The Unpardonable Sin

Take him out and turn with us mark chapter 3 and tonight.

We are going to be going over a Subject that causes quite a bit of questions in the minds of folks Almost every time I open up a Q&A with a group of people This subject will at some point arise Because it does create not only questions but it also creates a little bit of fear and trepidation because Tonight we're going to be looking at the subject of the unpardonable sin Jesus only references one thing in his ministry.

That is an unforgivable thing and that is Defined as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit So we're going to talk about that But we're also going to talk about the context in which that phrase comes that statement is made in all three of the synoptic Gospels that being Matthew Mark and Luke and So we're going to talk a little bit about what it means and also As I said understand the context that it's in so we're going to read all the way from chapter 3 verse 20 to chapter 3 Verse 35, so we're going to go to 15 verses and my plan is to go through all of this Because I do think there is a unit that needs to be understood as one thought So let's read beginning at verse 20 Says then he went home And the crowd gathered again So that they could not even eat And when his family heard it They went out to seize him for they were saying he is out of his mind and The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he is possessed by Beelzebul And by the prince of demons he casts out the demons and they called them to him and Said to them in parables How can Satan cast out Satan if the kingdom if a kingdom is divided against itself? that kingdom cannot stand and if a house is divided against itself that house will not be able to stand and If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided he cannot stand But it's coming to an end No one Excuse me, but no one can enter a strongman's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strongman Then indeed he may plunder his house Truly I say to you all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit Never has forgiveness But is guilty of an eternal sin and They were saying he has an unclean spirit and His mother and his brothers came and standing outside They sent to him and called him and a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him Your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you And he answered them who are my mother and my brothers And looking about at those who sat around him.

He said here are my mother and my brothers For whoever does the will of God he is my brother and sister and mother Father in heaven, I pray Lord now that we have read the text that you would keep me from error that you would open up the hearts of your people to understand your word and Lord God lead us all to Better Live out this life of faith that you have called us to with a better understanding of Christ And I pray all of this in Jesus name Amen, very soon.

Our church is going to be having a conference and It is rare that I would say that something has been Providentially assigned but When we sat down to decide on a topic for that conference It was what six eight weeks ago, right Andy that we sat down and decided.

Yeah easily We talked about the concept of revival and what we wanted to say about revival without any indication that in Kentucky just a few weeks ago there would be a Movement that started at the college there Which is now being termed the the great Asbury revival Now I want to be clear that I am NOT ready to make a public statement about my thoughts regarding What's happening there because I don't know enough and I don't like to speak About things I don't know about until I know a little bit more Brother Andy and I have talked brother Mike and I've talked we all sort of share a similar opinion at this point But we're waiting to sort of judge a little more clearly as time goes on but the reason why I bring it up is because anytime There is anything happening where people claim that there is a movement from God If Anyone says anything to ask a question about that thing the immediate response is How dare you? Question a move of God How dare you? Consider that this might not be all it looks to be and who are you and And then there's always the fear You're gonna Blaspheme the Holy Spirit if you say that what's going on there may not be a legitimate move of God You understand that's so what happens is this text ends up becoming a bat That people use to threaten people with if they want to exercise any discernment I've seen it happen where a man is preaching full blasphemy full ungodly unorthodox heresy And someone says something about it.

Oh Be careful brother that thou might Blaspheme the Holy Spirit another phrase that's often uses touch not what? God's anointed if you say anything about Kenneth Copeland who is a massive heretic People will say that's God's anointed man.

Don't touch God's anointed and My answer has been consistent for the last 16 years.

I just say no he's not He's a heretic.

He's dangerous and y'all not listen to him That should be clear to anyone with an iota of biblical understanding The Kenneth Copeland is a fox in the hen house, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing He don't even wear sheep's clothing.

He wears his fancy wolf clothes.

Yeah but the reason why I bring all this out is because there is always this fear of Well, have I have I broken this one sin which seems to be different than all other sins because Jesus declares it to be The unforgivable sin the unpardonable sin and so Tonight, I hope to shed some light on this.

