We invite you to listen now to a broadcast of a message preached during the regular Lord's Day services at Faith Free Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina. Today's message is being preached by the minister of the church, Dr. Alan Cairns. The words of our text this morning are in Genesis 6 and verse 3. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man. For the last few weeks we have been having some studies in the person and work of the Holy Spirit of God. And in pursuing those studies this morning, we come to what a recent American writer has properly described as one of the Spirit's least recognized, but one of His most far-reaching activities. I'm referring to what we may call the non-saving operations of the Holy Ghost among the ungodly. Now, let's just stop and let that sink in, for it is something that is not very often looked at. And indeed, to read most books on the subject, to hear most preaching, you would imagine there was no such thing. So many people imagine that the only work of the Holy Spirit in the world is the application of the work of redemption. Now, we'll come to that in due time. It's a very, very important work. But, in some ways, providing a platform for that work There is the general work of the Holy Ghost in the world, even among the ungodly, work that is not of a saving nature, but nonetheless is of a very important nature. This brings us into what theologians call the area of common grace. Now, that's a wonderful term. I'm not going to get into it today. There's a lot of argument even over the very use of the words. But the term is used to convey the gracious dealings of the Lord in the world that are short of salvation. Now, let me explain to you. For instance, God bestows much good in a world that is full of enmity to Him. If you turn over to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5, you'll find the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 44. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5, verse 44, tells us to love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good. He sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." So there is much good that is not of a saving nature. But it's very essential to the continuance even of life in this world. There is much good that God, by His grace and by His Spirit, bestows upon all men. We can take this even further. The Bible teaches something that at first sound appears to be somewhat difficult to comprehend. That is that the Lord enables unregenerate man, wicked man, to do things that are good. And by good, I mean good in a relative sense. Good in a temporal sense, not in a spiritual sense. For instance, you've got the example of Jehu over in 2 Kings 10. Now, we're told specifically in verse 31 that Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, and that he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin." Now that is a very categorical statement. Jehu was a man who did not take any heed to walk in the law of God. And yet the previous verse gives us these words, The Lord said unto Jehu, Thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes. You see, even ungodly men at times do things which we have to say are in a certain sense good. They are certainly better than some of the alternatives that they may have chosen. And the reason for this is as we see that the Lord enabled them so to do. You find the same truth in Matthew 5 again, and the words of the Lord Jesus in verse 46. He tells His people, If ye love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? Even the publicans, even the ungodly, He says, do certain things that in themselves are praiseworthy and good. In Romans chapter 2, Paul goes even further and he says that there is a sense in which even the heathen, without having the written law of God in their hand, nonetheless do the things that are written in the law because God has inscribed it on their heart. So this is the area of common grace, where God bestows good even upon His enemies, and where God enables even His wicked enemies to work in such a fashion that the whole fabric of society is enabled to continue and not to sink to the very depths of hell without a moment's delay. But there's one aspect of God's workings in what we call common grace that is particularly mentioned in the Word of God as being the work of the Holy Spirit. And it is that work that I want us to consider today. Our text is speaking of it. We are thinking of the Holy Spirit as the restrainer of sin and evil in the world. Now this text in Genesis 6 and 3 is one of the most famous statements of the restraining influence of the Holy Ghost anywhere found in the Bible. And I want us today to relate it not merely to the days of Noah, but to the whole book of God. And I want us to see something of the teaching of the Bible on the work of the Holy Ghost as the restrainer. And I have three very simple observations to make. Number one, in an evil world, the Holy Spirit exercises a ministry of restraint. Now, let's start right at the bottom. It's a fundamental truth of the Bible that because of the fall of Adam, human nature is now totally depraved. Now let's understand the teaching of the Bible here first, so that we can progress to what our text is teaching. Total depravity. That is the absolute inability to do that which is spiritually good and meritorious in the sight of God. The inability to originate any inclination of heart toward God or toward the things of God. Rather, an inclination of heart always away from God, toward self, toward sin, downward rather than upward. The total depravity of human nature affects the nature of man. It affects every faculty of man. It affects every department of human existence. Now the Bible teaches it in the most unequivocal terms. We read in Genesis 6, verse 5, that God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now that was God's summary of man before