A Solemn Warning

Well, good morning. Happy Father's Day. Um, I know that we have embarked on uh on beach season and vacation season as I can see. Uh, both our worship leaders happen to be out. I know a number of other people are uh are out today. Um, and uh let's actually just dive in. Our text this morning is from Matthew 12. We're going to be looking at verses 32-37. Matthew 12 22-37

Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to him. It's Jesus. And he healed him so that the man spoke and saw. And 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 Beaselbul, the prince of demons, that this man casts 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 beasel bull, 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." And 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 an 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 God's word. Well, if you were expecting a nice Father's Day sermon today, sorry. Uh, you know, as you many of you know, we preach our way through text and sometimes we do take a break from that or we or we turn, but our goal is to really preach through whole sections of scripture, whole books of the Bible. And it just so be it that fell today uh by God's providence on a passage that is one of ju Jesus's difficult uh passages on the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And yet and yet like God's word always is I think it can speak to us today because in this I believe that Jesus delivers a hard and stern word but it's because of his love and because of his love for people he delivers a warning. a warning even to the Pharisees that we'll see as we look at this passage today. But the context of this as we just want to sort of dive back in is to remember in the beginning of chapter 12, Jesus has begun to proclaim and invite people into the true rest to find their ultimate rest in him that they've been laboring and trying to to earn their way into God's good graces all of their life. and and Jesus shows up and does what God ultimately has invited all people to do. Come all you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest. And these are huge words that Jesus says because in essence he is taking a position of God and offering ultimately God's rest to the people not based upon all the works that they need to do or they're earning and striving but just simply to turn and to come to him. And then Jesus uh heals a man with a withered hand uh that day a few at some point and heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. And this creates all sort of uproar. But Jesus ultimately is beginning to proclaim and fulfill what the passage says right before this Isaiah 42. And that he is inviting people to come to him. I'm going to just look at it real quick. Isaiah, behold my servant servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he will be proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory. And in his name, the Gentiles hope. So ultimately, Matthew is showing us as we come into this passage, Jesus is fulfilling the prophecies that were spoken about the Messiah. He is embodying these very things. And one of my aims as we come to this passage is ultimately to highlight Christ. As always, we want to to lift high the the council of God and the revelation of God. Even here we can see throughout this passage Jesus's tenderness and gentleness inviting all sorts of people to come and find the true rest in him to receive healing that he will even go beyond you know the traditional rules and legalism of Sabbath to reach and shower his blessing and his healing and his ultimate Sabbath and rest over people that are suffering on the Sabbath day itself that Jesus and God are in the saving business. God is in the restoring and redemptive business. Always trying to woo us from the path of destruction and to turn us to himself. And even here in this passage, we're going to see that Jesus is caring for his opponents who have a wrong version of the Messiah in their minds, a false Messiah. And so Jesus is going to to speak them today. There's going to be three pieces that we look at that as we journey through this passage. We're going to look at the premise of that warning. We're going to look at the points of that warning. And then finally, we're going to look at the purpose of that warning. So, the premise of the warning. What's the premise? Well, there's growing opposition to Jesus in this passage. and and and even so now they have they've begun to uh to oppose him by saying you know he heals a demonpossessed man who was blind and mute and brought him to him and he healed him so that the man spoke and saw I mean miraculous is happening I want us to see the power of God rescuing and saving and delivering people from bondage from bondage. This is Jesus. This is who he is. But the demon, not the demons, the Pharisees begin to resist that. E the people themselves see who Jesus is. But the Pharisees say, but the Pharisees heard it and they said, "It is only by Beaselbull, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons." This is a phrase that was used in chapter 8 and chapter 9. It's a saying that has begun to float around among the Pharisees. Something that they have begun to utter and speak as they process because they don't like Jesus. And why? Why are they so opposed to him? Because Jesus doesn't fit the mold and the type of what they think the Messiah should be. He's breaking all the rules. He's upending everything. They they are looking ultimately for what they what was probably like a Judas Mcabeas, a guy that was a leader that kind of had a military leader as a king sort of role a couple centuries before Jesus, but he also brought some religious reform because he was linked to the priesthood as well. And they're really hoping for this sort of uber Pharisee in their minds. And Jesus upends their expectations. He heals on the Sabbath. He collects people who are sinners and tax collectors. and he hangs out with them and he calls them to believe and then he he he speaks forgiveness over people and the Pharisees don't know what to make of Jesus. But whatever he is, he cannot be from God in their minds and so they're absolutely going to reject that. And there is a problem with his ministry though that we begin to see that they don't know how to reconcile. What is that? Jesus is healing people. Jesus is casting out demons. I mean, it's one thing to stand up and to proclaim something. It's one thing to not fit the sort of religious mold that you expect that day. You know, it's one thing to to proclaim anything and say things, but to begin to do them, to begin to heal people, to begin to fulfill the prophecies of old, opening the eyes of the blind, and so the the mute can speak, the lame can walk. These are fulfilling things that Old Testament talked about. And how do you reconcile that? And what the Pharisees begin to do because they don't know what to make of this is they develop a lie. a lie about Jesus. And all that they can do at this point is to say what has been said in the previous chapters. It's not by God's power that he does this. It's by a demonic god of old, by Satan himself and his power that he then casts out these demons because there's no way that this God represents God or that God would be for him or anointing his ministry in any way. And so that they develop this and this is the solution that they develop calling it evil because Jesus offends their expectations.

