Pastor's Blog

I was talking to a preacher’s wife, who was no fool. I told her the whole thing. She said, “Brother Beuttler, are you sure what you felt was not the grieving of the Spirit?”

When she said that, I knew she was right. The Spirit felt hurt because I hurt His people. We can vex the Holy Spirit.

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and clamor, and evil speaking with all malice be put away from among you.”

Now I know there is no evil speaking in Auckland, and no malice and no bitterness; they are all saints, but in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, you have those conditions in the Assemblies of God, believe it or not. Those things hurt the Spirit of God. Here the prophet speaks about the Spirit’s vexation. We can vex the Spirit, that is to say, irritate Him, trouble Him, disturb Him, agitate Him, anger Him. He can be angry. God can be angry and still be holy. Incidentally, we can vex the Spirit of God by some things. Now if we really know the Spirit, surely we do not want to vex the Spirit.

Here I want to take a little while and give you tonight four things that vex the Spirit of God. Remember He’s a person. He’s omnipresent; He’s among us. We can vex Him, trouble Him, disturb Him, irritate Him, agitate Him. Oh yes! Look how the Spirit of God was agitated in the case of Ananias and Sapphira.