SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning and welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Please, if you have a Bible or a device, take your Bible and open it with me to the Gospel of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: If you are visiting with us this morning, we are glad to have you.
SPEAKER_00: We've been working our way through Matthew's Gospel together.
SPEAKER_00: We're nearing the end of chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or device, it'd be good if you would follow along with us.
SPEAKER_00: Going to be looking at chapter 12, beginning in verse 22 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Familiar passage to you in one sense or another.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it twisted and abused in many kinds of ways.
SPEAKER_00: We all have.
SPEAKER_00: It's about what we often call the unforgivable or the unpardonable sin.
SPEAKER_00: So you've heard it, I'm sure, used to show that taking one's life is an unforgivable sin.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it referenced that sexuality issues of immorality of all kinds is an unforgivable sin.
SPEAKER_00: I even heard one preacher one time say that not coming to church is an unforgivable sin.
SPEAKER_00: Been used and abused in all kinds of ways.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, I trust as we work our way through this, it will become clear to you what is and what is not an unforgivable sin.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have your device or your Bible, please follow along as I read from Matthew chapter 12, beginning in verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: It says, then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.
SPEAKER_00: And all the people were amazed and said, Can this be the son of David?
SPEAKER_00: But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, Yeah, no, it's only by Beelzebub or Beelzebub, your translation might say, the Prince of Dems, that this man casts out demons.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
SPEAKER_00: And if Satan casts out Satan, he's divided against himself.
SPEAKER_00: How then will his kingdom stand?
SPEAKER_00: If I cast out demons by Beelzebubel, by whom do your sons cast them out?
SPEAKER_00: Therefore they will be your judges.
SPEAKER_00: But if, here's his thesis statement, if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
SPEAKER_00: Or how can how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong men?
SPEAKER_00: Then indeed he may plunder his house.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people.
SPEAKER_00: But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: 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 in the age to come.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: You brood of vipers, you pack of rattlesnakes.
SPEAKER_00: How can you speak good when you are evil?
SPEAKER_00: For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
SPEAKER_00: The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: How is it that the scriptures say that we are justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus says you will be justified by what you say.
SPEAKER_00: How does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: How does that fit together?
SPEAKER_00: Seems like there might be a potential contradiction there.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever played with fire?
SPEAKER_00: Literally.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking a genuine question.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever played with fire?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not alone.
SPEAKER_00: Now some of you are are cautious people who have an innate uncertainty about things that keeps you from doing things like playing with fire.
SPEAKER_00: But then there are people like me that possess a curiosity about things, and we like to play with fire.
SPEAKER_00: I remember backpacking in the mountains as a kid, maybe five or six years old, and I remember just being fascinated by the campfire.
SPEAKER_00: I always had a stick in my hand when we were sitting around the campfire at night, and that stick, you know where the end of it always ended up?
SPEAKER_00: Right in the fire.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd get the tip of the stick lit on fire and pull it out of the fire and watch it until the flame died out and stick it back in and get it lit again and pull it out and blow it out and stick it back in and get it lit on fire and pull it out and dig it in the ground a little bit, stick it back in and see how long it takes to get lit.
SPEAKER_00: A few years later, when my dad let me learn how to start the campfire, a whole new world started.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was just fascinated by how to start fires.
SPEAKER_00: You know, how much wood would it take?
SPEAKER_00: Um, could you start a fire with moss taken off of a tree?
SPEAKER_00: Um could you start a fire with wet wood?
SPEAKER_00: It was it was incredibly difficult for me to realize as an adult I had missed something my entire childhood.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't one that participated in Boy Scouts.
SPEAKER_00: So I was an adult taking other kids backpacking when I finally learned that this trick of taking a cotton ball and rubbing it with Vaseline so that it became like a portable candle to start fires.
SPEAKER_00: I missed out on so much.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason, isn't there, why we have a saying about playing with fire?
SPEAKER_00: Something about getting burned.
SPEAKER_00: You might be familiar with with James in the New Testament talking about how dangerous the tongue is, that it can be so dangerous that it's like starting a forest fire.
SPEAKER_00: Just by what you say.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible has far more to say about the tongue and speech and fires than just James.
SPEAKER_00: It starts far before that.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to consider with me just for a minute here, before we get into Matthew, what Solomon, the wisest man to have ever walked this earth other than the Lord Jesus, had to say about fires.