I will say from the outset though very many interpretations of this passage do exist and While I'm not going to leave you hanging as to wonder where I stand I will say that this is not an easy thing to understand And and I think context helps So well, in fact context is always king when you want to understand a passage So hopefully by the end of tonight, we'll have some clarity on this and maybe you came with clarity and maybe I'll just maybe plug Poke some holes in your in your idea, or maybe we will agree and everything will be fine But let's talk first about the construction of this section of the text one thing that I want to point out is that we have here somewhat of a sandwiching of ideas and We see this all the time in Scripture where there will be a subject here there will be somewhat of an excursus here and then that same subject will come back up again and There are things in Scripture called chiasms Which actually are designed to do that very thing to draw our draw our attention to something by making What's the letter key which is they looks like an X but in Greek? That's the letter key and they call that a chiasm and there's they drive to a center point And I'm not saying that this passage is a chiasm be clear.

I'm just saying these are in the Bible but what we have here is we have Jesus's family is mentioned at the beginning and then his family is mentioned again at the end And in both cases, it seems as if he is at odds with his family Now when I say Jesus is at odds with his family, I'm not saying Jesus did anything wrong But if we read the text, honestly they do seem to indicate that they're not entirely pleased with what he's doing and So we see that at the beginning and then later at the end When they come and ask for him He responds by saying my mother and my brothers are those who believe sort of indicating that familial Relationships are not as important as spiritual relationships, which I think is true I've often said my relationship with members of this church is much stronger than my relationship with my unbelieving family I've got cousins for days and I love them all I see him at Christmas, you know and family reunions but I see you all every week and When I'm hurting when I'm in the hospital, it's usually you all who come to see me or when my family's Hurting it's usually you all who bring us food or or help us.

You know what I mean? There's something special about this spiritual union that we have and it is I think important to recognize the the transcendence of that relationship over above the Temporary nature of our families which are temporary especially for those who don't believe Those relationships will one day end and won't go into eternity, which is a very sad reality so We see this beginning.

Let's read the text again We're gonna read verses 20 and 21 just to again remind us what happens.

It says then he went home that's speaking of Christ and The crowd gathered again So they could not even eat remember last time he had to get in the boat and move away from shore because they crowded him So much they had to use the boat like a little Pulpit and move away from shore because people had surrounded him so much well now they've now they've made it hard for him to even be able to eat and In verse 21, it says and when his family heard it they went out to seize him For they were saying he is out of his mind Now I want to I want to Share with you a thought Later Mary is mentioned in verse 31.

It says in the mother and his brothers came to him Mary is not mentioned in verse 21 Now I'm I'm not saying she wasn't a part of verse 21 But I do find it a little more interesting to think of Mary in this situation Thinking Jesus is out of his mind Because Mary knows who Jesus is Having been given that revelation from birth And so I would I would simply say that that is a That's just a thought just to put in your mind, you know, his brothers did not believe in him yet Now we know two of his brothers will eventually believe James His brother will become the pastor in Jerusalem the pastor of the church in Jerusalem.

We see this in Acts 15 We see him writing to the church in his letter the letter of James so We we have that The There's another brother he may know the other brother of Jesus Is There's a brother Jesus sorry I had to do that I saw that the screen was going wonky I had to reset it there so Two of Jesus's brothers would not only become believers But would become used of God to write scripture now again I know there's some debate but I feel fairly confident that James is the brother of Jesus who wrote the gospel of James or not The gospel but the letter of James and that Jude who wrote and I taught on Jude you remember me mentioning this That that that's who they are.

But at this point in the story, they don't believe at this point in the story, they they they at least Have not come under the conviction of following Christ.

Now.

I did have another thought and again Some of this is my sanctified imagination.

