Walk With Me
Christian discussion of biblical topics, and a dose of daily application. Yes the Bible is still relevant, and we find out more and more each day how relevant it has always been.
Walk With Me
Engaging in Spiritual Self Sabotage: What Not to do with the Holy Ghost
Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I am your host, jj. It's so good to have each and every one of you here with me today. We're having a problem with the mic. We're going to get that worked out. We're going to push forward in Jesus name, amen. It's so good to have each and every one of you here today and joining us in this walk. It is a continuous walk and, for those who have been with us from the beginning, I would like to wish you all a happy fourth anniversary. Yes, this month, four years ago, we started a walk with me and we have not looked back yet, and I thank you all so much for anybody who's just joining or been with us from the beginning, those who are liking and sharing the podcast Thank you all so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for our out of country listeners. I got a couple people in countries I'm not going to name because I know about the climate there. I got a couple people in Australia. Thank you all so much. That's so very cool to know that you guys are listening. I got a couple people in australia. Thank you all so much. That's so very cool to know that you guys are listening. Uh, got a couple people in california and we know california. But thank you all so much. Thank you all so much for listening and sharing and talking about the program. Thank you all for the new listeners on facebook. Thank you all, thank you. I just thank you, everyone here. Thank god for each and every one of you who are listening and sharing this podcast. Thank you so much for our sponsors. Drew Barce, the lyricist, who have given us the intro and the outro, and maybe we'll get some more selection from him soon. Big prayers go out to him. He recently had a loss in his family, but we love him and we're going to love on him and make sure God sees him and comforts him through this hard time. Thank you so much for Twisted Creations.
Speaker 1:Who's going to be coming out with a new cup? I can't wait to see it. I bet it's already done. Probably just hasn't shown it to me yet, but I just I'll be glad when I get. It's already done, probably just hasn't shown it to me yet, but I just I'll be just glad when I get it. Her creations are just amazing. I like it when she just uses her artistic talent to just put everything she can into the cups. But I'm off in the weeds.
Speaker 1:But we're going to talk about something that's very we're going to kind of follow up on what we did last week. Last week we talked about Ro, fruits of the Spirit, right? So this week we're going to talk about how to basically fight against the Holy Spirit. And I'm saying this in this way because you can do it, you just don't want to do it. You really don't want to resist the Holy Spirit and you don't want to grieve the Holy Spirit. No further ado.
Speaker 1:We do have a lot of scripture we're going to get through today. So I think it's prudent for us to say, when we do have a rule on this podcast, we talk about a scripture. We want to make sure we have. The rules are be the first or two above, or first or two below, but preferably the whole chapter. That's the rule of this podcast. Why? Because I can take the scripture from any parts of the Bible and make it say whatever I want it to say, and this is not just JJ, it's anybody. But this will also get you deceived and get you to believe in the wrong things, which the whole purpose of this podcast is to believe the entire Bible and understand its sovereignty and why it's important to believe the correct way. Right? So remember a verse or two above, a verse or two below, but preferably the whole chapter. So, without any further ado, let's go into what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1:Now you can sin against the Holy Spirit. I know it's not a popular topic today. Everybody thinks that you know, sin is not a thing, but it is absolutely a thing. One of the primary ways that you can resist the Holy Ghost actually sin against the Holy Ghost is absolutely resisting. They were talking about it in Acts, chapter 7, verse 51. That says you, stiff neck and uncircumcised in heart and ear, you can always resist the Holy Ghost as your father. So do you.
Speaker 1:Let's go to context here. This is Stephen. Stephen is basically preaching to a bunch of religious people and he's basically telling them that you, even though you call yourself religious, you have not been doing what the Holy Ghost has been trying to tell you to do. You've been going on with your tradition, you've been going on with your belief. You've been going on with your uh tendency to be sanctimonious. And it got so bad you read the rest of that. They literally ran up on him and started biting like they were really so aggravated. And you can tell when people are not really ready to face the truth of what they're doing. Their mouths just start doing weird things, they start pinching their jaws, they start yelling at you and cursing you out. So if you ever start talking to somebody, you get right where they are, space and everything right.
Speaker 1:One of the things about resisting the Holy Ghost, though, it's about rejecting God, and it is kind of committed when you as a sinner, or me as a sinner, you know and the Holy Ghost is dealing with us and it gets in us and we feel that conviction. Some people think it sort of feels like condemnation to them, but it's really just conviction and you just kind of shuck it aside, you get rid of it, you don't pay attention to it, and the problem is that you get to this position where, in Genesis 6 and 3, where it says the Spirit of God would not always strive for man you end up in a place where God sort of backs away from you Right Now. This is not the same as the person who is back to you. I've been away from you Right Now. This is not the same as the person who is backstabbing. I've been backstabbing, which kind of leads us to the next way you can sin against the Holy Ghost, which is despising the Spirit. Hebrews 10 and 29 it says that it has done despite unto the Spirit of grace. Now, again, staying in context. You have to stay in context.
