Well, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter three, and I'll answer
the question that's probably on many minds this morning. After
the service this morning, our brother Kendon Kazee is going
to confess the Lord in baptism. This is going to be a special
day. We're thankful. Let's bow before our Lord and
give him thanks. Our Father, we bow before you,
thankful people. Lord, how thankful we are for
your mercy and your grace to your people and Christ our Savior. Father, we're so thankful because
salvation, redemption, righteousness could not come to sinners like
us any other way but by your grace. Father, we're so thankful. Father, we're thankful. that
even in this dark day in which we live, that you're still calling
out your sheep by the preaching of the gospel. Father, we're
thankful. We're thankful especially that
you do it in our number, to those in our town, to our children,
to our loved ones. Father, we thank you. And Father,
I pray that you would continue to bless your word, that you'd
call out many, many more of your sheep. according to your eternal
will and purpose. Father, I pray that you send
your spirit upon us and enable us to worship you this morning.
Father, bless your word. Bless the preaching and bless
the hearing of your word. I pray, Father, that you would
enable me not to attempt to preach your word in the power, the intellect
of the flesh, but Father, that you'd enable me by thy spirit
to rightly divide the word of truth, and that you'd enable
your people to hear with ear faith, that you'd enable us to
believe. And what we pray for ourselves,
Father, we pray for all of your people everywhere, wherever they
may meet together today. Father, bless for your great
namesake, for our good, but Father, for your great namesake, that
your name would be glorified, saving, keeping, comforting,
unifying your people. And Father, we pray a blessing
for those that you brought into the valley of trouble and trial. We pray a special blessing for
the family of our brother, Joe Terrell, that Father, that you'd
bless them as they're bereaved and as they go through the memorial
service today, Father, that you'd comfort their hearts as only
you can. and others that need you especially,
Father, be with them. Heal and comfort, be with your
people. All these things we ask and we
give thanks in that name which is above every name, the name
of Christ our Savior, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
The Unpardonable Sin. And when I say that, I know that
different sins can go through the minds of of different people. There are many, depending on
what denomination, what kind of person you talk to, they all
have a different definition of the unpardonable sin. I hope
we see from scripture this morning what that unpardonable sin actually
is. Now our lesson begins, Mark 3
verse 20. And the multitude cometh together
again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when
his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him,
for they said he is beside himself. Now earlier in this chapter,
the Lord had healed many people of many different plagues and
illnesses. The Lord had cast out many demons.
And then the Lord called his 12 disciples. Well now word of
this has spread all over the place and people who needed healing
They came to the Savior. They came to be where He was.
And there were so many of them that they crowded into the house
that the Lord and His disciples didn't even have room to lift
their arms to be able to eat. They're just crammed in there
like sardines, you know. Now all these people are there
thronging the Savior. And I'm just sure because this
is what He did that we read about so many times in Scripture. He
taught the people. Those people that were there,
He taught them. He probably taught them of salvation in him. He probably told them the truth
who he is. He's the son of God. He talked about grace, not law. Well, that was such a shock to
them. It was such a new thing that
somebody is talking to them of grace, not law. He talked to
them about mercy, not religious ceremony. I'm assuming that all
these people that gathered together there were Jews. Their whole
lives, from the time they were infants, was all about religious
ceremony. And our Lord's telling them salvation's
not in that. It's in the mercy of God. He
probably was saying the same things that are recorded that
he said in all the other four gospels. I know this, he didn't
say anything different, right? Those are probably the things
that he was talking to them about. And his friends came in. Now
that word friends doesn't mean just, you know, your friends,
it's his kinsmen. This is his family, his family
after the flesh. They were embarrassed that Jesus,
their brother, their cousin, their whoever, you know, they
were embarrassed that he was making these outlandish sounding
statements. It embarrassed them. So they went in to get him and
lead him away from the crowd. You know, they're telling people,
this is what actually, Don't mind him. You know, he doesn't
know what he's saying. He always has been, you know,
a little touchy today. Every family's got one, you know,
and he's ours. And they're trying to lead him away. Now on a side note, just let
me take a brief detour and tell you this. Every believer would
like for folks to see Christ in us, wouldn't they? I would
like for people to take note of me, that I've been with the
Lord. Same way that they took note of the disciples, the apostles,
that they'd been with Jesus. We like that. But don't be too
discouraged when folks don't see Christ in you. People didn't
see Christ in Christ. Even his own brothers and sisters.
