Turn back to Matthew chapter
12. Matthew chapter 12. Pick up here in verse 22. The
setting here is this. A man possessed with
the devil. I don't know I don't profess
to know, and I don't want to know. This matter of being
demon-possessed or possessed, here it says, of a devil, a demon,
I don't study that, I study Christ. I'm not concerned about them,
I'm concerned about Him who's able to cast them out. I know
of a man one time that was studying, got into studying this, demon
possession and started hearing voices in his study. You don't
want to get into that. You don't want to get into that. Our study is the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we see here is his power. His power over this demon. And then another thing we see
here are the Pharisees. We have the Lord. We have this
man possessed of a devil. We have the Pharisees who actually
are in league with the devil and was charging Christ for being
in league with the devil. And this charge that they brought
on him Our Lord lets them know how serious this charge that
they bring against him is. He calls it the unpardonable
sin, a sin that can't be forgiven. And this is not an easy portion
of scripture to deal with, but we're gonna look at it. Now it
says here, verse 22, a man possessed with the devil. He was blind
and he was dumb. He was taken over by Satan. And I'm not saying that everyone
lost is possessed of a devil, but I do know this. I can say
this. Everyone who is lost is under
the power and influence of the spirit of darkness. Look over in Ephesians chapter
two. Let me show you this from scripture. It appears that some cases are,
they're totally possessed and taken over, like that demoniac
at the Gadarene Center, he was possessed of legion. The Lord
said, what's your name? He said, legion, because we're
many. Well, legion was a number of 2,000. He possessed 2,000. It was taken over by him. But
listen, in Ephesians chapter two, and you hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you
walked according to this world." That was the way you lived. Your
walk is your life. It's your life. He said, this
is the way you lived. According to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
That's the way you worked. That's the way you walked. And
this spirit of disobedience, he says, works. It works. and everyone who's lost, who's
lost. Among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling
the desire of the flesh and the mind. And we're by nature the
children of wrath, even as others. But at one time, we all walked
under the spirit of darkness, the spirit of the prince of the
power of the air. That's how everyone walks outside of Jesus
Christ. Everyone. Now he says here, this man was
possessed with the devil, he's blind and he's dumb, and he's
brought to the Lord Jesus Christ to heal. And this, first of all,
I think is as bad as it gets. I think when a person's totally
taken over by Satan, it's as bad as it gets. But this is a very good example
of all men and women before salvation. It said, look over in 2 Corinthians
chapter four. Let's do a little Bible search
this morning. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. In verse 3, he says, but if our
gospel be hid, if it's hid, if you can't understand it, if when
the gospel is preached, and you just, it's like you don't see
it, you don't understand it, you don't get it. If our gospel
be hid, it's hid to them, first of all, that are lost. in whom
the God, the little g, the little g, in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. A person who
is blind cannot see. And one of the first things that
happens when God saves the sinner And I know this by experience. The first thing that happened
was I said, I see, I see it. Meaning I understand. I see it. When I heard Henry preaching
the gospel and I've been reading the scriptures for a few years
and it came together and I see it. I see. But until the Lord
commands the light to shine in your heart, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
you can't see. You can't see Him, you can't
see His glory, you can't see the wisdom of God, the glory
of God in the person of Jesus Christ. So it's a good picture of us,
it says here, if our gospel heads head to them that are lost, and
whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who's the image of God, should shine unto them. He's blinded
their minds. They're blind to the truth. You
can hear the truth, but you can't understand it. You can hear the
truth, and it has no real meaning to you. You can't see it. In dumb, that is you're unable
to speak, unwilling to cry for mercy, spiritually dead. But this man brought to Christ,
this is his condition. This is all our conditions before
God saves us. But we see Christ's power over
principalities. No one could help this man No
one could help this man. None of those priests, religion,
none could help this man. Only the Lord Jesus Christ could
save this man from the power of Satan. He's the only one who has the
power to cast out principality. He's the only one who has power
over all principalities and the power of darkness. And with just a word, with just
a word, he cast out that devil. Just a word. But no one else
has that kind of power. I don't know if you remember,
I believe, I don't remember if it's in the
Gospel or the Book of Acts, but I don't know the situation. There
were some Jews who tried to do an exorcist. I don't know
if you remember this. They tried to do an exorcist,
what they call an exorcist. They tried to cast out this demon. And when they came and tried
to do that, the demon said, Jesus, we know. Paul, we know. But who are you? Who are you? We know Jesus. We know Apostle
Paul. We know his preachers. We know
his preachers. But who in the world are you?
