Unpardonable Sin

Many times over the years, people ask to meet with me. I go to their house, or they come over to my house, and we sit down, and they're very distraught, very worried and concerned, because they feel like, I've just committed a sin that God can't forgive me for. What I've done is so horrible. Maybe, you know, I haven't had a drink in 20 years, and yet last week I went out and got drunk, or whatever. I haven't prayed for a year. I've just drifted from God, and I can't reconnect, and I think He's thrown me away, and I've committed the unpardonable sin. It's an interesting term, the unpardonable sin. You hear it a lot. It's a theological term, although the term itself doesn't appear in the Bible. But a sin that cannot be forgiven. Now, we know that all sin leads to death, and so we're concerned when we sin, and we realize, well, God, you know, Christ came, and He saved me, and He took this death penalty upon Himself that I deserve. And then we struggle, and once you're baptized, you still struggle when you begin to realize, hey, I still sin. I still sin. But then there comes a time many times where people struggle with, maybe I've gone too far. I've sinned so much that I'm beyond God's forgiveness. I'm beyond God's mercy. There is an interesting statement made by the Apostle John in 1 John 5.

Let's look at verse 11. John says that this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this is in His Son. So if we have received God's Spirit, we have accepted and understand that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God has offered us eternal life. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. Let's go down to verse 16. Now if anyone sees his brother sinning as sin, which does not lead to death, he will ask. In other words, if you see your brother sinning, so obviously he understood that sin was still going to be part of what we struggle with.

He says when we see our brother sinning, we should go pray for that brother. Ask, and he will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. That's an odd statement if you take it at face value. All sin leads to death. We know that. The Apostle Paul talks about it in a number of places. All sin. The wages of sin is what? Romans 6. The wages of sin is death. All sin leads to death. And yet here John says that these people committed a sin that does not lead to death. There is a sin leading to death.

I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. Now what does that mean? We know that all sin leads to death, and yet here John is talking about a sin that doesn't lead to death and sin that leads to death. What we have to do, and I'm going to sort of jump through this part of the sermon because I want to get to some other things later, but if you go through the Scripture what you find out is that yes, when we are introduced to sin, the breaking of God's law, we begin to realize all sin leads to death.

It doesn't matter which one of God's laws you have broken. It doesn't matter what evil has become part of your character. Some people it's one thing and some people it's another. You know, whether it's we deal with somebody who was stealing, or someone who was a drug addict, or someone who hated, or someone who murdered, or someone who committed adultery, or someone who lusted, or someone who had greed, or someone who just didn't obey God, maybe was a pagan and worshipped other gods.

People who didn't keep the Sabbath. I mean, you start looking at all the sins. All those lead to death. Breaking all those laws and teaches of God lead to death. But John here is not talking about the introduction to our relationship with God, as Paul does, especially in Romans 6, 7, and 8. Here he's talking about, he's talking to the Torah Christians who had been in the church, many of them, for a long time. This is written towards the end of his life. And he's talking to the Torah Christians, and he's saying, look, we're still struggling with death, with sin, and pray for each other.

But you know, there are some sins that the person has affected the person so much. He says, don't even pray to that person, because it leads to death. He's not talking about death in the way that Paul was talking about. He's talking about what the Bible calls the second death. So let's go to Revelation 21. And like I said, this is all a sermon in itself. So I'm just going to touch on this, to give you an idea of what he's talking about, because this is important for us. In other words, he's telling Christians, you are forgiven. Pray for each other when you see each other's sin.

Overcoming sin is part of the Christian life. But there is a time when a Christian can sin to the point that they will receive the second death. Look what it says about the second death. Revelation 21, verse 7. Well, the most encouraging verse is here, verse 7 in the whole Bible. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

