The ONE Sin God Will NEVER Forgive... | John MacArthur

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

Okay, so you guys keep asking me and keep bugging me about the same question over and over again.

You're asking why it's still like that. Look, man, I'm going to keep it real with you. I wasn't happy, so I did what

I had to do, you know. I said this once before. I don't know how many times I had to say it. I did what it is. That's just what life just is.

It came at a random time in my life. I was going up, but I wasn't going down. I was going up as fast as I wanted to, so the fastest way

I could do it was by doing that. I wasn't happy already, so I'm like, what could make me happy, you know, which

I asked for money and fame. Now, it might strike you as strange that there would be a sin that would not be forgivable.

And so, you know, had we sold our soul to the devil, how else can you explain us being here on earth?

Well, yeah. Don't we say that God offers forgiveness to sinners? Doesn't the gospel promise that the

Lord will forgive all our sins, that He'll pass by all our iniquities? Isn't He a pardoning God who overlooks sin?

That's how I even got introduced to the music industry, because I swear I wanted to be like the Amy Grant of music, but it didn't work out, and so I sold my soul to the devil for all needless to say.

Sold my soul. Doesn't He bury it in the depths of the sea, remove it as far as the east is from the west and remember it no more?

Isn't God gracious and merciful, as the prophet says, who is a pardoning God like you?

Why do you still do it? Why are you still out here? Well, it goes back to the destiny thing. I made a bargain with it, you know, a long time ago and holding up my hand.

What was your bargain? To get where I am now. Should I ask who you made the bargain with? You know, with the chief commander.

On this earth? On this earth and in the world we can't see. When we preach the gospel, don't we say that God will forgive all your trespasses, all your sins?

Doesn't this sort of contradict that? What are you holding on to? I sold my soul. I sold my soul to have a life that I wanted that I never had.

What exactly is the unforgivable sin? Is it simply saying the words,

I blaspheme the Holy Spirit? Is it saying you sold your soul to the devil, as many of these celebrities did?

Is it committing horrendous sins, such as eating pages from the Holy Bible, as Marilyn Manson did?

Well, there are two extremes we need to keep ourselves from falling into. The extreme of thinking we have committed the unforgivable sin when we have not.

And the extreme of being confident we have not committed the unforgivable sin when we are living in a way that ought to frighten us.

It is in one sense a passage that ought to frighten the comfortable and comfort the frightened. Because on the one hand, there are people have no idea that they have committed the unforgivable sin.

They have no idea that they have committed the unforgivable sin. They're comfortable and they ought to be frightened because they're headed for eternal hell.

There are other people who think they've committed the unforgivable sin and haven't and need to be comforted.

Through the years of my ministry, of course, I've met both kinds of people, the comfortable who ought to be frightened and the frightened who ought to be comfortable.

Some people are frightened because they think they have said something, whether accidentally or on purpose, that equates to the unforgivable sin.

And therefore, they can't be saved anymore. However, if you are frightened about this, you have every reason to be relieved of your fears.

Now, understanding in a simplistic way that you said something against the Holy Spirit, you are somehow beyond the hope of salvation.

There are people who believe that. There are people who propagate that. There are people who espouse that. There are even some who think

John MacArthur has committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit because of his cessationist theology.

There are people who have accused me of that. Many people through the years have accused me of having committed a blasphemous sin against the

Holy Spirit by denying healings and miracles and tongues and wonders, supposedly, that are going on today in the church.

And thus, I have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit and put myself in a position of never being forgiven, having committed an eternal sin.

But again, the truth is that there are both many who feel frightened, who should not feel frightened, and many who do not feel frightened, who should feel frightened.

Let's take a look at both of these types of people. Well, this morning the message has two objectives.

One would be to frighten the comfortable and the other would be to comfort the frightened. There are some people who treat Jesus with contempt their entire lives, never honoring

Jesus or submitting to any of His commands. This kind of stubborn rebellion against Jesus, to the point of death, can rightly be considered blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit. And these people who are not frightened of Jesus or hell should, in actuality, be terrified of God judging them for their sins.

