Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me

“Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me.” Psalm 51:11
We all know that Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of repentance after the prophet Nathan confronted him over his sin with Bathsheba. It contains a line that was made into a popular worship song: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, O Lord; And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me; Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; And renew a right spirit within me.’
For decades this song was sung in churches, and I wonder how many Christians started to worry because of it that the Holy Spirit might be taken from them because of some sin that they might commit. I know I certainly did, and although I tried to stay as close to God as possible, there was always that nagging doubt that one day I might try to act, and like Samson discover that God had left me and I wasn’t aware of it (see Judg. 16:20).
But the Bible tells us that these fears are unfounded. In the Old Testament, the presence of the Holy Spirit with someone was transient and dependent on their relationship with God. While they were obedient, He was happy to stay around; but if they fell into sin, He might depart – e.g. Samson (Judg. 16:20), Saul (1 Sam. 16:14), David (Ps. 51:11). But under the New covenant, the Holy Spirit is given to believers permanently as a seal upon their souls, a promise of salvation (2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 1:13-14). We don’t have to worry about the Holy Spirit being taken from us, so in a way it is kind of pointless singing David’s words, ‘take not Thy Holy Spirit from me’ – it’s never going to happen. However we can grieve and quench the Holy Spirit by our sin (Eph. 4:30, 1 Thess. 5:19). He will not leave us, but He might withdraw to an inner room inside our hearts, waiting for us to notice that He is not working through us in the same way He used to before. In those situations, we need to repent. But we will never lose the Holy Spirit once we have been born again.