The Bible says that we should not grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). Grief is the expression of love; anger is the expression of hate. Wherever there is hate, there is anger. Wherever there is love, there is grief. Please remember that both anger and grief come from mistakes. In both cases they are caused by mistakes. If there is love, mistakes will result in grief. If there is hate, mistakes will result in anger. If you love a person, you will grieve for his mistakes. If you hate a person, you will be angry about his mistakes. Both are caused by the same thing—mistakes. But the results are different. Here, it is not anger, but grief. The Word does not say not to anger the Holy Spirit. Rather, it says not to grieve the Holy Spirit. He is not upon us, but in us. When He sees our failure, He grieves within us; He will not go away. Why will He not go away? It is because He is a seal. As a seal, He will be in us until the day of redemption. If we read the Word of God, we will not be able to deny this fact.

In the Old Testament, Psalm 51 records a very precious prayer. There David prayed that the Lord would not take His Spirit of holiness from him (v. 11). But in the New Testament, no believer can pray this prayer. Those who do not know the Bible may pray that God would not take the Holy Spirit from them. But those who know the Word of God know that the Holy Spirit can only be grieved within us; He will not go away. I am not saying that it is all right for Christians to sin. I am saying that at the time that we were saved, the Holy Spirit entered into us to be our seal. This fact has nothing to do with our weakness or our sin. The two are entirely different matters.

If we perish, who really suffers? If I lose a hymn book, of course, the hymn book suffers. But the first one to suffer is me. I have spent the effort to obtain the hymn book. I have paid the price and the money to obtain it. Hence, I am the one who suffers the most. How did God gain us? We were dead in sin and fallen. God caused His Son to die for us and shed His blood to redeem us with a great price. Do not think that if we lose our salvation only we have lost it and only we have suffered. Remember that we have been purchased by God. If we lose our salvation, God will also lose something. We have been purchased by His blood. Why does God preserve us? God preserves us for His own sake. If we are lost, the One who suffers is not us, but God.

The biggest problem today is that we do not believe how important we are in God's hands. Man finds it difficult to believe that God loves him. He finds it difficult to believe that God wants him. He always thinks that he is dispensable to God. God has given up His Son for our sake and has sent His Son into the world to pass through all the sufferings for our sake. He was crucified on the cross for the purpose of gaining us. If He does not care, then who would care? If I do not safeguard my hymn book, would my hymn book keep track of itself? Ephesians 1:13 says that the Holy Spirit is in us as a seal. Following this, verse 14 tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to be the seal because we are God's acquired possession. Therefore, we can tell the entire world that we are God's possession. It is not a question of our losing or not losing. It is a question of God's losing or not losing. It is not we who are keeping watch. We do not have to exhaust our mind over this matter. The whole work is His. If it were not, why would He send His only begotten Son to the cross? If He has exerted great effort and paid a great price to send His Son to the cross, He must exert greater effort and pay a greater price to keep us from being lost.

Suppose we have a most precious and expensive diamond ring, a very precious pearl, or an expensive gem. However much we spent to acquire it, we will spend the same amount to preserve it. If we bought it for ten thousand dollars, we would not lose it easily; we would surely guard it closely. We have to realize that we have been purchased by God with the greatest price. We were saved by the Son of God. The Son of God is greater than the entire world and the entire universe. Do not think that God does not care for us. God treats us in the same way that we treat our own treasure. It was the good shepherd that sought out the sheep (Luke 15). It was not the sheep that sought out the good shepherd. The Lord Jesus said that one day He would die for even one of His lost ones. It is not the sheep's business. It is the good shepherd who died for the sheep. Before God, we are those who have been purchased by Him. If we are lost, God is the One who will suffer. Therefore, we must remember that since we have the Holy Spirit as a seal, there is no possibility for us to be lost.

Can the grace which God gives to man be preserved by man? If it were preserved by man, we would have lost it long ago. Not only would we have lost it, even Peter and Paul would have lost it. We have to realize that God has already set us aside completely. Everything is of God. God alone has saved us. God alone is preserving us. May God show us clearly how long our salvation lasts, so that we can remove all fleshly thoughts and accept His thoughts.