Speaker transitions from algorithmic praise to Matthew 12:22-37, interpreting Jesus' healing of a demon-oppressed mute man as Christ stripping Satan of his lethal weapon, unforgiven sin. While acknowledging current Western decline where Satan racks up points, the speaker asserts Christ's ultimate victory through the church. He defines blasphemy against the Holy Spirit not as doubt, but as willfully attributing the Spirit's testimony of Christ's divinity to Satan, noting such individuals would never attend a Bible-preaching church, distinguishing them from struggling elect believers. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
Time
Text
Algorithm Reviews and Gospel Ministry00:05:34
Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform.
I get it.
It's annoying.
Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.
When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.
You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.
We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
Amen.
Please join me in standing for the reading of God's words.
This Lord's Day, we continue our series through the Gospel according to Matthew.
I'm regularly using that phrasing, the Gospel according to Matthew, because it's not Matthew's Gospel, it's the Gospel of God.
So we have one Gospel, not for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but according to four human authors inspired by the one Holy Spirit.
So we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, and according to John.
All four of the Gospel narratives agree.
With one another, and yet each of them is distinct and helpful for us, the people of God.
So we're going through the Gospel according to Matthew.
Today's text is Matthew chapter 12, verses 22 through 37.
It's a longer text, and so this is going to be a two part sermon for the sake of time, but I'll read the entirety of our text today.
When I finish reading the text, I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 12, verses 22 through 37.
The Bible says this.
Then a demon oppressed man, who was blind and mute, was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.
And all the people were amazed and said, Can this be the son of David?
But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man cast out demons.
Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste.
And no city or house divided against itself will stand.
And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself.
How then will his kingdom stand?
And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?
Therefore, they will be your judges.
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?
Then indeed he may plunder his house.
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven, and whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven.
But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come.
Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.
You brood of vipers.
How can you speak good when you are evil?
For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
The good person, out of his good treasure, Brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak.
For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
The sign of the kingdom, Christ's dominion over Satan.
The sign of the kingdom, Christ's dominion over Satan.
Focusing our attention now on verse 29 and verse 30 of our text, I'll read them once more so they're fresh in our minds.
The Bible says this Jesus speaking.
Or, how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man?
Then, indeed, he may plunder his house.
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
In your notes, I've written the following The passage opens with a marvelous display of divine power.
Our Lord heals a man who's not just inflicted by a physical condition, but a physical condition that is clearly caused by a demon.
Our Lord heals this man oppressed by a demon who was both blind and mute.
In this act, we are to see not merely Christ's compassion, but his dominion over Satan.
Christ, as the stronger man, is binding the strong one, Satan, and plundering his house.
Jesus has taken back dominion from Satan.
Satan's Dominion in the Wilderness00:10:33
The story of earthly dominion.
Throughout the scripture, it is actually quite simple.
God set up Adam as viceroy in the garden over all the earthly cosmos, not just the Garden of Eden, but ultimately it was given to him, his task, his mission, that the garden would be expanded and extend and eventually cover all the earth, even in a pre lapsarian world.
Lapse meaning sin.
So before sin entered the world, before Genesis 3, There were still wilderness places in the world.
And we know this because the Bible tells us so.
We know that Adam was created not in the garden, but he was actually formed by God from the dust of the ground in a wilderness and then placed by God in the garden.
And then, secondly, Eve was formed not from the dust, but from Adam, from a bone in his side.
And so we know that before sin entered the world, we had these wilderness, barren, empty places.
Now, sin had not yet entered the world, and so these places are not evil per se.
They're not wicked, but they're still in emptiness.
That the world was not completely cultivated.
That was a job, a work, a task assigned to Adam, our father, that he was to fulfill by the strength and grace that God provided.
And so to him was given by God dominion over the earth.
He was to be fruitful with his wife and multiply.
But also he was assigned the task.
Of working and keeping the ground.
Working and keeping.
Keeping, that is defending, protecting.
