the Father to keep every promise he made, it is the evidence by which individual sinners may know they are included (for whoever trusts the blood is thereby proved to be in the covenant), and it is the shared glory of Father, Son, and sinner alike. He closes by insisting that while the decree is particular, the gospel call is as wide as the world, and he invites every trembling sinner to simply trust the blood and not worry about election in the abstract — for if you have chosen Christ it is proof that he has long since chosen you, and any heart that genuinely clings to the cross is thereby marked as one of those for whom the Everlasting Covenant was made. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on September 4th, 1859.

A Divided Heart

Spurgeon takes the divided heart as a spiritual disease of the most dangerous kind — dangerous because it strikes a vital organ, because its victim is unconscious of how loathsome it is, because it is chronic and deep-seated, and above all because the heart flatters its owner into thinking everything is fine — and he identifies its four main symptoms: formality in religion (defending the shell because there is no kernel), inconsistency of life (one kind of person on Sunday and another on Saturday), variableness of purpose (spasmodic religious enthusiasm that comes and goes with the latest cause), and frivolity toward sacred things. He then traces the sad effects of this condition in three directions: the divided-heart person is personally miserable because the soul cannot rest in two places at once, he is useless and even dangerous to the church since hypocrisy spreads like contagion among healthy people, and he is utterly reprobate in God's sight — for God hates sin anywhere but most of all when it lays its hand on his altar wearing a disguise. He closes with two contrasting words: a solemn warning to the brazen-faced professor that at judgment he will be snatched from among the saints with greater horror than a common sinner receives; and a tender invitation to the broken-hearted penitent who, unlike the divided heart, has had all self-confidence shattered and now desires only to be truly God's — such a person is bidden to trust Christ immediately, since he is willing, able, and waiting to be gracious. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on September 25th, 1859.