444-2 – THANKS, I NEEDED THAT!
September 24, 1978
Pastor Henry F. Kulp
Ephesians 4: 30 – 32 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.
The theme of this portion of Scripture is about the Holy Spirit—that wonderful One Who takes up His abode in the believer’s life. The believer’s body becomes the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
1/ It tells us that we may grieve, give pain, give sorrow to the Holy Spirit. In other words, we do not permit Him to control us.
2/ Someone just this week said to me, “You’ve been talking about the Holy Spirit, and is the Holy Spirit God? Do you believe in the Trinity?” Of course, I do. The Holy Spirit is just as much a Person as God the Father and God the Son, and He is just as much God as God the Father and God the Son. I am going to give you just one very short proof of this, but it is very clear in this passage.
3/ Acts 5: 3, 4 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
Here we have Ananias and Sapphira, and you will notice what Peter said to Ananias—Why hast Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?
So first of all, you see, He had to be a Person—you can’t lie to a power, you can’t lie to an influence—you have to lie to a person. For the Holy Spirit is a Person. Then he said, you kept back part of the price of the land—the money for it, but you said you gave it all to the Apostles. You lied to God. Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? Why hast thou lied to God? So God and the Holy Spirit are one and the same.
4/ There is another thing we want to notice here, and I thought I ought to bring it to your attention. Although He is called the Holy Spirit, it is certain He is not more Holy than the Father, or the Son. Absolute holiness is an attribute of the Triune God. God the Father is absolutely Holy, God the Son is absolutely Holy and God the Holy Spirit is absolutely Holy.
5/ We are to make certain we do not grieve the Holy Spirit, but permit Him to control our lives. Now at this point we might notice that even though we grieve the Holy Spirit, we
do not grieve Him so that He leaves us. The Scripture says we are sealed unto the day of redemption. How long is that?
6/ First, let us look at the word, sealed. It is the Greek word, STRAW-GREID-ZOE. It is a great word, and it is used four ways in the ancient world, so we have to go back and find out what the word, sealing, meant in ancient times. We do not have much in the way of sealing today. I know we seal cartons, but that doesn’t mean too much to us. So, let us look at four ways the seal was used.
a. Whenever they had a business transactions and it was finished they took a piece of paper with the transaction upon it, and then at the bottom of the page, they poured two little pools of wax, and then the two businessmen, each of them would wear a signet ring, and on the signet ring, it had something that identified them—one man might have made a lot of money at sea, so he would have an anchor upon his signet ring. So, he would take that ring and dip it in the wax. It would be there, the other man would do it and the transaction was sealed.
b. When we believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit takes up His abode in our bodies, and this Holy Spirit is a seal to show that the transaction is finished. It is over, it is done. You and I have eternal life. We have God’s signature, the Holy Spirit, living within us. Finished.
c. In Ancient Days a man might have a beautiful chariot with a fantastic team. How did he go about proving that they belonged to him? He had his seal upon them, and this seal was a sign of ownership. You might ask the question how do you know you are saved? The moment you are saved, the Holy Spirit comes and indwells your body and He seals you and He proves that God owns you. You have the signature of God, the Holy Spirit shows that you are the property of God the Father—ownership, His property.
d. Thirdly, they had a fantastic banking system in those days, actually they had two. They started out with the temples, and the temples were the banks, but especially military leaders used to rob the banks to be able to finance their wars. Other people would break into the temple and steal their money. Then the businessmen began to set up their banks. Alexandria was the great place of business. Let’s use an illustration. Suppose I had $300,000, or the equivalent of it in those days, in the Bank of Alexandria, a businessman’s bank. I owed a certain man $50,000, what do I do? I write down that amount, put wax at the bottom, put my stamp upon it with my signet ring, and write on it that I owe this person that much money. He may take it from Rome to Alexandria, and it says on there, pay to so-and-so $50,000 and there is not a problem—he gets the money and I am poorer by $50,000, and I only have $250,000 in the bank—so sealing was used to sign a check. When God the Holy Spirit, the seal of God indwells us at the moment of salvation, we are a treasure of God, we not only belong to Him, but we are valuable to Him, and all the resources of God are available to us at this present time.