Working, that is cultivating in such a way that the natural implication of that task, if it were to be fulfilled, would be not only that the garden was verdant, not only that the garden was filled with life, but if it was worked, the garden, the ground, it would expand.
And these wilderness, barren places in the world would eventually be cultivated.
As well.
And so you could say that in a sense, it was man's dominion and his task, his mission assigned by God that all the earth would eventually become a garden place.
And all the earth, through being fruitful and multiplying, this garden, earth encompassing garden, would also be filled and populated by image bearing people who were worshipers of the triune God.
This was the eschaton that was assigned to Adam.
And in order to fulfill it, God gave him dominion.
Dominion over what?
His wife, yes, but more than just that.
The ground, yes, but more than just that.
Even the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the beasts of the field.
Adam was granted by God authority and dominion over every single aspect of the earthly creation, all of it.
And one of the ways that he displays and exercises his authority is in granting names to all the pieces of creation.
That's actually, biblically speaking, a sign of authority.
The one who has the power, the authority to name, is the one who is in authority over that which or whom which is being named.
Adam names each of the creatures.
I think that we can implicitly assume that he probably also named certain plants and vegetation.
But Adam also names his wife.
It's not God that assigns this name to her.
But God assigns a name to Adam, and then Adam gives a name to Eve, who is the mother of all living.
So the story of dominion in the Bible is quite simple.
God, who has sovereign authority, uncontested, over everything, not just the earthly cosmos and creation, but heavenly as well, God, who has this authority, sets up over earth a viceroy.
And he grants him a human dominion and authority over the earth.
Adam, then, by his sin, he forfeits that dominion, and by forfeiting that dominion, he grants it to Satan.
And this is why later in the scripture, Satan is referenced as the prince of the air.
Not heavenly, spiritual air in the 17th dimension, but the air, the cosmos.
In this earthly plane, that Satan is the prince of the air.
This is why Satan, when tempting Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism in his earthly ministry, Christ is then led by the Holy Spirit, so it's not an accident, into the wilderness, a wilderness that should have been cultivated by Adam in his dominion, but that was forfeited to Satan.
And Satan likes wilderness, he wants the whole world to be taken over by death.
And doom and destruction.
And so the Spirit leads Christ into the wilderness where he's tempted by Satan.
And one of these three temptations is that Satan promises Jesus that he will give to him the kingdoms of the earth.
And this, it's important that we understand that although Satan is a murderer from the beginning and a liar, when he lies, he speaks his native tongue, this particular offer that he makes to Christ is not a false or empty gesture.
This is a valid offer.
When Satan offers to Christ the kingdoms of the world, he is offering to Christ something that at that moment Satan actually possessed.
He actually had authority over earthly kingdoms because that authority was given to Adam, dominion, and Adam, by his sin, he forfeited that dominion to Satan.
Think of even in the book of Daniel when finally an angel arrives, but this angel had been delayed.
And he gives a reason for his delay.
He says that he was held up.
In battle against the prince of Persia.
Now, this is not a reference to a human political prince, but actually a spiritual fallen angel, demonic entity that had power over the human authority in Persia.
When the Bible speaks of princes and principalities, it's speaking of not just human princes, but particularly demonic spiritual fallen angels with.
Power, earthly power, princes, and principalities is speaking of earthly regions, right?
Like provinces in Canada or states in these United States.
So there are principalities, earthly regions, and set up over these principalities are princes, not speaking of the human political ruler, but rather the spiritual entity, dark, demonic, fallen angel entity.
That Satan, having received dominion since it was forfeited by Adam in his sin, he then delegated dominion to many of his followers, fallen angels, over the whole earth.
I believe personally, I'm often made fun of for this, but you know what?
I'm having fun, and the people who make fun of me are miserable, so it's okay.
I believe that Greek mythology nailed it.
I think they're weird.
I think that they miss some of the details, probably a lot of the details, but the idea is.
That there would be certain lowercase g gods, and that these gods are assigned to specific regions?
Poseidon, god of the sea.
Well, I don't know.
