All right, good morning, brethren.
Let's turn to Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12. It's a short passage we'll be
looking at this morning, beginning in verse 8, probably the most
compelling verse or the verse that most of us are drawn to
and moved by. As what our Lord said concerning
him, in verse 10, him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall
not be forgiven. And we want to know, when the
child of God, someone who's taken an interest, at least, in the
truth of God, we want to know, what does that mean? Am I guilty
of it? There's some mystery around what
our Lord means by the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. And I believe the Lord intends
it to be that way. It is actually that mystery of
what it means and a clear understanding, as we would like it to be, that
actually the means that the Lord uses
in delivering his child from the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost,
because no sooner do we read that and see our own wickedness,
our own sin, and our own thoughts that if anyone's guilty, if anyone
could be guilty of this, it's me, Lord. And when we read that,
it causes us to cry out to the Lord and to ask him, Lord, I
need your grace. Save me. Deliver me from this
sin. And it is the grace of God that
really is what this is speaking of. The division here is those
who are saved entirely. and depend entirely upon the
grace of God to save them as opposed to those who would come
in a form of religion and trust their works. They might even
confess Christ is 99.999% of salvation, but you that would
hold on to any bit, if I would hold on to any bit of my salvation,
and say, it comes down to me in this part. That is being guilty
of the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost, because that's not the
Spirit of God testifying that in you. That's trusting in this
flesh. And that's the blasphemy of the
Holy Ghost, because the Holy Ghost reveals the grace of God
in the child of God, and makes known to us that it's all of
grace. It's all of grace. And so that's really what is
being driven home. This passage, as we'll take notice,
is all about confession, all about confessing. What is your
hope of salvation? What is your hope of salvation?
Who is your hope of salvation? It's either all of grace, all
of Christ. It's either all of him or it's
none of him. Even if you think it's mostly
of him, but some of it's on me. No, all that we need is bound
and given freely, sovereignly by the grace of God. And that's
really the testimony that the Lord gives his people in this
passage. Remember that our Lord is speaking
to his disciples. He's turned to his disciples,
and it's for their learning and their encouragement. He's warning
us against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. They had a vain confidence in
their flesh, in themselves. And this is something that we
encounter to this day. I remember reading one time that
when Troy, the city of Troy was destroyed by the Minoans, I think
the Greeks there. that the seed of people that
left and fled Troy were the seed that started Rome, supposedly.
Supposedly, they were that seed. And it's that seed of the Pharisees
that persists, like leaven in bread that you can just break
apart and give a piece to someone else. And that leaven persists. It continues. It continues on. We need only look in the mirror
to know that the 11 of the Pharisees still present in our day. Because
by nature, we look to ourselves. We have a vain confidence in
the flesh. And that is the very hope that
the Lord delivers his people from, that it's not by my works. It's in spite of me, in spite
of what I am, in spite of what I do. God saves his child by
his grace freely given in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
really the power and the weight of this passage. This is about
confession, and our confession is either all of Christ, or it
might as well be none of him, even if you say a lot is of him.
It's either all of Christ, else we cannot be saved. That's really,
really it. So, our Lord's teaching His disciples
here. The object lesson is the Pharisees
that have been stirred up and moved against Him, to rage against
Him, to speak against Him, to try and entrap Him and get Him
to say something because their confidence is in themselves. Their confidence is in themselves
and they would not come to Christ. They would not trust Christ,
but they continued trusting themselves. And so in verse 8 and 9, it says,
our Lord says, I say unto you, whosoever shall confess me before
men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels
of God. and you that own Christ are owned
by Christ, and we're in His hand by His grace and power, and therefore,
there is a confession. He is the successful Savior. He accomplished the redemption
of His people, and He brings forth a confession in His people
of Him, of His grace, of His power, His salvation, and we
own that. We confess that because it's
His work and power in us. But he that denieth me before
men shall be denied before the angels of God. And so if God
has chosen you unto salvation, you will confess Christ. You
will confess the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me just lay a little
groundwork here. Christ Jesus is the Savior of men. He is the
salvation whom the Father has provided, and there is not another.