His brothers and sisters who grew up with him, who never one
time saw him sin, who never one time saw him do anything wrong,
they thought, he's a little touched in the head to think this. they
didn't see. Now later on, apparently some
of them will see, but right now it doesn't look like that they
do. And that's what, you know, they didn't see Christ in Christ.
The people closest to him didn't see him. And they said, he's
just beside himself. He's gone crazy. And religious
people say the same things today about people who believe the
gospel, the gospel of God's sovereign grace, that salvation is of the
Lord. It's not of your decision. It's not of your good works,
salvation's of the Lord. It's of his choosing, of his
mercy, of his grace, of his calling, of his keeping. And people say,
that's crazy. That's just crazy talk. That's
the devil. They say, it's satanic to say
Christ didn't die for everyone. Well, that's just satanic. That's
so mean and cruel to just say that Christ only died for the
elect. They say, well, that's satanic. Now, they can't find
a scripture to refute the gospel of God's grace in Christ, can
they? They can't find a scripture to refute it. So they just say,
that's of the devil. You're crazy to believe such
a thing. And here's why they say that. They don't know what
else to say. They just say, you're crazy. Now I'm afraid that the Lord's
kinsmen gave the Lord's enemies a foothold here, they gave them
something to latch onto, because look what happens in verse 22.
And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, he hath
Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils, casteth he out
devils. Now I think the Lord's kinsmen
gave these scribes, you know, a good idea. And they said, well,
the Lord's casting out demons by the power of Satan, not by
the power of God. You know, they had to say something
to discredit him, didn't they? I mean, this man was healing
folks. This man was casting out demons. The scribes never did
that. This man's doing something that
we've never seen before. And they had to discredit him
somehow. They couldn't refute what he
was doing, the miracles that he did. They couldn't say he
didn't do it. Obviously he did. They couldn't refute his message.
So here's what they did. They tried to tear the man down.
They could attack the message, so they tried to tear the man
down. And they said, well, he's in
league with the devil. This is not the power of God that you're
seeing. This is the power of Satan. Now this man is operating
under the power of Satan, so you'd better stay away from him. And religious people do the same
thing today. The very same thing they do to
God's servants. They can't refute the message.
If our message comes directly from the word of God, they can't
refute the message. So what they do is they throw
up a smoke screen and they say, the man's a heretic. He just
a heretic. He'd fallen from grace. Now they
can't prove that from the word of God. They can't take any scripture
and show you that that's true. So they throw up a smoke screen.
They might try to twist the scripture, but they're, They're throwing
up a smoke screen by calling this man a heretic, trying to
just tell a lie over and over and over and over again until
somebody finally believes him. But if you just think about it
for two seconds, I mean, I know salvation is not knowledge, but
now there's some things that are just logically obvious. This was a, I mean, I know this
is an ugly word today, this is a stupid accusation. It makes
no sense whatsoever. And that's pretty much true of
the accusation that false religion makes all over the place, you
know, about people who believe the gospel. And the Lord just
takes the legs completely out of this accusation. Look at verse
23. And he called them unto him and
said unto them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? If
a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against
itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against
himself and be divided, he cannot stand but hath an end. Now, even
human logic can see what describes or saying is not true. Even human
logic can see that. If the Lord Jesus was in league
with Satan, he would not be casting out Satan's demons. He would
not be doing something contrary to the purpose, you know, of
Satan, because that would destroy Satan's whole agenda. It would
tear his whole kingdom down. Satan's smarter than that. I
mean, don't think Satan's a fool. Now, he's smarter than that.
He's not gonna do that. The Lord says a house divided
against itself cannot stand. I mean, isn't that obvious? And you apply that logic to any
organization, really. Apply it to countries. A country
that's in a civil war is gonna destroy itself, sure, sure. you
apply that logic to the local church. Any local church where
people got a bunch of different agendas that they want to promote,
they want to promote themselves or want to do whatever, different
agendas, and they're, as a congregation, their agenda, they're not in
unity for the glory of Christ, that local church is gonna fall
apart. It just is. We gotta have one agenda. got
to be Christ and Christ alone. Now that's just good old-fashioned
common sense, isn't it? Two people can't be fighting
against each other and work in unity to get somewhere. Look
at 1 John 3. Our Savior did not come to be
in league with the devil. He came to destroy the devil.
1 John 3, verse 8. He that commits sin is of the
devil. For the devil sinneth from the
beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested.