So you'll have to forgive me Because this is a narrative it doesn't tell us everything But I also thought this might be their way of protecting Jesus Because Jesus is just now beginning to have his ministry come under the scrutiny of the Pharisees who desire to destroy him Jesus has already said you want to destroy me meaning you want to put me to death and I can imagine a group of brothers Getting together and saying we'll just tell everyone he's crazy and then at least Maybe that'll keep him from being killed So I'm trying to give a little benefit of the doubt to the brothers in that idea Maybe they really don't think he's crazy But maybe they think that's a good out because think of what Jesus has said He has said I forgive sins He has said I am the Lord of the Sabbath, you know, the Lord of the Sabbath is God, you know who forgives sins God and so he has declared himself to be the Almighty You understand Jesus Has declared things about himself that if they were not true, he would be crazy C.s.

Lewis said that and I want to be clear John MacArthur mentioned this in his sermon on the same text I want anybody to think I'm I'm a plagiarizer.

So John MacArthur pointed this out He said C.s.

Lewis.

So John MacArthur quoted C.s.

Lewis and I'm quoting him.

This is that's a trifecta of quotations.

That's the John MacArthur said that pointing to C.s.

Lewis's trilemma C.s.

Lewis's trilemma was in this book the Mere Christianity where he said that there are three things that Jesus is Possibly he's either a liar a lunatic or the Lord and We have to can be confronted with that Every man has to come to a conclusion because if he said what he said and it were not true But he believed it then he's a lunatic If he said what he said and it were not true and he knew Then he's a liar But if he said what he said and it were true Then he's the Lord and so Lewis's trilemma is Jesus is either a liar lunatic of the Lord and the brothers come and say He's a lunatic The brothers come up and say he's just crazy.

He doesn't really think he's God and they're Trying to pull him from the crowd Now Again, whether you want to think well of the brothers or bad of the brothers whether you want to think they were protecting him or protecting Themselves because perhaps they didn't want to be associated with a brotherhood people thought was crazy There's all kinds of reasons why they may have been motivated to do what they did but then we come to verse 22 and We see another group And this group is We know is not coming for any loving reason This group is not coming to protect Jesus.

They're coming to convict Jesus.

They want Jesus dead Says in the scribes who came down from Jerusalem We're saying he is possessed by Beelzebul now I Could just say that's another word for the devil and it is But it's interesting this the the history of that particular word Beelzebub Comes from the word that the Old Testament God Baal And you've heard the it's actually pronounced by ale You always know in your Bible.

There's a parenthesis between the first a and the second a so it's not bail.

It's by ale and Zabub is a would indicate the Exalted Zabal is as exalted dwelling.

So Beelzebul is a is the god of exaltation It's like it's a lord now there's also a Term which means done and it would mean Lord of dung and Some people believe that what has happened here is the Jews have Taken Lord Lord of exalted or the exalted Lord and turned it into Lord of the dung Like changed it And the idea there would be that it would it's you've heard the phrase Lord of the flies Like what it flies surround dung, you know dung heaps and so Either way this there.

This is they're they're accusing Jesus Of having within himself a Demonic power Beelzebul Coming again from Beelzebub.

It's a demonic spirit It was one that everyone would have been affiliated or associated with in their mind as being Basically what we would refer to as Satan the demons Lord the Lord of the evil Lord of evil and that's what the very next phrase.

He says he says he is possessed by Beelzebul and By the prince of demons, which again what it means the prince of demons.

He casts out The demons now just think about that for a moment Jesus has up until this point.

I know we're only in chapter 3, but we've seen some pretty miraculous things We've seen Jesus tell a man on a bed a stretcher a paralytic to stand and walk and the dude stood up and walked We've seen Jesus take a man whose hand was withered Stretch out his hand and as soon as his hand stretched out was made perfectly new We have seen Jesus do some miraculous things and we've seen it in print these guys Saw it in real life These guys knew that what Jesus was doing was real that is so important to understand because I I Know that there are guys out there who fake miracles again, I'll name another heretic Todd white and If you're wondering, yeah, he is And one of the miracles he does As he goes around to people and he says your back's hurting, isn't it? Oh, yeah, my back hurts all the time If you're over 40 and your back doesn't hurt, I'll be surprised.