So if you say Jesus is satanic, you have just blasphemed the Holy Spirit because the

Holy Spirit doing His work through Him. The Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism. The Holy Spirit led Him from there into the wilderness to be tempted, was with Him through His temptation.

The Holy Spirit then anointed Him to preach and away He went preaching and doing all His ministry. If you were there and you saw it and you heard it and your final conclusion was

He's demonic, you're damned, you can't be saved because that's your ultimate conclusion with full revelation.

This terrifying reality was true for people who lived during the time of Jesus and it remains true to this very day, even though Jesus has since ascended and no longer lives on earth because it's the

Holy Spirit bears witness that Jesus is Lord. And to continually reject the

Holy Spirit's testimony and witness is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. So this is unique to those people who had that full revelation.

What about today? Could somebody commit this? Right, they could. Look, we've all been forgiven for rejecting Christ, haven't we? We've all been forgiven for rejecting

Christ because we weren't born saved. So we've all been forgiven for that. But the one that won't be forgiven is the one called the apostate who gets full exposure to the truth, full exposure to the gospel, full revelation and makes the final conclusion, it's not true,

I reject Christ. It's a deception. If that's where you end up after full exposure, that's what's called apostasy.

That's unforgiving. The Holy Spirit's testimony is that He is Lord. The Holy Spirit did this mighty work through Him to demonstrate that He is

Lord. The unforgivable sin involves being exposed to the truth of God's Word, yet continuing to consciously reject it, essentially calling

God a liar, even a devil. This is blasphemous. And when carried out throughout one's life, equates to the unforgivable sin.

In other words, you were exposed to all of it and you've now fallen away, turned away, walk away. It's impossible to renew you to repentance because you crucified to yourself the

Son of God and put Him to open shame. You say, I reject. Full revelation, enlightenment, you tasted it, you touched it, you were there, you're exposed to it.

Your decision is to walk away. You join the crucifiers. You conclude He's not God and with those supernatural powers must be satanic.

You're left with that. You say He has an unclean spirit. After full revelation, you can't be saved. Verse 6, it's impossible to renew them again to repentance.

Everyone who continues in willful rebellion against God, even after being exposed to God's word and the gospel, should be absolutely terrified of their spiritual condition before God.

Look, all that's left for you, if your final decision is with full knowledge to reject, fearful judgment, terrifying judgment, severe punishment.

The hottest hell is for those who rejected with the most knowledge. However, if you find yourself frightened of this reality, frightened of the possibility that you have committed the unforgivable sin, it is this very fear that should give you peace and hope because the very fact that you are feeling this fear shows that God is in the process of changing your heart towards His word and the gospel.

If we come to Jesus with humility and repentance, there is absolutely no sin we have ever committed that is greater than Jesus' ability to forgive.

There are perhaps some of you who have rejected Christ. Your knowledge has increased today. You are in danger of greater judgment if you conclude that He is not the

Lord He claimed to be. You need to be frightened by this. Some of you perhaps have thought that you were guilty of some blasphemy that could never be forgiven.

May I remind you in final comments that the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy, and I love this, said this, chapter 1, verse 12,

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who strengthened me because He considered me faithful, putting me into ministry even though I was formerly a, what, blasphemer.

In fact, the very heinousness of our sin is a testimony to just how forgiving our

God is and points us towards just how loving Jesus Christ is for paying for our sins.

Recognize that sin creates memories that stay with you. People actually believe that you can give them a magic formula and the heinous things that they do should be erased from their mind and they should no longer be broken over them.

For I know my transgression and my sin is ever before me. A year later,

I know my transgression and my sin is ever before me. It's always there.

Don't believe me? Ask a woman who's had an abortion. Somebody convinced her that it would be okay, you could erase it as though it never happened, and then you can go on with your life.

