And we want to turn back, starting in Matthew chapter 12. Today we're continuing forward in our series here on Sunday mornings, Truths About the Holy Spirit. I've been looking at many, many truths about the Holy Spirit here in recent days, His work. and our lives by salvation and through sanctification. The Holy Spirit is just so critically important to our lives as believers, to the work that is taking place in us. And so the Holy Spirit is intimately involved in the life of every Christian beginning at salvation and continuing forward through all the way through sanctification to glorification really. And the Holy Spirit's very intimately involved in all of that. And we've been looking at many, many truths about that here recently. The fruit that He produces in us, the gifts that He enables us with, all of those things here recently. And we want that work to continue. We don't want that work to be hindered. We want that work to be impeded in any way. And so what we come to here this morning, we're going to look at several places. We want to look at things that, sins that we can commit. that the Bible says specifically we commit against the Holy Ghost that really will get in the way of that. If we want the work of the Holy Spirit to continue forward, we want it to be effective, we want Him to be effective in us, we don't want to cause any hindrances in that work of sanctification that the Holy Spirit is doing, that we should be aware of some things that we can do directly against the Holy Spirit that can prevent His work and can slow His work down and can hinder His work and bring it to a stop in our lives. And so, We must understand that the Holy Spirit, first of all, and this is going to be a real revelation here, the Holy Spirit is holy, right? He chooses by a qualifying, most prominent characteristic to call Himself the Holy Spirit. A couple of other times, we don't really look at it, but there are a couple of times where he's called the Spirit of Truth in one place, he's called the Comforter in another place. There are some things that describe his ministry also, but more than anything, the Holy Spirit is called the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost. always called holy, that the most outstanding characteristic of all of His great power, of all of His perfect attributes, the Holy Spirit chooses to magnify in Himself His holiness. And this is a characteristic of God, this is of the Godhead entirely, is that the holiness of God is of paramount importance. And so we understand first and foremost about the Holy Spirit is that He is holy. And that as the Holy Spirit indwells us, He lives in us, what He wants to produce in us is holiness. And that's in every area, that's in every facet. That's the beginning and the primary pursuit of sanctification is to make each believer more and more like Jesus Christ. And in the character of Jesus Christ is holiness. Yes, many things, right, of grace and of love and of truth, but holiness. And He wants to make us holy and He wants to produce holiness in us more and more and more until the day of redemption. He wants to make us more holy tomorrow than we are today. and next week than we are this week, and He wants to make us more and more and more so holy as we go forward, and that would include every area, every aspect of our lives that all sin is offensive to the Holy Spirit, but there are a number, six particular sins that are directly an affront to the Holy Ghost. and we must be careful about these, we must be aware of these and careful about these to avoid them so as not to specifically hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. And what we read here in Matthew chapter 12 this morning lists the first of these. And what we really do here is just kind of walk our way from this point toward the further end of the New Testament. Just take them in the order that we find them in the scriptures. And so we'll just start here. But this one is particularly egregious sin. And kind of an interesting way that it's presented here in the context It speaks here of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit there in Matthew chapter 12 where we read. And it says here of that in verse 31 and 32 again, it says, Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. Whosoever therefore speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." an interesting approach to this because it says that blasphemy is an egregious sin, right? Blasphemy, to blaspheme God, to revile the name of God, to defame the name of God, to vilify the name of God, to use God's name as a curse, blasphemous utterance, right? We say, take the name of God in vain, but something more even so than that, to use God's name as a curse or in a defamatory way is blasphemy, but it says to defame the name of God, the Father, or even of the Son, is a serious sin. but it can be forgiven. It's a forgivable sin. But here it says that this sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost can never be forgiven. And so that's a pretty scary thought because, I mean, the Bible is pretty clear that sin can be forgiven. No matter how serious it is, there are sins in the Bible that are forgiven, murders that are forgiven, and just horrifying acts committed by men that God is able to forgive. but this sin against the Holy Spirit of blasphemy is one that will never be forgiven. So what does that mean? Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit specifically appears from the context to be when the works of God are attributed to the works of the devil, or I would say the inverse, when the works of the devil are attributed to God. Here in the text is where we read the larger passage, a man possessed of an evil spirit was brought before Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ cast out the devil, and in casting out the devil, his physical infirmities were healed, and the people said, well, this has to be the son of David. Well, what that meant, of course, was the Messiah. This is the Son of David. This is the Messiah that we've been waiting for. And when the Pharisees, the leaders, heard that, they argued against that. They didn't want Jesus to be the Messiah. And so they argued against that. And they said, no, He's not casting out devils except by the power of a greater devil, essentially, right? That Beelzebub really means the lord of the flies, the king of the flies, but like a chief evil spirit by some version of Middle Eastern mythology and an epithet often that we use just for Satan himself. Basically, they're saying he's casting out devils by the power of a greater devil or of the greatest devil, Satan himself. And Jesus sternly warns them here. He says, when you say those kinds of things, understand what you're doing is you're blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit was the one who gave this man deliverance. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. It wasn't a greater devil that cast out these devils. It was the Holy Spirit that provided the power to cast the devils out of this man. And to say that it was the work of a devil, to say that it was the work of Satan is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit as dangerous ground to tread on. And it's not even clear that Jesus is saying they specifically did this, but they were getting really, really close if they didn't. And He gives them this stern warning that this is a sin that cannot be forgiven. I don't believe that this is a sin that a saved person can commit for that reason. And I explain what I mean by that because a believer You've been saved. You trusted in Jesus Christ, your Savior. You have already received the Holy Spirit to indwell you. There has been a time where you responded to the conviction and the convincing of the Holy Spirit in your spirit and you believed and the Holy Spirit would not allow for you to truly attribute His works to devils or the other way around. And it's a dangerous, dangerous thing. But for an unbeliever, this is something that is a possibility, I believe, for them to see the works of God and to call it the works of Satan. And in that, The reason I believe that it cannot be forgiven to men is because they have closed off their hearts. They have so hardened their hearts as to not be penetrated by the Holy Spirit. How does the Holy Spirit produce, how does the Holy Spirit bring someone to saving grace? They first have to hear the Word of God and the parable that the Lord told of the seed being the Word of God, the seed had to fall and penetrate into the ground in order for it to begin to grow and bring forth fruit. And the parable did speak of the ground by the wayside that was so hardened and compacted that when the Word of God fell on it, It could not penetrate and the birds came, which he said was the devil, right? The birds came and ate the seed before it could go into the ground and grow. There are people who, through acts like this, so harden their hearts to God and to the Spirit of God that their hearts cannot be penetrated by the Word of God. The Word of God cannot get in there. The Holy Spirit could not get in there to produce conviction and faith unto salvation. This is an unforgivable sin, not because God couldn't forgive it, but because they have made a choice, kind of a full and a final choice, to harden their hearts against the gospel, to harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, so as to never receive forgiveness and salvation. Unforgivable because of their choice, not because of God's. And Jesus was warning them, when you start to accuse the Holy Spirit of being the author of evil, or you start to accuse the good works that the Holy Spirit does to be the works of devils, you've been given over to a reprobate mind. Your heart is so hardened so as to never receive forgiveness by your choice. Again, a believer's already been saved, already been forgiven, and I believe that the Holy Spirit, even at the beginnings of a thought like this, the Holy Spirit would bring conviction against that kind of a thought in our minds, that kind of blasphemous thought in our minds. But for a lost person, a lost person can go this far. lost person can go this far and it's something to really be aware of and our witness understand there's going to be some some people that we run into out in the world that try as hard as we might. And as faithful as we might witness to them, as much as we may pray for them, there are some who will have so closed themselves off, so hardened their hearts and their spirits to the work of the Lord and the truth of the Word of God, they can never be forgiven. But it was their choice. Speaks of this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Dangerous sin. Then over to the book of Acts. And we'll have a couple that are