Matthew 12:31-12:33
Have you ever wondered, ‘What is the unpardonable sin?’
Some believe it is when you’ve sinned more than God is able to forgive you.
So I wondered --- what is the unpardonable sin really?
You know, a lot of people have tried to guess what this sin might be, and they’ve come up with some pretty interesting theories. For example, some people have said that suicide is the unforgivable sin, because once you are dead, you can’t repent of it, and you’ll be lost forever.
But I know that can’t be true, because the eleventh chapter of Hebrews tells us Samson will definitely be in heaven, and Samson took his own life. Other people have said that murder must be the unpardonable sin, because once you kill someone, you need to give your own life back in return. But that can’t be true, because Moses and David each murdered someone
Think about Moses, for example. Moses committed murder. But while wandering in the wilderness Moses sensed the presence of God, and he asked God for forgiveness, and if you can recall, God took Moses out of the wilderness to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage. Moses, the murderer, became a mighty man of God. It was to Moses that God Himself gave the Ten Commandments.
It was Moses who saw the glory of God! So, obviously, murder is not the unpardonable sin, because when Moses came to the end of his life, Moses was resurrected and taken to heaven. Matthew 17 tells us about Moses and Elijah speaking to Jesus. God took a murderer, transformed his life, and even after death, God resurrected Moses as a type of those who will be resurrected when Jesus comes, as a symbol of those who are sleeping until Jesus comes. So, if God would resurrect Moses who committed murder, certainly murder is not the unpardonable sin.
Is lying or deception the unpardonable sin? Jacob deceived his dying father regarding his birthright. But then, as Jacob, a liar and a deceiver, fled, God revealed Himself to Jacob in a dream and there, Jacob kneeled, recommitted his life to God. God still had His eyes on Jacob. And the Bible says in Genesis 28:15, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go…for I will not leave you.” At times, we may live a life of deceit, a life of falsehood, a life where we are running away from God. But God’s eyes are upon us, and He will not leave you nor forsake you. We may not seek Him, but He is seeking us!
Is the unpardonable sin denying Christ? Or cursing and swearing? Think of Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, in Matthew 26. Peter was there at the Last Supper and, said to his Lord, “even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” And Jesus replied, “I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” But Peter, one of Christ’s followers, one who was with Jesus throughout His life, at the taunts of a little maiden around a campfire in the darkness that night, cursed and swore and said, “I do not know the Man!” Peter failed when Jesus looked to him for a word of encouragement and needed him most.
But this Peter who denied his Lord with cursing and swearing, who did wrong when he knew he ought to do right, who turned his back on the truth of God and the grace of Christ, walked away from Jesus, cursing, The Bible says that he went out and wept bitterly. God’s grace was sufficient for him, and we see a changed Peter on the day of Pentecost, preaching the gospel powerfully with three thousand baptized. And God proved that He can rebuild our lives, even when we turn our backs on Him,
Have you ever done wrong when you knew you ought to have done right? Have you turned your back on Him at times? Have you, tragically failed Him like Peter did? He will pick you up to rebuild your life.
Is the unpardonable sin denying God’s existence? Or persecuting and killing God’s people? Maybe that’s the unpardonable sin! But wait a minute, what about the apostle Paul? Consider Paul, the persecutor, who delighted in destroying God’s people. Saul (who would be renamed Paul) was traveling down the Damascus Road - when he saw an enormous Light. He was driven to the ground, and a voice from heaven said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” God stopped Saul in his tracks! Saul, this persecutor of Christians, became Paul, the mighty apostle, the preacher in the New Testament who wrote the majority of the New Testament. We may be great sinners, but we have an even greater Savior. God’s grace is always greater than our needs, and God’s mercy is always greater than our sins.
God’s power is always greater than the shackles that bind us. No, the unpardonable sin is not murder, suicide, lying, deceit, or cursing God; it’s not even persecuting God’s people.
And the unpardonable sin is certainly not adultery, because Mary committed adultery and Jesus said, “Go, and sin no more. I don’t condemn you.”
