The Unpardonable Sin

The unpardonable sin, blasphemy of the Spirit. I have had that question asked of me more than a few times. So I decided to ask quite a few people what their definition of it is. Being sometimes it seems to be a little hazy for some people. Some people seem to have it all figured out. So the Bible mentions the unpardonable sin, the blaspheme of the Spirit, the lake of fire. But would you expect such a thing from a loving God?

Let's turn there, if you will, Matthew 12. Matthew 12, verse 31. At the top of my page in the New King James it says the unpardonable sin has been added by men. It's not really in my New King James version, but in Matthew 12, verse 31. Jesus Christ said, Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven of men. Wow! Doesn't that sound great? 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 in this age or in the age to come. Wow! It can sound a little confusing. Wait a minute, Jesus Christ is right in front of me, and I can blaspheme him.

I can do this stuff, but not the Holy Spirit. Let's go another time, this is mentioned over in Mark. Mark's account of this in Mark 3, if you will turn there, Mark 3, in verse 28. Mark 3, in verse 28, said assuredly, it says this with confidence then, assuredly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemes they may utter, but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, what? never has forgiveness, but is the subject of eternal condemnation.

Eternal damnation, as some actually put it, would God damn us forever? You actually hear it. In verse 30, because they say he has an unclean spirit. Why is it? Because they just said, if you read the context you know earlier in the verses, he actually cast out a demon of this person, and they said he cast it out by Bausibob, by the Prince of Satan himself! That's how he cast those out. Calling the Spirit of God demonic. So let's look at this.

I ask, how would you define the unpardonable sin? First, let's define first blasphemy, which is easily defined either in your dictionary, on the internet, or even in biblical commentaries. Actually means to vilify, to speak evil, to profane.

To profane. It's actually word blasphemy. It's actually 14 times in the New, in the King James Version, 2 in the Old Testament, and 12 in the New. But I like this biblical writer who actually gave the definition of blasphemy as blasphemy is to proclaim or say evil as an intentional matter. Okay? Intentional matter. Not done by accident, and also not done from a lack of knowledge.

Kind of clears it up a little bit. It's an intentional act. It's intentional words with someone who fully knows what they are saying and doing. Is that you? Is that me? It's interesting. In the year 2006, actually December of that year, the atheists around the world called together a group called the Rational Response Squad.

And being YouTube was fairly new. They asked at that time that everyone would come together on the internet and make a video on YouTube and blaspheme the spirit of God. Saying you reject it. Some of those videos included F God, F the spirit, damnation to the spirit. They made these videos. You can find them. What's interesting was it didn't make a lot of headlines back then.

In some religious circles, but it was actually questioned, well, if you're atheist, why do you even worry about it? Right? Why would you bring, why would you go to all this trouble to call the world? To be blasphemed if they didn't believe it anyway. Find it interesting what we see in this old world. One of the reasons Christ said, watch. Know what the world is around you. So I think we, hopefully you understand about blasphemy now. Enough to understand what the base of it is, because we've looked at blasphemy. Now I'd like to look at the spirit.

The Holy Spirit, what is it? Can you define it? If someone asked you on the street, what is the Holy Spirit? Anybody have an answer? God? Gift of God?

Power of God? Okay. Right?

Well, God's Spirit is not a person, contrary to many who believe that today. But God's Spirit is actually the power, the energy of God. The very essence are part of God.

And these examples of Jesus Christ casting out demons are questioned by the leaders of that day? No. They were not questioned.

They were condemned. They were condemned, the actual power of God. The leaders blasphemed the very power, the very essence of God. Compared and proclaimed, God's power was demonic.

And God says, and that's what we will celebrate next weekend, Pentecost weekend, the anniversary of the gifting of God's Holy Spirit, where He actually, through His and the Word's plan, in Christ's plan, was to give a piece of Him, a small little essence of Him, part of Him in us, so that we could begin to develop the godly character that will eventually take over us all. Bring us to a time that we will see Him as He is because we will be like Him.

And yet, this incredible power. Can you imagine something like that today, where you know that this demon was cast out of this mute, blind person, and you knew it all the time, and Christ comes and performs that miracle through the Holy Spirit, and everyone around is like, and then all of a sudden you have two or three people go, oh, that's just demonic! How would you think? What do you think God thinks? Will you deny the actual power, actual essence? You know, Christ was God when He walked on this earth, but He was also flesh and blood. And you want to question that? He said, okay. But you cannot question the very power and the essence of God Himself, because then you are questioning not only God's existence, but His actual sovereignty. Actually questioning how He did things.

Look at the trees. Look at the sky. Go back to Genesis 1, and His Spirit is how He created everything. He spoke, and it existed because of His Spirit. And for us to question, that is to us questioning God. Why is it so important to Him?

This is His plan from the foundations of the world.