the flood. Turn to Genesis 8, verse 21. And you will see that here is God's summary of man after the flood. The middle of Genesis 8, verse 21, For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Notice that little part of the verse. The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Jeremiah 17 and verse 9 says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Now, let's just stop to let the full import of those words sink in. The heart is deceitful. Now, that's a terrible statement in itself. The heart is very deceitful. That would be a stronger statement, but the heart is deceitful above all things. That is a statement that means only one thing. It is dealing with total depravity. A heart that is absolutely deceitful above everything else. Isaiah 1 The last part of verse 5 and into verse 6 gives a very graphic description of this depravity. The whole head is sick. The whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Here you have God's statement. He's picturing a body that's wracked by sinful disease. And He's saying this is the picture of a soul. The head, the mind, depraved by sin. The heart, the will, the affections, the emotions, the sensibilities, depraved by sin. The feet, that's the walk. the conduct, the character, depraved by sin. And the result is that every putrefying sore of sinful and wicked action that men take and that may be seen upon their character is the result of a nature that is inbred and inborn, a nature of sin. Now, I want you to get that this is what the Bible is teaching. It certainly is something that's out of line with what men teach. We live in a day when the prevailing philosophy among men, whether they understand the philosophy or whether they don't, whether they know the ins and the outs of the big words that the thinkers use, The prevailing philosophy among men is what we call existentialism, which has as its basic position that man is not born with any moral nature whatsoever, but he merely does things and his character, his nature is the result of what he is doing, rather than the other way around. But we say this from the Word of God, that whatever men say, God says the nature is totally corrupt. Isaiah 48 and 8 puts it very simply at the last line of the verse, Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb. Now you can't go much further back than that. Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb. And in Psalm 58 and verse 3, The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born. Speaking lies. In Psalm 51, David says, In sin did my mother conceive me. Now, God is getting right to the very roots of human being here. And He is saying, that there is such a thing as natural and total depravity. Now, because of this, sinners naturally hate God and they hate God's truth. When you stop to think of it, you know, we are in a world that the Lord has created. I remember the first time I heard, I don't know if it was in a science class in school or not, you hear tidbits of information You take them at face value, but I remember being told that when you examine the snowflakes that fall, there's not two snowflakes exactly identical. Stop to think of that and you'll see what an amazing thing it is. But we're in a world that the Lord has created. And as on earth a workman has his trademark on everything he makes, The trademark of the Lord is on everything He has made. If we could see straight, we couldn't take a blade of grass and look at it and understand it correctly without looking through it right back to the mighty Creator of it. The Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God. the firmament showeth His handiwork. Everything that the Lord has made has His mark upon it. And men ought to be able to see it. But the trouble is that they can't see it because of this wicked, willful, total, sinful depravity. What do they do with this Information, we may call it, in God's creation. Well, it's interesting. In Romans chapter 1 and verse 18, at the last line of the verse, we read that they hold the truth in unrighteousness. Now, that's a rather ambiguous statement as we see it here. People may think from this that this is a picture of people who hold the truth. They believe the truth, but they continue on and sin. That's not what Paul is saying. He is saying they hold down the truth. The word we would use is they suppress the truth because of their unrighteousness. You see, because they have a sinful nature, they hate God and God's truth, and therefore they suppress it. That's why ungodly scientists can scan the heavens, and they can examine every part of earth, and they can deny the God who made them both. Because, not that the heavens have ceased declaring the glory of God, but that they are suppressing, holding down, because of the wicked bias of their heart, holding down the witness of God's truth. Paul takes this up again in 1 Corinthians 2. And he says these words in verses 14 and 15, The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Now notice it very carefully. The natural man, first of all, does not receive the things of God. Why does he not receive them? Because he cannot know them. There is an inability. He cannot know them because of the inward wickedness and bias of his heart. Romans 8 and 7 puts it absolutely clearly. that the mind of the flesh, the carnal mind, is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of God. Neither, indeed, can be. And the result of all this ungodly nature is, of course, wicked action. I'm sure you've read it sometimes. At some time, Romans chapter 3, verse 10, right through to verse 18. There's none righteous. No, not one. There's none that understand it. There's none that seeketh after God. I always get a little bit worried about people who are talking about how they found the Lord. Well, I have to say that there's not a thing in the Bible about sinners finding the Lord. There's a lot about the Lord finding