SPEAKER_00: I'm convinced that Solomon was somebody who liked to play with fire.
SPEAKER_00: He said in Proverbs 16, 27, a worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like scorching fire.
SPEAKER_00: Speech is like scorching fire.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the flow of thought here from Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: Evil comes from, out of a worthless person.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in Proverbs, in the context of the whole book of Proverbs, that's someone who does not fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's someone who is not wise, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so an evil person, a worthless person, is someone who does not have faith in God, who has not come to the place of trusting in God alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so evil comes from within a person who's not wise in understanding through faith in God.
SPEAKER_00: And Solomon says that we can notice, we can have a perception about the worthlessness or the evil of a person by their speech.
SPEAKER_00: If what a person says is destructive and terrible and scorching and burning, then it's generally true that he or she is going to be like that on the inside as well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we consider this passage in Matthew, we need to first understand that it is not about primarily this unforgivable sin.
SPEAKER_00: We get caught on that often in our American culture, especially, and so we get distracted from everything else that's going on around it.
SPEAKER_00: And we get focused, too focused, on this unforgivable sin element.
SPEAKER_00: But this is not about the unforgivable sin.
SPEAKER_00: This passage is about people whose speech is like a scorching fire that comes from an evil heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that evil heart is evil because it rejects Christ as Lord by refusing the light of revelation given by the Spirit of the Living God.
SPEAKER_00: This passage is not about what you do, it's about what you say.
SPEAKER_00: Even better, it's about your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because out of the heart flow all kinds of words.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me at this passage.
SPEAKER_00: There are several kinds of words that are detailed here.
SPEAKER_00: First, in verse 22, there are words of healing.
SPEAKER_00: We have this then word that tells us that this follows what comes before, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we know what that is.
SPEAKER_00: If you were with us last time in verses 15 through 21, Matthew has detailed for us from Isaiah 42 how Jesus has come to fulfill scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Then a demon-oppressed man comes to Jesus, who was blind and mute and was brought to him, and Jesus healed him so that the man spoke and saw.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that there's no emphasis at all about how Jesus healed this man.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know if Jesus touched him.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know if Jesus spoke to him.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know if Jesus had him do something.
SPEAKER_00: All we know is that this man who is blind and unable to speak is brought to Jesus and suddenly he is healed.
SPEAKER_00: What is the evidence of his healing?
SPEAKER_00: He speaks and he sees.
SPEAKER_00: But when the kindness of God reached out to him to free him, he spoke.
SPEAKER_00: Those are words of healing.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, these words of healing are not from the mouth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: These words of healing are from the mouth of the man who could not speak.
SPEAKER_00: Those words indicate that there is healing, that there is freedom, that there is rescue.
SPEAKER_00: But even more, they lead us to the greater issue.
SPEAKER_00: How does Jesus have the power over the demons that could do this to a man?
SPEAKER_00: And again, we're drawn into this account from the previous verses.
SPEAKER_00: Those verses where Matthew laid out for us from Isaiah 42 all of the reasons that Jesus fulfills Isaiah 42.
SPEAKER_00: They were shown to us that Jesus is the one that we should expect.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who would come not taking a bent reed and snapping it off, but treating it with care and compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who would come to a smoldering wick, not to snuff it completely out, but to care for it and to revive it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who came to bring hope to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is now then approached by this demon-oppressed man.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: He cares.
SPEAKER_00: He cares for the bent.
SPEAKER_00: Read.
SPEAKER_00: He gives life to the snuffed out wick and hope to the one imprisoned by the demon.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23, well, we find words of searching.
SPEAKER_00: All the people around him were amazed.
SPEAKER_00: They were astonished.
SPEAKER_00: That carries the idea of being overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that the people around who watch this began to ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus the one?
SPEAKER_00: Could this be the Jesus, the Messiah, the hope that we've been looking for?
SPEAKER_00: Now, for a person of the first century in Judaism, the natural thinking would lead to God's promised Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: So they begin to murmur, wondering out loud, even, could this be the promised son of David?
SPEAKER_00: It's their way of saying, is Jesus the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew saying, Yes! Yes! That's what I've been trying to tell you from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: This is why he has the name Jesus, because he came to save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: This is why he's called Emmanuel, because he is God with us.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I've been telling you again and again and again that he came to fulfill the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I've shown you just before this in Isaiah 42, not one time, not two times, not three times, not four times, not five times, not six times, not seven times, but eight times just in Isaiah 42, he came to fulfill the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is Jesus, the Son of David.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: He's the answer to your searching.
