Good evening. We're doing something a little bit different tonight in that we're not landing in one particular passage only as you've seen in your outline. There are several passages and I suspect there are so many of you were thinking so far in advance that you already marked them with some piece of paper or something so that it would be easy to turn to. But if you would open up your Bibles tonight to Ephesians chapter 4, we'll begin there.

You know one of the problems with advertising is it doesn't always translate well into other languages. For instance, when the Coca-Cola company decided to first launch its campaign in China, they promoted Coca=Cola as Ke-ku-kala. And they printed up thousands of signs and plastered them all over the country only to discover that in Chinese the words ke-ku-kala translates "a female horse stuffed with wax." So the drink didn't go over well. Who'd want to drink that? When Pepsi launched it's campaign, "Come alive with the Pepsi generation," the ads in Taiwan translated it as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead." No thanks. Kentucky Fried Chicken launched its campaign in China, you know the chicken that's "finger-lickin' good." The slogan came across as "Eat your fingers off." (laughter) The one I thought was classic was General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova to South American audiences, couldn't figure out why the sales went flat. The didn't do, they should've known that in South America No-va mean it doesn't go. "Here buy the car that doesn't go." Those were all unfavorable responses to a product and truthfully the manufacturers probably done a little more research into the culture and the language before introducing those products.

Now the Holy Spirit really needs no translator, He can transcend all culture and language. He is able to convict and to sanctify and to strengthen and to help anyone in any country at any time. But our responses to the Spirit aren't always the best, most favorable responses. We know, we've already discovered in this series, that the Holy Spirit is with the unbeliever convicting that person of sin and righteousness and judgment. Once that person is convinced and they receive Christ, the Holy Spirit comes within to be a Helper, a guide, a teacher, a strengthener. Here's the question tonight though: If the Holy Spirit is a helper, how does he feel when we refuse his help? If the Holy Spirit is our teacher, what does he think when we fall asleep in his class and refuse his instruction? If the Holy Spirit is indeed our guide, how does he feel when we swerve off the path he's guiding us on? If the Holy Spirit is convicting, pointing people to Christ, what does he think when they refuse him?

And that's what we want to look at tonight in these passages that are laid before us. And this is of paramount importance because after all this age has been called aptly "The Age of the Holy Spirit." He's the one Jesus left behind to be another helper to us. So it's not only important to know who he is and what he does but how we ought to respond to him, how we ought to treat the Holy Spirit. He is moving in the world, he is moving in the church. But what is our response to him? And if it's not the right response, how can that change?

Pigeons are famous for, among other things, their ability to navigate, to find their way home even if at great distances away. One experiment from the Army Signal Corp released a pigeon that found its way home two thousand miles away from its home.

That's why back in 1988 when a French group released three thousand pigeons and nearly all of them got lost. People wondered what went wrong. Well scientists have discovered that one of the ways a pigeon will find its way home, navigate, is using the earth's magnetic field, the shield around it. And that can be disrupted. Two days before those pigeons were released from France a very temporary but severe solar flare, an explosion at the surface of the sun caused that magnetic field to be disrupted and the pigeons were confused.

We have been designed, you might say programmed by God to be led by, controlled by, maneuvered by the Holy Spirit, navigated by Him. But there can be significant let's say explosions of sin in our life that disrupt the sensitivity that we have to the Holy Spirit, even as believers, let alone as unbelievers. And there are consequences to that.

I've had you turn first of all and this is how we're going to divide it, quite simply into two camps. Unholy responses by believers and then unholy responses by unbelievers. Ephesians 4 gives us the first one we want to look at, which is grieving the Spirit. There's a text of scripture I draw your attention to, chapter 4 verse 30. He says, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." The word grieve, lupeo is a, is an emotional word, it is a relational word, it means to cause sadness or to bring sorrow to someone. And we've already discussed that the Holy Spirit is a person but so often we don't realize he's not just a person, just the divine person, he is a sensitive person, he feels things because he has personhood, personality.

