The Worst Sin

It's great to be with all of you this morning.

You have a Bible.

Let's open up to Matthew chapter five.

Matthew chapter five.

And when you're turning there, I'm gonna make a couple of quick announcements.

Um, just kind of add to what's already been said.

Number one, on the Bible handout, um sometimes your pastor doesn't read very well.

And so I I think I got everybody the right Bible because there's a sticker in the front with your name, but Porter or Vince or Mary Wynn, I think I gave you the wrong Bible.

So we have the right one.

It's my fault.

Uh Miss Laura would love to fix that for you after the service, and that's she was just reading too fast for me.

I couldn't keep up.

Okay.

Um, secondly, I would say even if you're a first-time visitor, we would love you to come to the picnic.

We'll have plenty, it'll be fun.

And uh, if you're a longtime regular member, invite a friend.

Uh I'm not gonna say a name, but there's at least one of those little sweet, cute first graders that I've only been here barely three months and two different times.

She's invited a friend with her to church who doesn't go to church, and she brings her up and says, Pastor Olin, I want you to see my friend.

And so, first graders doing a great job inviting uh unchurched friends to church, it's convicting for me.

So let's, you know, if you're like, I don't I don't invite them to church, well, invite them to picnic.

Picnic's fun, right?

Um, but hope you all come.

Matthew chapter five, and I want to ask you this question as we start.

Are all sins essentially the same?

Yes and no.

Yes and no would be the best way to answer that question.

Um, but I will say this it's more no and less yes.

And most people in our culture today, including inside the church, would tend to say, no, no, no, all sins essentially the same.

That's where we like to camp out.

And there's a verse, James chapter 2, verse 10.

James 2:10

Just listen, you've probably heard it, that says, For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

And that would be probably the best verse that would help us see that, you know, there is a sense in which all sin is the same, in which way, in this way, that if you just commit one little tiny sin, that makes you a lawbreaker.

That makes you different than God.

It makes you sinful, it makes you guilty before Him, that you can't stand before Him in your own righteousness.

In that sense, all sins the same.

Let's look at another fairly famous passage that I think will help us see the yes and the no to answer that question.

Matthew chapter 5, this is on the Sermon of the Mount, starting in verse 21.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Jesus says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder.

And that's Ten Commandments.

That's God.

You shall not murder.

And whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to the judgment.

Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel, and whoever says, you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire.

So what's Jesus saying?

Let me kind of give you the layman's translation.

This is the Olin's translation, basically, saying, listen, uh, yeah, murder is a bad sin.

But sinful anger is baby murder.

Most of us have never committed actual physical murder, but all of us have committed sinful murder.

And if you're not careful, if you let sinful murder go, I mean, excuse me, sinful anger in your heart go unchecked, it will fester and it will eventually grow into actual physical murder.

And if you don't believe that's true, just go watch any recent episode of Dateline or 48 hours or 2020 about normal people like me and you, and a lot of them that go to church that end up killing somebody.

Now, so in one sense, sinful anger can send you to hell, just like murder can send you to hell.

There's a sense in which all sins are the same.

And yet, let me ask you this question: Imagine you were moving into a new neighborhood, and you found two houses in the neighborhood, and you love both of the houses, and you had a really great real estate agent who did a lot of research for you.

He said, Let me just tell you a little bit about your neighbors.

Uh, in this one house that you really love, you got a neighbor that he really struggles with sinful anger.

Uh, your real estate agent is a Christian.

So he says, you know, in fact, I mean, he gets so angry sometimes that he will just shout at people and say, You're fool! So you just need to watch out for that.

You're like, okay, that's a good warning.

See, the other house, the neighbor there, uh, he really struggles with murder.

Like he's a serial killer.

You know, we can't arrest him.

It's not a hard choice, is it?

It's like, I'll take the guy that screams at me.

I'll just scream back, right?

Some sins are worse than others.

Now, if you think I'm a crazy heretic because you're like, you're so embaked in us.

This is the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is not the Bible, okay, but it is the doctrinal standards under the Bible for Presbyterians, and it says this.

This is shorter catechism, question 83.

Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?

They answer some sins in themselves and by reason of several aggravations are more heinous in the sight of God than others.

Some sins are worse than others, ultimately.

And today we're gonna look at a text that makes that maybe the most clear in the whole Bible.

So now you can go to Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

This is where we're gonna start.

Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Just gonna do a very brief overview to bring us back to where we're gonna be today.

Mark chapter 2, verse 6.

Mark 2:6

Now, some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts.

Hopefully, maybe you were here a month or so ago and we read this text.

I'll just remind you of the story if you weren't.

Jesus is teaching and healing, and four friends bring a lame man, they put him in front of Jesus, and Jesus says, My son, your sins are forgiven.

And there were some scribes that had started following Jesus around because he's known as a healer, as a teacher of the Old Testament.

It's very authoritative, and that he can cast out demons.

And they're just pondering in their hearts.

They're basically saying, Who does this man think he is?

Who thinks they can just forgive anybody's sin anytime they want willy-nilly, other than God?

And Jesus reads their mind, that's his first proof of deity.

And then he says, What do you think is harder?

To tell somebody your sins are forgiven?

Or to say, get up and walk.

But so that you know that I am the Son of Man, this divine character, it's prophesied in Daniel, and I can forgive whoever I want whenever I want.

I'll tell him to get up and walk, and he does.

Now that's that's a very cool and powerful story to us.

But scribes were known as the experts in Old Testament law.

And Isaiah chapter 35, if you want to go back and look at it later, one of the prophecies of the Messiah is that he would be able to make the lame walk.

Isaiah 35 · chapter mention

And you didn't really have in the Old Testament any record, you had some miracles, you didn't have that miracle.

And here's Jesus making the lame to walk.

Chapter 3, verse 8, that we looked at last week.

Let's start in verse 7, actually.

Mark chapter 3, verse 7.

Mark 3:7

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed him from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem.

Part of what we noticed last week is that now the word about Jesus has spread all the way down to the capital city, Jerusalem.

And now we're going to pick up the part that we skipped last week so that we could come back and focus on it.

Mark chapter 3, verse 22.

Mark 3:22

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, He is possessed by Beelzebub, and by the Prince of Demons, he cast out the demons.

And he called them to him and said to them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.

But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first bonds the strong man.

Then indeed he may plunder his house.

Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven, the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

For they had said, He has an unclean spirit.

This would be a little bit like if a crime had happened in Birmingham, Alabama, and the local FBI office looked at it and made a pronouncement.

That'd be significant.

But then if the director of operations of the FBI from Washington, D.C.

himself flew down and made a pronouncement, it would carry more weight and authority.

For the scribes from Jerusalem to travel far north to where Jesus is and to start making pronouncements.

More prestige, more authority, one commentator said.

Now, basically they say they realize we don't like Jesus.

He's stealing our power, our authority, our prestige.

Probably some of them are already plotting to kill him, but they realize we can't do it yet because he's so popular with the crowds.

We can't deny he's casting out demons.

I mean, miracles are happening.

We can't undo that.

What's our only strategy?

We can slander him.

We can lie about him.

So this is what they come up with.

This is the best they got.

Let's start telling people that how can he cast out demons so quickly and easily?

He's actually possessed by Satan.

That he he is Satan himself.

Essentially, he can cast out demons by the power of Satan.

That's the best argument they can come up with.

Beelzebub was probably a Canaanite god that sometimes they used as another name for Satan.

Now, Jesus, notice, they're saying this kind of out and about behind his back.

They still don't have the guts to confront him to his face.

But he calls them to himself, talks to them, and basically said, you know what, listen, if you got a marriage and mom and dad are always fighting, they're always against each other, not gonna last.

If there's a country that's at civil war and they can never make peace, they can never, it's not gonna last.

And essentially, here's his argument, his explanation.

He said, you know what?

Satan is sinful, Satan is stubborn, Satan is selfish, but Satan's not stupid.

I'm from the from the beginning of the Old Testament, again, that they were supposed to be experts in.

Satan is introduced as what?

The most crafty creation that there is, the most shrewd, the most subtle.