How dare you little pieces of nothing that I took from dirt and you question.

My divine nature. See, it's bad enough to question, but it's even more, and that's what these scriptures should mean to us. It's even more if you possess that very essence when we possess God's Spirit.

And then you begin to question it, as He says, with full knowledge.

Do we use that helper, as the scriptures call it? Do we use that comforter? Do we use that teacher?

That is the Spirit of God.

Like Elijah, you remember hearing that steel, small voice. Actually, one translation puts it, a delicate, whispering voice.

Have you heard it? Have you heard it? Have you sensed it? Have you followed it? And, brethren, have we obeyed it when it has tried to guide us?

It is a gift. It'll be explained more next weekend by our speakers.

I used to like this TV show growing up. Well, when I was growing up, I liked it. Got my wife kind of hooked on it. I don't know whether she liked the show or liked the star of the show. I'd say it's probably the star of the show.

The show set in Hawaii where this beefcake at the time named Tom Selleck would run around in little shorts, driving a Ferrari that every man would like to get behind. And he was a private eye. It's called Magnum PI. Everybody's seen that movie of the TV show, basically? Yes. Still on reruns and so forth.

In the show, Magnum PI was this former Navy SEAL who left the Navy and then became a private investigator. He told his stories. He ran around all of Hawaii on the islands and would take a chopper or he would drive that Ferrari. It was interesting, as I was reading some point the other day, because he became so famous for that Ferrari. That's where I first became a Ferrari. But in the original series, as they were shooting, it was supposed to be a Porsche. But when they brought the Porsche, Tom Selleck is 6'4.5 and he was a little bit more famous. He couldn't fit in it. So they had to change the car. The rest is history, I guess you would say.

But in this Thomas Magnum's character, as he would have to think through things, he had this phrase that he used quite often. He would say, my little voice was telling me I need to be careful. My little voice was telling me. Brethren, do we pay attention to that little voice of the Holy Spirit? That little voice that comes from God? That little voice that is a gift of God through Jesus Christ? We need to take time. Take time to listen more to that little voice than we probably do. Because it's so important that we use this gift. That it's so important to God that if we misuse it or quench it, we are done.

There will be no future. There will be no eternal life. It is that important to him. I'd like to give you two landmines today so that we can kind of look and say, uh-oh, I'd better watch where I'm going. Two warning shots prefacing the unpardonable sin that not only I have enjoyed the study that I did on it because it's been some warning to me to make sure I do not commit the unpardonable sin, but I know when I'm going down that road. I need warning signs.

I give you two. The first one, self-righteousness. Self-righteousness. When we become so smart, we become so wise, we do not need God. We can make decisions. I know what the Scriptures say, but I've even heard pastors say that. Well, yeah, but I don't think that's what is meant by the Scripture. Oh, yes, it is. Self-righteousness. We really don't need God's Word. We can figure everything out ourselves. Scary. Who was he talking to when he gave these two verses who claimed that the work was done by Satan of casting out demons, but the very religious leaders.

Self-righteous. They were all self-righteous. They figured they knew everything.

We have to make sure we don't go down that path, because it's very easy to not need God. Everything in this world tells you, you deserve this. They tell you how to live.

You don't have to listen to the Bible. That's for weak-minded people who need, who cannot figure out, how to run their own life, how to live.

Self-righteousness, one of those landmines. The other, the searing of one's conscience.

The searing of the conscience, where we become too tempered to sin.

Oh, wait a minute. Tempered to sin? Oh, not every sin. Not all sins, but there are certain sins that we have all been guilty of searing our conscience towards.

Ah, no, that's... yeah, I know I have that problem, but God knows that.

God, you know me, you know, I... you know...

That's just kind of how I am. But you called me anyway, right?

Let's go. A little time I have left. I'd like you to turn to 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy, please.

Turn to 1 Timothy 1 and verse 5. 1 Timothy 1, verse 5. I don't want you to believe me. I want you to believe the Bible. I want you to believe the Word of God. 1 Peter. I'm in 1 Timothy 1, verse 5. Now, the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart from a good conscience. From a good conscience.

And from sincere faith. But a good conscience. How's your conscience?

Does your conscience bother you when you have done something wrong? Fantastic!

It should. It should.

Everybody know what searing means? Have you ever taken a steak and you cook it and you heat it up and then you put it on there and it cooks and makes it hard and like a hard shell on the outside and then you flip it over and you sear the other side and it holds all the juices inside. And it makes it so hard that it's not getting out. We can sear our conscience so much that you don't even think about it. I remember asking a man one time in Tennessee in my business, I got this order and had to deliver this, some products out to this nudist colony that was near us, just inside. Never been to a nudist colony before, never been back.