But verse 8 says, but the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

So why? Wow! There are certain sins God won't forgive. Well, that's not true. All of us have sinned. Yeah, but he won't forgive liars. Abraham lied. Did he forgive Abraham? Well, murderers, Paul, consented to the murder of Christians. Did he forgive Paul? Well, you know, sexually immoral. David committed adultery. Did he forgive David? So it can't just be simply talking about actions. There are people all through the Bible. God shows the sins of people, and when they repented, God forgave them. It says, unbelievers. Peter denied Jesus three times. Was he forgiven? So how do we filter through, then, what could cause a Christian? Someone who has received God's Spirit. Someone who is a child of God, to actually lose their salvation. And this is what John is saying. John is saying it is possible to lose salvation. Irresistible grace is not a teaching of the Scripture. It is possible for God to offer us and give us, and it is possible for us to lose it. How does that happen? So what is a sin that can lead to the second death? Is there a sin God won't forgive? I've actually met people who believe that. I've met people who say, well, God will never forgive a homosexual. That's not true. Well, God will never forgive. And they try to figure out what it is that God will not forgive. We're going to talk about that in a minute. So what is this unpardonable sin? Let's briefly just continue looking at the Christian relationship to sin, and then we'll go through the Scriptures that actually describe what is the unpardonable sin. Remember, I said that sin is the breaking of God's law. It separates every human being from God. When God came into your life, you were separated from Him. Now, He might have been working with you for a long, long time. So you were connected, and sometimes you don't even know it. But there is a point where God calls you, and He starts breaking down the barriers between human beings and Himself. And He breaks down those barriers, and at that point, you begin to believe and understand, wow, I sinned. I am a sinner. Sinner is part of who I am. It's just not that I've committed actions. It's part of my very character. And then you begin to repent. And you ask God for forgiveness. When you repent, you are baptized, symbolizing the washing away of those sins. You go through the laying on of hands and receive God's Holy Spirit. You enter into a relationship with God where He promises you eternal life. And your relationship with sin changes. Now, when I say that, I am not saying that now sitting is acceptable. That's not what I said. In fact, I'll show you where the Apostle Paul, who is the person most used to, quote-unquote, prove a sort of a law...well, outright lawlessness, didn't say that. But your relationship changes with God. The definition of sin stays the same. Your relationship with sin changes. Let's go back to 1 John, chapter 1. We're going to do a little bit of a Bible study today. 1 John, because I know people struggle with this, and I haven't given a sermon on this subject in years. And after, sometimes I just hear people, they come and they talk and they struggle with, will God forgive me? I've been a Christian all these years, and I've done this or I've done that, or I've drifted away.

Right after the feast, the people talked to me and I said, I'm going to give a sermon on this subject. So, the last few weeks, I've been waiting for this opportunity to give this sermon. 1 John 1, verse 5. I'm going to read a number of verses here, because I'm going to get the context. This is the message which we have heard from Him, and declare to you, John says, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie, but do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

So, we all went through that process, or are going through that process, or God is leading you to that process. God is not cleansed from my sins, but being cleansed from your past sins doesn't change the fact that you still sin. So, we're in this relationship with God.

If you commit one sin after you're baptized, oh well, does that mean God cuts you off? Of course not. Because your relationship has changed with God, it was sin. God continues, as you repent, to forgive you, and as you continue to repent, sin is removed from your lives. And that just isn't some cloudy idea. Literally, we become to overcome.

Remember what I read in Revelation? He who overcomes. God helps us through His power to overcome. Now, we have to submit to that. And that's the important concept when we discuss the unpardonable sin. We have to submit to that power. God doesn't possess us. Notice what He goes on in says here now. If we confess our sins. Now, He just said we've been cleansed from our sins. But if we continue to sin, we go and take those sins to God. We should be daily going to God and saying, forgive me for my sins this day.

Cleanse me. Help me to overcome. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar. His word is not in us. Remember, He's not talking specifically to new converts here. He's talking to people who have been in the church for a long time. My little children, verse 1 of chapter 2, these things I write to you, that you may not sin.

He says you should be motivated not to sin because you understand the cleansing that's taken place. And if anyone sins, okay, so you get the logic here. Let's look at what God's doing for us, our fellowship with God, our fellowship with each other. We've been cleansed from our sins.

God's Spirit is in us. But still, sometimes we backslide through weakness. We backslide. We sin. If not in action, we sin in thought and emotions all the time. Anger, hatred, greed, lust. And in those sins, we are to recognize those things and immediately ask God for forgiveness. And He says we recognize those sins, we are forgiven. And if you recognize those sins, He says, so that you may not sin. You will struggle against those sins. And with God's help, you will overcome those sins.

If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He Himself is our propitiation for our sins. And not for ours, but also for the whole world. So this is our relationship with sin. So obviously, as Christians, we still struggle with sin. I struggle with sin. You all struggle with sin. We should be getting better at it. We should be overcoming it, but we still struggle with it. That doesn't mean we've committed the unpardonable sin because we sinned. In fact, the closer you are to God, the more you recognize sin where you didn't recognize it before, because you recognize it in emotions.