In Adam sinning and forfeiting dominion to Satan, and Satan having fallen angels underneath his command, could he have assigned the sea to one of these fallen angels and given him power over the sea to use the sea as a particular avenue or mechanism in order to do as much harm and destruction to God's image bearing creatures, mankind, as possible?
Of course.
Not only is it plausible, I actually think that that's the most faithful reading of biblical text.
And the sea throughout Scripture often represents another wilderness, a watery wilderness, but it's a place of emptiness and death.
And the sea represents death.
That's one of the reasons why, since we're on the topic, the book of Revelation, when it speaks of our final, eternal, heavenly abode, there is no sea.
Why?
Have you ever thought of that?
There's no sea in heaven.
Well, because the sea is an untamed place that represents waste and death.
The sea is not fresh water that is used as nourishment, it's salt water.
It's a place that, yes, it's teeming with life in a sense.
God fills the sea with creatures, and we eat fish.
There's a purpose to the sea, but it is, in spiritual terms, viewed as an empty, dead place.
We even have, quite literally, in our world, one particular sea that's called the Dead Sea because it's so filled with salt that nothing can live in it.
And in heaven, there will be no sea because all of heaven will teem with life and only life and death will be no more.
So Adam is given dominion.
Adam sins, forfeits dominion to Satan.
Satan delegates dominion to different princes over different principalities.
We know that there was one such prince over the principality of Persia.
This is all real.
And then Satan makes a valid offer with nefarious intent.
There's the lie, there's the deceit.
But the offer itself is, in fact, valid when he tempts Jesus in the wilderness.
Stripping Weapons from the Enemy00:04:27
And one of those particular out of the three temptations being, I will give you the kingdoms of the earth if you will bow down and worship me.
Time actually were his.
Now, of course, this is where the evangelical pietists would insert their peanut gallery opinion and say, But Jesus says no because Jesus' kingdom is not of this world and he's not interested in politics.
No, Jesus says no because it's idolatry to bow down and worship Satan.
He says no to Satan in his offer, not because he's not interested in the kingdoms of the world, but he is not interested in politics.
In the means by which Satan is offering them, namely idolatry.
In essence, Jesus' response to Satan could be described such as this I will not worship you in order to be given the kingdoms of this earth, but I will defeat you and take the kingdoms of this earth.
He didn't want Satan to give him the kingdoms because he intended on taking these earthly kingdoms, and he has.
Colossians speaks of demonic spiritual entities being held up to open shame because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.
And all their weaponry, or we could at least say in specificity, all their lethal weaponry has been stripped away from them.
So that these demonic entities that once ruled the world have been put to open shame and they have been rendered toothless.
They have been rendered impotent.
And what is the lethal weaponry?
Satan can still push and prod and tempt, and even to varying degrees, for those especially who don't belong to Christ, he can oppress, even now in this gospel age, in the church age, since the finished work of Jesus.
But what he cannot do, not for God's elect, not for the Christian, is use any lethal weapon against them.
Because Satan only had at his disposal, even in his heyday, one lethal weapon.
Do you know what that lethal weapon was?
It was the accusation of your unforgiven sin.
That's the only thing that he possessed against you.
The only leverage, the only advantage that Satan had against you that was truly, in the eternal sense, not just earthly.
But the eternal sense truly lethal, meaning your eternal death, your eternal destruction.
That's the only thing he had the record of all your wrongs that had not been forgiven.
But because of Christ's death and resurrection, that lethal weapon was stripped by Christ out of the hands of Satan, and all his minions were held to open shame.
And the Bible teaches this.
So, God, having authority, gives dominion to Adam, Adam, having sinned, forfeits it to Satan, Satan, having been mocked.
And humiliated and defeated by Christ has now had his dominion over the earth, stripped by Christ back to Jesus.
And we, as Christ ambassadors, having union with Christ by the Spirit through faith, have been set up as Christ minions, his ambassadors.
And the cultural mandate, all the way back from the beginning in Genesis 1 and 2, has been restored for the Christian.