It was William Evans who wrote his great book on doctrines of the Bible. It said, "The Holy Spirit is the most sensitive person in the godhead," displaying what he called "the mother nature of God," that sensitivity. He can be grieved. Something about this. It is in the present imperative. It would be better translated, "Stop grieving the Holy Spirit," indicating that at least the Ephesian church was in a process of already grieving the Holy Spirit somehow. The question is what were they doing? What was it in the body, in the church that caused the Holy Spirit to be so saddened, so grieved? We can figure that out easily by the context. Look back at verse 25, "Therefore putting away lying, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members of one another." Mark the words one another by the way. "Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath nor give place to the devil." Let him who stole steal no longer but rather let him labor working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for the necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitternress, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another. (there's that little phrase once again) tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ forgave you." What is it to sadden or grieve the Holy Spirit? It's to have actions or words that disrupt our one anotherness in the body of Christ. And you'll notice something here, that it had mostly to do with attitudes and words, sins of the tongue among the body of Christ. Boy, the Bible has a lot to say about that, doesn't it? Like James chapter 3 where he says, "the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness that can ruin your whole life. It can turn the entire course of your life into a blazing flame of destruction.

You know, a snail is small but tough. It's slow but tough. One of the reasons it's so tough is it has on its tongue thousands of little teeth. And it rolls that little baby up and whenever needs it, it unfolds it, one naturalist, one scientist counted thirty thousand plus little teeth on the tongue. Able, even though it's small and slow, to cut through thick stems and destroy things. There's a lot of Christians like in this list here that are like those snails. Oh, they're slow but they're tough. They're seeming so small but behind the scenes they can wreak havoc in marriages, in friendships, in how many churches friendships and marriages have been destroyed by sins of the tongue. Why does it grieve the Holy Spirit so much? Because we already discovered that one of the main areas of the Spirit of God in and among the church is to bring unity and that is disrupted. That grieves Him, saddens Him.

I've discovered something that in the church there seems to be in my view something worse than anything else, something far more prevalent and pervasive than most other sins of the tongue. I think it's reperesented in verse 31 by the words "clamor" and "evil speaking." Let me share something with you and see if you can guess what it is. "I am more deadly than the screaming shell of a cannon. I win without killing. I tear down homes, break hearts and wreck lives. I travel on the wings of the wind, no innocence is strong enough to intimidate me, no purity pure enough to daunt me. I have no regard for truth, no respect for justice, no mercy for the defenseless. My victims are as numerous as the sands of the sea and often as innocent. I never forget and I seldom forgive. My name is gossip. Gossip, clamor and evil speaking. Gossip, oh I know we don't call it that, we call it a concern or a prayer request. "let me share my CONCERN with you so that you can share my PRAYER." "Oh, I didn't know that. Glad you told me. I'll PRAY about it too." Maybe some of us should pray what David prayed in Psalm 141, "Set a guard O Lord over my mouth." What a great prayer. "Set a guard O Lord over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips." A basic principle to remember is that a closed mouth gathers no feet. And also it gathers no destructive force that could rip up the church and ruin this togetherness. I think James is right, if any man does not stumble in word, the same is a perfect man." Perfect.

Okay, now let's move on because I think one leads to another perhaps. Go over just a couple pages to the right, I Thessalonians chapter 5. If grieving the Holy Spirit is an offense committed by believers, so is quenching the Holy Spirit. That's found in one short little verse in I Thessalonians 5, vesre 19. Here it is, very easy, do not quench the Spirit. In Greek it's even shorter and more emphatic, the verb is changed around in the syntax. It's literally, the Spirit do not quench. The word quench suggests the extinguishing of a fire. In fact, one translation, the Berkeley version puts it this way, "Do not extinguish the Spirit's fire." The word quench or extinguish is the word that means suppress, stifle or hold back. So we could say, "Don't hold back, don't suppress, don't push away the Holy Spirit from his work, from what he wants to do, don't quench, don't extinguish the Spirit's fire."