You recognize it in thoughts. So God's forgiveness of sin, though, and here's where we start to understand a problem, doesn't give us license to sin. In other words, because God puts us into this state where we could go to Him, recognize our sins, ask forgiveness, be forgiven, continue to receive the strength to overcome and struggle and fight the battles. It doesn't mean we can say, oh well, God understands. Or we get to the place where we say, you know, I'll never overcome this sin, but that's okay because God loves me.

And we become complacent with the sin. We accept the sin as acceptable to ourselves and to God. Look at what Paul says. Now let's go to Paul in Romans 6. Now this is setting up what I want to talk about because I want to give you a definition of the unpardonable sin, the biblical definition.

Romans 6, verse 1. Paul here is having to backstep his arguments all the time. Am I saying this? No, I'm not. He's talking about in chapter 5 of Romans how we are forgiven and how Christ carried that penalty for us, and that God is offering us this relationship, and He's offering to forgive us for sin. He doesn't say, by the way, He's doing away with the definition of sin. In Romans 7, he argues God hasn't done away with the law. It defines sin. It gives us a definition of right and wrong. Verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God's grace, the fact that God continues to offer us forgiveness. That's grace. God continues to offer us something we're not worthy of, and our response is supposed to be love, obedience, submission. It sometimes is not. And when we go back and say, God, I have not loved you today, I did not obey you today, I did not submit to you today, He says, I love you and I will forgive you, let's do better tomorrow. That's God. That's grace. He doesn't have to do that. He doesn't have to do that. He said, well, let's do what's fair, okay? That we all die. There's no fairness in this, okay? The fairness is we should die. God does this simply because it's part of His nature to do so, to always reach out to help us to do better. That's who He is.

So, should we then say, okay, because God is so merciful, my sins really don't matter. It really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I'm an alcoholic, I can drink, it's okay, God understands. It doesn't matter if I have to work with the Sabbath, God understands. It doesn't matter if, you know, I'm sleeping with my girlfriend because God understands.

I've heard God understands used to justify an awful lot of sin in my life, as people sin and explain, but God understands. God understands.

And we get to the place where we're doing exactly what Paul warns us against here. We're saying that God's grace abounds because of my sins. So, the more I sin, the greater God is. Certainly not. How shall we, versus who died to sin, live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us that were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we are buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newtess of life. He says, if you were baptized and you died, you walk as a new person, and to go back as that old person is unacceptable. How do you kill somebody and then resurrect them?

The old person is supposed to have died. Verse 5, We have been united together in the likeness of His death. Certainly also we shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. We should no longer be slaves of sin. So Paul defines here, and of course in chapter 7 he says, sin is the breaking of God's law. So in his own arguments he says, look, just because we receive forgiveness and mercy and grace doesn't mean we can now disregard God's definitions of righteousness. If we do, we return to a type of slavery, and we become slaves to our own passions, slaves to our own thoughts, slaves to sin. Okay, I'm a Christian. I've been forgiven. I struggle with sins. What is it that you and I could do that would actually lead God to say, I will not forgive you? What is the unpardonable sin? And although that's a term that's used, a theological term, it's not accurate. So it can lead us to a wrong, and it's not wrong. You know, something isn't necessarily wrong. It's just incomplete, and it can lead us to a wrong conclusion. You can read us to a wrong conclusion. So let's look at our first definition. I'll give you two definitions, Biblical definitions of a sin that leads to death, the second death. That even a person who has received from God his spirit could still end up in the lake of fire. Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 6.

It's very important to see the wording here, because this is a very precise statement in these couple of verses. For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. So the subject here are people who have been enlightened by God, people who have tasted the heavenly gift by becoming partakers of the Holy Spirit. So he's speaking in this context specifically to people who have received the Spirit of God. He's not talking to the world here, by the way. He's talking to the people who have repented, who have God has revealed Himself to them, people who understand who Jesus Christ is, people who God has worked through their lives.

Verse 5. And have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, have actually partaken of what it is going to be like for eternity. In that little way, we have received the gift of eternal life while we receive God's Holy Spirit.