Okay, but I always wondered, I was, you know, I drove these, I took this material out there and I was like, wow, you know, is there going to be naked people running around all the time? You know, we heard about it, but nobody went unless you remember. They had these big hedges and it was way off the road, so I had to key in my number and then drive out there and I was wondering, you know, are these thoughts going through your mind? They didn't get out there and everybody had clothes on. So the guy came out and he helped me load and unload this and we started conversation, actually knew a couple people that played ball together and so forth, so we started talking and so I felt like I knew him after about 10 minutes and then I just, you know, I just had to ask any question, how do you do that? How do you take your clothes off and walk around other people? It's got to ask you. It's so interesting. I remember to this day, he said, the first time it will bother you, second time less, and the third time you will no longer think anything about it. A searing of the conscious. How about us? How about us? Do we have here, as it says, a good conscience, one that actually works? I guess this is conscious for it to work.

Let's go over to a couple pages, 1st Timothy 4. 1st Timothy 4 and verse 2.

He said, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.

Will your conscience, where you accept something so much that you don't even think about it, may be wrong? Right? Remember the old Seinfeld show? They had this thing on one show one time and it was talking about being gay. They said, oh, we're not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Right? And that's what the world wants to say. Not that there's anything wrong with people wanting these things. And pretty soon we can become what? Accepting?

We can become a little jaded in our view of sin. Let's go to one other scripture in Titus. Titus, just a few pages back. Titus 1.

Titus 1, verse 15. Is this us? Is this what we want to be? Titus 1 in the New King James. To the pure, all things are what? Pure. Okay. We're not looking to the pure. It's just like, this is the way. Man marries a woman. Woman marries a man. It's pure. And before the last 20, 30 years, it wasn't much questioned even in this country that that was a way to look at it. But now, they'll interview somebody on TV and say, now his husband, her wife. To the pure, all things are pure. And God kind of likes us to kind of have that purity to where we're not so jaded. Yeah, that's, you know, they're lesbians.

To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is what? Pure. Oh, no. Nothing's pure. Nothing's sacred. But even their mind and conscience are defiled.

Their mind and their conscience are defiled.

A seared conscience is when we become desensitized to the guilt, brethren, of sin.

Can I say that again? A seared conscience is when we become desensitized to the guilt of sin, where we become accepting of it. And it can happen before we know it and can go on a long time.

The true danger sign is when the mind becomes accepting, accustomed to sin that was once rejected by us and even abhorred at one time by us.

But then pretty soon becomes fairly common.

The analogy of that. And I'm not, it's, this is to condemn anyone here. Okay? Anybody here who is a former smoker?

Smoke? Wow. After church. You bunch of sinners? No, I'm kidding.

No, I tried to smoke one cigarette in my life and I never got to that. I never got through it.

I had two sisters. One still smokes. Not my, not Penny. But it's interesting because smokers, being that I was never around it much, I can smell a cigarette from back in the room. Right? Except smokers, they, if you're smoking and you get so used to it, they don't think anything about it. They can't smell that there's a different smell in the room, can they? With me, it stinks. Okay? And many, all you have quit, you kind of like, well, I can't believe I used to do that.

Now you can tell when you're near a smoker. Smell it probably more than we can. Right?

But while you're smoking, you don't think that there's anything because you're so wrapped up in it. Just like sin. We can become so wrapped up in it, it's a part of us that we don't think anything about it.

I got on the elevator in our little condo, and it has six floors, and so we live on the fourth. And I took the elevator up and I got on from the bottom floor, and all of a sudden, man, somebody had been smoking. You're not supposed to smoke in it. Somebody had just been smoking. I don't know. I was just, I had to hold my breath. There was so much smell in there, and it's funny. I was like, man, so I get off. I walk in and say something. She goes, Mary goes, you've been smoking. Where have you been? Because I have actually been to, maybe I remember I went to a scrapyard one time, and I was having to help them unload some scrap iron and so forth that I was getting rid of, and all the guys there just had cigarettes, and I just like, pretty soon, and she goes, where have you been? Because she could smell it just on me, right?

And if you're not a smoker, you pick it up everywhere. We need to be that way with sin to where we can pick it up. We know, and our conscience isn't seared. Our conscience isn't hardened towards those things. You know, if a person remains in sin long enough, that person will reach a point when they are no longer influenced by God's Holy Spirit.

The person no longer needs or wants God's guidance in their life. That's why these warning shots, these landmines, we need to see because this is so important.

This is about eternal life. This is about the great promise.

That pretty soon we will reject God's own power, and when we reject, we blaspheme that Spirit. We reject God, and we blaspheme God Himself.

God gives us that Spirit, and it is an amazing vehicle.

It helps us so much to make it to the kingdom of God since that's His desire. That's why Jesus Christ came and died so that they would. So that we could have eternal life, and you could be in the family of God and live for eternity.

But yet, so many people don't understand it.

