What is your greatest fear?

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What is your greatest fear? There’s no doubt about how David, Israel’s mighty king, would have answered: “Lord, do not cast me away from Your presence. And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).

Does that ever happen? Can we ever lose the Holy Spirit?

David’s worst fear of losing the Holy Spirit was based on both positive and negative experiences. When he was a young man he had been anointed by Samuel. With that anointing, the shepherd was given the supernatural power of the Spirit. 

He became a charismatic leader of others. 

His personality became magnetic and inspiring. He did spectacular things as a warrior and king of Israel. Reading his psalms of praise and supplication, we know David gave God the glory, and therefore, the flow of the Holy Spirit was persistent and consistent in his times of deepest need. 

Why, then, would he fear that the Spirit would be taken from him?

It was an educated fear. David had observed the tragic thing that had happened to King Saul. Repeatedly, Saul expressed his unwillingness to follow the guidance of the Spirit communicated through the prophet Samuel. 

Finally, the obdurate king was given what he wanted: He didn’t want God to rule his life! The Scriptures say the Spirit departed from Saul. In reality, long before, Saul had departed from the Spirit. He was willful to the end, even as he fell on his own sword in imperious self-destruction.

David never forgot what happened to Saul. 

From his understanding of the workings of the Lord, he assumed that the Spirit had departed from Saul. “O God, don’t ever let that happen to me!” was his heartfelt cry.

Then David committed a sin that brought him to the edge of the abyss of self-condemnation. His greatest fear was what he thought, in his own estimation, he deserved. “Lord, don’t do it—don’t take Your Holy Spirit from me!”

David has been called the greatest saint and the greatest sinner of the Old Testament. 

He was certainly both. The latter happened in a moment of lust and passion, followed by a dastardly deed. He stole Bathsheba from Uriah, one of his faithful soldiers, committed adultery with her, and then by clever intrigue, contrived to have Uriah killed in battle so he could take Bathsheba as his wife.

But God knew what the king had done. 

His omniscience was imparted to the prophet Nathan, who went to David. Nathan told the king a simple parable about a rich man and a poor man. The poor man had only one little lamb and the rich man stole it from him.

David burst out with anger. “Whoever would do that? Who is that man?” With a rapier thrust of truth, Nathan said, “You are the man!”

The king of Israel knew that the moment he had feared all of his life had come. 

In a time of temptation, he had done the thing he thought he would never do and had multiplied his sin with an act of treachery he had never imagined he could do. He also knew that he was accountable to God. It was the one thread that held him from falling into the abyss.

Filled with panic, David put on sackcloth and ashes and repented. The prayer that poured forth from his distraught soul is recorded for us as Psalm 51. At the centre of it is the anguished cry, “Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me!”

David knew that he could not exist, much less remain as king, without the Holy Spirit.

Can you?

Take anything away from me—my power, my armies—but don’t take away the Holy Spirit! David knew that without the Holy Spirit, he was nothing. Talent was not enough. His own ingenious methods of leadership wouldn’t suffice. His accumulation of wealth would not help him. Only the Holy Spirit could enable him to remain as king of Israel. Take not Your Holy Spirit from me!






Ogilvie, L. J. (2013). Experiencing the power of the holy spirit: you can live god’s best each day. Harvest House Publishers.

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