To be fruitful and multiply, both in the literal sense with children and marriage, but also in a spiritual sense with doing the work of an evangelist and the Great Commission and making disciples of nations, and also cultivating the earth and making it into a garden city.
Christ Wins Through His Church00:03:46
Now, where do we stand today?
Because all of this is glorious and hopeful and encouraging and comforting and consoling, and you on the Lord's day as we gather.
On the market day of the soul, as we ascend the delectable hills, as the church, the excellent ones in all the earth gathering together for the ordinary means of grace, word and sacrament, we need to be encouraged.
But we also need to not be naive, innocent as doves, but as wise and shrewd as serpents.
So Christ is victorious, and his people, the church, will be victorious.
Christ will not win.
In the bottom of the ninth, despite a weak and losing church.
But Christ, who is head of the church, will win.
It's his victory, it's his doing.
But the question is how?
And I believe the Bible teaches that Christ will win not despite a weak and losing church, but Christ will win through his body on earth that is the church.
Christ will win through the church.
I will build my church, grow, expand, advance.
My church and the gates of Hades, the gates of hell, will not prevail against it.
Now, notice that the term gates is a defensive term.
It is not the church that is up against the ropes, receiving blow after blow from the battering rams of hell, but being held together and sustained by Christ so that we make it to the final bell when Christ tags us out and tags himself in to finally defeat the devil.
That's not the biblical language.
No, the language of the Bible is that hell is on the ropes and that the church is the battering ram of Christ and that hell will not be able to withstand blow after blow after blow throughout this gospel church age, that Christ will win progressively, gradually, tangibly through his church, not despite the church.
I believe that.
You've heard me preach that now for years.
And my opinion has not changed on the matter.
That said, if you think we're winning right now, you're an idiot.
We have to be able to hold both truths in tension.
The great post millennial hope yes and amen.
The church getting its butt kicked currently yes and amen.
So, whether you're premillennial, I'd encourage you not to be dispensational, but a Historic premillennialism or an amillennialism or a postmillennialism, this is what you need to hold in tension, especially for the hashtag that post mill guys in the room.
God bless you.
I'm one of you.
But this is what you need to understand.
Even if postmillennialism is true as the biblical eschatology, and I personally, you know my opinion, I think it is, that does not mean that it's just this steady, guaranteed incline.
Without any dips along the way.
We are in a heck of a dip right now.
I would argue a three to five hundred year long dip, particularly in the West.
Bound Yet Not Destroyed00:09:05
We are murdering just our nation alone a million babies in their mother's womb annually.
Satan is having a field day.
And he is the strong man.
Back to our text.
This is what Jesus is speaking of.
They say, You're doing this by Beelzebul, a name for the devil.
You are casting out demons by the power of demons, by the power of the king of demons, Satan himself.
And Jesus says, That's dumb.
A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.
Satan doesn't cast out Satan.
No.
No.
But then Jesus goes further and says, But there is a strong man who did have, and at this time, as Jesus is speaking, who does have, at that moment, an earthly authority and dominion.
He is the strong man of the house.
And the house that Jesus is referencing was the earth.
It was Satan's house.
God made the house, and he gave the house to Adam, and Adam handed the keys over to Satan.
It was Satan's house.
He took it fair and square.
But Jesus says that the house, at that moment, Satan's house, would be plundered.
But before it be plundered, it first needed to be invaded.
And the strong man, the leader of that house, needed to be bound.
And this is what Christ has done He has bound Satan.
And then his people, you and I, are now plundering the house.
But the fact that Satan is bound does not mean that he is yet completely destroyed.
He is bound, and there's a sense in which he knows his time is short and that his doom is certain.
But a bound man is not the same as a dead man.
Satan has yet to be cast into the lake of fire, his final resting place.
And even though he is bound, he is still able to push, to prod, to tempt, to oppress.
To confuse, to cause chaos.
And for a few hundred years now, after receiving the blessing of Christendom that God has granted to the West, we have forfeited much of those blessings.
And Satan has grown in strength and power in our age, in our lifetime.
Think about this Satan is a creature, not the creator.