Who do you think you are? And you know what happened? It
says that the demon leaped on them and they ran out of the
house naked. Just beat them up and they ran out of the house
naked. But when they come before our Lord, they gotta submit. Jesus, we know. When he speaks,
we know it. When he tells us to go, we have
to go. There's no challenge to the power
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the Lord healed him by casting
out this devil. Satan is very real and very powerful,
very powerful. He has great power over men and
women, but he has no power over the Lord Jesus Christ. And there
are none under his power that he cannot save. Not even that
legion, not even that one that was possessed, but 2000 of them. They had to go. When our Lord
comes along, he binds the strong man of the house. When the stronger
man comes into the house, the weaker one has to go. And he
acknowledges Our Lord acknowledges that Satan is a strong man. We'll
get to that in a minute. But when the stronger one comes
in, there's one who is stronger. There is one who's greater. And
that's the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not one sin, there's
not one devil that he cannot overcome by his power. You know, one of the things that
I noticed in reading the Gospels, in all of those who were possessed
that were brought to the Lord, they never came by themselves.
They never came of their own. Someone else brought them. They
didn't come to Him because they said, Lord, I'm possessed of
a devil. Would you get rid of him? They were always in league. They were always in league with
Satan, always, until the Lord cast him out. And when he did, when the Lord
cast that devil out, the people saw a real change. They were
amazed. They were amazed. They saw a
real change. This man. Now, picture yourself
there. This man, I'm sure, was known
in the community. He was known. They bring him
to the Lord. And the Lord cast that devil
out with just a word. And that man could see. He could see, he had 20-20 vision. That man could speak. For the
first time, he could speak and articulate his thoughts. And the thing that just stands
out and amazes me is the hatred and the prejudice of these Pharisees against Christ was so strong
that right in the presence of his power, they charged that to being the
power of Satan. Instead of being amazed. Now,
some of the people there of salt were amazed. They were amazed. But those Pharisees weren't.
No. No, they said in verse 24, Here
comes this discussion that takes the center stage of this message
here. They said in verse 24 that he
cast out devils by the prince of the devil. He's a phony. Don't be taken in by him, he's
a phony. He's in league with Satan. Don't be fooled, is what they're
saying. When they couldn't catch him
doing something unlawful, they got down in the gutter.
I tell you, when someone hates you, they won't stop at anything,
will they? They got down in the gutter and
they said, no, what you all just saw was the work of Satan, not
of God. It was a work of Satan. By saying
this, he's saying this man, Jesus, and Satan are in league together. They're one together. And our
Lord's gonna point out that they are walking on very dangerous
ground, that you just don't get mad and throw some words out
here. You don't just toss some words out here and think that
it's just gonna pass by. These words, these accusations
that you're saying, they're gonna come back. They're gonna come
back. We'll see this at the end of
this, how thorough, thorough judgment is. So they charge his work to Satan.
that he's in league with Satan. And verse 25 tells us that he
knew their thoughts. Well, he didn't just say he heard
what they were saying. He knew their thoughts. The scripture says, no thought
can be withheld from thee. Can you read what I'm thinking
right now? I can't read what you're, you're
looking at me. I mean, I may have some of your attention.
You may be thinking of the next golf game or something. I mean,
you might be thinking of that. But I tell you what, the Lord
knows my thoughts. He knows exactly what I'm thinking.
Exactly. And they didn't realize that.
He knew their thoughts. No thought can be withheld from
him. He's God. Now you can't read somebody's
mind or know somebody's thought unless you're God. You have to
be God. And he's God. And he reads their
mind perfectly and he gave them the right answer. And he's saying
here now, you might want to think about what you just said. Satan,
he's doing this by the power of Satan. He's casting out devils.
He's casting out his own. by Satan. And he said, you men
might want to think about this. You know, stupid people say stupid
things. And this is really, it's really
stupid what they're saying. And our Lord is, he gives them
a correct answer. A kingdom divided against itself
can't stand. If Satan cast out Satan, he's
not going to stand. He's going to defeat himself.