But anyway, that's the Always finds you figure back hurts.

Of course, my back hurts He goes I bet you one of your legs is longer than the other you'll have him sit down and he'll do this sort of shift We'll see your legs one inch longer than your other leg and he'll do this sort of manipulation and Oh God is growing your legs now as a former magician You know that I worked as a professional illusionist for several years I Know exactly what he's doing Because what he's doing is a trick What he's doing is not a miracle it is a scam Harry Houdini Was the greatest magician Whoever lived Harry Houdini believed in Mystical things he believed in real mystical Spirits and When his mother died he was desperate to connect with her from beyond the grave So he began to go to mediums medium as a psychic and he began to visit the psychics And as he sat with the psychics, he began to realize that they were using the same tricks.

He was and He began to get really frustrated with the psychics to the point that he would actually set up booths across the street From where they were set up and he would do the same things they were doing to prove that they were charlatans because he was Desperate here's the thing people don't understand.

He was desperate to find a real one He wanted to speak to his departed mother.

He believed it was possible So he was trying to find a real psychic by calling out the fake ones When he died he left his wife a password He said when I die, I want you see only she knew the word He said if you ever find somebody who tells you the word, you'll know he's for real And she never did I Tell that story only for this Fake healers fake miracle workers are Illusionists Jesus was not an illusionist You couldn't fake what Jesus was doing you couldn't fake the miracles that Jesus commanded and So these guys couldn't accuse him of being a fake So what did they accuse him of? You have power But it ain't from God Your powers from the devil See the difference They're not saying he don't have power because everybody in Everybody in three counties knows he's got the power Right all around the countryside people are flocking He can't even eat in his own house because he's surrounded people know he has the power so they have to change the game They can't accuse him of being fake They got to accuse him of Having his power from somewhere else So that's what they do He casts out demons by the prince of demons Sorry I just like that really hurt Yeah, sorry you mean to verse 23 and He called to them Actually what it says and he called them to him and Said to them in parables How can Satan cast out Satan? now consider the picture Jesus has Been doing miracles these guys come in all you're doing this by the power of the devil you got the power But it's it's devilish demonic Jesus come in boys listen How can Satan? Cast out Satan Now think for a moment the question Jesus is asking Because he is saying you're accusing me of Being on the team of the guy.

I've been battling every time I cast out a demon Every time I cast out a demon.

I'm showing whose side.

I'm on.

I'm on the opposite side of the demons and You're saying I'm one of them You're saying I'm on the same team now.

I know the devil's a trickster, but he ain't stupid And one thing that any good general knows Is that you don't divide your army? Why because when you're divided you're conquered, right? so he says Can Satan cast out Satan? Verse 24 if a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand and if a house is divided against itself that house will not be able to stand and if Satan has risen up against himself and is Divided he cannot stand but is coming to an end This is logical and by the way It says it's a parable and it is he's making the parable of a kingdom and a king Satan is the king.

The kingdom is the kingdom of darkness and he's saying if the king Went against his kingdom and divided it it would fall So he's showing them their logic is faulty now verse 27 he gives another parable and I and I I don't want to take too much time with this because if I take this left turn and go too far We'll never make it back The verse 27 he says this but no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man Then indeed he may plunder his house That that that passage I have often mentioned to people when they asked me about personal protection Because Jesus is using the example of a man protecting his home And what does Jesus say? He says no man can break into a strong man's house unless he first Binds the strong man.

Why? Because a strong man protects his home.

That's the that is the that's the principle that Jesus is using to draw out the parable and I mentioned that only because Guys, you have a responsibility to protect your home now again.

I know that's not the I know that's not what the text is about But it's a principle that Jesus is using to make a point and I like to point out that that principle still applies That men have a responsibility to protect their home.

And if we don't protect our home, we're not doing what we're called to do So that's again.