sinners because sinners don't even seek after God. There's none that doeth good. They're all together gone out of the way and become unprofitable. Their throat an open sepulcher, their tongue using deceit. the poison of asps under their lips, their mouth full of cursing and bitterness, their feet swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in their ways, and the way of peace, have they not known? Now, this is all because, verse 18 says, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Here is the result. Now, I've taken a long time to establish this from the Bible today for various reasons. One, because we live in a day when even those who profess to be Bible believers do not pay enough attention to the doctrine of total depravity. In fact, they hardly believe it at all. But the real reason is to show you what this text is really all about this morning. Here's the doctrine of total depravity. It's summed up in the words of Ecclesiastes 7.29. God made man upright. That's creation. God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions. And if a sinner is left to himself, he'll pursue his sin with all his wickedness, and it will break out in all its pollution. His nature will express itself up to the hilt until it leads him down to hell. But having said all that, There's another thing that's very clear, and it's this. It's clear that unsafe men are not always as wicked as they might be. Do you ever stop to think of that? There is no sin of which your nature is incapable. No sin. And yet, when you look around the world, unsafe men do not commit all the sin, at least outwardly, that they may commit. Not everybody has cut his mother's throat. Not everybody has plumbed the sea and depths of iniquity, at least in outward works and action. So how are we to explain this total depravity? And yet men, on the other hand, not being as bad as they might be. Some people simply explain it by saying total depravity is not true. That's not the answer. The real answer is the restraining work of the Holy Spirit. We read in our text this morning about the Spirit striving with men, striving with men. Over in 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 6 and 7, you have a verse to which we will probably return in a minute or two. In verse 6 we read that there is that which withholdeth the evil that is in the world. In verse 7 we read, he who now letteth, or he who now hinders, will hinder. And he's talking about hindering the fury and the power of anti-Christ and anti-Christianism. Now, let's think of this. There is, therefore, in this world the operation of God the Holy Spirit restraining the expression of the work of evil. of the devil, of sin and wickedness that would naturally flow from the fallen hearts and minds of men. Now, that it is the work of God that does this, that it is God that keeps a lid on sin is very, very easily proved. In Romans 1, verse 26, in the following verses, you read three times of people that God gave up. In other words, He took the restraints off. And when God gave them up, what was the result? The result was a reprobate mind. The result was reprobate living. The result was immorality of the most terrible description. The result was men going down into the depths of the cesspool of iniquity once God took the restraints off. That proves beyond all doubt that the only thing that formerly had kept them out of the depths was the gracious, restraining hand of the Lord. Now, the Spirit of God can do this in many, many ways. And I'm not really going to preach on them this morning, but it's interesting to note how He can do it. He can do it simply by providence. He has done this down through the history of the world. For instance, it is by the providence of God that wicked immorality leads to vile diseases in the body. And there are many who otherwise would plunge into the abyss of filthy living, who are held back because of the price they would have to pay in their own body. I remember speaking to one young man who had taken the first step down an awful road that would wreck his life, wreck his home, wreck his marriage. And he came trembling, broken in mind and body. And you know, while he thought of losing his wife and while he thought of losing his home as a terrible thing, there was one thing that made him weep like a child and shake like a leaf in the breeze. And that is that for some time he would not know but that he had contracted some terrible disease. I want to tell you there was a fear there that put up a barricade in his life to further escapades in the wickedness of sin. That's the providence of God. Dr. Bob Jones got into trouble with some intellectual idiots, clerical idiots here in Greenville not too long ago when he dared to say that the AIDS epidemic in the United States was the judgment of God upon sodomy. Well, at the expense of being reactionary and the idea of being thought backward, I'm glad to say that he was absolutely right. Absolutely right. And I want to tell you, it's very interesting to me, that the government is spending more money trying to get that thing right than it is trying to investigate the illnesses that are afflicting decent people. You ever worry about that or wonder about that? It tells you an awful lot about the government. and those who really are pulling the strings and the puppet politicians are jumping, that you know what's really going on. But I say this to you, they may get to the bottom of the AIDS virus, they may not. They may or they may not. I care not really, as far as this particular aspect of the case is concerned. I certainly do care about the innocent people who are terribly afflicted by it. But whether they solve it or whether they don't solve it, it's just one of numberless epidemic diseases that a holy God can send. And let me go this far, because you'll see the reason for this statement in a few minutes. I pray He will send in order to keep