And then a year later, she sees a baby who's about the age her baby would have been and she crumbles.

Why? We were not created to forget things. By the way, that's good. Let me give you at least three reasons why that's good, that we're not created to forget things.

Number one, if you could forget your sin, you could never testify of the goodness of God. Amen? Do you have a testimony of the goodness of God?

You know what? I think I used to one time, but I can't remember any of my sin, therefore, I really can't testify to the goodness of God.

Do you hear how ridiculous that is? But again, people walk around all the time talking about forgetting their sins.

It's not the way human beings were put together. And we ought to be broken over our sin because when we sin, we create an

HD, DVD, Blu -ray picture in our mind that will be there for years and years and years.

Well, I'll just take the drugs and I'll make it go away. Interesting. Saw another commercial not long ago that started like this.

Did you know that two -thirds of people on depression medication still suffer from their symptoms? Call your doctor and tell them to give you this too.

There are things that we do that we don't forget. How many individuals, even in the church, how many testimonies have you heard of individuals who came to Christ late in life, had sexual partners before they got married, and now absolutely wish that they could erase the faces, the familiar scents, the memories of their former partners so that they could enjoy their spouse more thoroughly?

How many of us have heard those testimonies? How many of us could give that testimony? We ought to be broken over our sin because it creates memories that stay with us.

And first and foremost, if we couldn't remember our sin, we couldn't testify. Here's the second thing. If we couldn't remember our sins, we wouldn't be warned against doing them again.

Could you imagine if we could literally forget that fire was hot? It'd just be walking around, a bunch of crispy people, you know? What's the matter?

I'm not sure, man. These things just keep on coming on my hands. Folks, that's what we would be like towards sin if we couldn't remember it.

God gives us the gift of the memory of our sins so that it continues to remind us of the consequence, and He uses us, uses that to urge us, to correct us, to corral us, to call us to repentance, to call us to brokenness.

We couldn't testify. I'll never forget that time, and I'll never forget the time in April of 2006 when

I went back and buried my father, who was dead at 55 years old because of an addiction to cocaine. I'll never forget riding around those streets.

I'll never forget going back home and realizing that the gang's not all there. The guys I ran with, the guys I grew up with, they're not all there.

I stood and preached at my father's funeral. I just had to go away afterwards in a corner by myself and lay on my face and weep as I remembered who

I was before God saved me. You can't have the memory of my sin. I won't let you take it.

It reminds me of God's goodness to me. It reminds me of His grace in my life. It reminds me of where I was and where I never want to be again.

It reminds me that His work in me may not be complete, but it is effectual.

I'm not who I ought to be, but hallelujah, I'm not who I was. The only people who will never be forgiven of their sin are those who do not feel frightened before God, who continue to shake their fist before God saying,

I will live my life my way, not your way. And in doing this, these people call

God the evil one and believe they are all powerful and all righteous, which is true blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit. All manner of blasphemy can be forgiven except that final blasphemy that says with full revelation,

I reject Christ. And you're left with the fact of explaining His supernatural power as satanic.

And you stand then with the crucifiers, crucifying Him again and putting Him to open shame.

However, no matter what we have ever said or done, if we flee to Christ with repentance and faith, all our sin can and will be forgiven.

We should never be fearful to come to Christ because Christ welcomes all who fall at His feet and Christ is ready to forgive any sinner who repents and turns to Him in faith.

So the call to everyone is always the same. Flee to Christ and be saved.

Have peace and comfort knowing that there is absolutely nothing you could ever say or do that Christ will not forgive if you humble yourself before Him.

Much better to remember that Matthew 12, 32 says you can speak a word against the Son of Man and be forgiven.

We're all blasphemers of a sort who have been forgiven if we've come to faith in Christ. Don't turn away.

Get the full revelation and respond in full trust. Thank you so much for watching. If you like these videos and want to help support this channel, the best way to do it is to just watch these videos until the end and click the subscribe button.