And so all that they can do is just to reject him. And it challenges what we know about God. We can be tempted to create our own version of God that fits our expectations instead of bending our expectations to God's word. Jesus is even fulfilling God's word. And the spirit is giving testimony and witness and authority to his ministry. And yet we can be uncomfortable with Jesus or with God's word. And sometimes when there is a lie this insidious, this hurtful, there are some lies and some untruths that need to be addressed in life because they can be toxic. They can be ways of thinking that are destructive. And this way of thinking that the Pharisees are holding is very dangerous, very destructive. And I don't think that all the Pharisees have bought into this because that's the way that it often works with lies. Somebody comes up with a rationale. They begin to say it enough and it becomes group think so that enough people begin to say it within your group. It's the air that you begin to breathe and you begin to move from believe to hearing to believing to proclaiming that yourself. And I think for many of the Pharisees here that are in danger of rejecting not Jesus alone but the Holy Spirit's testimony, Jesus has to correct this falsehood. And maybe just as a side note, be careful of the truths or maybe the non-truths, the lies that you believe because even in our own head, and you know this, there can be voices, presumptions, all sorts of things that work their way into our thought life. And pretty soon, whether they are of not of God and they are just sort of outside spiritual things lying to us or within our own sinful selves, we have developed some sort of lie. We can begin to believe it and it can begin to darken something in us. And we need the light of God's warning and truth to awaken us. We may not be even in danger of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but you still may be in danger of living less than God has for you. So the second thing we look at is the points that Jesus makes in this. All right. So he's going to say these are illogical. You're confused and they're dangerous. So the point first point that Jesus makes is here in verse 25- 27. And he says your argument is illogical. He says knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided itself will stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? Does that make any sense? That's essentially what he's saying. If it's it's like in our modern day vernacular, we'd say you're shooting yourself in the foot. How can Satan cast out himself? What good does that do? He's like fighting a war against the kingdom of God and then just to drive himself out. That's reverse logic. Why would that ever work? You can be so committed to a way of illogical thinking or to some falsehood, so committed to your own version and truth that you reject things that are very logical about God and about scripture. a famous quote that I read many years ago um by by an atheist Thomas Nagel. He was an NYU professor and uh and one of the things that he said in in a in a book of his, he wrote, "I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally hope there is no God. I don't want there to be a God. I don't want the universe to be like that. It's an outright rejection. Even if the fact that so many of the things in the universe around us, science itself, points to God, people will still reject, reject the logical things that they see because of this presupposition that I don't want it. And so they'll begin to believe things that are illogical even when the evidence points to it. One thing right now is if you're familiar with cosmology, lots of people are uncomfortable with a finite universe that seems like it was created out of nothing because that implies a creator. And so one of the things that scientists have is that a theory that there is a universe behind this universe that was first infinite and somehow created this universe. So we have a theory about a theory and you kind of see how that begins to break down logically because you can be so committed to your own way of thinking to your own lie even to your own presupposition that you'll believe illogical things. And God has given us plenty of reason as I've shared many times before to have a reasonable faith for him to believe that his words are true. The second thing that Jesus says is, "You are confused." Verses 26 and 28. