There's a poem that is often
quoted by preachers who endeavor to frighten people into religious
professions that go something like this. I'm sure you've heard
this poem before. It says, there's a time I know
not when, there's a place I know not where, when every man crosses
a line to salvation or despair. And then the preacher will preach
a sermon on crossing the deadline and urge people to come forward
and make a profession of faith or a confession of Christ and
get religion before it's, as they say, everlastingly too late. Another popular hymn that they
use to try to frighten people into religious professions is
this one. There's a line that is drawn
by rejecting our Lord. When the call of the Spirit is
lost, as you hurry along with the pleasure-mad throng, have
you counted, have you counted the cost?" Now, my friends, I
believe that this is a mighty weak and sorry method to use
for the purpose of getting men and women to make religious professions
or to induce them to seek the Lord. For I believe in reality,
sinners come in faith to Christ because they believe Him, because
they love Him, because they desire Him to be their Lord and Savior,
not simply because they may not have another opportunity. Sinners
receive Christ and believe on Him because they love Him, because
they desire Him to be the Lord and Savior of their lives, not
because that they may not have another opportunity, or they
may cross some imaginary deadline. And I believe that sinners come
to Christ because they find in Him all that they need. They find in Him their soul's
delight, their soul's comfort, not simply because they fear
hell and fear condemnation, but to come to Christ because they
find in Him all wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
It's not that they fear condemnation or fear hell, not completely,
but they love Christ. They love Christ. And then believers
are not forced to faith, but they come to Christ willingly. The Scripture says in Psalm 110,
verse 3, Thy people shall be willing. Thy people shall be
willing in the day of thy power." And then in Revelation 22, 17,
the Scripture says, "...the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and
let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is athirst come,
and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." So
using deadlines as an incentive to get people to make religious
professions, I believe is a very weak and sorry method. However,
I want you to listen to me now. However, there's a note of warning
in the Word of God, sounded over and over again in the Scriptures,
which needs to be stressed. We are warned about trifling
with truth. We're warned about trifling with
truth. The scripture says, he that being
often reproved and hardeneth his heart or stiffeneth his neck
shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. In other
words, the prophet is saying it's dangerous to trifle with
truth. It's dangerous to hear truth
over and over and over again and trifle with it. There may
be, now according to John 12, 35, I want you to listen to this. There may be a time in a person's
life when he sows sins against the light of Scripture, the light
of the gospel, the light of the Word of God, that that light
will be removed. And that light becomes darkness.
Now listen to our Lord. Is this not what Christ is saying
in John 12? John 12, 35. He said, walk while
you have the light. Walk while you have the light,
lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness
knoweth not where he goes. And again, our Lord said, if
that light which be in you be darkness, how great is that darkness. In other words, if all the light
you have has been turned to darkness, how great is that darkness. So I'm saying this. to those
who trifle with truth. There may be a time in your life
when you sow sin against truth and against light and against
the revelations of the Word of God that that light will be removed
and you'll be left in darkness. And then secondly, now listen
to this. I've thought this through very carefully. And while I do
not preach what they call deadlines, I'm saying that these things
are true and the scriptures indicate these things. There may be a
time in a person's life when he refuses and rejects the truth
of the gospel, the truth of Christ, the truth of God's glory as it
is seen in the face of Christ Jesus so consistently and so
persistently that he becomes satisfied and comfortable in
a false refuge of religion. He becomes gospel-hardened. He
resists and rejects the truth concerning the glory of Christ,
the sufficiency of Christ, the substitutionary work of Christ,
as he hears it over and over again, and does nothing about
it, and does not seek to know that Lord, that after a while
he becomes totally satisfied and totally comforted, totally
comfortable. Not disturbed at all. Listen
to I Thessalonians 2.10. Now listen carefully. Our Lord
says, because they receive not the love of the truth, they receive
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And the
truth is Christ. He said, I am the way, I am the
truth. I am the truth. And because they
receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, God
shall send them strong delusion. that they should believe a lie
and be damned, that they should be content with a lie and believe
a lie and rest in a lie and be damned for believing that lie. Now, that's what that's saying.