But what then is the unpardonable sin? What does the Bible teach us about the unpardonable sin? The Bible says in
1John 1:9.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all Unrighteousness.”
(There are no exemptions here, it includes all sins)
So the unpardonable sin must be a sin that we won’t confess. A sin that we cling to, an attitude in sin of rebellion against God, because the Bible says that if we do the confessing, He’ll do the forgiving.
Now, I’ve had people say to me, “I feel so guilty because of what I’ve done - Because of this affair that I’ve had, this theft that I’ve been involved in, my anger, my bitterness, The drugs I’ve been using. I feel so guilty! Can I be forgiven?’ I’m alienated from my family and God - not even God can forgive my sin.
The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, Christ will forgive us.”
He said, if we come with contrite, humble hearts and do the confessing, He will do the forgiving.
If we say that the devil can lead us into sins that God can’t or won’t forgive, we’re actually saying that Jesus is a liar and the devil is greater than God.
In Hebrews 8:12. the Bible puts it this way,
“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Does God have a short memory? According to this verse, He does, when it comes to remembering my sins. My Lord says, “Their iniquities will I remember no more!”
Now I would like to ask you, if God forgets your partner’s sins, why do you keep reminding him or her of them? And even more importantly, if God forgives your sins and forgets them, washes you as white as snow and buries your sins in the deepest of the seas and puts up a sign “no fishing”, why can’t you forgive yourself, why do you keep bringing up your failures in your mind? Condemning yourself? Why do you live a life of condemnation?
If God is prepared to give you a clean sheet.” So should you! Forget about it! And go free! You are cleansed in Jesus!
When Jesus walked Calvary’s hill, falling beneath the agonizing load of the Cross, crushing out His life, He was paying the penalty for your sins and mine. There is no sin too great for Him to forgive, or else you say the devil is bigger than God, do you get the implication. It’s that simple.
John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Coming to the cross, I kneel and confess my sins,
Expressing my sorrow. And as I do, believing in Him, the gift of eternal life is mine. Then you ask, “does that mean there is no such thing as the unpardonable sin?”
The Bible says in 1John 1:7 that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from ALL sin.” So, the only sin that would be unpardonable is the one I don’t confess, and the one I don’t let Jesus’ blood cleanse.
You ask, ‘How is that possible? How do you explain this unpardonable sin?’
Let’s see if we can learn something about the unpardonable sin from Matthew 12:31, 32
“Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”
Whatever the unpardonable sin is, it has to do with the idea of a sin against the Holy Spirit. That’s what the Bible says --- and the Bible clearly says “all manner of sin and blasphemy is forgiven unto men,” but what does the word “manner” mean? It means kind, or type.
So, the unpardonable sin isn’t a kind of sin. The Bible says any sin you can name (adultery, murder, the angry fist in God’s face, impatience, lying, cheating, stealing) ‘all manner of sin, every kind or type, will be forgiven, if we come confessing.
Now, you might have noticed that there were no provisos or exclusions in that verse. It says that if we confess our sins, Jesus will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and there are no "ifs", "but’s", or "maybes” attached to that promise.
Okay, what’s the unpardonable sin?
We see that the unpardonable sin must be a continual rejection of the Promptings of the Holy Spirit.
The unpardonable sin is not the first step you take or the second step you take. But when God calls you, and you keep going persistently against Him, it is possible for the mind to be so callused and the heart to become so hardened that you no longer hear God’s voice. You no longer feel God’s promptings.
Does that mean that everybody that denies God’s voice and doesn’t hear His promptings has committed the unpardonable sin? Not at all! There are many people, who don’t listen to Gods voice today, and they feel their heart is pretty hard, but at some stage some dramatic change in their lives comes because of some event that occurs, and they turn God. But it is possible, according to the Bible to enter into a state of sin, if you keep on sinning, and sinning, and sinning, and you harden your heart, not because the Holy Spirit stops calling --- He keeps on calling, but you cant hear anymore.