To receive this enormous gift from God, and He's tasted just a little bit of what it's going to be like for eternity, on those moments when you feel God's presence, and those moments when He opens your understanding, and those moments where He helps you overcome a sin, and those moments where He guides you, or protects you, or causes something to happen around you. You say, that had to be God. In those moments, you taste the power of the Almighty God and the future of His Kingdom. Verse 6. So this is possible for these people, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, that put Him to open shame.

That's a pretty dramatic statement. It is impossible if they fall away to renew them again to repentance. That's a very important phrase. In other words, once a person has received God's Spirit, and they go back, they fall away. They don't back-step. They don't back-slide. Now, I've seen people back-slide into a sin for years. I see people leave the church, come back three years later, say, my life has been horrible. I've been drifted away. I've been in this sin and that sin. My life has been destroyed. But somehow, God hasn't let go of me. And I have to get back with God. Can you show me how to do that? That's not having fallen away. That's having back-slide. The problem with someone who falls away is they will not repent. See, the unpardonable sin implies there is a sin that you commit, and God says, I will never forgive that one. What's the top ten? There's top ten sins. Do one of those. You're gone. You're going to like a fire. That's it. So we look for these singular actions. Those actions are also always a result of something else that's going on. This is why David, after committing adultery and murder, and then being confronted with his sins and recognized what they were Remember when he says in Psalm 51, don't take your spirit away from me. Please do not. I have no power. I have nothing because I have sinned.

Why did he not lose God's spirit after doing those horrible sins? Because he repented. He turned back to God, and he took his punishment, by the way, and it was horrible. He took his punishment. You'll also never see him committing murder or adultery the rest of his life. He changed, which is what repentance is. He turned to God. When we talk about the unpardonable sin, we're actually talking about a state where a person will not repent. They just won't. Their heart is set. Their mind is set, and they won't repent. They cannot be renewed to repentance. Is there a sin God won't forgive? I can't think of any because, I don't know, many of you have told me some of your sins, and I know what my sins are, and God's forgiven us. It's not the issue. What sin will God forgive? It's the sin that won't be repented of, which means that any sin can be the unpardonable sin. You know what the most dangerous of the sins is in this case? The all-ending murder. That's a pretty evil thing. The murders will not be in the Kingdom of God. Oh, okay. So it's liars. Yeah? Okay. But I tell you what is the most dangerous sin. You know, this is... I was going through this. I had given a sermon on this subject of years. I found a sermon I gave as I was searching through this sermon. It's called the most dangerous sin. I'll have to give that some pointer. Those dangerous sin... I'll write this down. The most dangerous sin. The one sin that really would... It's the person who acts righteously and is self-righteous. The most dangerous sin is self-righteousness. They're doing everything right. But they're so sure of themselves, they feel they have no need for repentance. Remember what we just read in 1 John? If you say you have no sin, you may kill a liar. And the self-righteous person says, there's nothing wrong with me. Which means they won't want. They won't repent. Sometimes, you know, that is the most dangerous sin of all. So the sin that leads to the second death isn't usually a single act. A single act might be the culmination of it. You know, a person may be so filled with hate that hate eats at them and eats at them and eats at them, and they don't commit murder. And we say, well, they committed the unpardonable sin. No, they committed the unpardonable sin long before they committed the murder. It's when they became so consumed with hate that they shoved out the Spirit of God. And the murder was just the final act, and in that person is a bitter, angry, hate-filled person sitting on death row, blaming God. And I met lots of people in jail who blame God. It's God's fault that I'm here. And I've learned to say, I cannot help you and leave. I used to try to argue.

I used to try to argue, no, no, no, it's not God's fault. I said, look, if you think it's God's fault, you're talking to the wrong person here.

Second Peter. Second Peter 2. Peter talks about this very same thing.

So this becomes very important because if you have received God's Spirit, you could commit the unpartable sin.

When people come to me and say, I fear, in tears, I fear I've committed the unpartable sin, my first response is, you haven't. Now, you may have committed a terrible sin, and you're going to have consequences, and we're going to have to talk, and this isn't going to be easy. Maybe you've committed a dollar free, but you're going to have to rebuild your relationship with your husband, or you're going to have to rebuild your life here.