Well, you know you can quench a fire a couple different ways, can't you? Number one, you can take something from it. Number two, you can put something on it. You can first of all remove fuel, that would cause that fire to keep burning. Or, you could put something on it like dirt or water or a blanket, wet blanket; and put it out. I think this could mean a couple of things, and I draw it purely from its context here. Number one, this could mean don't extinguish the fire of love from within the body of Christ. Don't extinguish the Spirit's love. Because it seems as I read through this that Paul in th e latter portion of I Thessalonians is talking again the body of Christ, getting along with each other, the body life. Back in verse 6 he speaks about being ready for the Lord's coming. In verse 10 and 11 he says, "We should comfort brethren who have lost people to death." In verse 12, we should recognize spiritual leadership. And then in verse 14 and 15, minister to all different kinds of people. Look at that one, "Now we exhort you brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone. But always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. Do not quench the Spirit. It could simply mean then that we should never put out the fires of love that the Spirit wants to keep ignited on the altars of the hearts of god's people. Do you know how many good intentions, good ideas, godly impulses have been doused by other believers? Mocked, suppressed? "What are you doing that for that's ridiculous. I don't receive that." And just put a blanket, a cold wet blanket on the work of the Holy Spirit. I think that grieving the Spirit can lead to quenching the Spirit. If you grieve him long enough in a relationship, in a marriage, in a friendship, in a business relationship, in a church, eventually that grieving leads to a quenching and it's stenosed, it slows down, it impedes the flow of the Holy Spirit from working in and among us.

Second, I think it refers to extinguishing his power. Not just his love but his power, because there's another context. Look at, well continue, "Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies, test all things, hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil." In the same context that Paul is describing the godly life of the early church, he's discussing the spiritual gifts of prophecy and the discernment of spirits. Now you'll remember back in I Corinthians 14 Paul says, "Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts." Pursue love, go after love among us, pursue spiritual gifts especially that you might prophesy. We might apply it this way: Watch y our attitude toward a new work of the Spirit. Watch your attitude. We all know that we can get bad attitudes. We can react to stuff that is new to us. Just because we have an experience but somebody else has, we go, "That's not real, that's not right." And we put a blanket on it. Easily done. It's new to your experience but God may want to do something. You never have to be afraid, ever, of the Holy Spirit, of the genuine Holy Spirit. You should only be afraid that you are quenching the Holy Spirit.

G. I. Packer wrote a great book about the Holy Spirit and he talked, in fact he even mentions a little letter that was sent back in 1908 by missionaries, Scottish and Irish missionaries who had gone to China, Manchuria. And they wrote back, here's a portion of their letter. They said, "A power has come into the church that we could not control if we would." It is a miracle for stolid self-righteous John Chinaman to go out of his way to confess his sins, something that no torture of the ya-men could ever force from him. Beyond all human explanation. Perhaps you will say this is a sort of religious hysteria. So did some of us. But here we are, about sixty Scottish and Irish Presbyterians who have seen it, all shades of temperament, much as many of us shrank from it at first, everyone who has seen and heard what we have, every day last week is certain that there's only one explanation, that it is God's Holy Spirit manifesting himself." And the letter closes with, "One thing springs to our mind from our own creed, 'I believe in the Holy Ghost.' Don't quench the Spirit's love in the body, don't quench the Spirit's power in the body. Don't be quick to react, be careful to respond in such a way that gives the Holy Spirit his freedom.

There is a third among believers. This time I want you to go left to Acts chapter 5. We've looked at this one, some of you know it so well it's already committed to your memory, you think, "I don't even have to turn to it." That's all right, do it anyway. This is lying to the Spirit. "A certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession and he kept back part of the proceeds. His wife also being aware of it brought a certain part and laid it at the apostle's feet. Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained was it not your own. After it was sold was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.; Then Ananias hearing these words fell down and breathed his last (or he kicked the bucket, or he died, or he expired, or he passed away, whatever you want to say, he's dead. Notice) So great fear came upon all those who heard these things and the young man arose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him." And you know the rest of the story: His wife came in. You know I hear all the time from people, "Boy I wish we'd see more miracles like they did in the early church." Okay, fair enough. But here's one you can be so grateful you don't see. Can you imagine, this is like a scene out of The Godfater. It's sad that the first Christian funeral recorded in the Bible is the funeral of a hypocrite. Imagine if the Holy Spirit decided that he would keep up this kind of activity all throughout church history. We'd need a full time morgue here at the church, wouldn't we? Let's discover what it is. What is this thing of lying to the Holy Spirit? Well, let me put you at ease, okay. It's not that Ananias didn't give enough in the offering. The amount has nothing to do with it. In fact, you should know by now that God could care less about the dollar and cent amount on the check. After all, wasn't it Jesus who when the widow gave two mites, a tenth of a cent, exonerated her. "Look at this woman she gave out of her poverty all that she had." That wasn't the issue. It wasn't the amount. In fact, in verse 4, Peter said, "You know, it's yours, you can do whatever you want with it." The sin was pretending to give more than he actually gave. Pretending he was something when he wasn't. It was the sin of hypocrisy. He wanted others to think and probably even thought that he would do it privately before the Lord. And, "Lord I'm going to give all to you. I'm giving all, I consecrate all." But he comes into the church, acts like he is giving all, but he has kept back part for himself. But he wants the rest to think that he has given all. So he wants to appear generous and sacrificial when in reality he's selfish.

