The lesson this morning is in
Matthew chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12. We've been
looking at several things in this chapter. The subject this morning is the
unpardonable sin. The unpardonable sin. Now let's
read these verses together. Matthew chapter 12 beginning
with verse 31. Wherefore I say unto you, all
manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. But the
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word
against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him,
neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Either
make the tree good, and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt,
and his fruit corrupt. For the tree is known by his
fruit. O generation of vipers, how can
you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure
of his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of
the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you
that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give
an account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Now this is very important. The
lesson begins with the word wherefore. Now you know when you're studying
a subject and our Lord stops what He's saying and uses a therefore
or a wherefore or something, you know that what He's about
to say is based on what He just said and what He'd already covered,
this ground He'd already covered. This Word indicates that something
has already taken place, that something was said or done that
caused the Son of God to respond with this very sobering and serious
remark. Now He spoke these words to a
mixed multitude. There was believers among them.
God's elect was among them. But there was also Pharisees
and scribes and men of the High Council of the Jew. And so these
words, though they were spoken to a mixed multitude, they were
aimed primarily at the Pharisees. These men, these Pharisees, were
evil men. They claimed to be religious
men. They claimed to be spokesmen for God. They claimed to be God's
ambassador. They lived an outward reformed
life. They lived a life of morality. for all practical purposes, an
outward life. They were spotless, blameless.
That's what Paul said he was, was touching the law. He said,
I was blameless outwardly. But these men were evil men.
They were deceived men. They were men who made merchandise
of men's souls. They were self-seeking, self-concerned,
and self-centered men. So that their religion was a
pretense. They pretended. They were the
religious pretenders. Our Lord told them, He said,
for a pretense, you make long prayers. You do it for a pretense.
When you fast, you fast to be seen of men. Why would a man
do that? Because it's a pretense. It's a pretense. You've seen
folks in restaurants. You can pray in a restaurant
if you wanted to. And you could pray quietly, you
could bow your head or whatever it is that you want to do and
give thanks to God. You could do all that without
doing anything in a restaurant and never be noticed. But not
a Pharisee. A Pharisee will stand up in the
restaurant and speak as loud as I'm speaking to you right
now, cause everybody in there to stop eating, to look, to see
what's going on. Why? Cause they were, it was
a pretense. They wanted to be seen of men.
They were justifying themselves and their profession. For a pretense, he said, they
smiled and greeted folks in the marketplace of whom they had
no concern for whatsoever. For a pretense. And they had
no conscience concerning what they did. They weren't disturbed
by it at all. No matter what they did, no matter
how... You say, well, how can a man do that? How can a man
see all these evidences of Christ, these miracles, and hear Him? Never a man spake like this man.
He spoke the truth. How could someone do... Because
they had no conscience. Their conscience was seared with
a hot iron. They weren't disturbed. They
weren't bothered by the things that they saw and the things
that they heard. They could kill and think that
they did God a service. That's what Christ said of them. And these were not men
who'd never heard the truth. These were not like the heathen
Gentiles who'd never heard the truth. These men heard the truth,
and they heard it from the greatest men that God ever put on this
earth. They heard them from John the
Baptist, greatest preacher born of woman, and they heard them
from the Son of God. They heard from these two men.
And you can't deny the presence of the Holy Spirit in either
one of those two, can you? John the Baptist was covered
with the Holy Ghost in his mother's womb. You can't deny that. And
nor can you deny the Holy Spirit in Christ. So they heard the
truth when they gathered to hear the Son of Man. And they heard
the truth every Sabbath day when they read the Prophets and the
Psalms and the Laws of Moses. Here's how Stephen, the first
martyr, here's how Stephen described these same men that I'm talking
to you about this morning. He described them to be stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart and ears who do always resist the
Holy Ghost. Now that's how he described them. The unpardonable sin. I don't
profess to be a wise man and to know everything there is to
know about this. This subject don't have a lot
of light on it. But I'll tell you what I believe
it is. This unpardonable sin is the willful, deliberate rejection
of Christ by one who is fully and continually presented with
the heavenly evidence and the testimony of God concerning His
Son. over and over and over and over. They heard these truths and God
established these truths so that even themselves could not deny
who He was. They had to hire false accusers
because they had nothing to accuse Him of. They had to make charges,
unlawful charges against Him because He did no evil. Which
of you convinces me of sin? And if you can't find any sin
in me, why won't you listen to me? Why won't you believe on
me? Jude talks about these men and
he says they despise dominion. They can't stand dominion. What
kind of dominion? Any kind. Any kind. They don't want the government
to tell them what to do. They don't want the patrolman
to tell them what to do. They don't want their husband
to tell them what to do. They despise dominion. And especially
God's dominion. You tell an unbeliever the truth
and this man despises the truth. I don't care how clear the argument
is you give him. He can't stand the thought that
God is exercising dominion over him even in you telling him the
truth. He can't stand it. Can't stand
it. They despise dominion and they
speak evil of dignities. Now brethren, it's the Holy Ghost
that communicates the Gospel to men. He uses men. He uses
books. He uses tapes. He uses CDs. But in the end, it's the Holy
Ghost that communicates the truth to men. If He doesn't speak,
you're not going to hear. You might hear with these ears,
but you're not going to hear in your heart. Listen to this. This is over in Acts chapter
5. Peter stood before that great Sanhedrin council of the Jews. Now you spoke wrong before them,
you died. They take you out and stone you.
