Withdrawal of the Holy Spirit from the Soul

Thomas Spurgeon.

Psalm 51:11

Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your holy spirit from me.

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.)