There is not another way unto God. There is one Savior, one
name, given among men, under heaven, given among men, whereby
we must be saved. Peter said, if we're to be saved,
it is by the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And he said, my people, my sheep,
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. There will
be a confession of Christ. And our Lord said, he said to
us, come unto me. He calls his sheep, come unto
me, he said, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. You that are laboring under religion,
you that are trying to do right, and trying to make yourselves
acceptable unto God, and trying to please God, and trying to
make yourselves, trying to reconcile yourselves to God, he says, stop. Don't do that. Come to me. Come to me. I will give you rest. You're not going to give yourselves
rest by your works. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall
find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. And so his people will come to
Christ and will confess Christ, that it's all of Christ. From beginning to end, alpha
to omega, from the first to the last, Christ is all, brethren,
all. And so We come to Christ, and
it's an act of faith. It's an act of faith. Let me
just say a few things, because we're talking about the confession
which he gives us. It's an act of faith. First of
all, what that means is it's personal. It's personal. If you are Christ, you personally
come to Christ confessing him, seeking him, begging him for
mercy, crying out to him, Lord, save me. I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. Believers come
to Christ personally as their Lord and Savior. Another cannot
believe for you. Another cannot do for you. Christ
is the only one whose righteousness is imputed to the people of God. We come personally to Christ.
A father, for example, cannot believe for his whole family.
He may have a good confession and confess Christ and determine
that he's going to run that house as a Christian household, but
he cannot believe for his wife and children. His wife, the mother
of the children, she must personally believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The children must personally
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. There may be many blessings in
that household for someone who runs their household in a Christian
way. There may be peace. You may speak kindly to one another,
and gently, and love one another, and care for one another in a
Christian household. But every member, and you may
call yourselves a Christian household, but until faith is wrought in
the heart of each one, that individual is not a believer until they
personally come to the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's personal. It's
personal. Another thing, Christ is more
than a form of religion. We don't stop at a form of religion. Christ is the way, the truth,
and the life. But that's much more than a pithy
verse, a saying that we have. There's truth there. There's
life in there. Christ is the way that we go,
the righteousness wherein we walk, trusting in him. Christ
is the life by whom we live. The way this body depends on
air and water and bread, Christ is our air. He's the breath.
that gives us life, that is breathed into our nostrils like was breathed
into Adam and gave life to him, it's the Spirit that gives us
life. He is our life, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and we feed upon him his blood and his bread, his
body as our bread. We feed upon him. Christ is the
life upon whom we depend, and he's the truth that we confess. and believe and declare that
he is salvation, he is the Lord. So salvation is not an outward
form for God's people, a practice of Christianity, right? The Pharisees,
they were very sincere in their practice of the form of the law,
and they trusted in those things. They had traditions and customs
and history for thousands of years that they trusted in. that
they were confident in, but they had no heart or understanding
of the God that they worshiped. In fact, when the son of promise
came, they rejected him. They rejected the very one of
whom the scriptures were speaking of and declaring and testifying
of. They rejected him. Well, just
like back then, it's really no different for us today in Christianity. There's many churches, so-called. There's many people that profess
to believe Christ, but their confidence is in their form. It's in the building that they
go to. It's in the clothing that they wear. It's in the hymns
that they sing. It's in the formality of their
prayers or the informality. It's in the uptightness or the
super relaxedness. It's whatever that form is. They're
trusting in that, and week after week, they go and do that form
and think, this is my salvation. This is what pleases God. This
is what brings me near to God. And they think they're sanctifying
themselves. And we don't sanctify ourselves.
Christ is our sanctification. and he's gonna reveal himself
more and more, and we're not going to be content with a form
of religion. In fact, confidence in a form
is actually a great pitfall for many, because we think this is
it. I do it this way, you don't do
it this way, and so you're not saved, and you're not saved,
and you don't do it like me, and we just have this confidence
And it's a great pitfall, and it leads to many stumbling in
our day, just as many stumbled back here 2,000 years ago in
Christ's day. And so, if we're Christ's, there
will be a true love and devotion for him, and a love for his people,
and we're made thankful for the people of God. who confess the
grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ as well, even though we
may lack the form and lack the niceties that so many have grown
accustomed to in religion, because it's not the conformity to the
form of religion that saves or cleanses or is a means of grace,
it's Christ. Christ is all. And then it's
rational. Our faith in Christ is rational,
meaning believers have an understanding. There's a revelation of God given
unto us in the new man, born of his grace, so that we do have
a knowledge of God. It's not a blind, dumb faith
in darkness. There's a hope that rests upon
the very Savior whom the Father hath sent. God gives us an understanding
of Christ, that we're coming to Christ, right? It's more than
just saying, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. There's many Christs. And believers are taught of God
to know who that Christ is and what they're coming to. We know
what he saved us from. We're made to know who saved
us. We're made to know how he saved
us. We're made to know why he saved
us. He gives us that as he grows us in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so, for example,
many of you will relate to this. We are brought to know what Christ
has saved us from, because For many of us, there were years
spent in religion. There were many years spent striving
and laboring and spending and sacrificing to make ourselves
acceptable unto God and to reconcile ourselves unto God. We had a
lot of the nice dressing. We knew a lot of the right words.