But I've committed the unpartable sin. I just beg God to forgive me that you haven't committed the unpartable sin, because if you committed the unpartable sin, you wouldn't be begging God to forgive you. You've committed a sin, and boy, is you going to reap the whirlwind here. We can't save each other from the temporary consequences of sin, can we? Well, I wish we could, but we can't. We just look at each other and say, boy, is this going to hurt, right? And many times, if you looked at somebody and said, boy, is this going to hurt, this sin is going to bite you so bad, and maybe for years. Some sins just go on for decades.

But we're not talking about that. We're talking about when the person reaches this point, 2 Peter 2, 20. For if, now notice the people he's talking about, if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they have again entangled in them and overcome. Now, you leave the world. How many times have you and I started to get entangled in the world again all the time? And the Sermonat was about that, right? We just get stuck back out into the world. We get entangled in its greed and its false values. We get entangled in its entertainment. I have to watch that myself, because my television time is usually late at night when I'm exhausted and I'm sitting there jumping through channels.

You can stop and start to watch something and five minutes, ten minutes later say, you know, this is trash.

It's so easy. You just sort of mind, though, that you're getting sucked into this stuff. But he says you get entangled and you stay entangled and you were overcome. You go back to what you used to be. Now, think about the grace of God, because we're going to talk about that in a minute. What that really means is that God called you while you were His enemy. God loved you while you were unlovable. God gave you His truth while you were in darkness.

And He gave us the power of His Spirit. And then we go back.

He says, let's go back and read this again. They have again entangled in them and overcome. The latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them, according to the true proverb, a dog returns to his own vomit and a sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire. That's a pretty strong statement. This is an Old Testament prophet. This is Peter.

Pretty strong statement, isn't it? And who is He talking to? He's not talking to the world. They have never known the way of righteousness. He's talking to the church. So that's the first way that you can commit the impartable sin. It is to go back to what you used to be before conversion. It's to remove yourself from the conversion process, to basically give God His Spirit back, and go back to what you used to be and become solidified in that where you will not repent. I will not repent. I don't want anything to do with God's ways. I don't want anything to do with God. I'm going to live my life by the way I want to. You go back to what you used to be, and you like it, and you're not going to change. It's a scary place to be. Now, the second definition we find in Matthew 12. I find this definition interesting, too. Because this is something that you don't have to have God's Spirit in you, and yet you can still commit the impartable sin. See, in the first definition, you have to have the partakers of the gift, partakers of the Holy Spirit. You have to be enlightened by the Scriptures that we read. But this was a little different. Matthew 12. 31.

What's happening here is that they're accusing Jesus of being demon-possessed.

Jesus is performing miracles. There are certain people that don't want to accept Him, and they say, well, you're demon-possessed. And He talks about that. And then He says something very interesting in verse 31. Therefore, I say to you, every sin of blasphemy that will be forgiven men, God will forgive everything except. But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either at this age or the age to come. We're talking about second death here. We're not just talking about temporary results. He says, only the age to come, second death, lake of fire. He says, I will even forgive those who say things against me. What does it mean, the blessing of the Holy Spirit? Now, what do you think of the context of what's happening here? Jesus Christ, God, the Word has become flesh. Through the power of God's Spirit, He's performing miracles. They see the power of God. They hear the message of God. They know that there's power there. And they hate it so much that they say, that is of Satan. They're taking the power of God and attributing it to Satan. It's a very dangerous place to be. Why? Remember the impardonable sin? Why, that's a really inkably term. It's a sin that the person won't repent of. If I believe God's working is the power of Satan, how can I repent? If I believe that the person doing the work of God is possessed by a demon, I'm not going to repent of that. I'm going to despise that person, and I'm going to fight against it. They were fighting against Jesus Christ, trying to kill him. Why? Because they rejected the very power of God. God in the flesh right in front of them. It was made clear to them. Their conscience had to be pricked. But they hated it so much, because the change would have to be so dramatic, that they took the power of God and attributed it to Satan. This means it is possible for someone not to have God's Spirit, but to hate God's way after being exposed to it. He didn't say this about people who had never been exposed to it. They had to be exposed. But it is possible for someone to be exposed to the power of God, recognize it as the power of God, hate it so much that they claim it's of Satan.