men back from the wickedness and the folly of filthy living. He can do it by providence. He can do it by conscience. Where a man can get no peace, no rest of heart or mind, he can do it. And the Bible teaches that this is one reason he has set this entire thing up. He can do it by means of the civil magistrate. That's why there are judges in the land. That's why there is a political machinery that sets up a judicial machinery. Romans 13, 3 and 4 teaches that this is of God. 1 Peter 2 and 14 teaches this is of God. And they are not to bear the sword in vain. God has set these men as ministers of God in the state in order to keep down sin. He can do it by the preaching of the word. He can do it by the prayers of God's people. He can do it by the fear of God's wrath. He can do it through the example of the home or the church or the influence of God's people. The Lord can use many ways to keep men back from the full expression of their wickedness. There's a great American preacher that you've heard me mention, Jonathan Edwards. I would to God wait a few Jonathan Edwards in the pulpit today. Edwards was a great preacher. He was also a great theologian. And this is what he said. He says, There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire if it were not for God's restraints. The souls of the wicked are in Scripture called the troubled sea. For the present God restrains their wickedness by His mighty power, as He does the raging waves of the sea, saying, Hitherto shalt thou pass, and no further. But if God should withdraw the restraints, if He should withdraw His restraining power, then it should carry all before it. If sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn into a fiery oven in the soul, or a furnace of fire and brimstone. You think of that. You know, that is something that should slow up every man here. There is that in every man that God found so obnoxious in the children of Israel when they said, according to Isaiah, I am holier than thou. You look at a lecherous, immoral man or woman, you look at a murderer, you look at a thief, you look at a liar, and you tend to puff out your chest and say, Well, I am holier than thou. I want to tell you, were you able to look into the eyes of the devil himself today, you are not one bit holier even than the old serpent himself. There's not a man who can puff out his chest in pride. It's only the grace of the Holy Spirit that has kept you back with His restraining hand. And yet, the second thing the text teaches is that sinners constantly resist the restraints of the Holy Ghost. Notice the words of Genesis 6 and 3. My spirit shall not always strive with my Now, there's no strife unless there's opposition. This is the resistance. Over in Isaiah chapter 63 and verse 10, you have these words. They rebelled. They vexed His Holy Spirit. Therefore, He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them. They rebelled. They vexed His Holy Spirit. Over in Acts 7 and verse 51, in Stephen's last sermon, he addressed the leaders of Israel with these words. He said, Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did. So do ye. Always. resisting the Holy Ghost. Now, let's get the picture. We're living in a sinful, depraved, fallen world populated by sinful, depraved, fallen people. And yet it's not at this moment as bad as it might be because God, the Holy Spirit, is putting the brakes on. He's suppressing sin in its expression. He's holding it in restraint. He's holding sinners in restraint. Do they thank Him for it? No, sir. They fight against Him. They resist. They want to be free from all the restraints that God Almighty would place upon them. Now, this is how we are to explain some things that are happening in our day and generation, even here in America. How can you explain the various movements that have sprung up in this nation? that advocate the removal of all moral restraints. There's an organization that's called something like People for the American Way. It's more like People for the Devil's Way. They are just adopting a title that's a euphemism for those who are calling for all sorts of license under the guise of liberty. Now, we must explain that sort of movement as men kicking against the restraint of the Spirit of God. And in that particular movement that I have referred to, it's interesting that the man who is at the heart of it and is using his immense power as a television writer and producer and director, he's using his immense ability and his immense wealth and position to foist this thing upon the American people. He is an outright despiser, blasphemer and hater of God. Those things are not coincidental. What are we to say about the state of the law of this country, which now, by decree of no less a body than the Supreme Court, has said that you may not discriminate in employment against a person because he is a sodomite. Do you think of that? I want to tell you, I would close a business before I would employ a sodomite, knowingly. I would close it. And I would say this, that there is no judge on the bench or anywhere else, who has the right to make any man put himself and his colleagues at risk by laying them open to the filth and the diseases that flow from the sodomite movement. I was just reading, I think, in the Greenville Press. I didn't say very much about it. I had to wonder. He talked about a certain television star who is now a self-confessed sodomite. He had starred alongside of the sodomite that God slew, Rock Hudson. Starred alongside of him. And he had acted as the romantic lead To a young woman whose name I forget, I had never heard of her to be quite honest, I just thought, you just try to imagine the agony of heart and mind that that young woman will be going through for the next year or two, wondering has she got the vile disease that this fellow now has gone down with. And yet these fools who call themselves judges dare to say you cannot