He's not stupid.

He's not fighting against himself.

Satan came to kill, to steal, and destroy.

Before I got here, Satan basically was ruling planet earth, and he had people under his thumb, under his control, like a like a massive hostage taker.

And he had all these people enslaved.

He wouldn't let them go on his own.

No sense in what he'd do that.

But he says, you know what's happening here is I've entered Satan's house.

I've entered planet Earth.

And I'm binding him, I'm taking away his power, and I am setting captives free.

And you know that I am.

You're seeing me do it.

It's glorious.

And I want you guys to know you talk bad about me, I'll forgive you.

That's how merciful I'll forgive any sin.

Except for one.

One sin will never be forgiven.

When you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, why?

Because it's an eternal sin.

It's an ongoing sin.

It's a sin that keeps going.

And why did he say this then?

Because again, they were repeatedly, ongoingly going out there saying, Jesus has got an evil spirit.

He's not the Messiah, he's not God, He's not the real deal.

The only way he can seemingly do some good is like a charade.

Now, what exactly is the unforgivable sin?

We need to talk about it.

And just I want you to notice this.

He doesn't clearly say, you guys have committed the unconvertible sin.

Did you see that?

He just warns them about what it is.

And I think it may be helpful at first in defining what is the unforgivable sin to say what it's not, because there can be a lot of confusion about this.

A lot of times in college ministry, do a lot of QA's, you know, where you just go to some campus and are like, hey, we got this guy.

Anyone come, ask any question you want.

Those were always fun and exciting.

And uh, almost always, if you stayed long enough, somebody's gonna ask a question about this.

What's the unforgivable sin?

Is it suicide?

Is it mass murder?

Is it some kind of crazy sexual thing?

It's none of those things.

Here's what a lot of people think.

Well, it's something like if you say a curse word, and we could make the list over here of all the really bad curse words, with one of God's names, like God Jesus, that's gotta be it, right?

That's not it.

You shouldn't do that, but that's not the unforgivable sin.

John Calvin, Christ did not pronounce this decision on the mere words that they uttered.

So it's not about some word or phrase that you say, okay?

Put that out of your mind.

Second thing, it is not a one-time momentary decision.

I there is such a thing as a type of OCD called religious scrupulosity.

Have you ever heard of this?

That the people that they get caught up.

I I've I've had good godly friends that deal with this, that literally they're driving down the interstate at 70 miles an hour because they never speed people like this, and they see like a plastic water bottle on the side of the interstate, and the thought goes through their mind, maybe I should pull over and be a good citizen and pick that up.

And they don't do it because they're trying to make their appointment and not speed, and they're the kind of people that'll never be late because God forbid that you be late once in your life.

But then this thought starts to go through their mind.

What if that was God the Holy Spirit telling me to stop and pick up that water bottle and I didn't do it?

And then they turn around and by then somebody else picked it up.

I'm I I wish I was making this up, I'm not.

And I just want to tell you, that's not what we're talking about here this morning.

Some random thought going through your mind one time that you didn't do, that's not what we're talking about.

Okay?

It's not some one time I thought something terrible about God in my mind.

One time I said something out loud, one time I had a dream about it's none of that.

Then what is it?

What is it?

Let me try to give you an illustration.

I want you to imagine you and your best friend, or somebody you're very close to, a roommate, a spouse, maybe a child, and uh you somebody that you have great affection for, great love, great tenderness towards.

And in this moment, you are being the best version of yourself.

All right, you're having the most Holy Spirit moment of yourself, and you're trying to talk to this person and love this person, be kind, and maybe it's their birthday or something, and you bought them this super nice gift, and you go to them and you present this gift, and they just respond to you, surprisingly, with just hate and venom, and they just start cursing you up and down, left and right, and then they start physically assaulting you and just beat you to a pulp so bad that you put into the hospital you can barely survive.

But you make a recovery, all the great doctors we have here in Birmingham, and you're a Christian, and you're like, I love this person.

I don't know what happened to them, they must have lost their mind.

And so you're like, I'm gonna forgive them, and I'm gonna pursue them, and I want to restore the relationship.

