THE HOLY SPIRIT

In his book Anecdotes and Illustrations R. A Torrey relates the following incident:

During our Dublin campaign, a young man came to me in great distress. He had been paying attention to a young lady, who was very worldly. He had been brought up under Christian influences, his mother being an earnest Christian woman.

He told me that the preceding Sunday evening he had called upon the young lady in whom he was interested. The girl’s mother proposed that they play cards. The young lady’s mother urged him to join in the game, but he refused. He said to me, “When I was invited to play cards, the thought came to me, ‘What if my mother should hear of it. It would break her heart.’”

How many a man is kept back from doing things he would otherwise do by the thought of how it would grieve his mother if she should hear of it. But there is One who is more keenly sensitive than the purest mother, who is grieved at the slightest departure from the path of right as no mother even is grieved, that One is the Holy Spirit.

Oftentimes when some evil thought is suggested to me by the enemy, the thought comes, “I cannot entertain that thought for a moment. If I do, the Holy Spirit, who sees it, will be deeply grieved & I cannot bear to grieve this ever-present, faithful Friend.”

- (ministry127.com)

Ep 4:30 (KJV): “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God…”

“The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church, grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil. -  Leonard Ravenhill.