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? But if by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. So he looks and says, "You fail to see the source of my power. You may not like me, but what do you do with the fact that it's not Satan that's doing this? I've already shown you that it's illogical. It doesn't make any kind of sense. So, who and how am I driving this out? What authority do I get this? And he begins to tell him, if it's not Satan, and if I have this power to bind Satan, if I'm the stronger man that can bind the man of the house, then I have to have some sort of authority that's stronger than demonic authority. And there's only one source of that. It's the kingdom of God. is the power of God in me. And if it is by that, then be warned because the spirit of God is anointing my ministry. And you aren't rejecting me. Who are you rejecting at the end of the day? You are rejecting, you're going up the chain of command. You're rejecting the spirit of God that points and has anointed my ministry. And now you're calling it evil. And do you see what's happening here? You can have robes, religious attire, you can go to church, you can read the Bible or know the Torah end to end like they did and yet not recognize that the Messiah is standing in front of you, not recognize what all the other people around them understand. Is that is this not the son of David? It's a rhetorical question. Yeah, it is the son of David. Even they see it. They don't even know the scriptures as well as the Pharisees do. It's become so apparent and so clear to them and yet they are confused and what they don't realize is that if you are rejecting that spirit of God then who are you really fighting against? Who are you really rejecting at the end of the day? It's not me. It is my father who has anointed and sent the Holy Spirit to anoint my ministry and empower it. And there's something dangerous because it means that you Pharisees, you're fighting on the wrong side. You think you stand on God's side and yet you are opponents to God's side. You're not just opponents of me, but God himself as well. And that there is something confusing about that. You can reject these things, but you will find that you f there's that you will fight on the wrong side. There's a hint in Luke. Luke says that it comes by the finger. He has Jesus say, "It comes by the finger of God." That if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of heaven has come upon you. And many Bible commentators look at that and they look at the fact that Pharaoh in Egypt, his magicians, when Moses was performing these great signs and wonders, at one point they could not replicate it. They turned to Pharaoh and said, "It is nothing but the finger of God. And what he's saying is that there's a direct parallel some Bible commentators see in this illusion that Luke highlights where what he's saying is is you're being like Pharaoh. His own magicians warned him this is the finger of God. And what did Pharaoh do? He hardened his heart. He could not see what even his magicians began to see. That God's power was manifesting itself and proclaiming something and he would not bow to that. And in the same way, the Pharisees are in danger of doing that same very same thing in their life of not bowing, not recognizing, but hardening their heart. And what we can wind up doing when we aren't comfortable and when we're confused and when we are so committed to our own way of thinking, we can not only be fighting on the wrong side, we can presume the wrong things about God. You can take a Jesus because people in our culture today, we we love Jesus. Everybody loves Jesus. Jesus was all about grace and love and mercy. He was. But he said some hard things too. He said some things that we have to reconcile. And what many people do is we cherrypick the things that we like about Jesus and we sort of push away the things that we don't know about Jesus selectively. And you will all of a sudden to defend your position and your beliefs, you will put Jesus on your side. you know, oh, Jesus was all about grace, so I can live the way I want. I can do what I want. I can be how I want. You know, it's all about that, baby. And yet, we reject all the other parts. You have a fake Jesus. A fake Jesus. A Jesus who likes the things you like and hates the things you hate. Supports your beliefs and your ways of life instead of calling you to change your beliefs and your life to accept him. you're confused. The third thing that he says in his points is that he points out the danger. He says it's dangerous what you're saying. It's dangerous the position that you are holding because there's a danger in believing a lie like this because it's insidious. It's insidious among all of you as a group and you need to be very careful. Jesus notes that there is something about the words and the posture, especially the posture that you are saying that is getting close to moving to a place beyond God's forgiveness. And we'll talk about that in just a second. But I want you to hear that you can reject Jesus, but now you're rejecting the source of his power, the evidence that points to him, the logical things that the testimony of the Holy Spirit itself because the spirit points to Jesus. And so what are you going to say and how are you going to reconcile that? Jesus is warning them about the unforgivable sin. And I'm just going to read that for a second here. It says