They didn't throw gravels at you, they throw rocks. Crushed
your skull. Broke your bones. They piled
them up around you. And Peter spoke to that great
Sanhedrin council. And he said, the God of our fathers
raised up Jesus, whom you slew and hanged on a tree. Verse 31.
Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and
a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of
sins." Now listen, "...and we are witnesses of these things,
and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that
obey Him." So, if a man stands before men and he babbles on
with his opinions and philosophies, he ought to be rejected. He tells
us that, to reject. If a man stands pretending to
be God's ambassador and he preaches works and free will and law and
moral reform, he ought to be counted accursed of God. That's
what Paul tells us in the book of Galatians. But if a man stands
before you and speaks to you out of the Word of God and preaches
to you the Christ of God and the Savior of sinners, Preaches
the gospel to you. It's a dangerous thing to reject
Him. And it's even more dangerous
when you consider what He's saying as an evil thing. You've seen that on the faces
of men and women who come in here and listen to me, haven't
you? It's not just that I say something they don't agree with,
but I say something and they count it immediately an evil
thing. They don't come back. Most of
the time, they don't come back. When I first began to see some
things in the Word of God, I went to the elders of the church I
was going to, seeking to know what they meant. I really wanted
to know what it meant. It spoke to me. But it spoke
to me of things that I'd never heard before. I'd never heard
about the absolute, sovereign God who does all things after
the counsel of His own will. You won't ever hear that in religion. And the God of election. The
God who chose a people to save for the glory of His name. Predestination. Who has predestinated all things
concerning the church. He predestinated them. Not an
if, or a maybe, or a doubt in any of these things. Nothing
left to chance. Nothing left to chance. He hath predestinated us who
worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Sovereignty of God, election,
predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible
grace. They knew nothing of those things.
And when I brought up them subjects, they didn't just say, well, I
don't understand what you're talking about. Rather, they cast
an evil light on them. They as much as told me, if not
some in plain language told me this, and the others kind of
hinted at it or acted like it. But they set these things in
an evil light and they said that these are things that Satan does
in the church. That Satan does. Now wait a minute. Now wait a minute. You mean to
tell me that these men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Spirit of God, Satan overrode them to put things in the Word
of God? He overrode the Holy Ghost? Or were these men just left to
themselves to write their opinions? Paul said all Scripture comes
by the inspiration of God. It's inspired of God. It's God
breathed. God set certain men aside and
he moved on them and caused them to write the things that they
wrote. So if you take these things, now I might not understand predestination. I believe I do, but I might not. Maybe I don't understand election.
But I'm telling you election and predestination is in the
scriptures. And Satan didn't override the Holy Ghost and put
those things in there. Those things are of God. Even those things, you take those
things and set them in an evil light. What you're actually saying
is the Holy Ghost put these things here and it's evil. And you're
speaking against Him. You better be careful when you're
taught the truth. If that man standing before you
is telling you the truth, you better be careful how you set
what he's saying in your mind. Just listen to him. Don't rush
to opinions. Don't rush to make decisions.