He's not omniscient, nor is he omnipresent.
He is not like God.
He's not everywhere all at once.
He's finite.
But the fact that he is a creature and finite does not make him our peer.
Satan is a creature who has lived for thousands of years.
Acquiring knowledge, skills, tools, and wisdom.
Not the wisdom that comes from God, but a satanic and earthly wisdom.
Satan is not your peer.
Satan is a thousand times smarter than you, stronger than you, even with his hands tied behind his back.
You are no match.
We are talking about a formidable enemy.
And he hates you.
And he hates this world.
And right now, his team is racking up points on the scoreboard and have been doing so for a few centuries, not just decades.
I believe that Christ has bound him.
And I believe that Christ's victory, not despite the church, but through the church, is certain.
What is not certain or promised to us in Scripture, even if you are post millennial, Is that we would have tangible progressive victory today?
It is not promised to us that in our lifetime, if Christ tarries, it is not promised that in these next few decades, throughout the course of our life or the lives of our children, that Satan's spree that he's been on for quite a while now, racking up point after point after point, it is not guaranteed to us that this.
Scoring spree of Satan would stop anytime soon.
And so the people of God must be hopeful, must be confident, not in ourselves, but in Christ, but also must be watchful, must be vigilant, must be wise, and not naive.
So Christ bound the strong man, he has taken back dominion in the ultimate sense.
The final doom of Satan is certain.
But the tangible, earthly, progressive, and gradual dominion of Christ through his people, the church, is still very much in progress and currently under threat.
Going on in your notes, I've written, yet, even this, this miracle of Jesus casting out demons and supernaturally healing a man who was both blind and mute, even this miraculous instance, especially this, The Pharisees, enemies of Christ, attribute to the work of Beelzebub, the devil.
Even when confronted with divine mercy, the corrupt heart turns truth into blasphemy.
Let me read that again.
Even when confronted with divine mercy, and not just mercy, but as we saw earlier, this is not merely the mercy and compassion of Christ, but the power and strength and dominion of.
Of Christ over the devil.
And yet, when it comes to the corrupt heart, even divine mercy and divine power will be turned and twisted into blasphemy.
That's what sin does.
The enemies of God will call good evil and evil good.
They'll call truth blasphemy, mercy cruelty, and power cruelty.
Weakness.
This is not mere ignorance on the part of the Pharisees, but rather we must see it as willful rebellion.
They're not ignorant.
They know what has just occurred.
They know that this is a supernatural miracle of God, not only exercising or rather conveying, communicating power over the physical, but dominion over the spiritual.
That Jesus has both the power to heal the physical affliction and exercise the spiritual demonic entity.
They're not ignorant of this, but rather it is willful rebellion.
They could not deny that this is a miracle.
If they could have, they would have.
Surely, just from a logical standpoint, you can see.
That if there were any way that the Pharisees, as enemies of Christ, could have twisted the narrative to say, oh, it was just a coincidence, or this man was healed by some kind of medical means, they would have said that.
They would have said anything to take away and rob Christ of glory, and certainly to rob him of any potential status in the eyes of the people as the Son of God.
But this instance is so miraculous.
So on the nose, so undeniable, so clear that they can't say, well, it was a natural occurrence, not a miracle.
No, they have to acknowledge that this is a divine, supernatural, miraculous event.
And so their only option to still attempt to discredit Christ is to say, yes, a miracle, but performed by the devil.
The Unpardonable Blasphemy00:12:44
We cannot deny that this is proof.
Of supernatural power.
But whose supernatural power?
Not God's, but Satan.
And that's the narrative that they choose.
The last point for today, and then we'll focus on the second half of the text, Lord willing, next week.
The sign of the reprobate, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
So, first we've seen the sign of the kingdom, Christ's dominion over Satan.
Now, the sign of the damned, the sign of the reprobate.
Not just the unbeliever who one day, by God's grace, would be converted and saved and regenerated by the work of the Holy Spirit.
But no, what Jesus is about to reference is a category of people, namely the reprobate, who will never be saved, the non elect.