I don't want to spend if I were if that were the subject of the night We could go in that direction, but you remember guys when y'all came to that Q&A that Mike you remember y'all came to Allen's Church and listened to that Q&A that subject came up They asked me about personal protection and I men I mentioned this verse I said the Bible says a strong man protects his home and you can't rob a strong man's house Unless you put that man in some binds you got a you a man's gonna protect his home So like I said, that just is an important side note on that verse But that is the parable Jesus is making he's in this parable Satan is the strong man.

He would protect his kingdom and Jesus is saying there's no way I'm casting out Satan and I am Satan at the same time.

It don't work verse 28 Truly I say to you this is the difficult part.

Truly I say to you all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemes blasphemies they utter But whoever blasphemes the against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness But it's guilty of an Eternal sin Now when we think about the way Jesus words this He says some things that causes questions at least in my mind immediately raises questions the first thing he says is All sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter so he's saying Blasphemy is not an unforgivable sin just blasphemy Okay.

Now what is blasphemy? Let's let's for a moment just define terms Blasphemy means to speak against someone to speak against someone and It is a Verbal sin blasphemy is a verbal sin now when you think of That I kind of like I like to just compare this to Something else when when someone is in the public eye Like a politician or a Member of royalty or a member of the media is in the public eye And something is said about them That is untrue What do they call that? Well, you said gossip, but I'm thinking of something a little bit different It's the word starts with an S Slander, right? We say slander Now Just for the sake of because I like language and how language works If you say something about someone in it and and and it's public and it's untrue meant to defame them it's slander But if you write it, it's not slander.

What is it? libel, right And that's different the written is Liable and I just point that out because when we think of blasphemy what it is is you're saying something against someone Now in that sense, it's slander but Blasphemy holds a stronger moral component because of the object, you know, if I slander our Beloved music leader and I say something about Matt.

That's awful, but I'm not speaking against God So we would say that would be slander if I said something and I pray I never do But you understand if I said something against you wouldn't be blasphemy All right, it would be slander Blasphemy carries the moral weight of the object You blaspheme God Right.

What's the third of the Ten Commandments? Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain And what that means is that means do not treat the name of God in a way That is anything other than holy when Nadab and Abihu faced the fire of God because they brought Unauthorized fire before the Lord strange fire and Leviticus 10 and they died in the presence of the Lord What did Moses say to Aaron? whoever approaches me must Recognize that I am holy God's name is holy God's character is holy and when we speak against God we are speaking against the creator of the universe and it is a treacherous thing to do such a thing and yet Jesus says It's not unforgivable because he says all blasphemies will be forgiven the children of men so I like to just for a moment say praise the Lord because I think we've all At least in one way or another said things About God that were wrong or untrue or blasphemies that we wish we hadn't said now that we've had to repent of You know, in fact the Jewish people, you know, they do something very peculiar They won't even write the word God or the name Yahweh But they use other words Like when they if you ever see a Jewish person on the internet and they type the name God they'll put G slash D Because they don't want to write the word God Because they're afraid of Stepping over the line and breaking that third commandment of taking the Lord's name in vain.

I think this is a little bit further and a little more drastic because I think we're at this point we're sort of that this straining the What was it straining the gnat and swallowing the camel, you know? But but this is one of the attempts that people do to try to avoid Accidentally Saying something against God So with that being said Going back to the idea of blasphemy We are told that every blasphemy will be forgiven but verse 29 Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness But is guilty of an eternal sin Now, I Believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

I have taught it I have Staked my life on it.

I believe it's the truth and and I live in light of that doctrine And I believe that God is one in essence and Three in person.

I believe those three persons are all God Jesus is God the Father is God and The Spirit is God so it does Raise a question at least in my mind maybe yours too as To why the Spirit gets this extra? bit of Attention in regard to the subject of blasphemy.