named in the book of Acts, but we're familiar with the story that this takes place in. In Acts chapter 5 is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Now, understand what was happening was as the church was beginning to grow, And here in Jerusalem, these Jewish people were converting to Christianity and becoming members of the church. Many of them were being disowned by their families. Many of them were being kicked out of their homes and were becoming effectively homeless. Many of them were losing their jobs and were being fired from their jobs because of that. And so there were those who were being persecuted for turning to the faith. And so the church, Those in the church who had some means were giving big offerings, and there were even some of them selling off properties that they had and giving all of the proceeds to the church to help provide for the physical needs within the church. One of those in the chapter before this was the man we know pretty well, Barnabas, this is Joseph's This is verse 36. It says, Barnabas did this, led by the Spirit. He obviously had a One of his spiritual gifts was that of giving, making sacrificial gifts into the Lord's work and for the good of the Lord's people. Barnabas, lead of the Lord, did this and did this of his own free will, of his own volition, and made a great sacrificial gift of his own goods. Ananias and Sapphira see this. and they say, well, we have a chance to gain some prominence in the eyes of the church members. We're going to sell a property and we're going to say that we're going to give all of the proceeds from this property into the church just like Barnabas did, but we're actually gonna keep that part of it. But we're gonna say we gave it all. Now understand, what's happening here is they made a vow, They made a commitment and then they lied about how they kept it. They didn't follow through with it. Even Peter says, and it's important, it's important what he says to them in this text here. It says in verse one, but a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession, kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep that part of the price? While 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 that was not lied unto men, but unto God? And he falls down dead. His wife comes later. Peter essentially asks her the same thing. In verse 8 he says, Peter said unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. And Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. And so Peter even says to Ananias, You didn't have to sell this. It was yours. We didn't tell you, nobody told you to sell this, this piece of property. And then after you sold it, nobody told you, you had to give all the money. The crime here was not that they didn't give all of the money. The crime here, the sin that they committed here was to make a false vow. And they made a false vow to God publicly, made a false vow before the church that they were going to give all of it. And they did that in order to gain some prominence, to gain some notoriety, to receive the praise of men. And then they only gave a part of it, saying that that was the whole thing. And in breaking that vow, they lied to the Holy Ghost. He's not going to lie to the men. So when you stood up before the church and said, we're going to sell our piece of property here, and we're going to give everything to the Lord, And then when they came and brought only part of it, they were breaking that vow they made to God. Their sin was not keeping the money, but making a vow and breaking it. Many times in scriptures, we're challenged about being very serious and sober-minded when we make any kind of vow or commitment before the Lord, because the Lord keeps good records. The Lord remembers the things that we uttered before Him, and it's very, very important. There's a couple of places where it talks about this, and in one of those places it says it is better for you to not vow than to vow and not pay. In Psalms, I was reading this here a week or two ago, and last week or two, one of the Psalms says, And it says that a couple of times in this one Psalm that when we vow, we need to be very careful to follow through on those vows. When we make a commitment to God, we need to be very careful to follow through on that commitment that we've made because we're not breaking our word to men, we're breaking our word to God. And then Ananias and Sapphira really took it to another level here because they were trying to use this as an opportunity for them to elevate themselves inside of the church and use this as a pedestal, kind of make for themselves a pedestal for them to set themselves upon in the eyes of the church. And the Holy Ghost was having none of it. He wasn't going to have someone make a false vow and then also use it as a way to gain some prominence, some leadership, some influence inside of the church. Also Ananias and Sapphira, and this was kind of an interesting era in church history, but Ananias and Sapphira fell down dead in a church service because of it. And I'm thankful, you know, churches will go through some things and will have problems. I'm thankful that no one's ever just fallen down dead in a church service. I mean, that would be pretty traumatizing, as they say, right? I mean, that would be a pretty interesting event to have happen, kind of a scary thing for us, I think. And it happened here, two