e. Then, fourthly, a seal was a means of protection of something very valuable. A treasury might be sealed by the king. He might have a certain public building and the king would put his seal upon it, and it meant if you were to deface it in any way, you had to answer to the king. The indwelling Holy Spirit Who is the Seal of God, means we are protected by God—we belong to Him and He watches over us and He protects us. We are valuable to God, I know we don’t look very valuable, but we are valuable to God.
7/ So, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, that means we have the Signature of God within us, and we have eternal life, we are owned by God, we are valuable to God, and we have the protection of God. What a wonderful fact to be saved and to be sealed by the Holy Spirit of God.
8/ How long are you sealed—to the Day of Redemption. That means He never leaves you. How long is that—to the Day of Redemption. Is not the Day of Redemption the day that Christ Jesus died on Calvary’s cross? When Jesus Christ died to redeem our souls? No, this is not the day He has in mind. There is a coming day of redemption of the body, when we get a new body, a resurrection body. It is the day when our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, will appear in the Heavens, catch us up to be with Him, and take our bodies which will be a seed and make it into resurrection, or a glorious body like His own glorious body.
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 firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
9/ Then we get our resurrection body, or our new body like the body of Jesus Christ, the old nature will be gone, and we will not have to be on our guard any more about grieving the Holy Spirit. But at this present time we must be on our guard against grieving Him, praying to Him and allowing Him to have control of our lives.
10/ Last week we started with Ephesians 4: 25 We said there are things here that if we do them we grieve the Holy Spirit. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.
First of all, lying—anything that is false. Then we are to be angry and sin not. Then we are not to give place to the devil, we are not to steal, but we are to work with our hands.
11/ Verse 29 This is where we stopped last week. Unholy speech is dealt with here. He says, Let not corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
Psalms 141: 3 We need to pray with David, Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
A wise man makes God the doorkeeper of his mouth. What terrible things the tongue can do. Some people have tongues that are as sharp as razor blades, and the devil loves to use a tongue like this.
12/ Proverbs 17: 27 Here He gives us some instruction about corrupt communications coming from our mouths—it says, He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.
Those who would talk for the Lord Jesus Christ, must always learn that they can talk too much. All of us say too much. I am sure you will admit this is true, but he who has knowledge has learned—a learned individual spareth his words.
13/ Proverbs 26: 20 There we read Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth.
Do you know why trouble often doesn’t stop, a situation never gets cleared up? Because folks keep on talking, they keep the fire burning by constantly putting fuel upon it by talking and talking and talking about it. A fire will never go out if you keep on putting fuel upon it, and the trouble is many people don’t want the fire to go out. When there is a situation that is bad among believers, you should not talk about it.
14/ Matthew 12: 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
The whole trouble, of course, goes back to the mind once again, for here we read, For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. You say that which you have been thinking. If you have been thinking that which is unprofitable, that which is corrupt, you can’t help but speak of that which has been in the center of your mind.
15/ Ephesians 4: 31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Bitterness is the opposite of sweetness. Bitterness is something sharp, sarcastic, perverse.
16/ Hebrews 12: 15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
A believer should not be bitter! Notice the progression—bitterness, then wrath, then anger, then clamour, then evil speaking. First, came bitterness in the heart. Wrath with exasperation is harder to restrain. Anger blazed forth in your mind. Clamour means yelling, violent outburst of words, then evil speaking of those you think abused you. Evil speaking means you don’t fear what you say about a person. To slander is to be injurious. We are to be kind in every contact of life and this is not natural.
Matthew 18: 32 – 35 Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
The difference is GRACE.
AMEN
Ref: 09/24/1978 / 444-2 – THANKS, I NEEDED THAT! / 01/30/2022