And we knew a lot of doctrine. But we still thought, we still
came in the confidence of what it was that we were doing and
saying. and how we did it, right? We had a lot of confidence in
ourselves, but in that, by the grace of God, we actually came
into condemnation, because by the law is the knowledge of sin.
And what we thought was God hating me, because we would labor and
spend and strive and try and try and try again, only to find
out my heart is blacker than it ever was. I'm more wicked
than I thought, even at the beginning. I'm worse now than when I started
because I see now how wicked I am. And we thought that nothing
we could do could change that or deliver us from that or change. We just were undone. We became
more and more unraveled. And I thought, God hates me. I can't look at all these people
so happy and content in their religion. Why can't that be me? God hates me. I thought I had
sinned against the Holy Ghost, had blasphemed against the Holy
Ghost, and that God hated me. And now I was cast out, cast
out. only to find out that it was
the grace of God that would not accept my works, that would not
give me any peace or rest for what I had done, because that's
where my confidence was. It wasn't in Christ. It was in
me, self-righteous Pharisee, trusting myself. That's not hatred
of God. That's the love of God to show
His child that and to bring them out of that and to bring them
under the blood of Christ. to see that it's all of his grace.
Lord, save me, help me, have mercy upon me. And so it's God's
grace that shows us the deadness of that. It's like, what is it,
2 Corinthians 3, that speaks of laboring under that ministration
of condemnation and death. Because the veil of flesh is
over the heart. But when the Spirit of God comes,
that heart is turned to the Lord. And that veil is lifted, and
we see Christ and confess Christ. It brings us to that confession,
which is it's all of grace, and not of my works. It's all of
grace, 100%, nothing of me. And we're brought to know who
saved us. It's Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, come in the flesh willingly to lay down His life to save
me because there's not a law that God gave that He could give
that would save me, that would provide a righteousness for me.
We know it's Christ that saves. Third, we know how he saved me
in his perfect obedience, in his righteousness being coming
in the fullness of time, born of a woman, made under the law,
and fulfilled that law perfectly in perfect righteousness for
me to make satisfaction for me, to atone for my sins, to go to
the cross willingly, knowing for whom he was going to that
cross, bearing their sins, to put them away forever. And by
his death, they are gone forever, removed. He purged them with
his own blood. They're put away, brethren. They're
put away forever, gone. God doesn't still hold them over
you. They're gone, put away by Christ
because salvation is all of grace. It's not still relying on me.
God has put that away for us in Adam. We're done. That sin in Adam is put away
and we are delivered from that body of death. in Adam, inheriting
that, the wrath of God were taken from that, translated into his
kingdom of Christ, wherein we stand in the hope of God in what
he's done for us in Christ, and he's our inheritance, he's our
righteousness. And fourth, we know why he saved
me, because it pleased him to do so. There's nothing in me. Nothing in me, it pleased him.
It's according to the good pleasure of his will. His will, that's
why. We look at ourselves and we can't
understand why God would be so merciful to a vile, wretched,
base, filthy, black-hearted sinner like us, who sinned many times
against the light that we had even. And yet he should deal
so kindly, so patiently with us to give us that confession
of Christ and not blaspheme the Holy Ghost. So faith rests entirely
upon Christ, entirely upon his finished work for me. And that's really what Luke 12
here is bringing out in this confession. It's a confession
of his grace for all my salvation. which is the exact thing that
the Pharisees would not do. They would not come to Christ
that they might have life. They rejected him. They rejected
his work. They rejected what he said. They
rejected his works. They refused him. They despised
him. They stumbled over that the stone,
the capstone, the stone of stumbling that the father laid, and they
stumbled over him because they were so proud and arrogant and
high and lifted up. And he, as far as they were concerned,
was beneath them, just a servant. How dare he speak like that to
us? And yet he's the very salvation, the very righteousness of God
for his people. And so the difference in what
the Lord does in his people is that he gives us a confession
of his grace, 100%. That is our hope. That is our
hope. As Paul said, we are the circumcision
which worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the
flesh. And he went on to reject and
despise his own works as dung and said, I don't want to be
found in anything I've done. I don't want the stain of this
flesh at all. I want to be found 100% in Christ,
in the sweet savor of his blood. That's what pleases the Father.