I want to just point out something and If you have your Bibles open just very quickly turn with me to Matthew chapter 12 And go to verse 31 This is the same narrative Jesus is it's the same story just being told from Matthew's perspective But an extra sentence is here and I want to show you the extra sentence Jesus says therefore I tell you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people But the blasphemy against the Spirit Will not be forgiven and whoever speaks a word Against the Son of Man will be forgiven But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age Or in the age to come did you notice what was added? Yeah, he points to himself He didn't do that in Mark's gospel in Mark's gospel He just said truly I say to you all sins All sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies ever but whoever blasphemies against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness That's a condensed version Matthew gives us the longer version and the longer version is Jesus says this you commit blasphemy against the Spirit You won't be forgiven.

You can talk about me That's the part that Matthew adds You can say thing you can do this Against me, but not the Spirit that's Interesting when we consider the equality in the Godhead Because we must understand that within the Godhead we have Father Son and Spirit all God So Jesus makes a distinction here about the Spirit and One could say and I think that there is some truth to this that Jesus is referring to himself in his humility because in the incarnation he is in flesh and Therefore to speak against him would be not the same but similar as me saying something about Matt It would be speaking against a man Jesus is certainly the God man.

Please don't think for a second that I'm Questioning that reality.

I'm not I'm just saying when Jesus says speak against me safe speak against the Holy Spirit Unsafe and there may be some Regarding the humility of his flesh in that but there's also something else and I mentioned this in my Academy class and I know maybe a third of you are in that Academy class, but some of you aren't when we taught on Christology two weeks ago, I Talked about the fact that when Christ humbled himself by coming in the flesh in his humility in the flesh He said I come Not to do my will but the will of him who sent me Now Christ is God in the flesh but he is in that sense laying aside the prerogative and Saying I come to do the will of the Father and I come in the power of who? the Holy Spirit So within the Trinity within Christ the Trinity dwells bodily as we read in Colossians chapter 2, right? All the fullness of the Godhead dwells within him bodily therefore He says I'm doing the will of the Father by the power of the Spirit So now we go back to this question of blasphemy What have they done? they have seen Jesus's miracles, which he says I have done by the power of the Spirit and They've said that spirit is the spirit of Satan that should cause us to go white with fear To go what? What a man? have to really Believe in his heart to see the Lord of Glory Miraculously Change lives and say that's the devil That's what's the context of this state to see Christ's work to know it's true and To deny It's of God Notice the going back to mark Notice the last verse in that section is verse 30 For they were saying he has an unclean spirit.

They were calling the Holy Spirit of God an unclean spirit That should just make us Again turn white with fear to say the Holy Spirit of God is Satan and the empowerment of Jesus is the empowerment of the devil That's what these guys were doing.

That's blasphemy against the Spirit.

And so I want to quickly Say this Many people have asked me And I and I when I say many it's a fair number over the years have asked me if I believe that Christians today or that anyone today can commit this sin and Here here a few thoughts one the context of this particular sin is Unique to history Because The context of this is they saw Jesus doing these things in the flesh They knew he had the spirit and they said that spirit is the devil that Context is no longer available Because we no longer have Jesus in the flesh doing miracles to be able to do the exact same thing that Jesus is referring to However, is there something comparable? To this and brother Mike talked about this in a sermon not more than six months ago He preached on a Sunday morning.

I think it was while I was out with the baby, but I was here I just wasn't preaching and he talked about this and And and I want to just sort of remind you some of that because his conclusion and I think there's some I think this is true is that the the the comparable sin today would be someone who has full knowledge of the person and work of Jesus and that person rejects it and Walks away from it and says that is either untrue or that is devilish or whatever and That is still I think possible and we see that in the life of men and women who have as Hebrew 6 says tasted of the heavenly gift they have Been made partakers of the spirit.

That's the way Hebrew 6 says and they fall away What does Hebrew 6 says it is impossible that they be restored under repentance? Let's let's look at that real quick go to Hebrew 6 because that I think that's an important connection to be made verse 4 Hebrew 6 verse 4 Says for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and Have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away To restore them again to repentance since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt So, what is that saying? There are those who know the truth There are those who have recognized the truth of who Christ is and They have abandoned it.

We use a word.