Judas did this, didn't he? You remember that night when that lady broke that vial of ointment and poured it on Jesus fee? And Judas said, "What a waste! This could have been sold and given to the poor." The gospel writer said, "Judas said that not because he really cared for the poor but he was pocketing money from the till. Who's a hypocrite?

Cicero wrote these words, "Of all the villainy that there si, there is none more base than that of the hypocrite who at the moment he is most false, takes care to appear most virtuous." Now here's a sin that has been repeated many times through church history and continues to be repeated to this day. Some people go to church and they go through t he motions. And they sing the songs and they carry the book and they look spiritual. But they're not. "I surrender all," you know if the Holy Spirit was at work today in the same way, if you sang that and you weren't surrendered, you would die. Thank God for his grace. Thank God for his grace.

Jesus spoke about those people "who draw near to me with their mouths but their hearts are far from me." Now, if you attend church, you carry the Bible and you sing the songs and you're trying to make everybody else around you think that you are surrendered and consecrated to God when you are not, that's what this is all about. That's lying to the Holy Spirit. Not like you can actually deceive him. Not like the Holy Spirit goes, "Oh, I didn't know you weren't that consecrated." You might put on a good show for people and think you're putting on a good show and that God is impressed. And he's not. Lying to the Holy Spirit.

I heard about a door-to-door Bible salesman back in the days when they used to come door to door and try to sell you encyclop0edias and Bible dictionaries and Bibles. And the guy knocked on the door and a woman answered. And he said, "Ma'am do you have a Bible?" "I sure do, sir." "Oh I read it all the time," she insisted. And she called for her daughter to bring the Bible out of the drawer. As soon as the Bible was brought a pair of glasses fell from between the pages. And without thinking she said, "Oh there are my glasses. I've been looking for these things for three years."

You can't pull the wool over God's eyes, don't try. Ananias and Sapphir his wife thought they could. They had lied to the Holy Spirit.

Now let's take a shift from that, let's step outside of the church and let's go to the world. Because we've already discovered something. This is old territory in a sense. You remember back to what the Holy Spirit does. What is his main job when it comes to acting in the world, working in the world? It's to reveal Christ, right? To testify of Jesus. "He will testify of me. And when the Spirit has come he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment." Of sin because they don't believe in me." Now all three of these that we mentioned, in closing here, all three of these are related. And I see them as all three stages to committing the same sin. There is resisting the Spirit, insulting the Spirit, and blaspheming the Spirit, what is regarded as the unpardonable sin.