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly Matthew's point.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's not merely a human descendant of King David, he's Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: He is God who is with us.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew wants us to know and to understand that everything Jesus did, everything he said, everything that he was, pointed to the fact that he is indeed God veiled in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss that.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Pharisees show us words of unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Pharisees heard it and they said it's don't get caught up in that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he puts on a good show, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: It's because Satan's helping him.
SPEAKER_00: Be alzebowl or be alzebub, depending on your translation, it's just another term for Satan, the ruler of demons.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Pharisees believed that Jesus had authority over demons and could bring about this dramatic change in this man because Satan was empowering Jesus to do it.
SPEAKER_00: He gave him the authority and the right to do that.
SPEAKER_00: So for some odd reason, they think that Jesus and the devil are in cahoots.
SPEAKER_00: They're working together, they're partners in crime, and so somehow it serves Satan's purpose to have Jesus remove the demonic influence from this man.
SPEAKER_00: What they're claiming is that Satan has greater authority than Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That tells us they do not understand who Jesus is, nor did they believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: But there's one potential situation in which this might have been true.
SPEAKER_00: Where this might have been a reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's a hint back to chapter 4 of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: We've been there.
SPEAKER_00: You remember that?
SPEAKER_00: It's where Jesus was tempted by Satan.
SPEAKER_00: In the last temptation, Satan took Jesus up on top of a high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Sort of reminiscent of God taking Moses up on top of Mount Nebo to look at all of the promised land and say, this is all that I'm going to give you.
SPEAKER_00: Satan says to Jesus, this can all be yours.
SPEAKER_00: You can indeed be the ruler of the kingdoms of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: If only you will do what?
SPEAKER_00: Worship me.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus would have worshiped Satan, then there might have been a chance that this would be true.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus said, No, that can't be.
SPEAKER_00: Look at, though, the blindness of this unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: The blind man saw and spoke.
SPEAKER_00: But those who could already see somehow become blind and unbelieving in the light of God's power and grace.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we often do, we see hints here of chapter 5 repeating itself.
SPEAKER_00: The Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_00: It's the poor in spirit, it's those humbled by their sin that receive the gift of faith and come to see who Jesus really is.
SPEAKER_00: While everyone else is confirmed in their blindness.
SPEAKER_00: That brings us then to verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 25, all the way through verse 37, is one extended statement by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can see that this is words of instruction, then, from the Word of God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And it begins with Jesus, Jesus in his omniscience, knowing their thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: That's important to understand in the context of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows what's going on inside of you without it even coming out.
SPEAKER_00: He knows in great detail, in all detail, what you have thought, what you are thinking, and what you will think, even if it never comes out of your lips.
SPEAKER_00: This is his omniscience coming into play.
SPEAKER_00: It is no secret to him what is going on in the hearts of these Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: It's no secret what's going on in the searching of the people.
SPEAKER_00: It's no secret to him what the man is experiencing as he begins to speak and to see.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus reacts then, responds to these challenges by the Pharisees with some very logical words.
SPEAKER_00: He just says, hey, let's think about this and begin to make some sense out of what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus casts out demons, reversing the effect of the demonic oppression, and if he does that under the influence of Satan himself, that means that Satan is undoing what Satan's already done.
SPEAKER_00: My children are not in the service, and hopefully they won't be listening to this later.
SPEAKER_00: But do you know how often I turn off lights and suddenly the lights are turned back on?
SPEAKER_00: And I come back and I turn off the lights and suddenly they're turned back on.
SPEAKER_00: Or a door is shut and then it's open and then it's shut.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to redo something.
SPEAKER_00: And if you put that onto a global scale of Satan trying to take over the world and wrest it from the hands of God, why would he want to undo what he has done?
SPEAKER_00: It's utter nonsense.
SPEAKER_00: But the principle, though, is that Satan is the ruler of his own kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is strong, he is powerful, and he has a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture calls him the ruler of this dark world.
SPEAKER_00: And if there is someone on his own side, on his own team, working against him to undo what was done, then his kingdom isn't unified.
SPEAKER_00: There's somebody working against him.
SPEAKER_00: And a divided kingdom isn't going to last long.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus asks, how long will this kingdom stand, we're going to answer, well, yeah, it's not going to last.