keep a person out of any job simply because he's a sodomite. How are we to explain that sort of folly? It seems so crazy. Even to people who don't have an awful lot of brain power it seems Absolutely crazy. So how are you to explain it? To see, my friend, in the nation that there is a revulsion against the law of God. There is a resistance against the workings of the Spirit of God. And not only in the nation, but in the churches. There are churches all across this country who have decided that it is the Christian thing to do. to take no stand on any issue of morality. It's the Christian thing to do. Not terribly long ago, there was a church in the state of California fighting for its life. Cost it, at the last count, I heard, a half a million dollars fighting in the courts because they dared to dismiss A music director whom they found out to be a sodomite. Took them to court and the first court found against them. I think the next one found for them. But it was a long and arduous task to get there. So many churches just don't bother. The United Methodist Church will marry sodomites in some places. They will marry two sodomites in certain places. British television, I don't know if it's been done in the United States television, but British television has a documentary that comes from various parts of the world, and they showed in these churches the actual so-called marriage ceremonies between sodomite males and other marriages with sodomite females. Methodist churches. I wonder what John Wesley would have to say about that. It's a long way from Wesley's doctrine of sinless perfection, isn't it? A long way. That's how we're to explain it, though. Apostasy resisting the Holy Ghost. That's what's happening in the land. That's what's happening in the churches. But let's bring it down to a personal level, for it has a very powerful personal message for every sinner. We bring it down onto a one-on-one basis. And you have the picture of a man totally depraved, and the Holy Ghost restraining the expression of his sin. And as Jacob wrestled against God in another context entirely, so you would have sinners striving against the Holy Ghost, trying to kick over the traces. You remember the Lord said to Saul of Tarsus, it's hard for you to kick against the pricks. That's what sinners are forever doing, kicking against the Lord. Now, let me tell you what it means if you're in this meeting unsaved. It means this, that you can only go on and sin by being the enemy of God and by making the Holy Ghost your personal foe. Now, this is the real meaning of the battles. that go on in the consciences of men and women. That is the real meaning of the battle that goes on when you hear the preaching of the Word of God, where God is placing His Spirit's gracious, restraining hand upon you, and yet you fight against Him, striving against the Holy You know, I think that there's a little bit of this old-fashioned theology that needs to get home in all our churches today. We hear of conflicts between young people and their parents, and churches have devised all sorts of psychological frameworks in which to deal with these things. I want to tell you, both the parents and the children should be found at the feet of the Lord to make sure that they are not striving against the Holy Ghost. Remember this. The Spirit of God does cause restraint. Men resist it. And that's a serious thing, for the final thing that our text teaches is this, that the Holy Spirit will not continue His restraining hand forever. My Spirit shall not always Now this is true in a general sense. This is true for the world. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. You get into some very disputed territory here. And I'll give you both sides of the argument and then tell you which is right. But that's beside the point. Actually, verse 6 says, Now ye know what withholdeth. The word withholdeth is holds down, or suppresses, or restrains. Now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time. The He being revealed is the Antichrist, the son of perdition. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Paul is saying that anti-Christianity as a system, as an influence, is already at work. Though the final Antichrist has yet to be revealed. The mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth or hindereth will let until he be taken out of the way. Now the usual explanation of verse 7 is, as it appears in the Authorized Version, that the Holy Spirit will continue to hinder the revelation of sin and antichrist until He is taken out of the way. Those who believe in an any moment pre-tribulation secret rapture believe that this is the removal of the Holy Spirit from the earth. Those who don't believe that may still say that it means the Holy Spirit is removing His influence. He's taking away His restraint. He's getting out of the way. Actually, I think they're both wrong. Because there is nothing in the text whatsoever to speak of removal. That is personal removal. Until he be taken out of the way. There is no taken in the Greek text. In fact, the word that is so translated means the very opposite. It means to come to pass. It means to come to be, to become, to arise, You may translate it in a variety of ways, but never any place in the New Testament does it ever bear the idea of taking, never once. Out of the way can be the word way or simply, more scripturally, the word midst. I believe this is Antichrist arising out of the midst. Now, what does it say? The Holy Spirit of God is going to restrain until the time comes to allow this man of sin to be revealed. And the next verse says, then he shall be revealed, fully revealed, when the Holy Spirit takes away the restrain. Now, really, I'm not particularly worried what you believe regarding the prophetic import of the taking out of the way. It all boils down to this, whatever your view, that the Holy Spirit of God is restraining sin