Speaker 1:It just makes it clear that this is how backsliders work and this is coming from somebody who was a backslider. You end up getting a sort of contempt, a sort uh kind of taking god for granted right now. How does that work? So to think about it, like the way what happened with esau and I know this is back in the old testament, before people got told to think about what happened to Esau he despised his birthright because he thought it was always there. He didn't think he had to take care of it. He thought, if he just said something or had sort of a lackadaisical attitude towards it, that it was always going to be there and he did not stand up and fight for the thing that was rightfully his, did not stand up and fight for the thing that was rightfully his. So when he sold it for basically, a bowl of soup and he came back and tried to get it back, he couldn't get it back. The birthright had already been passed to Jacob. And in Hebrews 12 and 17, it talks about how Esau sought repentance for what he had done. But what was done is done.
Speaker 1:And I say this because, as a backslider, we kind of get like this and it is very, very, very difficult to come back to God and I'm saying this again as a backslider and have watched other people backslide and never come back Because you can get to a place where you're just kind of like in a spiritual no-man's land. You know you're upset at God because he changed you. He changed you and then the devil told you that he made you weak. So now you kind of turn your back on God Because you feel like you were stronger Before you met the Holy Spirit. But this is not true. You know the devil is alive, right. So you get to this point where you try to come back to God and it is much more difficult. It is much more difficult Because now, instead of taking it for granted, you gotta work double or triple hard. That's just the way God has it set up.
Speaker 1:And there are some people that never make it back and those are the truly hard stories and I've seen it. You know, they just never make it back or one of the sins that took them out ends up killing them. You know Jesus talked about a dog returning to his mama. And you know, when you come to God and God takes all of the things out of you, he takes the needle out of your arm, he takes the strange persons out of your bed and he takes the idea of you being able to steal and get away with it. He takes it out of your mind and out of your zeitgeist and all of a sudden you decide that you want to go back to that the same stuff that you vomit go back to, and you end up ODing and that kills you. You end up being in the bed with somebody else's wife and then the husband comes in with a double barrel shotgun and blows you away. Or you end up, uh, feeling something, the wrong thing from the wrong person and they, you know, do you blow you away. And when you end up running from the top and wrap yourself around the tree and there's so many things that can happen in the act of being vaccinated that I still thank God every day that he did not allow me to get that far before drawing me back.
Speaker 1:Now. This is different than blasphemy. I think we kind of talked about that last week. This is different from you know, having a contempt of what God has done for you, because being blasphemous is unforgivable, unpardonable and it's really. It comes out of your mouth, but it's because it's in the heart and Jesus says this in Matthew 12 and 44, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks and it would seem that this would be done by something that you would say, but it is prompted by your heart that despises the Holy Spirit. And remember that this is different from being a backslider, as long as, for instance and I'm just using me as a defense when I backslide, you know, I always knew God was there. I knew God was there. I was very careful about saying things that sort of put God in a negative light or something like that.
Speaker 1:But when people, sometimes people are back, when they get reprobated, and in that reprobation space, I've seen a lot of people blaspheme God and those are unforgivable, and I'm so to the point where I don't even want to give you guys an example because I don't want to be guilty of it, right? So it's important to understand the context of how this is laid out and where this all comes from. The devil is all about blaspheming God. If you have a, if you think something is cool, and you better check it out in the bio before you say it, because all you gotta do is change one word and that cool thing comes back. So, uh, it's a very solemn warning to all of us to be careful. How, uh, how you uh judging the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Now it becomes imparnable because you know better. That's why it's imparnable. You know better.
Speaker 1:And again, it's not the same as being backslid, and I want to make this distinction very clear. Being backslid, you still know that hey, you're out here, yeah, it's different from being in a position where you're backslid and the fact that you know God is there and you know God is waiting for you to come back, god is really trying to draw you back. And this is a situation where we look at the parable, where we talk about how Jesus left the 99 and went and grabbed the one lost sheep. That means the person was already a sheep and he left, he got lost, and God went and left the church and went and grabbed that one sheep and brought him back. But blaspheming the Holy Ghost is kind of like again I'm trying to be very careful, metaphorically speaking here that the sheep went away and turned into a goat and he's not going to bring the goat back to the flock, he's just not going to do it. So that's, and I'm really trying to be careful for a few. I don't want to bash him Holy. So Now that we've got that settled, we can talk about how we get to the point of grieving the spirit or getting to the point where we backslide In order to do that.
