Psalms 51:11

Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.

A most needful prayer concerning the Holy Spirit

This psalm is, beyond all others, a photograph of penitent David. You may have seen that interesting slab of stone which bears on its surface indications of the fall of raindrops in a primeval shower; this psalm preserves the mark of David’s tear-drops, for the inspection and instruction of succeeding generations. Take our text--

I. As the cry of a penitent child of God. This is its largest, widest and most primitive sense. It is certainly fit language for any child of God who has fallen into gross sin. Backslider, you may yet return; there are pardons for sins of deepest dye. But more, probably, will equally need this prayer on account of gradual backsliding. One great sin startles the soul into repentance, but a continuation of sin will be found to be oven more dangerous. White ants will devour a carcase as surely and as speedily as a lion. Many threads of silk twisted together may hold a man as fast as one band of iron. But the soul that can thus pray has still true spiritual life struggling within. An ungodly man would not care at all, but here is life which sighs after God. How many are the reasons for such a prayer as this! God’s presence is our comfort amid affliction. It was the Holy Spirit who regenerated us, and into His name we were baptized. And He is the Spirit of adoption. Let anything come between us and our distinct recognition of our sonship towards God, and we are undone. Further, it is by the Holy Spirit that we have access to God. Praying in the Holy Spirit is the only true praying. And He is our great instructor; He leads us into all truth. And we need His aid as our Comforter and Sanctifier, and as our power for practical service. And remember, too, that when a man has sinned as David had, he cannot always pray in language which would be precisely suitable for a well-assured saint. When assurance is gone, and faith is weak, it is a great comfort that we may pray a sinner’s prayer.

II. As the voice of an anxious Church. Remember, there have been Churches from which God has removed His Spirit. The Churches of Asia, and many more recent instances. Therefore remember that the power of a Church does not consist in her organizations; nor her gifts; nor her wealth; nor her doctrines. I know not that Laodicea held false doctrines, yet she was nauseous to the Lord. Nor is a Church’s strength her numbers. What is a large Church without the Lord’s presence, but a mass of chaff to be scattered by the wind! And the fall of such Church may be sudden. Therefore how needful for all Churches is this prayer. Take it--

III. As the cry of an awakened sinner. Not accurately, but still instinctively we may thus use it. Oh, unconverted man! if thou art anxious about thy soul, pray this prayer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Deprecation of God’s judgments

The people of God they understand the nature of spiritual judgments, that they are the greatest and saddest of any; which they are in a twofold respect; first, as considered in themselves, and that mischief which is contained in them; and, secondly, in regard of their influence and extent. First, as for themselves, they are the greatest, as depriving of the greatest good, and carrying the greatest smart with them. Every one prizes any loss according as he is any way sensible of the gain which is lost by it. What is the reason that worldly men make so much of worldly losses, of friends, and honours, and estates, and such things as these? It is because they understand what they mean. Why now thus it is also in spirituals: God’s children, because they know what it is to enjoy God’s presence, therefore they are so afraid of being deprived of it. And then in regard of their influence; they know that such judgments as these have other judgments attending upon them; and so they have: first, as to temporal judgments, they are oftentimes forerunners of them: as the Gospel comes not alone, so it goes not alone, nor the comforts which belong unto it. When God afflicts men with spiritual judgments, which it may be they do not regard, He has other judgments for them, following Of them, which they are more sensible of; when David was cast out of God’s presence, he was in danger of somewhat else with it; and so are others with him. And then especially as to judgment to come. Spiritual judgments, where they are not prevented, end in eternal judgments, and in their own nature tend unto them. Temporary casting out of God’s presence tends to final and absolute rejection: and the loss of God’s Spirit for a time tends to the loss of it for ever: this it does in its own nature, however through the goodness of God it does not always take effect; as the firing but of one room in a house speaks the firing of the whole building; and the firing of but one house in particular the destruction of the whole city, though God does graciously come between.:Now the children of God they consider things in themselves, and the nature and tendency of them, as it becomes wise men to do, and accordingly judge of them; and hence are so much afraid of spiritual judgments. (Thomas Horton, D. D.)

And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.--

The withdrawal of God’s Spirit deprecated as the worst of evils

1. The best of saints may fall into the worst of sins.

2. As the best of saints cannot keep themselves from falling, so neither can they raise themselves up again when they are fallen (Psalms 23:3).

3. Where repentance is sincere, a believer matters not what shame he takes, provided by his confession glory may redound to God.

I. What it is for God to take away His Holy Spirit. For God to take away His Holy Spirit is for Him to withdraw His sensible gracious influences from the soul.

II. For what reasons, or on what accounts it is, that God acts thus towards His own people.

1. Pride and self-confidence in the performance of any duty. The apostle seems to be most afraid of that little boasting pronoun I (1 Corinthians 15:1). Grace prepared him for service, grace assisted him in it, grace gave success to it, grace therefore has all the praise.

2. Another reason why God withdraws His Spirit is negligence and sloth in the discharge of duty (Song of Solomon 5:2). Oh! those formal, lukewarm frames of spirit, our beloved loathes them. Give Christ your whole heart, or give Him nothing.

3. Unimproved mercies is another cause of the removal of God’s Spirit (1 Kings 11:9).

4. Present sins are another cause of God’s withdrawing of His Spirit: Samson and David both failed here.

III. Why gracious souls cannot bear the loss of God’s spirit without putting in their plea against it.

1. Because He is the Spirit of truth, and without His gracious teachings all the knowledge that we have of God and of Christ will do us no real good. Light in the head will be of little efficacy if there be not life and heat in the heart.

2. He is the Spirit of grace and of supplication, and without His aid we shall be indifferent to duty, and lifeless in it (Zechariah 12:10).

3. The Spirit is a Spirit of holiness, and without His presence all our endeavours after sanctification in heart and life are fruitless, and in vain.

4. The Spirit is the author of all consolation and joy, and without His gracious influences the believer will be ever sorrowing and cast down (John 16:7).

Uses.

1. If the loss of God’s presence here be so dreadful, how sad is it ever to be separated from it in the other world? (Psalms 90:11).

2. God has other ways to punish His own people for sin, than casting them into hell for it (Psalms 99:8).

3. Have a care how you grieve the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). Do not that which is contrary to His nature and will. Embrace His counsels; submit to His government; walk in all the ways of His appointment. (J. Hill.)

Withdrawal of the Holy Spirit from the soul

There came upon David’s soul, like a veritable horror, the consciousness that it was possible to go from bad to worse; that, unless God interposed, this might last for ever--this momentary withdrawal of the spiritual power might be permanent. So he seems to say with an awful pathos in his voice, “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” As I thought of this I wondered whether there rose before the eyes of David the memory of what he himself had seen in the years that were gone. There was his predecessor on the throne--Saul--a man on whom the Spirit of God rested for a while, but who was bereft of the Spirit. When the Spirit had left him, what an awful condition he got into 1 David seems to say within himself, “O God, have mercy upon me. Do not let me become a Saul, lest I forget Thy judgments and disobey Thy statutes; lest in my hot anger I raise my hand against a just man, and seek to pin him to the wall with my javelin, as Saul did even unto me.” (Thomas Spurgeon.)