SPEAKER_00: That's very logical.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, listen, if you're fighting against one another, it's not going to last.
SPEAKER_00: Case in point, perhaps the greatest human leader of men this world has ever known, Alexander the Great, conquered the known world at the time by the age of 33.
SPEAKER_00: Makes me feel worthless.
SPEAKER_00: 33 years old, he'd conquered everything there was to conquer, and then he died.
SPEAKER_00: After he died, his empire was divided amongst As four generals.
SPEAKER_00: It was every general for himself.
SPEAKER_00: Then it all went downhill.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty soon the Greek Empire was gone because the Roman Empire came in and conquered them.
SPEAKER_00: See, the unified whole under Alexander was strong, was powerful, was mighty, but when you divide it, it begins to fall to pieces.
SPEAKER_00: So too, Jesus says, in the spiritual realm.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't make logical sense for Jesus to be working for Satan.
SPEAKER_00: If the devil is divided, then his work is going to be against himself and his kingdom's going to fall.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the way things really are.
SPEAKER_00: We move to some words of reality.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, let me tell you what is actually happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' kingdom is greater than Satan's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is stronger than Satan, and he has bound him, he's tied him up, he's rendered him useless.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus' power is through the power of the Holy Spirit, then it is proof, Jesus says, that the kingdom of God and its king is present.
SPEAKER_00: That's his thesis statement in verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: But if, if the reality is that I have the power of God through his spirit to cast out demons, then it is also true that God's kingdom is present, and if God's kingdom is present, then the king is here.
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do about that?
SPEAKER_00: It's really very simple logic.
SPEAKER_00: It's going back to verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is, as Matthew wrote there in referring to Isaiah 42, if Jesus is the prophesied servant of God, if he is the promised Messiah, if he is the one upon whom God's spirit rests and remains, and the one who is Emmanuel, God in the flesh, then this is not a work of Satan, but a demonstration that the kingdom of God is here.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but its divine king is here too.
SPEAKER_00: And he's beginning to cast out the thief who would seek to steal from God.
SPEAKER_00: He's binding the strong men who wants to take control.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus gives an illustration.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to go in and plunder someone's home, you first must disarm the security system.
SPEAKER_00: Now they didn't have those noisy security systems that we have today that call the police automatically for you.
SPEAKER_00: This time you would have a strong man.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's referring to the owner of the home himself, maybe it's a hired hand who is going to be there to defend.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know the situation, but either way, you have to get him out of the way if you're going to rob the home.
SPEAKER_00: So you tie him up.
SPEAKER_00: That enables you to go in and plunder the home.
SPEAKER_00: Now, no, please understand, Jesus is not addressing the morality of plundering.
SPEAKER_00: He's simply using this as an illustration.
SPEAKER_00: He's using it as an illustration of being for Jesus or against Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's no middle ground.
SPEAKER_00: You are either for him or you're against him.
SPEAKER_00: There's no place for Switzerland in Jesus' plan.
SPEAKER_00: There's no place for compromise.
SPEAKER_00: You are with him or you are against him.
SPEAKER_00: And in the language of the illustration, Jesus says that he is in the process of plundering Satan's house.
SPEAKER_00: He has exerted greater power and greater authority than the strong man of the house, so that he is going to go in and take for himself what Satan has in his grasp.
SPEAKER_00: And what has Satan had in his grasp?
SPEAKER_00: A child of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I'm going to go in.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take him back.
SPEAKER_00: So these words of truth that Jesus expresses is that there's no middle ground when it comes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He uses a shepherding illustration.
SPEAKER_00: Shepherd goes out and he gathers in the sheep, and he gathers them in to protect them, to feed them, to care for them, to heal them.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I come and I come to gather my sheep in.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 10, Jesus says, I bring them in.
SPEAKER_00: They hear my voice.
SPEAKER_00: I gather them in.
SPEAKER_00: The thief comes only to steal and plunder and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says, You're either gathering with me or you're scattering.
SPEAKER_00: There's no middle ground, there's no middle place.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is speaking pointedly to the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: When they said that they believed that Jesus had power from Satan, they were declaring their allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: They are scattering with Satan.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us then to the point we're familiar with, and that is the condemning words.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, based on all of this, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And in case that wasn't strong enough, he repeats it in verse 32.