Speaker 1:You can sort of kind of grieve the spirit first and the Ephesians 4 and 30 and just without reading it because of the time that we have Ephesians 4 and 30, it talks about we are not the Holy Spirit, but we are sealed by the day until the day of our death. This has to do with fruit bearing and having a life of holiness. So if God is trying to tell you or give you a conviction, or God is trying to move in your life or move you in a certain direction, you don't breathe the Holy Spirit. By trying to resist it. Now we kind of make it a little bit more difficult than it needs to be because we get to the point where we have a very special sort of a way that we just sort of talk to the way we feel like it. We get careless, we get, we get lax, we get sort of lazy in the way we live for God and this sort of draws us back into the world because we start trying to bring in worldly things into our Christian walk. And I'm sure if you've ever gone into some of these places where they've hurted themselves in churches, you've seen it. A lot of worldly stuff is in the church and this leaves the Holy Spirit. Now, when this happens, god is not necessarily mad, he's more sad, sorrowful, because you've allowed this worldly thing to prevent you from getting to a deeper relationship with God and you end up holding on to this thing.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like trying to dive into a pool, like you have on the tank and you have a scuba gear equipment. You got on a wetsuit, you got the tank, you got the snorkeling, you got the base thing and you go to dive into the. You want to go all the way down to the deepest part of the ocean, but you have this flotation device. What's the purpose? Dive into the, you want to go all the way down to the deepest part of the ocean. But you have this flotation device. What's the purpose? You have a flotation device, you have a pool noodle that is designed to keep you at the very surface of the water. But you go ahead and you're trying real hard, but that pool noodle or those boogie board deals will not let you get so far into the ocean or where you're trying to swim, so you never get to see the deep part of it. You never get the full experience of deep sea diving because this thing is always going to try to pull you back to the surface. This is how, spiritually speaking, breathing the Holy Spirit keeps you from experiencing all that you need. Then let's just say you get out.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to quench the Holy Spirit, which is another term that we use when it talks about sin against the Holy Spirit. Now, quenching the Holy Spirit is a little bit different. I would kind of direct you to 1 Thessalonians, 5 and 19. Now this has to do with operating of gifts. Now, I know everybody you know is operating some gift, some Holy Ghost, right, and I say that very loosely. Everybody you know is operating some gift, some Holy Ghost, right, and I say that very loosely, because you know good and well they're not living right, but all of a sudden they got gifts from the Holy Spirit right.
Speaker 1:This has to do, though, when you talk about preaching the Holy Spirit. It has to do with ministry, but it also has to do with service. Let's say, for example, you know you go to your church and you notice that I don't know somebody left a wrapper on the pew that you're walking past. If you keep walking past it, when the Holy Ghost has basically got your attention to it and put in your heart, just for that moment, that maybe you should pick this up, and you keep on walking with it and don't pick it up, that is clutching the Holy Spirit. That means you are putting out the fire that God is trying to put in you, that God is trying to put in you Now. That is the glorified way of saying you are refusing to allow the Holy Ghost to have his way in your life.
Speaker 1:If you know somebody you got a friend that works. You got a friend that you talk to often, and they're having all these problems, and you don't speak to them about God, especially because there's going to come a moment that it's going to be right there. Well, you know what God can get you through this. Jesus still loves you. The same, like we talked about at the end of every episode Tell someone that Jesus loves you, because that's probably the only positive thing they're going to hear that day.
Speaker 1:If you don't do that, then somebody is not going to A get that seed that Jesus loves them or that God can help them through the problems, or God is waiting to accept them and love them and be born inside of them. Accept them, love them and be born inside of them. But you are quenching the spirit that is in you, because the Holy Spirit in you wants you to reach out to them, and we've all had that happen. No one's perfect, not even me. But you have somebody saying something and you say you know what? That would be a great moment to end the moment. And you're like, oh my God. And you just refuse to talk to them, you refuse to witness to them because they did you wrong or something like that, and you get to the point where you are literally quenching the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:But here's the big one, and we're going to wrap it up with this. I really blew through all of these, but I really want to spend some time on this last one, lying to the Holy Spirit. Well, jj, how in the world is the Holy Spirit in me? He knows everything about what I'm thinking about. How do I get to lie to the Holy Spirit? I'm going to tell you, because I've done it.
Speaker 1:Go to Acts, chapter 5, verse 3 and 4. Satan has filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and this is the thing that we end up doing. Some people do it on purpose, some people do it accidentally purpose, some people do it accidentally and then don't repent about it. That's the problem. This starts with a lack, of a lack of surrender, and it's kind of professing a level of commitment to God that we know is not happening, and this is how it manifests of commitment to God that we know is not happening. And this is how it manifests in Ananias and Sapphira. We say, hey, I'm going to sell everything and this is what I'm bringing, but we're not really doing that. We're just sort of putting on good air and we're holding some of it back.