Just listen to it. And do like those Bereans. Go
home and prove all things. Go home and look at it in the
Scripture and see if what he's telling you isn't according to
the book. And if it is, you better bow to it. They call that which
God did by Him as an evidence and confirmation of Him. They
call that the work of the devil. They said he did this work, these
miracles that God did by him in your midst, Peter said. They
called that the work of Beelzebub. And the scriptures are full of
examples of those who committed this unpardonable sin. Cain, Esau, Lot's wife, King Saul,
Judas Iscariot and multitudes in Bethsaida and Capernaum. All of these having crystal clear
knowledge, the Son of God came and did these works of the Father
in their midst, preached to them the clear, distinct doctrines
of Christ, preached the gospel to them, and did it in the power
of the Holy Ghost insomuch that some trembled. And all these
having crystal clear knowledge of the gospel, yet refusing to
obey it, they refuse to receive it, they
refuse to bow to it, they refuse to lose their lives to it. Now
you know this without doubt, and you've heard this since the
time you was little. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Now it's just so. Now, what point
does a man go to when he commits this? I don't know. I don't know. And I don't think you know either.
I don't think you know either. Brother Don had this to say,
and I think it's worth repeating to you. Those who are troubled
with the fear that they may have committed the unpardonable sin,
that man who sits and listens to what I'm telling you this
morning, And he sits there in fear that he's committed this
unpardonable sin. Now, the Lord said, all manner
of sin be forgiven you, but not this one. Not going to be forgiven
in this world, neither in the world to come. And if that man
is troubled with a fear that they might have committed this
unpardonable sin, most assuredly, he has not. Most assuredly, he
has not done so. The one thing that always characterizes
those described in the scripture as reprobates is a callousness
and a hardness that's a result of a seared conscience. He's
not troubled. Those Jews said he cast out devils
by Beelzebub. They wasn't troubled by that.
They wasn't troubled before the Lord told them about the unpardonable
sin, and they wasn't troubled afterward. They weren't troubled
by it. They were never troubled. You
do always, that's what Stephen told them, they had stones in
their hands to bash his brains out, ran on him while he was
talking to them, and him with the face of an angel, and ran
on him, and gnashed on him with their teeth. They do always resist. There's a callousness and a hardness,
and their heart's not troubled. The scribes and the Pharisees
knew that the miracles of Christ were done by the Holy Ghost. Even the most unlearned in the
crowd knew that. They knew that. And yet they
willfully and obstinately called them the work of the devil. And
they did it to obscure or muddy the waters concerning the glory
of Christ in His Gospel. There is no argument. against
the clear testimony of the Holy Ghost. There is no argument. There's no argument there. You
can't argue it. The only recourse for those who
reject it is to cast an evil light on it and make it appear
as the doctrine of devils. That's all you can do with it,
John. You can't refute it. God the Father has blessed us
with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ
according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. How are you going to refute that? That's what that
says, isn't it? So what the Scripture says, be
careful how you hear. That's what He said. It says
in Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 1, Keep thy foot when thou comest
into the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to offer
the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not that they do evil.
Be careful how you hear. In the book of James, doesn't
he tell us that every good gift and every perfect gift cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning? Who of his own will begat he
us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of a first
fruits of his creatures. Now he said, be careful how you
hear. Be swift to hear and slow to write. Be careful. The best safeguard against the
unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost is to walk in the
light God gives you. God gives us light. We receive
light. We study the Scriptures and there's
light there. We come and we listen to the
Gospel and there's light there. Whatever light God gives us,
let's walk in it. Let's walk in it. If we walk,
that's what John said, if we walk in the light as He is the
light, Christ is the light. If we'll walk in that. Then we
have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin. But now if we start in why I
haven't sinned, why he said, we're a liar. Man said, why? I've never done
that. I'm not a sinner. You're a liar. That's what Scripture said. You're
a liar. And if he says, I've never sinned,
I've never sinned. I didn't fall in at them. I don't
have a sinful nature. I've never sinned. I'm not a
sinner. I'm not vile. I'm not putrid. If I say that,
then I've made God a liar because He said I was. You see what I'm saying? Walk
in the light. Don't walk in religious tradition
and don't walk in this world's depraved philosophy. How many
of you heard that thing they had on the other night with Barbara
Walters where they were talking about heaven and how to get there? I'm talking about depraved philosophy
of this world. Don't walk in it. Don't walk
in the lust and passions of the flesh. Walk in the light of the
gospel of Christ. Walk in humility, being thankful
for the light we have, and walk in submission. Bowing to the
Word of God, the Son of God, the Spirit of God. Walking fellowship. That's fellows in the same ship.