Now you're in Acts, so just go a couple pages to the right and you're there. Let's look at resisting the Holy Spirit. The speaker is Stephen, he is preaching a sermon. The crowd in Jerusalem, the leaders, are listening to him. It's a tense moment. He's bringing his message to a close. And it's quite a close I would say. Verse 51, "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you." How's that for a close? How's that for an application? You resist the Spirit. Now it's actually quite simple to understand if you know the story. So bear with me. Go back just a moment, go back to chapter 6, verse 8, you're there? "Stephen full of faith and power did great wonders and signs among the people. Then there arose some from what is called the synagogue of the freed man, Cyrenians, Alexandrians and those from Cilicia and Asia disputing with Stephen. They were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit (mark that) by which he spoke. Then they secretly induced men to say, 'We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.' And they stirred up the people, the elders, the scribes. And they came upon him, seized him, brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses who said, 'This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.' And all who sat at the council looking steadfastly at him saw his face as the face of an angel. Then the high priest said, 'Are these things so?' That's all he had to ask Stephen. Stephen was this deacon turned evangelist. He didn't really need an open door from God. He just needed a crack in the window about yay big. 'One question, are these things so?' And he let them have it. All of chapter 7 is an entire message that goes through and recounts the history of Israel which is the history of Israel resisting God. That's the theme of his message. He goes, "Look at Moses. Look at Joseph, Joseph was sent by God, his brothers resisted him. Moses was sent by God, the nation resisted him. The prophets were sent by God, the prophets were resisted by Israel." And so he is saying, "Just like Joseph, just like Moses, just like all of the prophets who were resisted, rejected by your forefathers, you are doing the same thing." In fact, verse 52, we didn't finish, he says, "Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one of whom now you have become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the direction of angels. You haven't kept it." Oh, you're talking about the holy law and the holy man of Moses. And you're resisting and rejecting the Holy Spirit and that's your history," he is saying. Here Jesus has come and he has giving compelling, intcontrovertible evidence in what he said and what he did and that he rose from the dead and you keep pushing that away. What were they resisting? They were resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit that said, "This Jesus is the Messiah, he is the answer you've all been hoping for and waiting for." And they kept resisting that conviction.

It's like Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the apostle. And he's lying on his back and he said, "Who are you Lord?" And Jesus said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. It's hard for you to kick against the goads." Saul o f Tarsus was fighting the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Now, some of you every time you come to church, every time you have a conversation with that Christian relative, you fight it, you fight the conviction of the Spirit. Oh, you feel it, you know it's right, you know you should surrender to Christ, you resist. Do something about that feeling. Tonight. No better place, no better time than right here right now. Admit your sin and come clean. Don't resist.

There was a pastor preaching a sermon and a guy interrupted, in the middle of it he stood up and he said, "Pastor," he started weeping, crying, wailing. He said, "Pastor, I've been a miserable sinner for years and I haven't realized it til now." The guy sitting next to him said, "Sit down Norm we have known it for years. We've known it all along, you just came to grips with it, man." Come to grips with that tonight. Don't resist the Spirit. That's the first step.

The second step and you don't have to turn to it, let me just read it to you, is insulting the Spirit. Resisting can lead to insulting. Let me read the passage, it's in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 29, the writer says, "Think about how much m ore terrible the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God and have treated the blood of the covenant as it were a common and unholy thing. Such people have insulted and enraged the Holy Spirit." You know that when we refuse to receive Christ as savior, we're insulting the Holy Spirit who's pointing us to Christ. He's saying, "You're hopeless, man. You're lost. You need a savior." "No I don't." "Good enough, you're a sinner." "No I'm not. I'm good enough." So if you keep that up, you are insulting the love of God, you're insulting the atoning work of Christ, you're insulting the very Holy Spirit who has been pointing you all along to Christ.

So, you have resisting which can lead to insulting which can ultimately sadly lead to blaspheming the Holy Spirit. This is the unpardonable sin. This is the sin, and we'll close with this, for which there is no forgiveness. The question is: What is it? So, last time, get that finger ready, turn to Matthew. Matthew chapter 12. Jesus us speaking, two verses I draw your attention to, verse 31 and 32. "Therefore I say to you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this age or in the age to come." Do you know how much heartache that verse has caused Christians? It wasn't but a month ago when someone again came up and said, "I am convinced and I am so upset that I have offended the Holy Spirit and committed the unpardonable sin." They were almost shaking, nervous. I put my arm around them and I said, "It's pretty evident don't you think that you haven't committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit because you're still concerned about it. The fact that your heart isn't hardened. The fact that you have feeling. The fact that it even bothers you proves that you haven't committed it.