Jesus in verse 30 says, "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 a speaks against the holy spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come." Jesus says you can reject the son of man. That's fine. You don't believe. You can't. You're having a hard time with my teachings. You don't understand that I am God or the things that I'm hinting at. But when you begin to go and look at the one who verifies, when you begin to look at the Holy Spirit and call him evil, when you begin to take that kind of posture, like no matter what, I don't care what kind of miracles he does. I don't care how many people he sets free. I don't care how many prophecies he fulfills. I don't care any of that. I refuse to believe that kind of posture. There is something dangerous about the clear evidence that the Holy Spirit himself is pointing to right here. It's a rejection of God. It's an adamant thing. And this is what he's talking about with the with the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

It's not an errant thing like like so many people have preached about. So, let me just just take a second. If you are afraid that you've spoken an errant word that somehow you have of have have spoken something that was sacrilegious or terrible at some point in your life and you're worried about that you've not committed this scholars abound that they're virtually universal. This is a repeated rejection. It's a deliberate willful and final rejection of the conviction and calling of the Holy Spirit in light of all of his testimony and efforts to draw a person to God. It's not some errant word. It's not some even rejection or even blasphemy of the son of man. So if that's you, you have to know this. Or if you think that that could be you, it's not you. This is something different that Jesus is talking about because God's forgiveness is vast. As he says, you could Paul himself called himself in first Timothy a blasphemer and reviler and yet he received God's grace. Manasseh was involved in child sacrifice and yet in 2 Chronicles it records how he repented and God forgave him and restored him. So it's not just an errant word or one thing spoken out of turn. It is a repeated rejection of the truth that God continues via the Holy Spirit to present to draw you to highlight Christ to help you to see. It's that same thing that Pharaoh did in his heart. It's that same posture now that some of the Pharisees are beginning to have this repeated rejection. No matter what is said, they refuse to see or to look at the truth. In Acts uh chapter 7, Stephen is giving testimony um to the religious leaders of his day and uh and he says to them, "You stiffnecked people uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. Always repeatedly." This is the kind of thing Jesus is talking about. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? and they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one whom you have now betrayed and murdered. Now there were some who betrayed and murdered and what did they do? They repented. The Holy Spirit struck their hearts and they turned. But this is not the attitude of the people that stand in front of Steven this day. There is that repeated rejection of the witness and the power of the testimony. Hoffne and Phineas also had the same spirit in 1st Samuel chapter 2. They were priests in God's house. And yet they were sleeping with people in the women in the temple. They were greedy, vile, and yet even when their own father corrected them, they just sort of shrugged it off. Thought it was a joke. They thought God was a joke. It was that repeated rejection of God's witness and testimony. This is the kind of thing that Jesus is talking about, you know, but even even though we're probably not guilty of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, right? But you know, there can be a ways that even after salvation which we can just reject the prompings and the drawings of God or the warnings in life where he like points out sin and you may not reject him ultimately and fully. You may not reject Christ, but you begin to cut off God's progressive work in your life, to continue to refine, to purify, to sanctify. And so maybe sort of just an offshoot of Jesus's word is is a subset is you're not guilty of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but you can still reject parts of God's drawing, parts of his refining. And we do need to be honest and sober and not dismissive in those moments when we're living dangerously. When we're postured, when we're committed to our own sort of truth or lie, we've begun false ways of thinking. We need to be sober. So, finally, the purpose of the warning, the danger of believing a lie. Verse 34, we see that Jesus says, "You brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Jesus says, "Check your heart." Like, look what's really coming out of you. Look what you're saying. Look at the fact that I am healing people. I am fulfilling prophecies. I am driving out demons. The kingdom of God is being manifested. People that were far from God are coming to faith. And what is your posture to it? You curse it. You speak against it. You reject it. If those are the words and the actions that come out of you, then what is inside? Check your heart. Look deeply in here. These are warnings from Jesus. I don't think all the Pharisees have fully finally committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but they're getting close. Some of them are believing the lie that some Pharisees started at some point and it's going in those circles in their life and there's danger. Wake up is what Jesus tells them. Hear this. Look at your heart today. If you hear his voice as scripture reminds us, do not harden your hearts like they did in the wilderness at the waters of Meabbah. Listen, this is a grace of Jesus. This is a kindness. And some of the some of the times the kindest thing that God can do is to warn you to warn you.