SPEAKER_00: Will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Will not be.
SPEAKER_00: What is Matthew trying to do?
SPEAKER_00: What is God trying to demonstrate, to illustrate for us through this book that Matthew has written?
SPEAKER_00: It's very simple.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one.
SPEAKER_00: So everything that we've seen, everything that he does, points to who he is, the power of the Holy Spirit at work in Jesus, undoing what Satan has done is a perfectly clear demonstration of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: So it's blasphemy then against the Holy Spirit to believe that the power of Jesus to heal a demon-oppressed man is actually the power of Satan instead of the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: And in the specific sense of this account, that exact situation can't be repeated.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not present with us.
SPEAKER_00: He's sitting at the right hand of God the Father, so he's not here to relieve people of their oppression of demons or to heal them.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are not able in today's time to see Jesus present physically, demonstrate the power of God and to ascribe that to the work of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way for us to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot look at him and see what he says, hear what he says, see what he does, and say that work is done by the power of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: But what's the point?
SPEAKER_00: What does it prove, Jesus says in verse 28?
SPEAKER_00: What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: What does it declare?
SPEAKER_00: If indeed Jesus does these things by the power of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: What if it's God and not Satan?
SPEAKER_00: Are you willing to consider that?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew tells us, it proves that he is indeed the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: See, the miracles of Jesus are designed to prove his identity.
SPEAKER_00: The work of the Holy Spirit, as Scripture says, is to convict the world of what?
SPEAKER_00: Sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The work of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the work of the Holy Spirit is to separate the world into those who gather with Jesus or those who scatter with Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That means that it is blasphemy to reject the powerful demonstration of the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus as the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: If you reject the Spirit's work to show Christ to you, you will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: The unforgivable sin, then, according to the context of this account, is a settled, determined, willful rejection of the work of God's Spirit to show you Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If someone completely and willfully and finally rejects that revelation, as these Pharisees did, they will remain forever unforgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Now there are three categories of people then among those who have heard the word of God, who have seen Jesus in his time, who have who have received through even the proclamation of God's word the Spirit's revealing work.
SPEAKER_00: There are those with faith in Jesus who have heard this opening of God's word to reveal Jesus and who have said, Yes, I believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: I place my trust in him and who receive forgiveness based on Jesus' payment for their sin.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who still may come to Christ, but are as of yet unforgiven.
SPEAKER_00: They've not completely or finally rejected the light of revelation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: They may still come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They may still be given faith and have new life and forgiveness of sins, and then there are those who are unforgivable.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the ones who have permanently set themselves against God, completely rejecting his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And that final group, the unforgivable, remain in their sin.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't reach out and draw them to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he takes away from them, as it were, any light that might bring them out of darkness to him.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal, folks.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know who's in which group.
SPEAKER_00: It's not for you, it's not for me to make a determination that so-and-so is unforgivable.
SPEAKER_00: Only God knows.
SPEAKER_00: Only God knows that.
SPEAKER_00: Now that leads us then in verse 33 to some eternally impactful words.
SPEAKER_00: Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad.
SPEAKER_00: For the tree is known by its fruit.
SPEAKER_00: I have a couple of plum trees in my yard.
SPEAKER_00: Produces small plums, tasty, but not very many of them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still in the process of figuring out what's wrong with my trees because it doesn't produce very many of them.
SPEAKER_00: But I know that something's not quite right about those trees because it doesn't produce much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very basic principle, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now fruit in this context is equated with speech.
SPEAKER_00: You brood of vipers, you, you, you, you den of rattlesnakes, how can you speak good when you are evil?
SPEAKER_00: So your heart contains an entire library.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you don't like to go to the library, but you don't know that you carry a library.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart contains an entire library, and your mouth expresses in words what that library contains.
SPEAKER_00: If we want to obtain a good evaluation of the tree itself, of its health, of its vitality, of its nutrients, of its water level, you look at the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit can tell you a lot about the tree.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's good or whether it's healthy is determined, though, by the internal essence of the tree.
SPEAKER_00: It's what's inside the tree.
SPEAKER_00: If the tree itself is in good shape, so too generally will be the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: If the tree is in bad shape, so too will be the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: But the Pharisees are unable to speak good things because their hearts are evil.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you can expect venom from a rattlesnake.
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't be a surprise.
SPEAKER_00: There are many reasons why I probably shouldn't be alive today.