Here's why he came, was manifested in the flesh, that he might destroy
the works of the devil. The Lord just completely took
this argument. He just took the legs out completely
from under it, didn't he? You know, I tried to think about
this week. What would I do if somebody to my face, and people
seldom have the courage to do it to your face, but if somebody
to my face made this accusation against me? Frank, you're in
league with the devil. What you're doing is satanic. My family will tell you that
I'm not known for great patience. I would not deal well with that
accusation. I can just tell you. But I want
you to look how the Lord dealt with it. Instead of just going
off on them, and you know, he had the power to bring down fire
upon them. He could have done all kinds
of things. But our Lord took that accusation
in front of all this crowd that was just thronging him so that
they couldn't lift up their arms to eat. Our Lord preached the
gospel. Look here at verse 27, back in
our text, Mark 3. No man can enter into a strong
man's house and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the
strong man. Then he will spoil his house.
Now look at Ephesians chapter two. You know, all of us are
born in the power and control of this strong man that the Lord's
talking about. All of us are born dead in sin
under the power of Satan. Ephesians 2 verse 1. And you hath he quickened, who
were dead in trespasses and sins. That's the way he came into this
world. That's the way God found you, dead in trespasses and sin.
Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. among
whom also we all had our conversation, we all had our citizenship in
times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, even as others, were under the control, the influence of
the prince of the power of the air, Satan himself. Now don't
be deceived by modern religion, and I saw this channel surfing
around, and it's what I do. I mean, it's a stupid thing to
do. This is what I do. I stop, you know, on some religious
show, and I watch this woman who said she was praying, but
in her prayer, oddly enough, she was speaking to Satan, rebuking
Satan, telling Satan to come out of people who are blind and
come out of people who, who have cancer and come out of people
who have kidney disease and come out of people who are lame, you
know, so they can walk and so they can, you know, be healed
of their cancer and so forth. She was rebuking Satan. Don't
do that. Don't do that. Look what happened
to the apostle Peter when Satan desired to have him. He sifted
him like wheat, didn't he? Michael, the archangel, who was
so much more powerful than you and I, can even imagine, you
know, when he came face to face with Satan, what did he say?
I'm not fighting with you. The Lord rebuked thee. The Lord
don't do that. Satan is a real enemy with real
power. We don't stand a chance against
him. He's called the deceiver. Paul called him the prince of
the world. He deceived, and he would, with his power, deceive
the entire world if God would permit him to do it. He's got
the power to do it if the Lord would allow it. Paul told Timothy,
men are taken captive by Satan at his will. Now, you and I are
not born with either the desire, the will, or the power to set
ourselves free from Satan. When Satan takes hold of a person,
now he intends to keep them. He intends to. He creates a well-defended
position. I like to see documentaries and
things on World War II. And boy, Hitler, when he took
control of Europe, boy, he started building up that wall, didn't
he? He was gonna build up that Atlantic wall. I mean, he intended
to hang on to that thing. He was prepared to defend this
against the Allies at all costs. That's what Satan does. He takes
hold of a person. He intends to hang on to him. He's strong. He's well armed.
He's well defended. And the only way Satan can be
cast out is if somebody stronger than him comes and throws him
out. That's what has to be done. And
that stronger man is Christ our Savior. He casts Satan out and
he spoils the house. He takes control of it all. And
the battle, now when Christ comes into the hearts of one of his
people, don't imagine that this battle between the Savior and
Satan is this epic battle, you know, and it goes back and forth
and you don't know who's gonna win. There's really no epic struggle. There's no struggle whatsoever.
The battle is over the moment the Savior speaks. Get out. Satan got to go. He's thrown
out by the power of God. When the Savior comes and he
comes into the hearts of his people, he casts Satan out. Now
I'm telling you, all sin is forgiven. All the power of sin is gone. It's gone. All the power of Satan
is gone. Satan can no longer deceive you
because Christ reigns in the heart. Satan can no longer be
the accuser of the brethren and accuse you of any sin because
Christ put your sin away. There's no sin that he can accuse
you of. Christ put it all away. Your sin no longer has the power
to condemn you. Christ was condemned for you.
Your sin, your sin nature, that old man, he cannot stop you from
believing Christ anymore. There was a time you could not
believe. I mean, no matter what, you couldn't believe. Now you
believe and you can't stop believing. Why is that? It's because Christ
took up residence in your heart. That's what happened. He's on
the throne. Now that's how God saves his
people. Christ comes in and he throws Satan out and he rules.