That's how we're to walk. Walk in love, preferring one
another above ourselves. And walk in revelation. That's
in the light you have. Walk in it. If we just walk in
the light we have. You know, we get a little bit
of light and then, boy, we're anxious to get more. But we don't walk
in the light we have. and walk in peace. In Ephesians chapter 2 verses
12 through 19, Paul reminds us that we were Gentiles in the
flesh. Idolaters with no history of
godliness, no reason for hope, left to the philosophies, scientists
so-called, and superstitious ideas of this depraved world. The Jesus of worldly religion
is not the Christ of God. Not even similar. Not even similar. He doesn't have the deity. Not
the deity that scripture said is intertwined in his character.
I'm talking about the Jesus of religion. He's not God. He's not God. He has not the
eternal relationship, fellowship, and harmony of the Father and
the Spirit. He told His disciples, if you've
seen Me, you've seen the Father. If you haven't seen Me, you've
never seen the Father. No man knoweth the Father save
the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal it. He has not a
divine purpose that He accomplished and is accomplishing. The Jesus
of this world, all of His works and His person and His offices
and all that thing still left to chance. All those things could
still fall depending on what you do. But not the Christ of
God. He sat down. He finished His
work. In that way said, it's finished. It's finished. And the Jesus of religion, He
holds only such titles as men will let Him have. You have to
make Him Lord. And I'll tell you this about
Him. I listened to them talk about Him here the other night.
He's upset, frustrated, pitied, and defeated. He didn't really
accomplish anything. This is not the sovereign Savior
of sinners. When God found us, Paul said,
He came and preached peace to us. Peace. Peace wrought out
by a bleeding Savior. Peace manifested by the appearance
of a substitute. Peace declared through a representative
man, one chosen in our stead to satisfy God on our behalf. One able to save to the uttermost
those who come unto God by Him. And when we were yet without
strength, He said, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. He accomplished the work exactly
as God ordained it, exactly as God manifested it, exactly when
God chose to do it. And He did what the Father sent
Him to do in every jot and tenor. Now, the minister of the gospel,
for God's instruction, represents Him. does so to the best of His
ability and reverence and godly fear. And they deliver His message
and then they leave those who hear it alone with God. Alone
with God. I don't have an altar call. I
don't try to beg you to come and do something for Jesus or
make Jesus something that He's not already. I'm going to leave
you alone this morning. I'm going to finish my Sunday
school lesson, and we're going to take a little break, and then
I'm going to have the main message, and I'm going to leave you alone
with God. Whatever He's pleased to do, I'll give Him the praise
for it. Give Him praise for it. Now that's
how the gospel is to be preached. And when you reject it, and fight
against it, and kick against it, I'm telling you, you're in
grave danger. You're in grave danger. And then I know this. I fear
that most of what we call rebellion in men, that anger and resentment,
comes more from the way we try to witness than it does from
what we're trying to witness. We get this idea that you're
going to hear it or else. You're going to hear me or else.
Is that how you heard it? No. We want to shove the truth down
somebody's throat. We want to constantly argue and
insist on someone's hearing. That's not how to witness. We're to witness in kindness
and love. And as I said, you witness. What is it to witness? That's
to tell somebody what God did for you. That's what that is.
It's one beggar telling another beggar where he got his bread.
That's what it is. And when you've done that, leave
them alone. Don't back them up into the corner now. Now, I'm
going to get this, you got it in your mouth, now it's going
down your throat. No, that ain't, just leave them alone. Leave
them alone. Leave them alone. And debating, just leave debating
off. I looked that word up when I
was preparing the lesson this morning and I looked it up and
you know it's only used twice and both times it's used in reference
to a reprobate. The word debate. Look at it in
Romans chapter 1 where he's talking about those that he gave up to
themselves to vile affections and all that. He called them
debaters. Debaters. And then he uses it
again on over in the Scriptures. I forget where it is now. It
might be Romans 15 where he's talking about it. But anyhow,
he's talking about the reprobate. And he goes through this big
long list of things and lists debating right in the middle
of it. Let's give them what the Lord's
done for us. Let's give them the gospel, and
then let's leave them alone. Leave them alone. Pray for them.
Could be God will open their heart. If He don't, all your
words ain't gonna mount till He'll obey. But if He does, one
word's sufficient. One word's sufficient. Just like
old David had that five smooth stones, but only took one, didn't
he? Only took one under the direction of God to slay that giant. All
right, thank you.