SPEAKER_00: One of them is because of rattlesnakes.
SPEAKER_00: I remember a time, it was probably six, seven, eight, nine years old.
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was one of those times when dad let me skip school to go hunting.
SPEAKER_00: It was fabulous.
SPEAKER_00: It was in the fall, early in the fall, and probably late September, we were bow hunting.
SPEAKER_00: It was just right out of town in Marmouth, North Dakota, and we were we were climbing up this hill, stalking up this hill, and there was a little bit of a ridge at the top of the hill.
SPEAKER_00: So we were slowly climbing this hill, and there was a bit of a ridge at the top, and as we got to the top, we slowed down and we peeked over the other side of the ridge to see if there were any deer on the other side of the hill.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a little guy still, so I'm desperately trying to keep up with my dad, and I'm exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just looking for a place to sit down, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that we find there's no deer on the other side, and we walk along this little ridge until we get even with it, or to the point where we can turn around and sit down, and so I'm just I'm just beat by this point.
SPEAKER_00: And I turn around and start to sit down, and my dad says, Jason.
SPEAKER_00: It's the only time I've ever heard my dad speak like that.
SPEAKER_00: Just one word, and I even can't repeat it.
SPEAKER_00: But I just knew I needed to stop.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm half crouching, right?
SPEAKER_00: Half half ready to sit down.
SPEAKER_00: And my dad, I don't think he said anything else after that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't quite remember.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember the next thing is I see his bow come out like this and come behind me and do this.
SPEAKER_00: And then he turned me around, and right there were about a half a dozen baby rattlesnakes about a foot long that I was about to sit on.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of reasons I shouldn't be alive right now.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that a little scary?
SPEAKER_00: Because we know that venom is in rattlesnakes.
SPEAKER_00: You brood of vipers.
SPEAKER_00: Every time that Matthew refers to the brood of vipers is he's talking about the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, You Pharisees, you're like a den of rattlesnakes.
SPEAKER_00: You're poison.
SPEAKER_00: You have poison in you.
SPEAKER_00: How can you speak good?
SPEAKER_00: How can you bear good fruit?
SPEAKER_00: How can you say righteous things when all that's inside of the tree, when all that's inside of the snake is venom?
SPEAKER_00: These Pharisees are unable to speak good things because their hearts are evil.
SPEAKER_00: You can expect venom from a rattlesnake.
SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to people, you can only expect from them what is already in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
SPEAKER_00: The word abundance here means a condition of great plenty, such that it overflows.
SPEAKER_00: It's just going to overflow.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever is in the heart is there in such quantity.
SPEAKER_00: The library is so vast that there has no other choice but to overflow out of a person in its speech.
SPEAKER_00: To use another illustration, each of us is a reservoir holding within us either good or bad, sinful or righteous, changed by the Spirit of God or molded by the Spirit of Satan to pour out of us.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus uses a word here that you know it's it's that dinosaur of words, thesaurus.
SPEAKER_00: You have a treasury, a thesaurus inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: It's a treasury of words.
SPEAKER_00: And the treasury that Jesus is speaking of is that which is accumulated inside the heart of each person.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has a treasure inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: And that treasure is going to overflow.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to pour out of you.
SPEAKER_00: And when it does, if it's a good treasure, if it's the opposite of the Pharisees, in other words, it's going to result in good.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to have good fruit.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be good and gracious and affirming and praiseworthy and trusting of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But if it's an evil treasure like the Pharisees, it will be capable of blasphemous evil.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, this is all in the context of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a righteous library in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Is there a justified heart that out of that is going to flow rivers of living water?
SPEAKER_00: Or are there going to be careless words, rejecting words, unbelieving words that lead to judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Jesus goes next in verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: There are words of warning.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
SPEAKER_00: So the day of judgment is going to reveal then the connection between words and the heart.
SPEAKER_00: But remember, this all concerns faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: God has given you the revelation of the person of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: On this day, it was through the forgiveness, the release, the freedom of a man bound by Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That was a demonstration of the power of God's Spirit to show who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Making the good confession about Jesus will bring praise and welcoming.
SPEAKER_00: Careless words about Jesus will bring about condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: Because see, when when God's Spirit gives you light and understanding about the person of Jesus and you respond with faith and trust, it brings about a new creation in which God takes your heart and gives you a new one.
SPEAKER_00: And with it, he gives you a new library.