Remember, if you keep on hardening your heart and you die, maybe its not even your time to go, but you might be riding in a car and it’s the person driving the car’s time to die, and you both die in an accident.
If you have hardened your heart up to this point, you have rejected the Holy Spirit.
The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin and all unrighteousness, and if you are found guilty of living a life with a hardened heart, unrepentant, when the last trumpet blows your case is sealed forever for the final judgment The Holy Spirit will do nothing more for you beyond this point, whether you are asleep or still alive when Jesus returns, you will either receive everlasting life or everlasting condemnation.
This sin can’t be forgiven, not in this life and not in the life to come.
You may ask, why I’m sharing this insight with you. Do you think somebody here has committed the unpardonable sin?’
Look, if you have committed the unpardonable sin, you wouldn’t be interested in a meeting like this! You would have no interest in spiritual things, the Bible, in Jesus, or the things of God.
But look, we can only understand the unpardonable sin, if we understand how the Holy Spirit has worked through the Bible.
At creation, when the earth was without form and darkness was on the face of the deep this magnificent Power; the Holy Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” in Genesis it is said “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” “Let us” the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all participate in the creation. And when God spoke the world into existence, the Spirit of God took the words of God and the world was created. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead -and at creation; the Holy Spirit played an active role. God said at creation - ‘Let the tides hold back, and let the dry land appear - And the word of the living God animated by the power of the Spirit of God and kept the tides back. God said, ‘Out of nothing, let earth appear, and something came out of nothing as the Spirit of God formed it and when Jesus died, the Holy Spirit was the one who brought Him back to life.
If God has such power through His Holy Spirit to hold back the tides, speak a world into existence, create something out of nothing, and bring Jesus to life, He can hold back the tides of evil in your life and create something good out of the nothingness of your and my life.
The Holy Spirit is powerful, creates light where there is darkness; lifts us up from depression and discouragement; enables us to break strongholds; binding chains; recreates in our lives something out of the barrenness and darkness and sets us free. God’s Spirit reaches out and touches us.
Noah preached for one hundred twenty years and warned that the world would be destroyed by a flood, and in that Godless; thrill-jaded; morally twisted; immoral society full of corruption; violence and Drunkenness, even there God’s spirit reached out.
Genesis 6:3, “And the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.”
When God wanted to destroy the sinful world by water, God’s Spirit reached out to the people through Noah.
God’s Spirit was tugging at their hearts
God’s Spirit convicts us of sin. As we open our hearts to God, He performs within us a divine miracle through His Holy Spirit.
But there was resistance in the days of Noah, a hardening of the heart, the shutting of the mind and when the floodwaters came, men and women were lost.
They were not lost because they couldn’t have been saved; God gave them an chance and an opportunity to turn to him.
Some were lost because their material possessions meant more to them than Christ; others were lost because their friends and social relations were more important than following the truth. The Spirit of God impressed their hearts. God gave them an opportunity and revealed to them what was right. But there were tens of thousands lost in the days of Noah because they resisted the promptings of the Spirit.
As you study your Bible, the Holy Spirit impresses you to do something. So, to resist the promptings of the Spirit becomes extremely serious.
John 16
“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”
Most of the time, when we feel that pangs of guilt, it’s because the Spirit of God is reminding us that we are falling out of step with our loving heavenly Father.
The Holy Spirit works as a kind of "conscience” for the whole world, Sometimes, people think of the Holy Spirit as kind of a policeman, always ready to pounce on you if you have a little fun. But that’s not really an accurate picture, according to the Bible. The reason He speaks to your heart and lets you know when you’re out of line is because He’s trying to lead you closer to Jesus Christ. He knows you need Jesus if you are going to be happy, and if you are going to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and so He keeps working on your heart, letting you know when you are sinning, and constantly leading you into a deeper and deeper relationship with Christ.