in the world, but He's not going to do it forever. He's not going to do it forever. The nations that are kicking against the Lord, well, one day He's going to remove the traces and they'll need to kick no more. Those who are seeking to overthrow the restraining work of the Holy Spirit, They will see a day when the Holy Spirit will remove His restraints. And what a day that is going to be. The Apostle John took it up when he spoke of this in the book of the Revelation. He said concerning those days when the Holy Spirit's restraint will be taken away, that man will seek death and they won't be able to find it. Such will be the fury and the filth of all the satanism and wickedness that's let loose in the earth that men afflicted, they will seek death, but they won't be able to find it. There will be plagues because God who holds back sin holds back the judgment on sin, the fury of the wrath on sin. But soon that will be taken away. I want to tell you, people who talk about this world getting better, I think they need to go to their Bible again. I read a book by a very eminent theologian, a man whom I greatly admire in many other ways. And to establish his particular and peculiar view of prophecy, He said, we have got to see that the world is really getting better. And He spent some time to show us how the world today is better than it was some years ago. I tell you this, the Spirit of God says He's not going to restrain forever. And there will come a time when He will stop restraining. Then evil will have its flow. among the ungodly in a way they have never dreamed. The world is not getting better. It's going down. And it will get worse. Evil men will wax worse and worse. Let me just interject, but I don't want to leave it on that particular note. The church of Jesus Christ, conversely, will become purer and purer. The church of Jesus Christ will become stronger and stronger. If you want proof of that, you will find... I'm not saying that she will be in every decade numerically stronger. I'm not saying that at all. But I am saying that God's true church as we hurtle toward the end of the age, will be led out to be closer than ever to her Lord. And if you want proof of that, in the very darkest day of this world's history, when the man of sin has been revealed, it's then that the great multitude that no man can number will be saved out of every tribe, tongue, kindred and nation. It's then that God's witnesses will walk the earth. It's then that they will consume the enemy with the fire from their mouth. It's then that God will give His church In itself, though surrounded by the most wicked expressions of human depravity, He will give it in itself the greatest exhibition of His power. As He does for them what He did for Israel and Egypt of old, He'll put a redemption between His church and the world. Here you've got it then, evil man waxing worse and worse. but God's Church in it all, maintained by the fire and power of the very Spirit that the world has spurned. This restraint of the Holy Ghost being removed is true also on a personal level. This is a very serious thing for every sinner to have to take account of today. Let me read you a verse from Psalm 81, He is speaking of the children of Israel and he says, "...my people would not hearken unto my voice, Israel would none of me. So I gave them up to their own hearts' lusts." They would not hearken. So I gave them up. Romans 1.26, God gave them up. God gave them up. What a tragedy when God gives a nation up. Now you can see why a few minutes ago I said that I would pray that God would visit plagues upon sodomy. Because I tell you, when He stops doing that, the evidence is that He has just given them up. And when God gives a nation up, its troubles are only beginning. What a tragedy when God gives a man up. There are restraints there. My friend, be careful of picking them over. Right every one of us has kicked over the traces. Every one of us, to some degree, has resisted the Holy Ghost. There has never been a man that hasn't. Every one of us, to some great degree, has gone on in defiance of God. But today, He puts the barrier before you. Be very, very careful of going on. Be not as the horse or the mule. Stubborn in the extreme. For God could remove the bit and the bridle. and just let you go. If you are still unsealed, there is a cry that should be in your heart. There is a cry that should be in your lips. Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Lord, remove not the restraints of the Spirit Lord, remove not the strivings of the Spirit of God. I said right at the beginning that very often the workings of God the Holy Spirit in this area of common grace form the platform upon which He works further to apply the work of Christ. God has kept you back to where you are today. Had He not kept you back, you would have been in hell. God has kept you back. He has restrained the wrath of God. And now in His mercy He comes and He presents Jesus Christ to you freely offered in the Gospel. You should cry to Him today to give you grace to close with Christ. You should cry to Him today to save you. And thank God when you come to Christ for salvation, you will be received. And you will never be given up by the Holy Spirit. May God bless His Word to all our hearts. And if you are not saved, may God stamp the urgency upon you today of coming to Christ and receiving Him as personal Savior. You've been listening to a message from Faith Free Presbyterian Church of Greenville, South Carolina. The message was preached by the minister of the church, Dr. Alan Cairns. If you would like further information, please write Faith Free Presbyterian Church, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615. That's Faith Free Presbyterian Church, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615. We invite you to listen each week at this same time for a message from Faith Free Presbyterian Church.