They received not the love of the truth. In order to receive
it, you've got to hear it. In order to reject it, you've
got to hear it. So they heard the truth. It was preached to
them. But they held to their tradition and they held to their
customs and they held to these other things. and refused the
truth. And God sent them strong delusions
that they should believe a lie and be damned for believing that
lie, comfortable in a false refuge. And then this is true. There
may be a time when people are so given over to evil, to the
direction of evil, to a life of evil, to habits of evil, idolatry
and corruption, that God will give them up that God will give
them over completely to do those things which are not convenient,
to do those things which are corrupt and depraved. Just give
them a seared conscience so that they have no trouble anymore.
They've followed this course so long and God has given them
over, given them up to this sort of thing. You'll find this in
drunkenness, in homosexuality, in gambling, in All of these
things that God just gives a man over, and he no longer has any
conflict, he no longer has any trouble with his conscience,
he's just given over to this sort of thing and takes pleasure
in it. Let me read you some scripture,
Romans 1, 26. God gave them up to bow affections. That's what
it's talking about in Romans 1, where women desired women
and men desired men. And this practice went on until
God just gave them over to it. Gave them completely over to
vile affections and they had no conscience about it any longer.
And then in Romans 1.24, he says the same thing. He said God gave
them up. Just gave them up to uncleanness. Gave them over to
vile affections and gave them up to uncleanness. And then in
Romans 1.28, that same chapter, read it sometime. God gave them
over to a reprobate mind, to a mind totally reprobated. So
what I'm saying is this, and you listen to me. While our God
is able to save whom He will, He saved Saul of Tarsus out of
the most wicked religion, the most self-righteous, legalistic,
wicked religion. He saved the thief on the cross
in the eleventh hour of his life. God is able to save whom he will
by his mighty power, and that's evidenced in so many cases in
the Word of God. The man of the Gadarenes, he'd
lost his mind. The thief on the cross, the harlot
Mary Magdalene, and on and on and on, you could name them.
Yet I'm telling you, there's a clear truth taught in the Word
of God that men and women may trifle with truth. and trifle
with the gospel to the point of becoming dead while they're
living. Now, that's what I've been reading
to you. They become dead while they're
living. That's what he says here in John
12. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you while
you're still living. And you're walking in total darkness
where there is no light. And then he said, they receive
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, so God sent
them instead of truth, instead of preacher of the truth, instead
of the message of truth, God sends them someone to confirm
them in their refuge of lies, someone to agree with them in
their refuge of falsehoods, someone to confirm them and agree with
them and soothe their itching ears that they might believe
a lie and be damned for it. And then these people that continued
the road of rebellion and the road of evil and the road of
vile affection, God gave them up, just turned them loose, just
released them to do what their depraved, wicked hearts would
do. And we're seeing so much of that
in our own day. And my message to you today is
don't trifle with truth. Don't trifle with truth to the
point of becoming dead while you still live. Esau, look at
Hebrews 12, 17, Esau found no place of repentance, though he
sought it carefully with tears. That's in your Bible right there
before you, Hebrews 12, 17. Esau sold out. He sold his birthright. And this birthright was not,
it was not just an inheritance. He received an inheritance. This
birthright was not just a big bank account. He received a big
bank account from his father. This birthright was not just
earthly possession. It was the relationship with
God. It was the place of the firstborn in the home. It was
the place of the priesthood in the home. He turned that down
to be God's man. He said, I don't need to be God's
man. I'll sell that. And later, when he wept over
it and wanted it, he sought it with tears. But he never found
it. Proverbs 128, listen to this.
Then shall you call upon me, and I will not answer. That's
God speaking. I stretched out my hand, no man
regarded. I called to you, and you would
not hear. Well, he said, one of these days you'll call on
me, and I will not answer. You'll seek me and shall not
find me. Yes, there are men who become
gospel-hardened. And to become gospel-hardened
is to be damned. There are men who become judicially
blinded, and we can see that in the nation Israel. And to
be judicially blinded is to be damned. And there are men who
become content, totally content, in a religious refuge of lies. And the longer they stay there,
the more secure they feel. And to be content and satisfied
in a refuge of lies is to be damned. Now, I want to touch
on three areas today, and I want you to listen to me. I believe
I can help you. I want to touch on three areas.
What is the unpardonable sin? Blaspheming the Holy Ghost. What
is that? Secondly, what is it to fall
from grace? Fall from grace. And then thirdly,
what is the sin unto death? We read where John says there
is a sin unto death. I do not say you should pray
for it. A lot of people write to me and want to know about
the unpardonable sin found in Matthew 12, 31, 32. Are you interested? Well, let's look at it. Matthew
12, 31, 32. Now, listen to the Scripture.