I want to be reconciled.

So you get help dig in, you go see them on your crutches, you get there and you're like, hey, I don't know what happened, but I just want you to know I've got a tender, forgiving heart towards you, and I want to forgive, and I want you to repent, and I want us to be reconciled.

No, just imagine if this really happened to you, and they're just like, oh, whatever, it wasn't that big of a deal, you're making too big of a deal out of it.

I mean, that would hurt.

What do you mean?

He's like, dude, I was in a hospital for six months.

That'd be bad.

That'd be really bad.

What if they just ignored you, like you're talking to them, and they just pretended like you're not there?

That would be even worse.

What if they said, I don't think I did anything wrong?

That would be maddening, would it not?

It's like, look at my black eye, like in the cast, and but what if they started to go off on you again?

Scream, cuss, yell, and say, you know what?

I didn't do anything wrong.

You did something wrong, and you deserved every bit of punishment I gave you physically and verbally.

How would you feel?

If you're tracking with me, you're starting to get an idea of what the unforgivable sin is.

These superscribes from Jerusalem, they knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards.

They knew Isaiah chapter 35, verses 5 and 6.

Isaiah 35:5

They knew about demons, they knew about exorcisms.

Listen, did they fully understand who Jesus was, the second person of the Trinity, fully God, fully?

Probably not, but I'll tell you what they did understand.

They understood this is one of the good guys.

There is something real and right about this man and God working him, and they hated it.

Because they love their own pride and prestige and position.

R.

T.

France says, it was a deliberate perversion of the truth.

Instead of humbling themselves, prostrating themselves, and worshiping and repenting, they said, let's fight him with everything we got, even to the point of slandering him and calling him the devil himself.

Another commentator said, It is not a single act, but a habitual action and attitude.

The unforgivable sin is the stubborn refusal to acknowledge that God is working and has worked in the man Jesus.

I'm gonna read a little bit of a long quote here, which is dangerous, but it's John Calvin, so Presbyterians ought to be able to get away with that, all right?

And I think if you really track with it, a little bit old English, but enough of the language, you're gonna get a good sense of what we're talking about here, okay?

This kind of sacrilege is committed only when we knowingly endeavor to extinguish the spirit.

No man curses the spirit who is not conscious of ungodly rebellion against him.

Those only are blasphemers of the Spirit who slander his gifts and power contrary to the conviction of their own mind.

They purposefully and maliciously turned light into darkness.

They never have any desire towards repentance.

You understand what he's saying?

It's like they can see the light of revelation and hope and mercy coming towards them, and they say, I won't believe in it.

That's the darkness, that's evil.

Another commentator named Hunter said, What Christ has in mind is not so much an individual act as a condition of the soul, a condition of soul so diseased that it cannot be forgiven.

Not because God is not ready to forgive, but because man does not want forgiveness.

And you might think for a second, who would be stupid enough to not want forgiveness?

Have you ever at the human level been in an argument with somebody and gotten so sideways with that person and so heated in the moment that there was a moment where you realize I'm wrong, but dead gummet, there's no we we're we're four hours into this argument.

This this may or may not be a real example from my marriage years ago.

I'm not admitting wrong now.

I'm in too deep.

And I'm starting to see she's got a good point.

But I'll be if I'm gonna admit that now.

I've had those thoughts in my heart and mind before.

Let me try to give another illustration.

Imagine if you found out you had the worst kind of stage four pancreatic cancer.

You fly out of M.

D.

Anderson, Houston.

Greatest world-round doctor, and he says, I can heal you.

I got the tools, I got the chemo, I got the radio, I got I can heal you.

You're gonna have to sell everything you have and move out here and basically live in the hospital.

I can heal you.

And out of some combination of fear and anger, the thought of having to leave, and I you just go off on this person.

And not only do you say no, I'm not moving out here, you start to say you're a liar.

And oh, by the way, you're a quack.

And oh, by the way, I somehow I think you're the one that, in a conspiracy theory with the government, gave me this cancer.

Here's my best attempt, guys.

What is the unforgivable sin?