people on the same day, separate instances. But they were lying to, he says, in verse 3, he says, Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost. In verse 9 he says, how is it that ye have agreed to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? They lied by vowing with no intention to keep it or with really a scheme to not keep it honestly here. And that was kind of a bigger part of it too was there are times where we in sincerity, with good intentions, we make commitments and we fall short maybe in some way. Maybe we don't, in good faith, we make a commitment before God and we don't follow through all the way that we should. That's one thing. They were making a vow they knew they weren't going to keep. They were doing it just for the notoriety of it and the acclaim that they would get from others in the church by doing it, which was a really, really bad motivation. And this is, they tempted the Lord, and they tempted the Lord by putting, really putting the Holy Spirit in a position where He had to respond to what they did. You know, knowing that they were making this false commitment, they put the Holy Spirit in a situation where He had to make an example out of them. What I would say by application for us is, When you make a commitment to the Lord, when you make a vow before the Lord, you're making it to the Lord. You're not making it to me as the pastor. You're not making it to your church family, per se. You're making it before the Lord. And when you make a commitment that the Spirit leads you to make, make it and then follow through with it. Don't make a commitment because you feel like someone else is doing it and you need to do the same thing. That's what Ananias and Sapphira did. Make a commitment before the Lord that the Lord has put on your heart. Barnabas was being led by the Spirit. He did something that the Lord had led him to do, and Ananias and Sapphira were just trying to keep up with the Joneses. They didn't want to be seen as less than or something, and they made a commitment that the Lord had not led them to make, and then they made a false vow, and it got them in trouble. More than in trouble, it cost them their lives. And so don't lie to the Holy Spirit. Just a few pages over, still here in the book of Acts, chapter 7, and toward the end of chapter 7, and I won't go through all of the background here, but we know Stephen here, one of the first deacons in the church, is is preaching and he's preaching a message before the leaders. The leaders are trying to get him to stop preaching the gospel, the Pharisees. And so Stephen preaches the Lord Jesus Christ to them and he kind of comes down toward the end of his message in verse 51. So as ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do ye. And so he preaches here of a resistance to the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit was working through them and working through the preaching of His Word. They were under conviction. We know that they were in chapter 6 before this message. It says in verse 10 that they, at the disputing of Stephen, that they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which He spake. They were under conviction. The message he was preaching to them at the temple was one that was bringing them under conviction, but they were trying to resist it. And then when he says this to them, he says they stopped up their ears and they rushed on him. They were resisting the Holy Spirit's conviction in their hearts. Now, this is something that the lost do. And in this case, this is something that lost men were doing. This is something that saved people do. This is something that anybody can, any one of us can commit. Anytime the Holy Spirit is speaking to our hearts, we can resist. Many will resist the preaching of the gospel and will resist the conviction of the Holy Spirit for salvation and will not get saved and will push off and push off the conviction of the Holy Spirit for salvation, but there are saved people that the Holy Spirit is speaking to their hearts and prodding their hearts to make a commitment, take a step of faith, get more involved, to get something right in their hearts, and they will resist that also. the dangerous place to be. Sin is that which primarily concerns a confrontation with the truth of God's word and a stubborn refusal to agree with it, to submit to it, to obey the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost brings conviction and convincing of the truth in your heart. you have to choose, and you will choose, you choose either to submit to it or to resist it. You submit by agreeing with it and submitting to it, responding to it in humility. You resist by any other method you take. And they're really kind of like one path to submission and a bunch of paths to resistance. Anything you might do to put that out of your mind, anything you might do to distract yourself from the conviction of the Holy Spirit, anything you might do to move on from that and not respond in humility and in faith, anything else is resisting the Holy Spirit. And the lost and the saved are both capable of being guilty of resisting the Holy Spirit. And I'm moving a little bit quickly through these just because there's several of them. But Ephesians chapter 4 in this passage that many of us are very familiar with talking about our interaction within the church with one another. It's very much