And as you follow God and respond to His call, you will find that the Holy Spirit will show you more and more truth from the Word of God. He teaches you deeper and deeper truths as you show yourself capable of following what you already know.
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you." (John 16:13, 14)
When God convicts you to do something, and you don’t, you can hear that “still small voice” can’t you?
The Spirit of God begins talking to your heart. Don’t deny it! Don’t deny that inner Spirit --- that’s God revealing sin to you. You sense that God is leading you to follow His Word unconditionally, leading you away from some lifestyle practices which cause you to feel so uncomfortable. That’s the Spirit of God! Allow the Holy Spirit convict you of sin, come to Jesus, let the power of the Spirit of God that brought the world into existence bring a new life into your heart.
But what happens when you decide not to follow the voice of the Holy Spirit?
You feel the pangs of guilt and you know the right thing to do, but you deliberately resist it? That’s actually where we step into the territory of the unforgivable sin, where we grieve the Holy Spirit, as Paul describes it in the book of Ephesians.
On the upper Niagara River, just before you reach the edge of the Niagara Falls, there’s a point where it becomes too late to turn your boat around, and you are going to be swept over the precipice. Over the years, a lot of people have discovered the hard way that of ignoring the warnings and crossing the point of no return - it really means you can’t turn back.
And the same is true for spiritual matters. The Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts about the dangers we face every day, but He doesn’t violate our freedom of choice. If we choose to ignore the warnings, we will eventually cross a point of no return.
All through life, you feel these little guilt pangs that tell you you are doing something wrong. But if you force yourself to ignore the warnings and you keep yourself doing those things, eventually, you won’t be able to feel a thing any more. You’ll cross a point of no return, and you tune off the voice of the Holy Spirit. It’s not that He’s become silent; it’s that you’ve become callused. In the language of the Bible, you’ve hardened your heart.
It’s not that God gives up on you; it’s just that you come to a point where you’ve trained yourself to stop listening.
The Holy Spirit Descended Like a dove upon Jesus at His Baptism to strengthen Him against Satan’s great temptation in the wilderness.
The good news is that the Holy Spirit strengthens us against Satan’s temptation, too. We are no match for the evil one, but as we give our hearts to Christ, He transforms us. The Bible calls that transformation a “new birth”, though we were biologically born only once, and thereby received certain characteristics from our parents. Jesus talks about a new birth.
The Holy Spirit will enter into your life, if you let Him. And the Holy Spirit will change your life in ways you can’t even imagine, only if you let Him. The Holy Spirit will make you over again into a totally new and complete person.
Have you come to Jesus? Have you knelt before Him in the quietness of your room? Have you asked Him to take away the anger, the bitterness, the fear, and the lust? Have you knelt before Him and said, “Oh, Lord, I am yours, and I can’t change myself!” You know! But you can!
Maybe you’ve been battling, and going through great struggle. You’ve wanted to make changes in your life and you couldn’t. The key is opening the heart through a conscious choice to a Power outside of ourselves that can radically change us. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, changes our hearts, and leads us into all Truth. The Holy Spirit is God’s channel of communication
You are probably saying “I love Jesus, and I’ve been following Jesus all my life!” Do you mean to tell me that “I’ve been wrong in everything I’ve done?”
Jesus loved you so much, friend, that He sent His Holy Spirit directly to your heart to teach you more, so that you can come closer to Him. It’s not that you weren’t a Christian before; it’s not that you didn’t love Jesus before; it is that the Holy Spirit has something more for you, and if the Holy Spirit wants to lead you and me to more Truth, we want it, don’t we? Indeed! To resist the Truth is to resist the Holy Spirit!
Well, how can I be and what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?’
When Jesus ascended to heaven, He promised the gift of the Spirit, and He said in John 16:5,7 “Now I go away to Him who sent Me…but if I depart, I will send Him to you.” And this is what Jesus said in Acts 1:8. “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.”
Would you like supernatural power in your life to be a Christian to share Christ with other people? Jesus promised it.
Jesus said
John 14:15,
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.”