Speaker 1:I take you back to the pool noodle and the deep ocean dive story. You're diving, got everything on, you look like a diver, you act like a diver, but you're still holding on to that pool noodle Now, is it because you're afraid of the deep water? I don't know. That's something that you're going to have to work out with God. You have to be honest with yourself.
Speaker 1:But if you're sitting there saying, I'm not afraid to go as far as I want to go in God, but in your heart you know you are, you're lying to the Holy Ghost. Of course he knows the difference. He knows that you are afraid. He knows that you're holding something back. He knows that. You know you tell you, tell him that you're holding something back. He knows that you know you tell him that you're going to fast more and you don't. He knows that there's something going on with you that's going to prevent that. He knows that. But he also will convict you that you don't repent of it. This is where you're going to end up lying to the Holy Spirit. It's going to get you in trouble. Think about let's go back to Ananias here. Remember Ananias did not die because he kept that part of the price, but because he lied and he said he brought it all While at the same time keeping part of it back.
Speaker 1:And you'll also hear people I also tend to use the word tempting the Holy Spirit, because you're kind of tempting God to say well, god, are you going to call me out or no? Are you going to make sure I'm telling the truth? This is a very dangerous part of your spiritual walk of faith Because it puts you in a position where you it goes far beyond being a hypocrite, because a lot of people are a hypocrite accidentally Like, okay, in this example, example, we'll use cigarettes you tell everybody oh, I have to quit smoking. God delivered you from smoking, but that urge is so bad within you that you just have to sneak the cigarette right. That's different from somebody saying, oh, god delivered you from cigarette smoking and you just went and bought a whole pack. It seems like it's a small difference, but you buying the pack symbolizes that you have no intention of giving up. You have no intention of giving up whatever.
Speaker 1:It is that consecration that you're trying to say, that you're giving, that you're doing, or that you are not really trying to enjoy the fullness of your walk with God, but you really want to have that good surface which is really, really your line to yourself, your line to God and your line to everybody. So be careful, especially. It's really, really. You're lying to yourself, you're lying to God, you're lying to everybody. So be careful, especially if I had to rank it in order of importance, you know sinning against the Holy Spirit, which is almost all equally bad except the blasphemy All the rest of them, if you really buckle down and say, god, look, I've been playing before, but now it's time to be serious. God, I need you to help me be serious. All of it can be taken care of, except that blasphemy. So you've got to be very careful with that blasphemy.
Speaker 1:That one cannot be forgiven. I didn't say that. Jesus said that. I have nothing to do with that. If it was me, I would say, yeah, go ahead and forgive it. Let's all have everybody go to heaven. No, no, no, no, no. I don't fight the rule, I'm just telling you what the Bible says Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is a no-no, that is a death threat.
Speaker 1:And the problem is, my biggest fear is that some people will blaspheme against the Holy Ghost and remember this is a sin of knowing, not an accidental sin. This is a sin of knowing. And then they'll try to act like they live for God, but God will pull that Holy Spirit from them and then they end up going to hell. But the rest of these you know grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching the Holy Spirit or lying to the Holy Spirit or despising the Holy Spirit or resisting the Holy Spirit all of those you can repent of. You can say you know what, like I said before, you know what.
Speaker 1:God, I've been playing, I've been slacking, I haven't been, I've not been yielding to your Holy Spirit. But, god, I need help. I need help to do this. Please, god, help me do this. And if you really mean that God is going to help you, do that. Now I will tell you as we wrap it up. Be careful when you say that, because every time I've said that I've ended up in a trial, I've ended up in a trial, I've come out stronger spiritually on the other side of it. So on one hand I'm saying, be careful how you say it, but on the other hand I'm saying, say it because the sooner you go through and you learn those lessons, the better and the stronger your walk with God will be and the more useful you can be for the kingdom of God, to your family, than just trying to play around with it and being scared about it Right. I know this was a heavy episode, I know, but we made it through and I thank each and every one of you for making it all the way to the end of this.
Speaker 1:Please like, share, leave a comment. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me. Comments email me. I read them all. I respond to all the questions. Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmail. Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmail. Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmail.
Speaker 1:Now, if your question, I will forewarn you that if your question is more than just like a one or two line answer, I will probably make an episode for it, because that means it's a lot of nuances or something that has to go into it. So, with that being said, if you want me to mention your name in the episode, all you have to do is you know, you don't have to send me any money, nothing like that. All you have to do is put your name in the subject line, like Claudia did the other week. Just put it in the subject line and that way I know you want me to mention your name. Otherwise, I'm just going to answer the question and I will try to let you know who I'm. Well, that is your question, but I just wanted to use your name, alright, god bless. Each and every one of you Tell someone that Jesus loves them, and as long as you know, too, that Jesus loves you too, that's why you're here. Alright, see you all on the next one, god bless.