It is a deliberate, hardened, intentional, knowing, ongoing, proud, resistant, willful refusal to repent.

It's a refusal to repent.

And not a one-time refusal to repent, because we've all done that.

But the ongoing, hardened, doubling down, I will never repent, even to the extent of saying, what's calling me to repentance is not even God, it's something wicked.

I'm resisting it.

Now, I realize there's all different types of personalities.

And part of the reason it's heavy to preach a sermon like this is there are certain types of personalities that can get spinning on this in a wrong way.

So JC Rowles said this, and many others have said something very similar.

Please hear this.

There is such a thing as sin which is never forgiven.

But those who are most troubled about it are most unlikely ever to have committed it.

And another commentator said, the fact that a person is so troubled is itself proof that he has not committed it.

Listen, people that are this arrogant, hard-hearted, stubborn, refusing to see true, they don't worry about if they committed this sin.

They're convinced they haven't.

So then, why even talk about it?

Why even talk about it?

Why preach a sermon on it?

Why did Jesus talk about it?

Why do three of the gospel writers record it?

Go back to Matthew 5 in your mind for a second.

If over here on this side of the stage is the smallest first start, beginning, two-second sinful anger, highway 280 traffic at 5 30 p.m.

when somebody cuts you off.

Lord forgive me.

But you know you sin for a second.

Just for a second, you're like, if I could get away with it.

Right?

You know, I never, I don't think I've ever really wanted to kill someone in traffic.

Let me say that, but I'm trying to be really honest here.

I have thought before, I wish that I could just ram them with my car.

I've definitely done that, right?

I mean, I would like to just hit them with my car and push them off the road into the ditch.

And then say something like, How you like me now?

Cut me off again.

Have a nice day, you know.

But that's why I have my wife and the Holy Spirit, so I don't do stuff like that.

And all the way on this side of the stage is Hitler mass murderer.

Joseph Stalin, mass murderer, who I think famously said, you know, one death is a tragedy, a million executions, that's just business.

Jesus Christ very clearly said, that little thing over there is the seedling that can lead to this if you don't tame it by God's grace.

I have had times, okay, where I'm eating pizza, I love pizza, and after three pieces of pizza, I start to feel a little full, and I go for the fourth, and the thought goes through my mind.

Probably shouldn't have the fourth pizza pizza.

And I think maybe that's the Holy Spirit convicting me.

Or maybe not, I'll eat the pizza pizza.

And I just need to be reliant.

Am I sure that's the Holy Spirit?

I'm not.

I'm not.

That's why I keep eating the fourth pizza pizza.

Maybe it is, maybe not.

How do I know?

There have been other times, though, when I have told a small white lie, and instantly the thought goes through my mind, you just lied, you need to correct it.

And I know for sure that's the Holy Spirit.

And I'll be honest, most of the time, by God's grace, I correct it.

Hey, I shouldn't have said that.

Not every time.

Because whatever was in these wicked scribes, their love of pride and position, I I've got at least a tiny seed form of that in my heart.

I don't want to be the 49-year-old pastor in ministry for 27 plus years who just told a freaking lie to an accountability partner.

So let me just chalk that one up to grace.

Resist the conviction.

Please hear me.

This is so important.

That is not the unforgivable sin, or y'all need to fire me, okay?

But I do think that is the tiny baby seedling that if unchecked, unrepented of, undealt with, over a lifetime, what can it lead to?

It's somebody like Judas that's that close to what's going on and says, I don't believe in it, and I'm gonna be against it.

So, guys, am I trying to scare us this morning?

I am not.

I am trying to sober us to say when we know for sure the Holy Spirit is convicting us, take that seriously.

Now, that begs the question: how do I know for sure when the Holy Spirit's convicting me?

Just three quick things.

First, it comes from the Bible.

Part of why the scribe notice Jesus didn't warn prostitutes and tax gatherers about the unforgivable sin.

He warned the super religious people who were experts in the Bible.

They were people that showed up for synagogue every week.

When the Bible speaks clearly, that's the Holy Spirit.

When a godly leader or teacher or authority speaks clearly and it aligns with the Bible, that's the Holy Spirit.