He's going to defeat himself. That being so, Christ and Satan
could not be in league together. He said, we can't be in league
together, which means that what I just did was of God. It's of God. Now, one of the things that our
Lord shows us is this, and you know, don't let this go past
us. Satan does have a kingdom in this world. He does have a
kingdom. There's two kingdoms in this
world. One of Satan and the Lord's kingdom. His kingdom, the church. It's in this world. It's a kingdom of darkness. It
is a kingdom of rebellion, the spirit of rebellion. You think,
why are these people so rebellious? Well, there's a spirit behind
it that you can't see. It's a spirit of iniquity. You know, the scripture speaks
of the mystery of iniquity is already at work. The mystery
of iniquity, of sin, and what's going on in rebellion. But you and I, what we can't
see with these eyes is the conflict and the war that's going on in
that spiritual realm that we can't see. But believers, those
who are born of God, we have the Word of God and we do see
and understand that there is a spirit of darkness and rebellion
and Satan that's in this world. He has a kingdom in this world. And it's nothing but sin and
rebellion and darkness, and it's against God. It's against God's
glory. It's made up of the world. You
know, when we look at the world, we see the principles of it,
the lies of it, the darkness of it. We're looking at the kingdom
of Satan. That's what we're looking at. And Christ said, listen,
Christ said his kingdom was not of this world. His kingdom is a kingdom of light,
a kingdom of righteousness, a kingdom of truth, a kingdom of love,
a kingdom of joy. That's his kingdom. That's his kingdom. Christ puts
a question to them. He makes them to be their own
judges. He says, if I cast out devils by Beelzebub, by whom
do your children, your converts cast them out? They knew the
only one who would cast out devils was God. They knew that. And he makes them be their own
judges. Now, I doubt seriously that they cast any out, but they
claim to. You know, they claim to. It's
like these, you see these people on TV, they claim to be faith
healers. You know, they claim to. You
can claim anything. You can claim to be intelligent
if you want to, and you can be dumb as a box of rocks. We can
claim anything, but our Lord doesn't come here and just claim
things. He doesn't. He cast the devil out. That man
spake, and that man was able to see and hear. He was able
to whatever his problem was. And he says this, now, if I do
this by the Spirit of God, which he did, the Holy Spirit, he said,
then know this, the kingdom of God is among you. The kingdom
of God is a spiritual kingdom. It's not a physical kingdom.
It's a spiritual kingdom. It's what it is. And he says
it's among you. You know, if you have the gospel,
if you have the gospel preached to you, if God has sent the gospel here,
he's here. And the kingdom of God is among
us. It's among us. They were looking
for a physical kingdom. That's what they were looking
for. They were looking for the Messiah to come and set up a physical kingdom,
whip all their enemies, and they would get to sit on the throne,
and they'd be at the top of the heap. King of the mountain. I remember growing up, we used
to play king of the mountain. I don't know if y'all did that
down south or not, but we'd get up on a high knoll, and then
we'd just slam people off of it. Whoever was able to stay
on top was king of the mountain. And somebody be charging up,
grab you, try to wrestle you off the top of it. But that's
what they thought. They weren't concerned with God's
glory. They were concerned with being
king of the mountain. That's all. Our Lord gives a powerful scripture
here in verse 29. He says, the only way to cast
out the strong man, Satan, is for a stronger one than Satan
to come into the house and take it over. The only way for you and I to be saved is
for the Lord Jesus Christ to come in and take over the house.
He's the stronger man. Yes, Satan is a strong man, stronger
than any of us. But our Lord is the stronger
man. And what he's saying is that the stronger man is in the
house. The stronger man is in the house. He's not, there is no equality
of power between Satan and Jesus Christ. There is no equality
of power. Satan has power, but you know
why he has power? God gave it to him. The only
power he has is what he's given, what he's allowed to have. That's
the only power he has. Pilate said, don't you know I
have the power to crucify you and the power to let you go?
And he said, you don't have any power at all. You have no power
at all except to be given to you from above. The stronger man is in the house. And he that's not with me is
against me. He that gathers not with me scatters abroad. There's
no neutral ground, what he's saying here. There's no neutral
ground. There's no neutral ground. He
said, you might wanna, you Pharisees, you may wanna just back up here
a minute. You might wanna listen to me for a minute. There is
no neutral ground. You know, you can say, I've never
confessed Christ. I've never confessed Christ and
fall after Christ, but I don't hate him. Well, the Lord said,
if you're not with me, you're against me. I told you this last
week, not to bow is to rebel. Not to follow is to scatter abroad. He said, he that doesn't gather
with me, he scatters abroad. He's opposite to me. He opposes
me. To not confess Christ is to oppose
Jesus Christ. It's to be in opposition to Him. No one, no one is standing on
the sidelines watching. Everyone is a participant on
one side or the other. One or the other. And here's
a serious warning. Here's a serious warning. He says in verse 31, he said,
all right, wherefore now I say to you, all manner of sin and
blasphemy shall be forgiven to men, but the blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven to men. He said that sin will
not be forgiven. And whosoever speaks the word
against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. They called
him a winebibber. They called him a gluttonous
man. Whatever he's being called, listen,
can be forgiven. Can be forgiven. But he says,