a passage about one another really in the context of the body of the church. And in the middle of that kind of towards the, well, As part of that, in verse 30, it says, and grieving the Spirit or causing grief is to bring on sorrow, sadness, or offense. And just like we would think of that someone going through a period of grief, they would be feeling sorrow, they'd be feeling sadness, they would be sensitive to offenses and slights that were done. And we can do this to the Holy Spirit. This is something that, in contrast to some of the other sins we've talked about, this is something that only a child of God can do. A lost person can resist. A lost person can blaspheme. A lost person can potentially even lie to and tempt the Holy Spirit. But a lost person can't grieve the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit doesn't indwell them. And this is particularly a sin against the Holy Spirit that we as believers do. And the context of it is in our relationship, particularly in our relationship with other Christians in the church. All these things that we're told to do. Put away lying and speak the truth of this neighbor for your members, one of another. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down on your wrath. Let him that stole steal no more. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you. Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. All these things in this passage and so many wonderful truths and right in there, We're challenged to not be guilty of grieving the Holy Spirit by being unresponsive in these ways. By being guilty of some of these things. By mistreating and dealing badly with other believers in the church. The Holy Spirit is grieved when we lie, cheat, steal, hurt, and slander one another. He's grieved at that. God hates it when one of His children hurts one of His other children. You know, I didn't understand it until we became a parent. My dad used to really hate it when my brothers and I hurt each other. I mean, it was weird, right? When we would start to call each other names and we would start to have hurtful and hateful interactions between each other, especially when we used each other to, you know, damage his home. You know, like when my brother threw me through the front door, whole long other story. But he didn't like those things and it wasn't just because it costs him money. He didn't like it when His kids weren't getting along. I don't like it when my kids don't get along with each other. I don't like it when they call each other names. I don't like it when they say hateful things. Parents don't like it when their kids aren't getting along. And God's heart is grieved. We cause Him sorrow. We cause Him offense when we attack His other kids. We grieve the Holy Spirit. We grieve the Holy Spirit. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, just what will be just several pages past where we are there in Ephesians 4. In the middle of this passage, kind of an interesting, you know, the passage of short, kind of terse, three, four, five-word verses there. And just important truths in concise packages here in these verses. But verse 19, right in the middle of that four words, quench not the spirit. Quench not the Spirit. A sin against the Holy Spirit of quenching Him, an offense against the Holy Spirit of quenching Him. This would be much like resisting Him, and it would kind of be the next step down from resisting the Holy Spirit would be to absolutely quench Him, to extinguish His power and to suppress His presence in our lives. Holy Spirit, again, is speaking and this is primarily, I believe, if not exclusively, a sin against the Holy Spirit by a child of God. The Holy Spirit is speaking to our hearts. The Holy Spirit is trying to use the Word of God to teach us and to guide us and to convict us and change us. And we resist, we resist, we resist to the point of extinguishing His power and suppressing His presence in us. Holy Spirit indwells you, you can't put Him out from you, but you can suppress Him and you can so grieve Him so as to quench His presence, the prominence of His presence The Holy Spirit would fill you if you would allow it, but we're only filled by the Holy Spirit as we are submitted to Him. And so this would be kind of the very opposite of that. This would be to confine the Holy Spirit to the smallest corner of our hearts that we possibly can. to bury him under pride and sin and carnality and falsehood to a degree to where the Holy Spirit is really having no influence at all in our day-to-day walk and our day-to-day decisions. That we would not have any consideration whatsoever of what the will of the Lord is in a given situation. That we would quench Him to a degree that His voice could not be heard above all of the noise that we're giving our ear to. That His touch could not be felt amongst all of the distractions and layers of filth and carnality that we've surrounded ourselves with. We'll quench Him. We would put out, we would suppress His power and His presence to such a degree that His movement cannot be felt. We're completely insensitive to His leadership in our lives. Don't quench the Holy Spirit. Don't quench Him again with just our own will. We quench His leadership with our own pride, with the sin that He's trying to put off from us and we just keep piling more and more and more on and more and more and more in to our