That's grace. That's grace. And that's what
the Lord gives his child If we come to Christ, it's because
the Father which sent him drew us. No man can come unto me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him, drag him. The way you
would drag up a net on shore, that's how we're done as far
as this flesh is concerned. I mean, he gives us a willing
heart. We're made willing in the day of his power, but it's
really his grace that dragged us out of that slew of Adam in
the flesh and brought us into the glory of the last Adam, the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is by the sovereign grace
of God that we are saved, and He will not fail. He cannot fail. He is the successful Savior who
accomplished the very work that the Father sent Him to do. Righteously,
gloriously, wondrously, Christ has successfully redeemed all
that the Father gave Him, and not one of His sheep is lost. not a one. And so if he draws
us to Christ, we'll not stop coming to Christ. Believers Our
sinners saved, and sinners need Christ. We need the grace of
God in Christ, and he shows us that, and he keeps us coming
in Christ. And when we get puffed up and
think we're something when we're nothing, he graciously humbles
us because we're his child, and so he'll chastise us the way
you love your own child. When they're doing something
that's gonna bring them harm and destruction, you deal with
them. For the good, for the good, because you love them. And so
we keep coming to Christ, we keep seeking him, we keep asking
him, we keep begging him for his mercy and his grace to save
me. Anytime we look back on what
we've done, it's shameful. I'm ashamed when
I look back. I'm thankful for what Paul said
when he said, I forget those things which are behind. And
I just keep pressing forward to what's before. I just keep
looking to Christ. I don't have anything to boast
in of myself, of what's behind. I just keep looking to him, all
right? Because he delivers us from that
refuge, right? The refuge of yesterday and the
refuge of tomorrow. Those are two false refuges. Today is the day of salvation.
Flee to Christ. Go to him. Come to me, he said. Cast all your burdens. Whatever
you've been holding on to, let it go, and just grab on to Christ
by faith. Just keep confessing Him by the
grace and power of God. Peter said it this way, in 1
Peter 2, 1 through 5, Wherefore, laying aside all malice,
and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings."
That's Phariseeism. That's exactly what the Pharisees
were doing. And he's saying it to us because that's the leaven
in us by nature, that hypocrisy, that evil speaking, that thinking
we're something rather than Christ is all. As newborn babes desire
the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby, if
so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. That's one
who's tasted that the Lord, we're made to know God is gracious.
He's so gracious to me. It's grace upon grace upon grace. To whom coming as unto a living
stone disallowed indeed of men but chosen of God and precious. Ye also as lively stones are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. It's all of
grace, brethren. It's all of grace. As ye have
therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. How did you receive Christ? By
faith, that gift of faith which the Father gave unto us. That's
how you're gonna walk in him. We don't see things as we think
we should. We struggle. We face adversity
and trials and disappointments and setbacks because it is all
of grace. God has purposed it to be so.
It's not that God doesn't have the sovereign power that he claims
to have here. No, he's got all power. And he's purposed it that we
would come by faith always from beginning to end in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so I said this passage here
in Luke 12, verses 8 through 12, it's about confession. We confess Christ to God. When we come, we're coming confessing
Christ. What did Paul say there? If thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved." What confession is that? That's the confession
of, God has saved me by grace, I'm coming in Christ, in all
of Christ. All right, we're confessing him
who saved us, what he saved me from, how he saved me, why he
saved me. He's making us to know that.
He's growing us in that understanding. We confess that it's all the
grace in believers' baptism, right, in Romans 6. We're confessing,
I'm dead. It's not my work saving me. I'm
dead with Christ. He saved me. He's all my righteousness. There's another confession, that
it's all of grace. And we confess Christ before
men in our daily conversation by the Lord's grace. He shows
us the sinfulness of dealing with others by the works of the
flesh. We see them. We see them in our
members, right, in our members. I'm talking about our own selves.
We see the works of the flesh in our mind, our thoughts, how
we go to, I'll show them. I'll get them like this. I'll
say this. I'll do this. You're going to do that. You
ain't going to do that. You know, we just get whipped
up in the flesh. It's all the flesh and we start
tearing down and attacking others and dealing with things in the
flesh, but by the grace of God, we're made to stop and just trust
the Lord and cry out to the Lord for grace. Lord, help me, help
us, help save us, Lord, by your grace. make right these situations
that we just make wrong by our own works. And so we try to live
honestly before others and do what's right. But that's based
on the hope that we have in the Lord. That's not saving us. That's the hope that we have
that he said, I'll deal with that. You cast your burden on
me, and you just keep walking in faith and doing what's right.