If I can use another analogy I thought about the other day. I thought about God telling me, Chuck, I need you to go to Seattle. Okay, I'm gonna go. You know, it's 3,299.9 miles from Miami to Seattle, right at 3,300 miles. You know, that's going to take me a while to walk there, and it's not going to be easy, is it? I got to cross mountains, I got to cross deserts, I got to do all this stuff. It's like God telling us He wants to make it to the kingdom of God.

But you see, me rejecting God's Holy Spirit, or me turning against the Spirit in Him, is just like me. Accepting that job of going from here to Seattle, and I start walking, and God says, no, I want to give you a car.

I don't need a car! I can get there on my own.

You think I can? You think I can walk 3,300 miles? Chances of me quitting, or what? Very high. Very high. Extremely, when you get to the... Very high. Might make it the first day or two?

You know? I'm walking, I don't have any money, I don't have any food, I don't have anything, but I'm walking. Can you see how important the Holy Spirit is, and why God wants to give it? It's like that vehicle. He wants us to make it to the kingdom, and He wants us to get there, and have an easier life, an easier road getting there, rather than we need to.

So, the sermon can be defined in one paragraph. The sermon can be defined. To receive the gift of God's Holy Spirit, a person must accept and believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son and Savior of the world. Repent of sin, be willing to surrender their entire life to His will, and go under the water for baptism. If, after all this, and receiving the Spirit of God by the laying on of hands, a person with full knowledge rejects God and His direction, and instruction by the very essence of God, by the very power of God's Holy Spirit, that person will be guilty of the blasphemy of the Spirit and the unpardonable sin.

Last scripture, like you turn with me to Hebrews.

Hebrews 10, verse 26.

And it's interesting that when you read verse 26, it follows verse 25 where he said, not forsaking the assembly. Okay? We need to think about that.

Hebrews 10, verse 26. Read from the New King James. For if we sin willfully after we have received the... what? The knowledge. Knowledge.

Unless you have the knowledge of exactly what the Spirit is, what God's destiny is, you're not held to this standard. But once you know, you understand, you have it. You know it. It's yours!

We have received the knowledge of truth there. No longer remains a sacrifice for sins. For a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour its adversaries. I'd like to do that. I'd like to read this from the New Living Translation, which does an incredible, incredible job here. Just listen. New Living Translation.

Hebrews 10, verse 26. Said, Dear friends, if we deliberately continue, continue sinning, after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover those sins. When we just willfully sin, we continue sin. We all sin, but are we continuing in a sinful life? We are searing that conscience. Now, do we battle the same sins all the time? Yes.

But we need to be like that old game whack-a-mole. We need to work on one and whack that mole. Another one's probably going to pop up. We need to whack that mole.

We don't need you just coming back to the same mole all the time. Here, God, that's all I need. I just have that one sin. Right?

Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover those sins. There is only the terrible expectation of God's judgment and the raging fire that will consume His God's enemies.

For anyone who refuses to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Right? By the mouth of two or three witnesses, is a matter settled. We saw two witnesses. Matthew gave us one. Mark gave us two. Two witnesses of the blasphemy of the Spirit. Just think how much worse a punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God and had treated the blood of the covenant which made us holy as if it was common and unholy and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit, which God brings mercy upon us. The Lord will judge His own people, as 31 says, then it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We don't have to. We do not have to. A certain fearful expectation, the lake of fire, as Jude says, for whom is reserved, the blackness of darkness forever, is a wake-up call for us to make sure we walk that line. We are making sure that we work on ourselves, that we use the Holy Spirit. And I want you to think about it all week as we come to celebrate the gifting of that Holy Spirit in Mass next week in services. How wonderful! What a blessing! Is it something we should worry about? Not if you're right with God.

Not if you're conscience-adnseered and you know exactly who you are.

You're called of God by the grace of God. There's a visual. If you've ever seen anybody who's seen bricklayers lay brick, it's a wonderful thing to watch. I used to have a bricklayer named Brackhouse. He's calling him Brickhouse. Brackhouse, and he would lay that brick, and he could just... it was a beautiful thing to watch. He'd come across the line. He'd take that, and he'd just, wow, I wish I could do that. And boy, he could just move right up, and you see they want one row, and then it becomes another row, and then it becomes over your head. Brethren, I want you to think about that brick wall. Let's make sure we're not building a brick wall to God's Holy Spirit, to where we become soundproof when the brick wall, by our sins, by our thoughts, where we don't need God, and that brick wall gets higher and higher, and that voice coming from God, that still, small voice, the Holy Spirit, it gets fainter and fainter because of the brick wall that we are building.

Make sure if you start it, you tear it down. Because there's one thing about a brick wall. If it sits too long, you're going to have a hard time tearing it down. Brethren, the unpardonable sin, the blaspheme of the Spirit.

I know, now you know.

Let's enjoy and savor the gift of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 19 says, Do not quench the Spirit.