Listen carefully. All manner of sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven unto men. But the blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. Whosoever speaketh
against the Son of Man Remember that, the Son of Man. It shall
be forgiven him, but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost,
it shall not be forgiven him in this world, nor in the world
to come. Now, in order to understand these
verses, you've got to read what Christ has said before and what
took place in the context. Did you ever think about doing
that? When you're trying to interpret Scripture, don't just read one
verse or two verses. Read the entire chapter. Now,
if you listen, read what happened before, what took place in the
context. Our Lord had just healed a man
who was possessed of evil spirits. This man was possessed of evil
spirits, and our Lord healed him by the power of the Holy
Spirit. He had the Spirit without limit.
The Holy Ghost came upon him at his baptism, and he did what
he did in the power of the Spirit of God. This man was blind, and
this man was dumb, and he was made immediately whole, and the
people heard this man speak, and this man could hear. And
when the people saw this miracle, and this is one of the keys to
understanding this unpardonable sin, when the people saw this
great miracle, they were amazed, and they cried out, Is not this
the Son of David? Do you know what they were saying?
They were saying, this is the Messiah. Is not this the Christ? Is not this the Messiah? Is not
this that prophet of whom Moses wrote? Is not this the Redeemer
of Israel? You know, when John was in prison,
he sent two disciples to the Lord Jesus Christ and said, are
you He that should come, or do we look for another? Are you
the Christ? Are you the Son of God? And our Lord sent those
disciples back to John and said, Tell John how the lame walked,
and the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised.
And be not faithless, but believe. These works and these miracles
performed by our Lord were clear indications that He was the Christ,
He was the Messiah, and the Spirit of God was manifesting through
these miracles that Jesus was indeed the Christ. The Christ. That's what these works were
saying. That's what his words were saying. That's what the
Holy Spirit was saying. And Nicodemus said the same thing.
No man could do what you do except God be with him. Except he be
God and God be with him. And when he performed this miracle
and the blind saw and the deaf heard, these people said, is
not this the Messiah? What did their religious leaders
say? Listen. But the religious leaders said,
no, this fellow is not the Christ. This fellow, and that's what
they call him, this fellow is not the Messiah. This fellow
does what he does by the power of Beelzebub, by the power of
the devil. Now, my friends, many people
spoke about the Son of Man. They said he's the carpenter.
They said he's a winebibber and a gluttonous man. They said,
he's a friend of sinners. They said, we know he's Mary's
mother. Even his brothers didn't believe on him, even his brothers
in his own household. They talked about Jesus, the
Son of Man, a winebibber, a gluttonous man, a friend of sinners, a carpenter,
and all this sort of thing. But these Pharisees, these religious
leaders, they were speaking not against the Son of Man. They
were not speaking against the man, Jesus of Nazareth. They
were rejecting and blaspheming a clear revelation by the Holy
Ghost of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. The Holy Spirit's
work is to reveal Christ, is to reveal the Redeemer, is to
reveal Christ as the Son of God, as the Redeemer of sinners. That's
the work of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord Jesus said, when He,
the Spirit of truth, has come, He'll guide you into all truth.
He shall not speak of himself, but he shall glorify me. He shall
take the things of mine and show them to you." And that's exactly
what the Holy Ghost was doing in this case, in this event,
on this occasion, when our Lord healed that blind man, that deaf
man, a man who had never seen, a man who had never heard and
never spoken, could see and hear and speak. And the people said,
this is the Christ. And these fellows said, no, it's
not. It's a devil. And that's when our Lord said,
That's when our Lord said, you can speak against the Son of
Man, you can call Jesus of Nazareth a wine-bibber, a gluttonous man,
or what you will, but when the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost,
is pleased in no uncertain terms and in unquestionable manner,
when He's pleased to set forth in a clear fashion that Jesus
of Nazareth is the Son of God, He is the Messiah, He is the
one of whom Moses wrote and Isaiah wrote. He's the one for whom
we look. He's the one whom God sent. He's the anointed Son of
God. When the Holy Ghost says that, and you say, that's a lie,
that's a lie, that'll never be forgiven you in this world nor
in the world to come, write it down, write it down. I'm telling you the truth. And
that's what the unpardonable sin is. When He has come, the
Holy Ghost, He'll not speak of Himself. He'll not speak of himself. I hear people say the unpardonable
sin is to criticize other religions. We're told to try the spirits,
whether they be of God. Don't say anything about these
phony healers out here, these fellas making a million dollars
every six months off of poor people, acting like they're healing
sick folks. You might be blaspheming the
Holy Spirit. Not a word of truth in that.