When the Bible speaks of evangelism and conversion, it is not goats being transformed into sheep, but rather it is lost sheep being found.
That's what conversion is.
When Jesus says, My sheep hear my voice, he's not saying that exclusively Christians hear my voice.
He's saying, All who are elect, sheep, will hear my voice.
Some of them having not yet become Christians, but still sheep, will hear my voice come and be found.
Salvation is not goats going into sheep, salvation is lost sheep being found sheep.
But there is, biblically speaking, a category outside of sheep altogether it is the category of goats.
Goats are not just non Christians, because a sheep is.
Can be a non Christian for a time until it is found.
But a goat is a non Christian who will always be a non Christian.
A goat is a non Christian who will never be converted, who will never be saved, who will never be regenerated.
A goat is someone who hates Christ and will only ever hate Christ.
The reprobate, the non elect, the damned.
And one sign of a goat, the reprobate, is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
Let's look at the words of Jesus now.
Verse 31 of our text says this Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people.
In this context, Jesus referencing blasphemy against himself, the Son.
But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Blaspheming the Son could be a lost sheep that one day will be found.
Blaspheming the Spirit is not a lost sheep that one day will be found, but a goat who will never ever change.
And in the end, in Christ's final return, he will separate the sheep from the goats at his right and left hand and say to the goats, Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.
This is who is in reference.
In the mind of Christ at this point in our text, the goat, the reprobate, the non elect.
In your notes, I've written this Christ now warns of the unpardonable, the unforgivable sin, namely the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
This is not every doubt, hear me, or you will struggle with assurance of salvation as I personally have.
But when I learned things like this from the Word of God, The Lord used it to provide for my heart a great assurance, and I want you to possess that assurance as well.
This is not this sin, unforgivable sin, that is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it is not every doubt or blasphemous word, but rather a specific and settled rejection of God's truth, especially when it has been made known.
Through the Spirit's clear testimony.
When a man with full knowledge calls the Spirit's work demonic, he reveals a heart that is not only hostile to God, but irreversibly seared.
Now, as a personal encouragement to you, I've written this.
Let us take this not as a point of speculative terror, not incessant.
Never ending introspection.
Puritans hardest hit, right?
I like the Puritans.
In this regard, do not be like the Puritans.
This concept of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit should not be something that you constantly navel gaze for the rest of your life, holding a daisy, sitting on a hillside.
God loves me.
He loves me not.
He loves me.
He loves me not.
I did blaspheme the Spirit.
Maybe I didn't blaspheme the Spirit.
I did blaspheme, but maybe I didn't.
Don't do that.
No.
This warning, and it is a strong warning, but it is not meant to be a point of speculative terror, but as a sober warning.
Here's the determining factor Have I committed this sin?
Here's a good sign, a good way to tell.
If we are grieved by this sin, and even the potential of committing it, and fear that we ourselves have committed this sin, that very grief, Is an evidence that we have not.
For the heart that has sinned in such a manner is no longer tender.
If you are one who has blasphemed the Holy Spirit, committed this sin as a way in the manner that Christ references it in our text today, you would not be here.
The blasphemers of the Holy Spirit don't go to church.
Well, they don't go to our church.
They go to synagogues.
They go to mosques.
They go to some Protestant churches and some Catholic churches.
But they don't go to churches that preach the Bible.
Those who truly have committed this sin, an unpardonable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, you're talking about someone who has clear, undeniable knowledge of the Spirit's testimony.
To the divinity of Christ.
And yet, it cannot be waved away in speculation as some kind of natural occurrence.
They have to do just as the Pharisees did and attribute this miraculous testimony by the Spirit to the divinity and deity of Christ, and they have to blaspheme it and somehow twist it into the work of Satan himself.
Now, one of the reoccurring themes, and we'll end with this, that we've seen throughout the gospel according to Matthew is this principle that I've espoused with great grace comes great responsibility.
With great grace comes great responsibility.
Remember the woes that Jesus pronounced on certain Jewish towns.