Doesn't get more godly than Jesus Christ sitting there preaching to you.

And then thirdly, when circumstances are aligning with what the Bible is teaching and what the godly leaders and teachers are saying to you, that's the Holy Spirit.

I mean, they were seeing people's lives change.

They were seeing people healed, they were seeing people saved, they were seeing people repent, they were seeing people free from power, Satan.

There's a great place in Pilgrim's Progress where the character Christian goes to the interpreter's house and he sees all these things and he's leaving, and the interpreter asks him, How do these things affect you?

And he said, They cause me both hope and fear.

And that's how I hope that all of us leave this morning.

Hope.

Which, biblically speaking, hope is not a wish.

Right?

You know that?

I mean, in the English language, we use hope like a wish.

And I'm not saying that's bad, right?

I hope that it is not super hot today.

Not the way that you use the word hope in the Bible.

Hope is a confidence.

What is the ground of your confidence?

What's your hope?

But also a fear, the fear of the Lord.

A holy trembling at his word.

I take his word seriously.

I don't play fast and loose with it.

I'm humble and contrite before his word.

We should all be aware, humble, pliable, ready to repent, soft, sober, willing to repent.

Now, this might be, guys, one of, if not the heaviest passage in the whole Bible.

Because it speaks of an unforgivable sin because it's an eternal sin, because, guys, these guys, they never repent.

Even, even as sad and as sobering as it is to think about, even in hell, they don't repent.

They're in hell shaking their fist, refusing to repent, even then.

That's what he said.

It's an eternal sin.

Never quits.

But even in this sad, sober, scary passage of scripture, I want you to see it really highlights the mercy and the tenderness and the goodness and the love and the kindness of God a lot.

And some of you are like, Where, man?

I mean, I feel like you've been beating us up for 30 minutes.

Notice this.

The scribes were out there talking about him behind his back.

Did you know what Jesus did?

He went and invited them.

He went and sought them.

He called them to himself.

And then once he got them in front of him, what did he do?

He reasoned with them.

He didn't shout, he didn't scream, he didn't say, lightning bolt for you and ball of hell on that guy's face.

He tried to reason with them and logic with them.

And then he did.

He warned them.

He sternly and soberly warned them, hey guys, don't go down this path.

And note, guys, please, I mean, it's such a serious saying, but we can miss the beautiful saying right before it.

So let me just read it one last time.

Verse 28.

Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven, the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.

You notice how glorious that is?

I remember the first time I went to Thailand and I was getting like some cultural, you know, education, and they're like, whatever you do, don't make fun of the king of Thailand.

And I was like, I didn't know Thailand had a king.

But they take their king very seriously.

And I've known back when Britain used to have a queen, it's like, hey, British people, they love their queen, man.

Don't make jokes about the queen.

This is the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the creator of the universe.

This is the ruler of all things.

This is the king of all time and all dominions, standing there face to face, and they're like talking about it, hear the demon.

No wrath, no anger, no justice, no judgment, no condemnation.

He says, guys, you're calling me Satan?

I can forgive that.

I can forgive it.

I'm willing to forgive it.

I just need to let you know, don't persevere because listen, if you refuse the Holy Spirit convicting you, if you refuse to repent, if you refuse to be reconciled to me, then you can never have my forgiveness.

The Lord Jesus Christ, in his great mercy, went to the cross.

And his blood is precious enough and powerful enough to forgive any person of any sin of which by his grace they will repent of.

Even right before he died, he prayed, Father, forgive them.

They don't even know what they're doing.

Let's celebrate such a savior.

And if I have said anything, Father, that in any way confuses somebody, would you clarify for them?

Lord, I pray for myself, I pray for everyone hearing this, that we would have the appropriate mixture in our hearts of humility and hope.

That we would hate our own self-righteousness, we would hate our own pride, but we would love your mercy, we would love your goodness.

And when the Holy Spirit convicts us, we would not taste that as a bad thing, but as a glorious thing.

As the spiritual nerve center of our body giving us warnings that we need.

And we would heed them and by your grace repent.

Prail this in Christ's name.

Amen.