And it may not be just a warning from a way that leads to death or to an ultimate rejection. Sometimes it's to warn us from harmful ways of living, ways that can invoke cursing. One of the things that always haunts me is after David had uh adultery, committed adultery with Ba Sheba and then had her husband murdered and he had time to think about this premeditated and then went about his life like nobody saw. And I remember when Nathan the prophet came and rebuked David, his words are haunting. Because you did this, the sword will never depart from your house. And we begin to see that play out over the course of David's life in his children. Man, it's sobering. Hear the warnings of God. Wake up. Like David, wake up. Now, David didn't commit blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. He didn't reject the Holy Spirit. But we need to listen when God is speaking to the sins in our lives and in our hearts and not harden ourselves to these things. This is what Jesus is doing. He's showing grace, not condemnation, but invitation here. Wake up. And in this, we find a glimpse of hope. We see here in this last piece, he says,

verse 36, 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. And man, that's a hard word. And that sounds so scary because I think of all the words that I've said in life. I think about all the things that I've done or said, man, I feel like Paul sometimes. I was a blasphemer. I was a rejector. I was against God. We all were. And we all carry those things. But this is not a not a glimpse of condemnation because what does Jesus also say? By your words, you will be justified. By your words, you will be condemned. And the great grace of God, as we're reminded in 1 John 1:9, is if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of our unrighteousness, of all those words and regrets and things that we've said in this life. It's a beautiful reminder. In Romans 10:9, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so, while we may see just the judgment or the warning or the condemnation, I want you to hear God's kindness that by your testimony, but by by your calling out to God, you can be made right. So that when you stand but before God and feel condemned, Christ comes in and says, "Nah, this one is with me. He has my righteousness." Because at someday he called upon me and he confessed his old ways of life and he confessed the lies and the false thinking. Yeah, he was a Pharisee. Yeah, he lost his way. Yes, he blasphemed and he spoke against the name of Christ. But he called upon me and now he bears the seal of the Holy Spirit on his own life. He bears my salvation. This is what Jesus is ultimately calling them to to not harden their hearts. To not be a people who reject him, but to turn but to turn to him. So what do we do with all this? What do we do with Jesus's words here? Well, a few things I'd say. Um, if you're not a Christian and you feel the draw of God, you see the logic of what he says. You see the truth and the drawing of God. Don't be like Pharaoh. Don't be like so many in scripture who spent their life fighting what is evident. Don't resist God and his grace and his calling and drawing here. Do not harden your hearts like they did in the wilderness. If you're a Christian and you're worried about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, it's not you. It's not you. You wouldn't be worried about it because it what it ultimately is is that the people that reject it, they don't want it. Not miracles, not someone rising from the dead, Jesus says, will make them believe. They will not believe. They will go down with the ship committed to the rejection of God. That's what it is to reject the Holy Spirit and his drawing and his calling over and over and over to say, "I don't want God to be real, and I don't want a universe." It works that way. for the religious. What's the state of your heart? You may not be guilty of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but what's your response to Christ, to the Holy Spirit? Because each day he draws us deeper, higher up, and further in. And he calls us to let go of false thinking and of lies, things that harm us. They may not be detrimental to our salvation, but they're detrimental to our sanctification, our growing in Christ, becoming more like him. And finally, what lie are you believing? What untruth? We need to take every thought captive as scripture reminds us. And it is so easy for our minds to go unchecked. For us not to realize false ways of thinking, false truths, even things in us or even in the culture around us. These truthisms that we can begin to embrace that are not true. Follow your heart. Is that really something the Bible teaches? Be careful. Be careful of false ways of thinking and ultimately just let the Holy Spirit speak. Be open to his drawing, to his leading, to his testimony in your heart so that you do not harden your heart today. Let's pray. But Lord, we thank you for your word that um constantly reminds us even on a day like this when it seems like a hard word, we see such beauty because even at the beginning of this passage, we're reminded God that you are driving out darkness. You are delivering those who do not want to be in bondage. And your appeal even to the Pharisees here, don't harden your heart. I've come to drive out the darkness and the lies. Don't create more lies.

submit to me to my authority. And we thank you

that if any man is in Christ, any woman is in Christ. He is a new creature. And Lord, we are thankful that we can be made new in you today. And I pray that we would constantly be submitted to the power of your Holy Spirit to shape us, to woo us, and make us brand new each and every day in Jesus name. Amen.