but. Whoever, whosoever speaks against
the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this
world, neither in the world to come. This is not an easy, easy verse
to handle. And I think many of God's children
often fear, have I ever done this? Well, first let me say
this, none of God's children will ever do this. They'll never
do this. They can't, they can't. By these miracles, listen, by
these miracles, the Holy Spirit was testifying that this is the
Christ. This is the Christ. Christ was
approved of God, but the Pharisees were saying, no, the devil is
working in you. The devil's working in you to
do this. They were charging his work to the devil. To blaspheme
the Holy Spirit is to attribute the work of Christ to the work
of Satan. I heard, and I may have told
you this, but I hope your memory's like mine, you won't remember
it. I heard Jimmy Swagger on television
say one time, well, I heard him preach this message, five damnable
doctrines. And he took the five points of
what we call Calvinism, he took the doctrines of grace, and he
absolutely slammed them and charged them to sin. being satanic. I listened to that message. I
thought I can't believe it. I don't know why I can't believe
it, but it was just... Is to take the work of Christ
and attribute that work to the devil. To take the message, the
message of grace I mean the message of the grace, the sovereign grace
of God, and attribute that message to Satan. One writer said this, and I thought
it was good. Sin against the Holy Spirit is not an unconscious
sin. Those Pharisees knew what they
were doing. They knew that they were charging
him to be in satanic. They knew that. There was a clear
revelation that Jesus is the Christ. He's the Messiah. He
is God manifested in the flesh. And the Pharisee said, no, this
is Satan. Our Lord is saying, you can say
what you want about me, but when the Holy Spirit clearly reveals
who I am, and one says, that's the devil. He said, that's serious
business. That's serious business. Now,
as far as who commits this, I'll leave that in God's hands. But
I know no child of God will. I know none of His sheep will.
The Holy Spirit is blasphemed when Jesus Christ is clearly
set forth in the message of redemption. And that message is attributed
to Satan. That's dangerous ground. And our Lord says this, He said,
now either make the tree good and the fruit good or make the
tree corrupt and the fruit corrupt. You can't straddle the fence.
You're on one side or the other. You're either for me or against
me. The tree is known by its fruit. Listen, judge by what
I have done to be good or evil. If it's good, then your judgment
of me is evil. Here stands a man possessed with
the devil. He's blind, he's dumb, And the Lord healed me. He said,
now you judge, you judge whether this was good or evil. If you say it's good, what you
did is good, then your judgment of me is evil. And then he calls it what they
are. Old generation of vipers, like their daddy, the serpent
there in the garden. Good cannot come from a corrupt
heart. That's what he's saying. And
what he's saying to them, your heart's corrupt. Your heart's
corrupt. The way a person speaks about
Christ, the way a person speaks about others, is who and what
that person is. A fool, Solomon says, is known
by the multitude of words. And our Lord says this, and here's
the depth of God's judgment. We don't give any thought to
idle words, do we? We don't really. We have just
a conversation, speaking. You know, we may say, did you
hear about so-and-so? You know that God says right
here in his word that judgment is so thorough that every idle
word will be brought into judgment. Aren't you glad for Jesus Christ?
Because I've said a lot of them. I've said a lot of them. And I thank God that in Christ,
they've been judged and they're gone. But those who wind up in judgment
outside of Christ, every thought, every thought
that's ever passed through their mind is going to be brought up. That's why the scripture says
to bring every thought into subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ. Even
our thoughts are to be brought into subjection to Him before
they ever come out of our mouth. Now that's weighty, isn't it? Before we ever let a word come
out of our mouth, we should give a thought to it and subject it
to Christ. Do I need to say this? Will it be, will it do good? Will it bring glory to Christ?
I wish, I wouldn't have thought I could think like that before
it ever came out of my mouth. Mind you, I feel bad about it.
Wish I hadn't done it. And of course, it's like a bullet.
Once you shoot it out of the gun, it's gone. It's gone. It
ain't coming back. Once said, always said. Every idle word will be brought
to judgment. Words are a revelation of the heart, that's why. They're
a revelation of the heart. Verse 37, by thy words I shall
be justified and by thy words I shall be condemned. One writer
wrote this, words shall be the indication of the true principles
of the heart. Words shall be the indication
of the true principles of the heart. Solomon said, speaking of himself
as the preacher, he said, the preacher sought out acceptable
words. I think of that scripture from
time to time when I'm studying to preach. When I'm putting together an
outline, be careful of your words. They mean something, they mean
something. I don't know what knucklehead
wrote, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will
never hurt me. Oh yes. Words hurt and last a lot longer
than sticks and stones. They last a lot longer. And our Lord is telling these
men, He's telling us, give thought to what you're saying.
Because they were charging what he did to this man to Satan. And he's saying, you're walking
on dangerous ground. Walking on dangerous ground. I pray that the Lord will He will give us light, understanding,
a heart to seek after Him, a heart of understanding, and as a word of comfort, believers
cannot commit the unpardonable sin. There is an unpardonable
sin, but believers can't do it. God will hold men and women accountable
even for what they say, especially about Him.