SPEAKER_00: He gives you a new reservoir.
SPEAKER_00: He takes out the poison and replaces it with a river of life.
SPEAKER_00: And with that comes eternal forgiveness and grace.
SPEAKER_00: But rejection of that revelation brings irrevocable judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Now the common question is this can the unforgivable sin be committed today?
SPEAKER_00: It's 11.59 and I'm supposed to be done.
SPEAKER_00: Not going to answer that question.
SPEAKER_00: Can the unforgivable sin be committed today?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to answer that question because it's the wrong question.
SPEAKER_00: The right question is: do the words of my mouth reveal a library of faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Savior?
SPEAKER_00: Do the words of my mouth reveal the power of God's Spirit to save sinful people through the revelation of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Do my words display a treasury of God's power and grace to heal and to save?
SPEAKER_00: Do they reveal trusting?
SPEAKER_00: Do they reveal rejecting?
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all equally God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no deficiency of God in them.
SPEAKER_00: So to sin against the Spirit cannot be a greater sin than sinning against the Father or the Son.
SPEAKER_00: So how is it that sinning against the Spirit can be unforgiving when sinning against the Son is not?
SPEAKER_00: I think it comes down to this, friends, it's about what the Spirit does.
SPEAKER_00: It is the Spirit who empowers, it is the Spirit who enlightens.
SPEAKER_00: And it is the Spirit who reveals the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus worked in all of these miraculous ways, the Spirit was empowering him and revealing light by which people could see the truth about the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if you reject that work of the Holy Spirit, you reject all hope of eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: By rejecting the work of the Spirit, you choose darkness over light, you choose condemnation over forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees, by attributing the power, the light, and the revelation of the Spirit about Jesus to the work of Satan, we're saying, we choose condemnation, we choose darkness.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected the revelation of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, and they stood self-condemned.
SPEAKER_00: And their words revealed the condition of their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the bottom line, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: God does not forgive those who reject Him.
SPEAKER_00: God does not forgive those who do not trust wholly and only in the salvation provided through His Son.
SPEAKER_00: The more you reject the revelation of the power and the mercy of God seen in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the Messiah, the more hardened you will become to his mercy and to his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And if you fully and finally reject Christ, God will put his stamp on you, confirming you in your rejection, and he will not forgive your sin.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, we cannot come and hear of the power and the glory, the mercy and the grace of Jesus and leave unchanged.
SPEAKER_00: At least, at least be amazed and curious and seek to know more like the people who were amazed.
SPEAKER_00: Can this be?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it can.
SPEAKER_00: Give praise and honor to him before whom you will one day stand in awe.
SPEAKER_00: Do not leave the revelation of the person of Jesus Christ unmoved, unchanged, or worse yet, hardened in unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Consider your words, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Because your words tell a story about your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's a library.
SPEAKER_00: It's a library full about what goes on inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: Do your words reveal a treasury of pride and arrogance, of self-reliance and bitterness?
SPEAKER_00: Or do they reveal an account of someone who comes humbly to Jesus, nothing in your hands to bring but a sinful heart seeking cleansing?
SPEAKER_00: Does your heart express words revealing the idolatry of self, of impurity, of kingdom building that elevates you?
SPEAKER_00: Or does your heart proclaim words that elevate Christ, that proclaim the glories of his grace?
SPEAKER_00: Today you've seen the light of Jesus because of the revealing work of his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it and you've seen it.
SPEAKER_00: Now what will you do with that light?
SPEAKER_00: Do you love the words of God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you long to hear more of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Do you long to follow him wherever he leads, no matter what it entails?
SPEAKER_00: Do you long to obey his word?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know your sin when you fail him and then run to him in confession and repentance to receive the grace of forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you react with careless words?
SPEAKER_00: What is your heart's treasure?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of library does your heart possess?
SPEAKER_00: What words are formed by your tongue and your mouth?
SPEAKER_00: Do you play with fire?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you sing the praises of his glory and grace?
SPEAKER_00: May we be, as the hymn writer said, a people desiring a thousand tongues to sing our great Redeemer's praise.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we come confessing our sin to you, acknowledging that you are our Lord and our Savior, and may no one here leave today without that confession.
SPEAKER_00: May you be the one who inspires all of our words.
SPEAKER_00: May you build within us a library of your praise because of your glorious grace given to us through faith and trust in you alone.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.