spirits and into our hearts and to a degree to where the Holy Spirit is, His voice is drowned out. His touch is no longer able to be felt. I believe a Christian can get to a point where they've so quenched the Holy Spirit in their lives that it is essentially like being lost. All but, right? You can't lose your salvation, but it's clear from Scripture that a born-again believer can continue to live their life just as bad, if not worse, than an unbeliever. It was one of the themes of 1 Corinthians that there was Christians in the church who were doing things that even the lost pagans weren't doing. And there's no indication, you know, there's no indication that this man wasn't saved. He was just quenching the Holy Spirit to a degree that he felt no conviction about the gross immorality he was living his life in. That's quenching the Holy Spirit. And then the last one is in Hebrews chapter 10. And this is Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 26 is where I will begin reading. It says, for if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. despised Moses' law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sore punishment. Suppose ye, he shall be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace." To show despite or to despise the Spirit of grace here as it's said there in verse 29. had done despite unto the Spirit of grace. That closing phrase to show despite, to despise the Spirit of grace. Now, it's important to understand what the context of this willful sinning that verse 26 speaks of. Hebrews was written to Christians, Christian converts out of Judaism who were turning back to their religion of vain and dead works. for reasons of convenience, for reasons of culture and otherwise, they were turning back to their religion of dead works, turning back from the faith. This is called apostasy. This is an intentional turning away from your faith, from your beliefs. That's the willful sin that they were doing. They were seeing that Jesus was better in every way and that Jesus Christ had saved them in every way. And they said, but we want the ritualism and we want the the religious aspects of it. We want the thing we had before, the picture of the thing that we actually have in Jesus Christ, and they were turning away from true faith in Jesus Christ and turning back to what they were before. And if you do that, If you become apostate, if you abandon your faith, that it is like despising the Holy Spirit. It'd be like taking, He says, you trampled underfoot the Son of God and you counted His blood that He shed for you an unholy thing and you've despised the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you. You've committed a hateful act against the Holy Spirit of God who would lead you otherwise. apostasy is a grievous sin. Holy Spirit is the one who led you out of religion and led you out of the vanities of your own mind and brought you into salvation. And the Holy Spirit is the one that taught you the truth of God's Word and led you into paths of righteousness. And then to turn back to what you had before is to be completely flippant and disregarding of the Holy Spirit's presence and His work in your life. You're not threatening. This is not a threat that apostasy leads to the loss of salvation. That's not the case at all. But he is saying that if under Moses' law you were judged harshly, died without mercy under two or three witnesses, of how much sore punishment will you be worthy of before God? How much of a loss of all potential reward, how much of a loss of, in this life, the Lord's blessing and His protection and His power would you be worthy of if you became apostate, you turned away from the faith, sin against the Holy Spirit. God will deal with them, apostates, as rebellious and wayward children So we're all guilty to some degree of sinning against the Holy Ghost. We're all guilty of sinning and we're all guilty to some, in many ways, but we're all guilty to some degree, I believe, of sinning against the Holy Ghost. We must, must, must, must be aware of what these are. We must be willing to confess those as sin and humbly repent of those. and seek His forgiveness and seek His help to avoid these going forward in the future. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit is far too important to our walk of faith, to our walk in the blessing and the leadership of the Lord, to walk in understanding of God's will for our lives. We must have a good relationship with the Holy Spirit, and so if we are directly sinning against Him, Without repentance, we're going to hinder that work that He does for us. And it's far too important for us to be guilty of these sins against Him. And so, let's close with that. Let's respond as the Holy Spirit is speaking to our hearts here this morning. If you would join me with your heads bowed here for a few moments. Just momentarily here, we'll have the piano play for a few moments and give us an opportunity to pray. Whatever decision the Lord may be speaking to our hearts about, let's respond to hear accordingly. Let's not be guilty of these sins against the Holy Spirit, and let's not be guilty of them without humbly making them right and seeking the Lord's forgiveness for them. And so as the piano begins to play here, give us just some time before we close the service to respond and begin the work of submitting to the Holy Spirit's work in our hearts.