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PSALM 51:11PSALM 51:11 “CAST ME NOT AWAY FROM THY PRESENCE; AND TAKE NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT FROM ME.” (KJV, ASV, RSV)
Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. (NKJV, NASB, NIV)
Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence. Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. (TLB)
Frankly, I don’t want to write this chapter. The topic of God taking His presence from us is one we don’t all agree with in evangelical churches. Honestly, it makes a lot of my friends “bristle” at the notion that God would do such a thing.
After all, doesn’t the Bible clearly teach us that there is nothing we can do to remove ourselves from God’s love? See Romans 8:35-39. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Didn’t Jesus say in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand?”
At the opposite end, the Bible also clearly teaches that God will not tolerate evil and wrong. Habakkuk 1:13 says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” Romans 1 lists a whole bunch of evils that we can give in to and Paul tells us God “gave them over” to their sinful desires (vrs 24) and to shameful lusts (vrs 26) and to depraved minds (vrs 28). He even says in verse 32, those who do such things “deserve death.” That is pretty harsh.
I hope you won’t abandon me if I share what I believe regarding our salvation. I truly believe that our salvation is secure. I also believe, however, that it is not unconditionally secure. Truly, nothing can separate us from the love of God…Satan can’t, others attacking us can’t, even the church can’t. But I do not believe that, having received the loving sacrifice of Jesus’ blood for our sins, we have freedom to trample on it and live whatever kind of life we want to live, knowing that Jesus is always there to forgive us.
No “thing” can separate us…but we always have the ability to separate ourselves. Even the “ultimate (unforgivable) sin” of rejecting Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins and turning from Him is unforgivable. 1 Timothy 1:19 describes “…some having rejected concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck.” Paul reminds us in 1 Tim 4 that “in latter times some will depart from the faith.” Hebrews 3:12 warns us, “See to it BROTHERS, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that TURNS AWAY FROM THE LIVING GOD.” Even 2 Peter 3:17 warns us to “be on guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your SECURE POSITION.”
Jesus warned in John 15:6, “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” We are told in Hebrews 6:4-6 “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.” If that isn’t enough, Hebrews 10:26-27 further tells us, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”
Can there be any wonder that David would pray, “Cast me not away from thy presence?” Whether David actually experienced it or not, I cannot help but think that, while he was laying with Bathsheba he surely felt God removing His Holy Spirit from Him because of his disobedience. If a Holy God will not tolerate evil in His children, did David not feel the Holy Spirit moving away from him while he was hiding his sin from Israel? He surely knew that there was no way he could hide his sin from God! He knew God well enough to know better.
Whether or not God actually cast David away from His presence, David slipped far enough away from Him that He actually feared losing God’s presence. I have to think that the FEAR of having God take His Holy Spirit from him was enough for him to pray this prayer in Psalm 51:11.
The fear of God casting us away from His presence should be enough for us to run from temptation and not give into our own lusts. Having experienced the Holy Spirit and His comfort, peace and strength should be enough to make us fear having it “taken away from us.”
But, the Bible lets us in on all the gory details of David’s failure and sin…because we are just like him. Sad though it may be, I’m pretty sure that, this side of heaven, we will all continue to be tempted and sometimes fail to always overcome those temptations because we too are flesh. We will feel it…like David did, when we sin we should feel that fear that He has every right to cast us away from His presence. And the answer to that dilemma is, “God, please, create in me a clean heart!”
Fear of being “cast away from God’s presence” should not be our only motivation for learning to rely on the strength of the Holy Spirit to help us resist the devil. Our love for Jesus and what He did for us should be enough. That evidence of the grieving of the Holy Spirit isn’t a threat that God will take it away from us if we aren’t good enough. It is evidence that we serve a Holy God and that He will not tolerate unhindered, indulgent unholiness from us.
As I said in the previous chapter, we don’t just need to plead, “Lord, create in me a clean heart” well after we have allowed sin to take us over and we have been caught, the consequences of our sins are catching up with us and we can’t handle it any more. That prayer will help us and our wonderful Savior has promised to forgive the pleas of a repentant heart. No, we need to pray that prayer BEFORE we sin, even as we are being tempted, so we will find the strength to say “NO” to sin and turn from our wicked ways.
And yes, we need to pray that prayer every day so we rededicate ourselves to Jesus and walk in His ways, not our own. I think it is safe to say that, if we can do this, we probably won’t have to worry about Him casting us away from His presence, nor will we ever feel that He might take His Holy Spirit from us.
Questions to consider: Why is it so easy to give in to temptations and lusts and so hard to say no to them? How far in sin do we need to go before we repent and turn back to Jesus? Have you felt that tug of the Holy Spirit when you give in to temptation? How many times are we allowed to fall and then ask the Lord to forgive us and restore us to a right relationship with Him? How can we balance our understanding of the greatness of the security of our salvation with the truth that only we can take it away? We shouldn’t be asking, “how far can I get away from God and still be saved?” We should be devoting all our attention to seeing how close we can get to Him.
Other Scriptures to study: We listed a lot of Scriptures on this topic in the text. Here they are again for in-depth study: Romans 8:35-39. John 10:28. Habakkuk 1:13. Romans 1. 1 Timothy 1:19. 1 Timothy 4. Hebrews 3:12. 2 Peter 3:17. John 15:6. Hebrews 6:4-6. Hebrews 10:26-27.
A Song to Remember: “Create in Me a Clean Heart” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7Hk3WFUMvo
 
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