And so our confession on top of that is simply that it's all
of His grace that I'm saved. We're confessing to others and
confessing Christ, we're confessing I'm a sinner saved by grace. I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
I was lost, but now I'm found. All I can say is it's of His
grace. And that sounds simple, but when
you're talking to a Pharisee, Whether it's the Pharisee of
your own mind, in the flesh, or it's the Pharisee of another
standing before you, they'll make you feel stupid for trusting
Christ and believing Him. They'll say, you've got to do
something. You can't believe that Christ
is all. And they'll try to make you feel
foolish for trusting Him. And there's people that will
back off and say, maybe I am wrong. But by the grace of God,
he keeps you coming, confessing, no, no, it is of his grace. It's not by my works. Any work
I do is his work. It's by his grace. So there's
that confession of grace. So don't be ashamed of grace. And then that brings us, I'm
going over time, but I wanna finish this stuff. Verse 10,
that brings us finally, Luke 12, verse 10. With that foundation,
I believe it makes this verse more understandable. Whosoever
shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven
him. That clarifies some things for
what we would think is the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. Whosoever
shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven
him. But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall
not be forgiven. There were many who spoke against
Christ in His day. There were many who spoke against
Him Nicodemus only came to Christ by night until the Lord's death. And then he came out of the darkness
and went publicly and claimed, with Joseph of Arimathea, claimed
the body of Christ that he might bury. It was only after the death
of Christ that he confessed him publicly. And Paul said, I was
before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained
mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And frankly, we
know that none of the princes of this world knew who he was,
for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. And so there were many Pharisees
even that spoke against Christ and fought against Christ that
later believed. But only those that went on to
have that confession like Paul, that it's all of grace, were
saved. Because that really is the very
opposite to the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. It's the confession
that our Lord gives us that it's all of grace, to know in your
hearts that it's by the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, even Peter denied Christ.
three times on the night in which he was betrayed, and yet the
Lord restored Peter, didn't he? He did. And said, he prayed that
his faith fail not. So we can see that even a believer
can deny Christ in a season of temptation because the Lord,
the Lord, To our shame, the Lord uses very grievous falls in our
hearts where we think, that's it, surely I have done it now,
and committed the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. I knew
better, I had light, and yet I did that. And believers can
really be troubled by this. You know who's not troubled by
it? The Pharisee, the one who's hardened. and is sealed up in
their hardened heart as though they were seared with a hot iron
and cauterized that heart and just sealed it up, made it hard. But the Lord uses many times
that great fault in which we see, oh, I've got nothing now
to boast in whatsoever. I'm undone. Well, that's where
the Lord brings His child, isn't it? That's where we come and
see, I should not be standing here before you brethren today,
but for the grace of God that delivered me when I should have
been hardened and cast off and shut up. Probably most of us
know somebody who at some point seemed to have a very good confession
that could care less today. and don't even care about it.
Just go off and do your thing without a care in the world. And that's one who's committed
the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost that just has no care. But the Lord, if you're his,
he delivers his child from that and uses that grievous fall to
show them it really is all of grace. That's the confession
of the Spirit of God in you. That one who's confessing his
grace, his grace is grace, and has nothing else but his grace
can't commit that sin. And yet it's the believer that's
most worried about it, because God has made it so, because he's
made us tender and made us to see our folly and wickedness. And so, and then again, just
real quick, verse 11 and 12 again, here it is, the confession, the
confession that we're trusting the grace of God. He said, verse
11 and 12, and when they bring you unto the synagogues and unto
magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing
ye shall answer or what ye shall say, for the Holy Ghost shall
teach you in the same hour what ye shall say. There's a perfect
example of someone who didn't labor for it, who didn't strive
for it, who didn't try and make it happen, but trusted that it's
all of grace. You mean the Holy Spirit without
me doing anything? The Holy Spirit will give me
what I need in that hour by grace? 100% by grace? Yep. And that's exactly what I believe
the Lord is teaching us here. That the very opposite of the
blasphemy of the Holy Ghost is that it's all of grace. Because
you can have a form of religion and do amazing things in this
world your whole life and yet you're not trusting it's all
of grace. That one's committed the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost
because the Holy Ghost testifies it's all of grace by the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's our confession, brethren.
Amen.