What's the word we use? No, not backslider apostate and That's an important distinction In fact backsliding is it that that's a that's a whole conversation there the use of the use of that word But the the word that we see historically is the word Apostate and that is one who has Who's what falling away? Yeah, and I would say has rejected Christ rejected his work And I've told this man I've said this man's name many times so forgive me for repetition but sometimes things just stick and Dan Barker Is the man that comes to my mind every time I think about these things because Dan Barker isn't like Some of the other atheists that are famous like they're famous atheists like The evolutionary biologist forget his name right now.

Who am I thinking about? Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins was thinking about he's never been a believer that I know of But Dan Barker was once a pastor Dan Barker was a part of the movement Katherine Kuhlman was a Faith leader and healer, you know back in the 60s and 70s and Dan Barker was her next in line Like he was coming up the ranks of those Things he claimed Christ.

He claimed to have the power of healing.

He claimed all those things and he fell and Now he is the head of one of the largest atheist organizations in the world And he goes all around the world debating Christians I could get him here if I wanted to do a debate on atheism if I called Dan Barker, he'd be here All I have to do is ask he'll go anywhere to tell people Jesus isn't real That's what his life is dedicated to It's telling people Jesus ain't real.

And so I point that out simply to say if there is a way To blaspheme the Spirit today It would be seeing the truth of what Christ has done and rejecting it and calling Christ unreal or the devil and that has eternal consequences That has eternal consequences So when somebody comes up to me and they say Oh pastor Keith, I'm afraid this I'm afraid I've committed blasphemy of the Spirit I tell him first thing if you're afraid you haven't If you're afraid that you have if you care You you haven't a few years ago there was a YouTube video series that went out and it was an atheist were goading young children teenagers to go online and say I Blaspheme the Holy Spirit and there was hundreds of videos of teenagers saying that I'm condemning myself to hell.

I'm blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

You can find them.

Just go look up blasphemy challenge on YouTube hundreds of young people Were influenced to say that and here's my here's my response They weren't blaspheming the Spirit because they were ignorant and stupid Blasphemy of the Spirit Begins with knowledge of who Jesus is these men knew who Jesus was and They still said he has an unclean spirit.

That is That Is an eternal sin So if you if you do have if you live in any way with fear with that Please come and talk to Andy or me or Mike because I don't want you to live with that kind of fear We don't need to as believers live in that kind of you know That maybe I said something one time that I shouldn't have said That's not that's not what this is.

That's not what this is So I'm going to finish with simply saying this I already mentioned what the end part verses 31 to 35 Jesus's mothers and brothers come to him again.

I mentioned that at the beginning at the end and This closes out the chapter and I do want to move on to chapter 4 next week.

So I'll simply say this I Think what we have here is again a picture of Jesus's Foes From within and from without From within it was his own family.

He's crazy.

Don't listen to him.

Come on home Jesus, you know take a nap You'll feel better tomorrow but his real foes Were the scribes who wanted to see him dead? And when his family came to him He made that blessed statement verse 35 whoever does the will of God he is my brother and sister and mother And that's telling us something about our spiritual family, but I mentioned that earlier so I won't I won't repeat myself just to say this we have a blessed spiritual family and When we struggle with things like fear We have folks that we can come to and pray for us and encourage us And when Jesus identified us as his family when he said those who what those who do the will of God Those who believe by the way, that is the will of God for you that you believe in him who he said That's the will of God for you So those who believe or those who fulfill verse 35 We are Jesus's family.

We are grafted into the family of God and we're part of the body of Christ So if you struggle with fear Know that we love you and we want to encourage you and Don't ever feel afraid to come and talk to one of us or to talk to one another because This type this verse was not intended to cause believers to fear This verse was intended to cause those who would reject Christ to fear Let's pray Father I thank you for your word.

I thank you for all these folks here tonight I pray that you would bless them and bless us Lord as we leave this place to live not in fear, but in faith and Lord when the fear comes Help us to realize we have a family here a church family that does love us and Lord.

We have a father in heaven Who has sent his son to die for us? And with that we have great comfort in Christ's name.