And at that point, they won't repent, because they don't want what God is offering, because it's not what they think it should be. They're actually judging God. They were judging Jesus Christ so much, they actually killed Him. Now, did those people commit the unpardonable sin? Only God knows. I can't pick out individuals. I can only tell you the definition. I do know everybody bowels before Jesus Christ someday, and receives judgment. And God has given all judgment to Him, and He will determine. So how do we commit this? Wow, this is bad news. Now you're saying, well, maybe I have committed the unpardonable sin. I thought about it. I never thought about this before. Let me tell you that two main ways that we end up, or a Christian could end up committing the unpardonable sin. Two ways that we can do this. So there's two things we can look at in our lives. In other words, there's ways we can combat this. When you stay close to God, you won't commit the unpardonable sin. He won't let you. He won't let you if you're staying close to Him. You have to give Him up. As long as God's Spirit is in you, when a person commits the unpardonable sin, that's why they're usually filled with such hatred towards God. Because it convicted them. He convicted them, God did, through His Spirit, and they did that. Because they wanted to be right. And that's the first way we go to start down this path, is that we pursue a life of self-will, instead of life of submitting to the will of God. We pursue a life of self-will, instead of submitting to the will of God. We have to do it our way. We have to have our way. We have to feel that I am righteous at all costs. Look at Hebrews 10, because here we have another detailed explanation of the unpardonable sin.

Hebrews 10 verse 26.

Hebrews 10, 26, For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains the sacrifice for sins. Now, there's been times when you've committed a sin.

You counsel somebody that maybe they had a drug problem. It's like they're saying, I know I shouldn't do this. I know I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't do this. God help me not to do it after sticking the needle in. Well, if you have committed the unpardonable sin, it was willful. Do you wish to return to God, be forgiven, and overcome the sin? Yes, that you weren't, you haven't committed the unpardonable sin. Now, you do that long enough that you may commit the unpardonable sin, because you'll get to the place you won't care, that you'll get to the place where you won't even think about God. You'll just do it. Right? You won't even think about God. You'll just do it. But while in that struggle, and in those times when we backslide, in those times we fail, that is not the unpardonable sin. If we get up and say, God, please forgive me, and you're wrenched apart because you wish you wouldn't have sinned, and you hate yourself for doing it, and you go to God, and God forgives you, and helps you through it. And you keep the struggle, you keep the fight. So when he says, willfully, here it means you're to the place you're saying, look, I really don't care what God wants. I really don't care. I've heard people say that. I don't think God wants me. Yes, it's true. I've been sleeping around just because God will give me a good mate. I've heard that argument. God will give you a good mate. Do you feel guilty about sleeping around? No. That's real close to willful sitting.

Why is there... there's no more sacrifice. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ can't be applied. Does this mean the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has limitations? No. Is there no sin that's... is there some sin greater than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? I can't think of any. Can you think of a sin greater than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? What about a sin that the person won't repent? And that has nothing to do with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ except what the person is now doing towards God. Because look what he says. But a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. The second death, the lake of fire, we're back to Revelation. Verse 28. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Verse 29. Of how much worse punishment? Now, this comes as a shock to people. Well, yeah, the law of Moses was so harsh. We're so glad Jesus came just to give us love and peace and grace and no punishment. I want you to look at the argument. He says, do you think the law of Moses was harsh? When someone willfully sinned? How much worse punishment do you suppose? Will he be thought worthy, who has trampled the Son of God under foot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the spirit of grace? How much more is it to have received the grace of God? How much more is it to take the blood of Jesus Christ and just throw it into the dust and tramp on it? That's the image. To say, it doesn't matter. God loves you. I can do whatever I want. And I don't care what God thinks anyways. And then to the place where you don't even think about God. You just do it because you like it. You don't care how many people get hurt. You don't care if God gets hurt. You're going to live life your way. And you sin willfully. You know that God says it's a sin, and you don't care. That's an incredible statement. You take what was sanctified, made holy, and you consider it common, worthless, piece of junk, and insulted the spirit of grace. To take God's grace and stood on it. When we begin to live this life of willfulness, we begin to fear our conscience. And until we get to the place, we have no conscience left. And when you have no conscience, you will shove out God's Spirit. You will resist God's Spirit until you get to the place where God's Spirit no longer interacts with you, and you will be hardened. You still, by the way, may appear very righteous. But it's all self-righteousness. And you are hardened. And your sins and your mind are okay. In fact, what's amazing is sometimes a person who gets like this will be condemning everybody else's sins by justifying their own sins. Of course, I'm an alcoholic, but that's because my life is so hard. How many times have you heard of the televangelist that said, Boy, it's true I had a mistress, but my wife didn't understand me, and the burdens of God's weight was so hard on me, I needed a mistress. Wait a minute. Let's step back there when you gave the sermon about how adultery was sinned. Now, you find someone like David who stands up and says, Yes, adultery is sinned, and yes, I've committed it, and God, please forgive me. That's a whole different attitude. You see the difference? And yet they committed the same sin.