When I come to Jesus and accept His grace, when I determine in my heart to obey Him, He gives me the Holy Spirit and adds power to live the Christian life and share His love with others.
How do you receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit?
Just surrender to Christ, open your heart to be obedient to God, to follow the Truth and accept the teachings of His Bible, and devote your life to Jesus Christ.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit means I have a
Heart that deeply loves Jesus and I am on my knees with a mind that’s filled with Christ’s words from the
Bible. With a longing and a determination to know Truth.
When I continue to sin, and turn my back on God, walking away from the Truths of the Bible and I really know better, God says I am treading on dangerous ground, because I am closing my mind and hardening my heart to the Spirit.
Psalm 19:13,
“Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, And I shall be innocent of great transgression.”
The great transgression is the unpardonable sin. What a dangerous thing it is to harden my heart! What a dangerous thing it is to walk away from God. When Mary was committing adultery time and time again, Jesus said, “You’re forgiven but Go and sin no more.” Mary, don’t harden your heart. Don’t callous your heart! Mary, go, and sin no more.’ It’s a dangerous thing to.
Keep on turning your back on the God who appeals to us and reaches out to us, because continual and persistent sin hardens the heart and seals off the mind. This is when the unpardonable sin occurs, when any individual repeatedly says ‘No’ to God and that person comes to the place where his heart and mind are hardened.
Think of the story of Saul’s disobedience in the Bible
Samuel asked to Saul, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. But Saul rejected Truth and went into the cave of the witch of Endor to get information.
In the last days of Earth’s history, every human being will either be Possessed by the Spirit of God or harden his mind to God’s Spirit and be possessed by the spirit of demons. The Bible says that in the last days it will be either truth or error. a heart open to God or a heart closed to God, there is no middle road, no sitting on the fence.
There’s a great polarization, a great division, taking place right now! Do you see it in your own life? Some of your friends are looking more spiritual, becoming more interested in the Bible and praying more. But other people are hardening their hearts. They are either locked in their religious persuasion with their minds closed to Truth, or they couldn’t care less about
God. What’s happening? This is God’s final call. we are now in God’s last days.
Soon we will look up to see Him descending down the corridor of the sky to save us in His kingdom!
Have you opened your heart to Jesus? Is there anything in your life that is not in harmony with His will?
You prayed and asked God to help you, to show you his will. This is Gods will for your life, but there is a lot more. Keep on growing in Jesus! Come back for more!
Just remember, David might have been saved after being a murderer - a man after God’s own heart - but he knew what was at stake. We can see it when we read about him pleading with God.
Psalm 51:9-12
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with they free Spirit
I want to make an appeal. Make sure that there is nothing between you and Jesus? You may be a church member or you may not , but there is a measure of sin in your life. You know it’s there --- some secret sin, some hidden sin that is troubling you some attitude or happening that’s bothering you. Why don’t you say, ‘Jesus, I want to put it all behind me, I want to surrender that thing, I don’t want anything between my Lord and me. If there is some sin - you know it’s there - you’re cherishing it, why not say, “Lord, I’m opening my heart to You. You might have been holding back all your life. Or maybe you have drifted from Christ, and God is leading you back to be cleansed through the water of Baptism. Maybe you have not made your decision for baptism, and God is talking to you regarding that.
Maybe you need to learn the truths from the Bible
If there’s some sin in your life, would you like to say
I want to deal with that right now, I want to leave knowing that I’m forgiven, knowing that my hand is in the hand of God.’ I’m going to invite you.
The Spirit of God is speaking to you and you are sensing God calling you - if there’s something you’ve got to make right with God, something you’ve got to deal with deep down inside that you’ve held back for years --- come to Jesus. Open your heart to God, deal with that thing, come, right now!
God will never leave you or forsake you! please don't forsake God. He wants you to choose Him and be sincere!
Ask this question minute by minute "Jesus save me no matter what it takes" ask for victory, forgiveness knowledge and the will to accept