He reigns. Christ is the king wherever he
goes. But now, The Lord gives us a
serious warning. He told us the good news. This
is the good news. This is how God saves sinners,
just by his power, by his will, and nobody can withstand him.
But then he gives us a very serious warning. Verse 28. Verily I say
unto you, all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies
wherewith soever they shall blaspheme. But he that shall blaspheme against
the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. Now the unpardonable sin, it's
the sin of unbelief. Unbelief is blaspheming against
the Holy Ghost and saying I will not believe that gospel. I hear
the scripture say to trust Christ, I won't do it. I'm not gonna
trust Christ, I'm gonna keep going my own way. I've always
heard if I do good enough, God will accept me. I'm gonna keep
trusting in my works, not Christ alone. Maybe it could be my works
plus Christ, but it's not Christ alone. That's blaspheming against
the Holy Spirit. And the one and only reason God's
gonna send people to hell is they refuse to believe on the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the only sin that'll damn
a man. If you trust Christ, you will be saved. I don't care what
other outward sin you've committed. Whatever it is. Think of the
worst sins you can think of. If you've committed it, but you
trust Christ, you will be saved. You will be with Christ in glory.
And I don't care what you haven't done. If you don't trust Christ,
you will not be saved. You'll be damned. See, the one
and only issue is this. Do you trust Christ? We preach
this gospel. We preach the gospel from all
these different scriptures, from this whole book. And the issue,
the only issue of this entire book is this. Do you believe
Christ? Do you trust Christ? What think
ye of Christ? It's the only issue. Let me show
you that a couple of scriptures. John chapter three. John chapter
three. Verse 36. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. If you believe on Christ right
now, you have everlasting life. It's not something you have to
wait to get. It's not something that you'll receive in glory.
If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ right at this very moment,
you have eternal life. That's what the Savior said.
And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abideth on him. Now look at Hebrews chapter 10.
The Savior brought that all down
to one thing. Do you believe Christ or not? That's the issue.
Hebrews chapter 10, the writer to the Hebrews does the same
thing. Verse 26. For if we sin willfully, if we
willfully Choose not to believe God. Refuse to believe Christ. After that we've received the
knowledge of the truth. There remaineth no more sacrifice for
sins. All that remains is a certain fearful looking for of judgment
and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. He that
despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
How much more sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought
worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted
the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing,
and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace. If somebody
died under Moses' law, what do you think ought to happen to
somebody that refuses to believe Christ after they've heard him
preached? Blaspheming the Holy Ghost is
refusing to believe Christ and it's trotting underfoot, the
blood of Christ's sacrifice. It's saying it's just not worthy
of anything but to be stomped on, but me to walk on it. Anybody
who dies in that willful unbelief, they will be damned. They have
to be, don't they? They have to be. They've rejected
the only Savior. There's only one way of salvation.
It's in Christ. He's the way, right? Well, if
you reject the only way of salvation, all that's left is damnation.
You know, the scriptures tell us of idolaters that were forgiven. The scriptures tell us of murderers.
They were forgiven. They were forgiven. It tells
us of adulterers. Scripture tells us, gives us
a wonderful story of a woman taken in the very act of adultery.
And the Savior told her, your sins be forgiven thee. Even those who blasphemed Christ,
that thief dying beside him was blaspheming him, wasn't he? And
before that bad day was over, the Savior told him, today shalt
thou be with me in paradise. But scripture never tells us
one time of someone who insisted in their unbelief and refused
to trust Christ who was saved, who was given eternal life, not
one. That's very sobering, isn't it?
Very, very serious. Now I know this, somebody here
is worrying the same thing that I thought about as I read this
scripture and began preparing this lesson this week. I can
remember a time I refused to trust Christ I can remember a time, I mean,
I can't even begin to tell you how many gospel messages that
I heard. Didn't believe. Didn't trust
Christ. I even thought it was true. But
didn't trust it. Is there no hope for me? I mean,
I did this. I refused to trust Christ. Is
there no hope for me? I was born not believing Christ.
And when I heard of him, I didn't believe him. Does that mean I
have no hope? I mean, that's an awful, horrible
fear to live with, isn't it? Well, let me give you some comfort
on this. You know, the evidence that we're
still under the influence of Satan is our unbelief, our refusal
to trust Christ. That is Satan's number one goal,
to deceive you and get you to trust anything but Christ alone.