Willfulness is, I will not repent. I'm okay.

It's very interesting. We don't have time to go there, but in Numbers 15, Numbers 15, it talks about how if someone has committed a sin unwittingly or unwillfully, and they had the biggest sacrifice, and then later that same chapter says, but if someone's committed a sin presumptuously, they'll use bringing the sacrifice. In other words, if someone says, Look, I'll give you an example. I've actually seen this happen over the years. A person does not want to patch up their marriage. Now, sometimes, you know, especially in unbelieving, it leaves and you have no choice. But, you know, two people with God's Spirit in the church, and the person has somebody else they want to marry, beside the church. So what they do is they divorce their mate, and they go to the minister and they say, Yes, I'm committing adultery, and I love this person, don't love my wife anymore, I'm out of here. The minister says, Well, you can't do that. Scripture says you can't do that. And the minister says, You know, you give me no choice, but you can't come back to church until you repent. They say, Hey, this is what I want to do. They leave. They marry, they divorce the wife, they marry another person. Three years later, they come back and they say, I repented, I repented. Now, as a minister, I can't. Okay, you repented. The Bible says you accept sinners back. But then I know the people who plan the whole thing out. Now, if it's real repentance, understand what has happened. The person committed a sin. Later said they repented. They're brought back into the church, right? That's what Paul said to do in 1 Corinthians. But there are people, and I have told people this, if you have planned this out because you said to your best friend, Oh, I get this worked out. I'm going to divorce her, marry her, I'll come back in three or four years. Now let me back in. If you planned out, that means you're sinning willfully without repentance, which means you're lying right now, which means you will be judged by God. That's a scary thing, to commit your sin and plan your repentance, which isn't real repentance, right? I'm not sorry I did it. I figured a way to get around the system. But you don't get around God. You can't get around God. And that kind of thinking will lead people to the unpardonable sin. Because they'll never repent. They just figured a way to get away with their sin in their mind. Do you think, when we stand before Jesus Christ, He says, You know, there's a few sins here I can't figure out. I guess you just got away with it. Does that happen? I always tell people, the easiest people in the world are the four ministers, because we want everybody to be in the church. There are a pretty easy lot to fool if you're good at it.

But you never fool God. We never fool God.

Now, the second way that we can commit the unpardonable sin is, first, it's just becoming self-willed. Self-willed and presumptuous. We no longer have humility in submitting to the will of God. The second is found in James 4. So this is what we're going to fight against that self-will. If you have a problem with self-will, go ask God to deal with your self-will. Boy, is that going to happen. Boy, is that a hammer coming down on you. But I don't know how else to do it. If your problem is self-will, you've got to have to go ask God, Help me to deal with my self-will. And He'll say, Okay, beat my will. Boy, is that going to hurt. A whole lot better than the unpardonable sin, though. Just like me tell my granddaughter, if you want to get into a fight of will, girl, you lose this one. I can stay up all night. I even looked at my watch. Later in the week, she started doing something, and I just looked at my watch. And she stopped. We'd go all night, kid. Okay? You get in a battle with will with God, he says, Time? Don't have a watch. Don't need time. Okay? So you've lost right away. Don't have a watch here. I don't need time. You lose. But if you're going to have that battle of will, and you know you have a problem with self-will, you have to go ask God to help you with it, but ask that He deals with it in mercy, because you're really overmatched. God, help me to deal with my self-will. Help me to have humility before you would do it in mercy, because you may wake up the next day, you don't have a car, you don't have a house, you don't have a husband, you don't have your children, you don't have a house, you don't have your job, you may wake up the next day on a desert island someplace. Okay? God's saying, you want to fight now?