Some, in reading this passage, some insist that this is a sin that can never be repeated because Jesus Christ is no longer physically on the earth. I don't quite buy that. I think that what is going on here is that the leaders to whom Jesus is speaking are revealing a condition of heart. And I'll show you where it is. Go back to verse 22, after resisting Christ and the Holy Spirit, after insulting Christ and the Holy Spirit for so long, they're revealing something. Verse 22, "Then one was brought to him who was demon possessed, blind and mute and he healed him so that the blind man and mute man both spoke and saw. Then all the multitudes were amazed saying, "Could this be the Son of David? (There's the proof, there's the evidence.) And the Pharisees heard it they said, 'This fella does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons, Satan.'" Jesus knew their thoughts and now he speaks to them all the way down including what we have read. But notice verse 28, "But if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you." Now they have been insulting Christ all along up to this point. They have been resisting Christ's Messiahship among them all along. But now, now they are willing to take an obvious miracle, obviously done by the power of the Holy Spirit as Jesus says and attribute that to Satan. Which indicates a condition of heart, a willful obstinate hardness of heart for which they feel no conviction at all. Now if the work of the Holy Spirit is to lead people and point people to Jesus Christ, to convince them; for someone like this who's been resisting and resisting, now to take this evidence and be able to say, "That's from Satan," indicates their heart is desperately hard and perhaps at the point of no return.

Listen to this passage, don't turn to it but listen to it, we started in Ephesians 4, this is also from that chapter. Paul describes a certain group of people as having their understanding darkened. "Being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart who being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness." Paul wrote to Timothy and spoke of those whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. Billy Graham describes it this way: "The unpardonable sin is rejecting the truth about Christ. It is rejecting completely and finally the witness of the Holy Spirit which declares Jesus is the Son of God who alone can save us from sins." Why is that unpardonable? The writer of Hebrews says, How can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation." You keep resisting and you keep fighting and you keep insulting and eventually a person can be guilty of blaspheming the Spirit, pushing away Christ so long, they feel no conviction. The Spirit of God isn't striving with them at all any more. That's sad. That's the worst condition a person could ever get to. That's why coming to church is dangerous you know. If we hear truth and we get clever at deflecting the truth and not applying the truth. Saying, "Maybe next week, maybe next month, oh maybe later." We can become so hardened, so callous, we don't feel any longer.

During World War Ii the American naval forces were stationed in the North Atlantic fighting other ships in the area. Six airplanes took off from the carrier, an exceptionally dark night. The carrier was lit. When the planes took off, the orders came for a blackout of the aircraft carrier so that the enemies couldn't spot it. But those six airplanes out for their mission couldn't land. So they radioed a request, "Could you just turn on the lights so we can land? Just enough time for us to land and then the blackout again." Because of the amount of people on the ship, thousands of people still aboard the ship and lots of equipment still aboard, because that was more valuable than the men on the crew of those six planes, the order was refused. Those six planes eventually ran out of fuel and crashed into the freezing waters killing all of the crew.

There comes a time when God turns out the lights. When the last hope, the further chance for salvation is finally lost. That's why in II Corinthians 6 we're told this, "Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation." See the Bible's word is always now, today, do it now. Instead of later. Because you may never have a later and later on your heart may be so hardened. And I think that goes for every unbeliever and every believer, every believer who hears the truth about their relationship, about their tongue, about their attitude, and the Holy Spirit convicts, change now. Do it while your heart is tender. Lest you become one of those clever ones that deflect truth and the Spirit is grieved and quenched and you experience no life, no flow, no real spark any more. And for those who have heard the gospel and rejected it, while there is light, while there is feeling; respond.

There's that old poem that says, "There is a time we know not when a line we know not where that marks the destiny of man betwixt sorrow and despair. There is a line though by man unseen, once it has been crossed even God in all his love has sworn that all is lost." It's not lost tonight and some of you can still respond.

And heavenly Father, as we close this service tonight, it's not really about what our boyfriend or girlfriend thinks at this moment, what our husband or wife thinks at this moment, what our children or parents or best friend thinks about us at this moment. Because we're not going to stand before them in judgment but before a holy and righteous, loving and merciful God. You are so loving and so merciful that tonight you're extending your grace a further time. And we pray that many would respond. Bring those who have been under the conviction of your spirit home tonight, Lord, no longer resisting, no longer insulting, no longer coming close to that line of blaspheming but tender-hearted, coming to grips with who they are and making a definite step in releasing and abandoning. They're surrendering their life to Jesus tonight.