That's the way Satan came to Eve, wasn't it? He came to Eve
and he said, the very first time we read of Satan in Scripture,
he came to Eve and he said, now did God say this? He didn't say
this, did he? God didn't mean that. He twisted
the Scriptures. He started putting doubt. He
lied to her, to deceive her. He tried to deceive Eve into
not believing God and it worked. She took the fruit and ate it.
Listen. That's still Satan's agenda today.
Satan's agenda today is to get people to not believe on Christ
because he knows this. If somebody believes on Christ,
they're going to be saved. They're going to have eternal
life and he can never touch them. But if he can get just one, just
one for whom Christ died, Satan knows the father elected the
people. If he can just get one of those elect to not trust Christ,
he'll win the whole shooting match. This is his number one
goal. Now that's the evidence that
we're still under the power of Satan. When we're born into this world,
we're born with a spiritually dead nature. That's why it's
so easy for us to be deceived. Because we've got a dead nature,
a nature that can't see, a nature that cannot believe. But just
like our Savior told us earlier, now when Christ comes in, He
kicks Satan out. He kicks that darkness out and
there's light. There's life, there's faith,
there's forgiveness. Once Satan is kicked out, he
can't deceive you into not trusting Christ ever again. Now let me
give you two ways that Christ comes and he binds Satan and
he casts him out of God's elect. You know, the worry is it's not
just that at one time I refused to trust Christ. is do I die
that way? Am I gonna live and die that
way? Not if you're Christ, you won't. No, not if you belong
to him, you won't. And first, this is gonna happen
by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. At the cross, Christ's
heel was bruised, wasn't it? Just exactly like God promised
to Adam and Eve. His heel was bruised, but now
he recovered. He died, he died for the sins
of his people, but he rose again. The sacrifice of Christ though,
that bruised his heel, but it put Satan out of business forever.
Satan was put out of the deceiving business forever because the
death of Christ makes it so he can't, Satan can't deceive God's
people. And once you see Christ, by faith,
by God's grace, if you ever see Christ, you're not gonna be deceived
into looking away from him. No, it can't happen. God's people
can only believe Christ. And the death of Christ put Satan
out of the accusing business. All of the sin of God's elect
is paid for by the blood of Christ. It was washed away, it was put
away by the blood of Christ. God's elect cannot be charged
with sin anymore because the debt is put away. Paul said in
Romans 8 verse 33, who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It's God that justifies. Now,
if God justified you, you can't be charged with sin. Satan may
try, he may try to accuse you of sin, but all God's gonna say
is, what sin? I don't see any sin, because
the blood of Christ put it away. Christ justified his people,
so there's no sin left that they can be charged with. That cast
Satan out by the death of Christ, didn't it? And number two, Christ
cast Satan out, out of his people by the new birth. In the new
birth, Christ comes and he reigns in the heart. He reigns in that
new heart that God gives. Now, that old nature is still
there, but that old nature can't rule anymore. No. Now, that doesn't
mean that you're gonna quit sinning. No, you're gonna deal with that
old man as long as you're alive in this world. You're gonna deal
with that old man. That old man's there, but that old man, here's
how his power has been put away. He can't stop you from believing
on Christ anymore. He used to be able to, didn't
he? But he can't anymore because the new man reigns. Christ reigns
in the heart. God gives you a heart of faith
in Christ. He gives you a heart of love
for Christ. So that new heart can't turn
from Christ anymore. He loves Christ. He sees Christ. He believes him. He trusts him.
That new heart cannot follow Satan anymore. He loves Christ,
he follows Christ, he's gonna believe Christ. Thank God for
the Lord Jesus Christ who comes and sets his people free from
this power of willful unbelief so that now you willingly believe
on his precious name. That's the evidence that Christ
has come into your heart. We're not talking about willful
disbelief anymore. Now we're talking about willingly
believing Him, willingly following Him, desiring Him. Now look at
verse 30. Our Lord said all this because
they said, He hath an unclean spirit. Oh, I desire that wisdom. This is the wisdom of God. I
desire to have that wisdom. Our Savior didn't get ugly and
start a big old fight. He took that false accusation
and preach the gospel to him. And Mark took it and wrote it
down, put it in God's word so you and I could be comforted
by it today. So you and I could read that
and be called to look to Christ and trust him today. I hope that's
what God would be pleased to do for us, don't you? All right,
Lord bless you.