So be careful about that, but there's no other way to do it. You have to go confess your sin. If it's self-will, it's a sin. You have to go confess your sin. Well, that's what we read in 1 John, right? Well, I can't confess that sin. I'll go confess to being stubborn. Yeah, but you really want to talk about self-will. I don't want to say I'm self-will. Go say it. He knows it anyways. And say, deal with me in mercy, and then you will not insult the spirit of grace. You will receive it. But the second way is found in James 4.17. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. So we don't live our lives sometimes at over rebellion against God, it's self-will. What we do is we just drift, and we drift, and we drift. We say, well, I don't worship idols, and I don't lie, and I don't commit adultery, and I don't steal. But what about all the good things you should do?

Do you love your neighbor proactively? Well, no, but, you know, I don't even know my neighbors.

Well, do you love the Sabbath? Well, I go to church. Are you generous? I don't steal. No, I thought I asked, are you generous? Are you caring and giving? Do you visit the widows? No, I don't have time to visit the widows, but, you know, I don't murder anybody. We're not just talking about the thou shalt nots here. How about the thou shalts? I mention this in the widows because visiting the widows is what James calls true religion. But see, there's the things we do. And what happens is we get into all the things we don't do. We build a very negative religion in which we can judge everybody else, but we don't live it. We don't do. If we do, it's always grudgingly. Oh, my. You know, I get to get to church right away and leave church right away because God commands me to go to church, but I sure don't want to have to deal with anybody. All right? I sure don't want to go there because I know if I show up, Jim Dodd is going to come up and say, we could sure use your help on the sound crew.

And I don't want to do that. So, boy, I show up just five minutes before, five minutes after, and I hide from Jim Dodd.

Because I don't want to do. And we become this passive religion where we seem to keep the law of God and do so somewhat in the letter, but we don't do the Spirit of the law. We're not like Jesus Christ. We feel no desire to share the message with anybody else. It's interesting. The less we desire to share the message, the gospel with other people, the more it is a symptom of something spiritually wrong with us. We live it. We get smaller and smaller, so we just live in our house, and people finally say, it's just you and me, God. And then, after a while, it's just me. God's not even there anymore. That is a dangerous way we can end up, so estranged from God that we actually lose God's Spirit. We end up committing to the unpardonable sin. Why? I met people who lived God's way for 30 years, and then you ask them, how are you doing? Fine? Got any church? Nah. I don't think God exists. I've met people like that. Now, maybe they haven't committed the unpardonable sin. You always hope they haven't, but it's scary, right? I despise no need for God or religion. That's just superstition. Besides, I believe in evolution. Or that we are put on here by aliens. That's so big now. Aliens brought us. Which is weirder? God made us or aliens brought us here? And yet there are millions of people that now believe that we are a product of aliens. Yeah. Which is weirder? You superstitious people who believe in God. No green men in spaceships. There. That's intelligent. You don't have to live in constant fear that you've committed the unpardonable sin.

You know, I'm very careful about speaking for God. I tried that in the past, and I doubt that I wasn't speaking for Him at all. But I can tell you some things that I know, because God says it. God says He wants you and He loves you. God says He will forgive you. God says that He wants to have a personal relationship with you. God says He wants to guide your life. God says He wants to forgive you of your sins. Jesus Christ already died and was resurrected to take your penalty. He's already proven that. He's already done it. So we know what His desire is. We know what He wants for every one of us. We know that He wants to give us mercy. We know that He wants to give us grace.

He's not going to turn His back on us. He doesn't give up on anybody lightly. The more you drift from God, or the more willful you fight against God, the harder He fights for you. The more you willfully resist God, the harder He fights for you. The more you drift from God, the more He tries to bring you back. That's who He is. God won't give up on you very easily. You have to give up on Him.

And then there comes a point where He says, You will not repent. You are permanently set at who you are, and I will put you at a wake fire. He will do that. He will do that because He will not let you be insane for eternity. That's the option. Give you eternal life and let you be insane for eternity. And that's no option from life, I can tell you that. That's horrible. He won't do that. God promises to never leave us or forsake us.

Stay the course towards the Kingdom of God. Keep fighting sin as hard as it is. And as many times as you fall down, let God help you get right back up. Stay contrite. Stay feeling guilty when you do sin. Keep working and moving, and God will get you there. God will forgive you. Confess your sins. God will help you overcome when you submit and keep your nose in this Bible and keep on your knees, and you keep humble before Him. And God will make you what He wants you to be. We should be aware of the unpardonable sin, but as long as you are right with God, you will never have to fear it.