And he says, if the miracles that he performed in these towns in Israel had been performed in Sodom or Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago.
And then he says, That the torment and punishment for these Jewish towns that rejected such grapes would be a greater punishment for them on the final day than it would be for Sodom and Gomorrah.
Why?
Because their sin was greater than Sodom and Gomorrah?
Perhaps, perhaps not.
But what we know for sure is that they sinned in the face of a greater degree of revelation than Sodom and Gomorrah.
These Jewish towns, it may not have been the degree of their sin.
Being greater than the degree of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.
But what was greater in the case of these Jewish towns was the degree of revelation and grace having been given to them from God that they continued to sin in spite of.
These people saw Jesus walking in their streets in the flesh.
These people were eyewitnesses to the miraculous power of Jesus.
These people didn't just listen to a sermon online.
They heard the Sermon on the Mount.
They heard the preaching of Christ.
They witnessed Him multiplying food for the 5,000.
They witnessed Him casting out demons, healing the blind, the mute, the lame, and even raising the dead.
And with all that, their heart was only hardened.
And this is likened unto the sin of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
This is not someone who occasionally doubts.
No, this is someone who great grace has been given to.
Someone who, in the face of supernatural Holy Spirit wrought revelation that Jesus is the Messiah, still doubles down in their rejection of Christ.
So, if you're asking the question, have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit?
The answer would be.
Another question to arrive at the answer.
Have you received from the Holy Spirit conviction of sin, a revelation of Christ, and in the midst of that, attributed the Spirit's work of bearing witness to the Son as the work of the devil?
Have you received the Spirit's witness and testimony in a supernatural way to the deity of Christ?
And then labeled that the work of Beelzebub, called that the work of Satan and demons.
Have you witnessed the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit to the degree that you cannot explain it away in natural means?
And therefore, because you still did not want to accredit the Spirit with glory, you labeled his work as a supernatural work, albeit.
But the supernatural work of the devil.
And I can just about guarantee for every single person in the room, unless of course you're a journalist, that the answer to that question is no, you have not.
And if you had, you would not be here.
There are plenty of sinful Christians, and there are certainly plenty of sinful unbelievers who are elect and one day will become Christians.
The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit describes none of them.
This is reserved as a descriptor for not just Christians who still err and sin, or non Christians who are elect and one day will be saved, but for the goats, for the reprobate, for the non elect.
Little Faith and No Repentance00:02:45
And among them, there is no conviction.
There is no, not just little.
You and I constantly, one of the things we have to repent of is not just our sin, but the fact that we have too little grief over our sin and too little conviction for our sin and too slow to confess and repent of our sin.
Not so with the reprobate.
His problem is not too little grief or conviction for sin, his problem is he has no grief for sin, no conviction, no repentance.
Remember Romans chapter 3 as it describes.
Such a person, there is no fear of God before his eyes.
It's not that his problem is too little and that he needs and requires more sanctification to be further conformed into the image of the Son.
His problem is not that he has little faith, his problem is that he has no faith.
In John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the second edition, in their company on the way to the celestial city, there is an individual who goes by the name Little Faith.
And there's a moment in the book where a few of the people in the company are arguing, or at least discussing with one another, whether or not Little Faith in the end will be able to complete the journey.
And one who is wiser among their company responds by saying, Oh, of course, he'll make it.
For his name is Little Faith, not No Faith.
The whole point.
Of faith that Jesus tells us is not that those who have faith that is the degree of a mountain might be able occasionally to move a mustard seed.
It's the complete opposite.
The faith of a mustard seed can move a mountain.
Yes, we want to grow in faith.
Yes, we want to grow in repentance.
Yes, we want to grow in godly sorrow, as 2 Corinthians speaks godly grief over our sin.
But if we have any faith at all, if we have any grief at all, any conviction at all, then it is proof that we will grow.
Because he who began a good work in you was faithful to bring it to completion.
And for those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit, their problem is not little godliness, but no godliness at all.
Father, bless your word to your people, and we pray that through it we might bring you glory.