You blaspheme the Holy Spirit when you deny His redemptive
message, when you deny His gospel of Christ. when you attribute
the message of Christ to the devil. That's the Holy Ghost
business, that's the Holy Ghost work, that's the Holy Ghost task,
that's why the Holy Ghost came. These things are written that
you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
And when our Lord performed that miracle, when the Holy Spirit
clearly identified who He is, And the people saw it, and the
people heard it, and the people rejoiced in it. And they said,
this is the Christ. And these religious leaders said, no, he's
not. No, he's not. Our Lord said, I won't be forgiving
you. When you miss Christ, you miss everything. Now, Galatians
5, verse 4 says you've fallen from grace. Fallen from grace. If we're to have any understanding
of this, what does it mean to fall from grace? If we're to
have any understanding of this phrase, we're going to have to
read the context again. I wish people start reading the
Bible. I wish we'd get rid of bursitis. I wish there's some
shot you could take to cure bursitis or some kind of medicine, but
I guess there never will be. But these false teachers had
risen up in the church at Galatia. This is found in Galatians 5,
4. And these false teachers had risen up in the church of Galatia.
And what they were saying was this, that faith in Jesus Christ
the Lord in his life and in his death was not sufficient to save
a sinner, was not sufficient to justify a sinner. That his
precious blood and his obedient life was not enough, was not
enough to honor God's law and satisfy God's justice and save
a soul. That in order for a man to be
justified before God, He must not only believe on Christ. Oh,
they didn't deny that. Yes, you must believe he died
and was buried and rose again. But you got to add something
to it. You got to be circumcised and
become a Jew. You got to keep the Sabbath day.
You got to be baptized. You got to have some other Levitical
law. You've got to not eat pork. You've got to do this, that,
and the other, you know, all these different things that you've
got to do. You've got to become a Jew. You've got to be circumcised. You've got to get under the Levitical
law. You have to keep Sabbath days and holy days and feast
days. Oh, Christ, He does His part, but we've got to do our
part. Christ is not sufficient in and of Himself, and faith's
not enough. That's what Paul called another
gospel. And he declared, In verse 1 of
Galatians 5, that Christ had freed us from the bondage and
the curse and the covenant of the law. And he says in Galatians
5, 1, stand fast in that freedom of Christ. Stand fast in that
liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. And don't you
become entangled again in the bondage of laws and holy days
and circumcision and ordinances and requirements and touch not,
taste not, handle not. all of which is perishing with
the use of it." And then he said in the next verse, if you do
become circumcised in order to be saved, in order to be accepted
of God, if you do keep holy days, Sabbath days, and are baptized
or rituals in order to be accepted of God, Christ will profit you
nothing, not anything at all. For he said, a man who does one
part of the law in order for righteousness, One part of the
law, for acceptance with God, a man who does one thing, circumcision,
baptism, tithing, Sabbath days, or whatever, for righteousness
before God, for sanctification, he's indebted to obey the whole
law. Every jot and tittle, every law,
every rule, every work, and Christ becomes of no effect, and that's
when he said, you've fallen from grace. You've departed from salvation
by grace. You see, salvation can't be grace
and works. It can't be grace and anything.
For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And then John said, there's a
sin unto death. I do not say that you shall pray
for it. Now, all of our sins deserve death. The wages of sin
is death. Thank God there's mercy and forgiveness
and grace for sin, but there's a sin under death that leaves
a man in death and results in eternal death. And that sin is
to depart from the perfect righteousness of Christ and seek acceptance
in the works of the flesh and the deeds of the law. God took
Adam's fig leaf apron off, totally off. Covered him with coats of
skin which is picked a picture the righteousness of Christ and
the man that sends a sin and the death is the man who reaches
for the fig leaf and Puts it back home and says Christ is
not sufficient to reject and refuse the Son of God No use
praying that man is damned But there's none of the name on the
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved