***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Speaker: The scripture reading is Mark 12:18-37. Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, not cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised weed shall he not break and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory, and in his name shall the Gentiles trust.
Then was brought unto him one possessed with the devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him insomuch that the blind and the dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to destruction. And every city of house, or house divided against itself, shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges.
But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man, and then he will spoil his house? He that is not against me or with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto man, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto man. And whosoever speak of the 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.
Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good thing? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good thing, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil thing.
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
Dallas: Let us bow together in prayer now. O Lord, here is a group of sincere people whom we believe are willing to know and to do your will. And we pray now, as we come to stand before your word, that you would tender our hearts and open our minds in order that we might evermore walk into the beauty of holiness in which your Son lived and in which He walked. These are serious words which we contemplate this morning. Fit the message to our hearts, O Lord, as we are relying upon Thee for that end. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
You’ll turn with me to the third chapter of the Gospel According to Mark. I want to read one of the most sober things which Jesus ever said in all of His ministry. Then I would like to read the parallel verses in the passage which Cal has already read to us from the 12th chapter of Matthew, but first Mark 3 verses 28 through 30, then we’ll turn back to the 12th chapter of Matthew.
Jesus says, Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewithsoever they shall blaspheme. But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness.
I want to read those words again. He that shall speak evil or blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.
Just for emphasis now, I want to reread the parallel passage from Matthew 12. Verse 31, Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whoso speaketh the 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.
In order to head off evasions, Jesus proceeds in this passage, as Cal has read to us, to indicate that one cannot simply cast off lightly the fact that someone speaks evil of the Holy Ghost. Someone cannot say, Oh no, I didn’t mean it. Because as Jesus says, your idle words reveal the condition of your heart. And the person who can idly say of the work of the Spirit of God, Oh, that’s the work of the devil, Oh, that’s a bad thing, that’s not good, that’s evil. The person who can lightly say that reveals a condition of heart, and the idle word shall stand in the day of judgment.
The idle word is the off-guard word. It is the word which just pops up, and there stands the heart revealed.
He is speaking of very religious people, he is speaking of Pharisees and doctors of the law. And as Jesus has taught, he has said many things which undermine their position and called him to question their righteousness.
And now as he goes about to do works which are amazing deeds, and to cast out demons, these doctors of the law and the Pharisees who had had their position undermined by his teaching, are called upon, they feel called upon, to pass a judgment about the quality of his work. And it was good work. It was work which in every way redounded to the glory of God and made people’s confidence rise and believe that there is a good God who loves them and who is available to them and would help them. It was good work.
And all of those who were supposedly unlearned and educated said, this must be the son of David, this must be the one who is promised, this must be the Messiah.
But they said very wisely, very wisely, ah, this fellow, this fellow casts out demons by Beelzebub.
Now Beelzebub was the dung god. Some of you perhaps have acquaintance with the novel by a man named Goldman, I believe it is, called Lord of the Flies. Beelzebub is Lord of the Flies. Scholars believe that the name was derived from another Semitic deity, a Babylonian deity, and the Jewish people, in order to make it ridiculous, changed just the sound or two in it, to make it sound as if here was a ridiculous god, the god of the dung heap where the flies congregate, the dung beetles.
And so they say this very cutting thing of Jesus. They say, ha, this fellow. He’s doing this work by the power of Beelzebub.
And it is in response to this that Jesus says, if you speak evil of me, of the Son of Man, that will be forgiven you. But if you condemn and speak evil of the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven you in this world or in the next.
Now there’s so much that we could talk about in this passage. There are many things which we could profitably pursue. But I want to talk to you simply about three great points that stand out in this passage.
First of all, I want to say to you that Jesus here points to the fact that there are human beings who will be eternally lost and unreconciled to God. This is a solemn fact which even in those churches which like to believe the Bible is often not emphasized. And I want to just remind you of this fact this morning and say to you that there are people all about you. There may be people in this room who will be eternally and forever unreconciled to God.
In the last verses of the Bible itself, in the book of Revelation, we find these haunting and terrible verses. In chapter 20, verse 11, and I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire and in the very verse the very chapter following chapter 21, verse 6, and he said unto me it is done I am alpha and omega the beginning and the end I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely and he that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he will be my son but the fearful and the unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth of fire and brimstone which is the second death.
And Jesus brings before us in these words to these very proper and righteous people that solemn fact that there is an eternity of suffering for those who are reconciled to God and that those whose sins are not forgiven will be eternally lost.
Now you know one of the reasons why among those as I say who wish to believe the Bible this is not said so often now is because it has been made rather ridiculous. Heaven and hell have been turned into something a little funny that you can put into cartoons in your magazines and in your newspapers and heaven is pictured as people sort of lolling about on fleecy clouds playing harps and perhaps making wise remarks of one sort or another. Singing sitting endlessly in church and singing songs possibly of something of that sort and that’s that’s thought to be heaven. And hell is presented as if it were some sort of eternal barbecue with the wicked on a spit being turned by a devil pouring some sort of salt and brimstone over them as if somehow this were what hell were.
Now let me tell you very simply you must not be misled by all of the ridiculous pictures which can be drawn and all of the jokes which can be said. Don’t be worried about the furniture of hell. God can take care of that and the furniture of heaven likewise. Remember the fact. Remember the fact. And whatever your views about where it is and what it’s like on the inside those perhaps may be subject to question. Paul in Corinthians first Corinthians speaks to us and says I have not seen neither ear heard and neither have it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him. And in a large measure we have to say we don’t know what exactly heaven is going to be like and we don’t know what exactly hell is going to be like but there’s going to be such a place and it is going to involve an eternal conscious separation from God. It is going to involve in my opinion a continuing in the same lost character with full consciousness of the rebellion and of the fault and the guilt and a continuation in that sense of lostness and guilt that will never cease.
Now why it is so is a long topic and I haven’t intended this morning to talk at length upon this subject but I’m concerned that you understand that Jesus is saying some people have that as their destiny.
Another thing he’s saying is that among those persons who have that as their destiny will be very prominent class of people such as those that are found in the scripture passages upon which we’ve dwelt this morning.
These are not disrespectful types of persons. You might not find them in the rescue mission or in the soup line. You might not find them in the prisons or the jails or the courts or in the mental institutions or in the welfare office if that’s disgraceful to you. Or wherever you may find disgraceful people, many, many people who are going to suffer that eternal lost condemned condition are among the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
Jesus repeatedly had to warn those of his own day about the effects of their own righteousness. He repeatedly had to stress the fact that publicans and harlots would go into the kingdom of God before those who were regarded as righteous. And the keynote to all of his teaching is the repeated verse, the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
And here we have a group of people and not only are they caught up in iniquity but in iniquity of such a kind that Jesus says it will never be forgiven. It will never be forgiven.
There’s one slight nuance here of grammar that I would like to point out to you. Very often we hear the unpardonable sin being spoken of. Very often it is said that there is an unforgivable sin.
I would observe on these verses which you have before you that it does not say the sin cannot be forgiven. It does not say it is not pardonable. It says very simply it will not be forgiven. And I think that’s very important.
I want to say that when we look at the mechanics of God’s love and his relationship to those who are lost, even those who speak evil against the Holy Spirit, there is nothing in the nature of God that in the nature of forgiveness which would make that sin unforgivable. The mercy and grace of God is great enough. It is not the smallness and meanness of God who might stand and say now if you do that it’s all over. I won’t forgive you that. That’s the end of the world. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in the eternal dog house. It isn’t in the nature of God that the restriction is found.
The restriction is found in this simple fact that those who come to such a place in their lives that when they look at the goodness of God and when they feel the pull of the Holy Spirit in their heart, and when they see it at work in others, when they say that is evil, that is bad, that is wrong, what they have done is they have turned aside the only instrument which can reach them. They have taken the only tool which could move into their heart and into their life and redeemed them and bring them to repentance and faith towards God and into a growth of grace which would bring forth the glory of the Son of God in their life and they’ve taken it and they’ve condemned it.
The character of unforgiveness rests upon the side of the individual who cannot reach out and take the hand of God that is offered to them in the form of the Holy Spirit.
There are many things we can do for the Holy Spirit. For those of us who are Christians, we can grieve the Holy Spirit. We grieve the Holy Spirit, no doubt, in those conditions where we do things that do not make full way for him in our lives, we grieve him. When we frustrate the work that he would like to do in our lives, when we frustrate, as Paul says, the grace of God, we grieve the Holy Spirit.
We quench the Holy Spirit when we take measures to stop the work that we see him doing. We quench the Holy Spirit, which is already there, and I will not remind you of the verses, I think most of you know these, where I’m drawing these terms, grieve and quench.
Also, we can resist the Holy Spirit, as we find in the seventh chapter of Acts, where Stephen says to the people of his day, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised of heart, why do you always resist the Holy Ghost?
But finally, and this is the case of the people of whom Jesus speaks in this passage, finally, we can be completely insensible to him, not even know that he’s there. This may be because we are simply dead to him, but our deadness also can lead us into the position of the people with whom Jesus is dealing here. It can lead us into the position where we explicitly condemn and explicitly reject the work of that divine presence, which alone can save us.
And for that person, they have never forgiven us, not only because they have spoken evil against the Holy Spirit, but the fact that they can speak evil against the Holy Spirit leaves them helpless in all of their sins. And they may have the complete conviction that they’re totally right. They may be completely convinced that the things they’re giving their life and their mind to are just the very things they should give their lives and their minds to. They may be totally blind.
The Catholic poet Gerard Manley Hopton has a haunting line in one of his poems. He says, oh, the mind has cliffs, cliffs of fall, hold them cheap who never hung thereby. He draws attention to the fact that we turn mental corners and we are as blind as a bat. We are caught up in our zeal. We are caught up in our doctrine. We are caught up in our righteousness, so that if the Son of God comes before us and works the good works of God, we can look straight at it and say, that’s the devil. That’s evil. That’s not good.
The sure sign, the sure sign that we approach this place is the readiness to give reasons and justify ourselves and close ourselves off and be absolutely certain that we are right. To be completely unteachable, because we know that we are right, all the while justifying ourselves in not following Christ. We can find completely good reasons for not walking as Christ walked. We can find completely good reasons for not exercising the power which Christ exercised. We can find completely good reasons for disobeying God. That’s a terrible warning sign.
This was the condition of the people to whom Jesus spoke. They did not obey God. They had made up their own little rules, even, and they said that these are the commandments of God, but Jesus saw them and called them rightly the commandments of men, the traditions of men, and you’ve substituted them for the commandments of God.
And they could stand and allow people to suffer. They could rob. They could take money from a man who was supposed to be supporting his old mother and father and give that man an excuse so that he could go to his mother and father and say, I’m sorry you have to do without, but I’ve given money to the temple. So I don’t have to help you.
They washed their cups and they washed their sauces. They obeyed every little rule, every little provision that they had thought up to show. They would not take more than a certain number of steps on a Sabbath day. They would not pick up more than a certain number of sticks to build a fire on a Sabbath day. And they had it all down to the fine point so that when they went out into their garden and they looked at their herbs, they would take a certain amount of mint and cumin and they would take 10 seeds out of 100 and they would devote those to the temple.
They had it all worked out. And as Jesus pointed out, you tithe your mint and your cumin and you neglect mercy and justice.
The awful sign, the awful sign is when we find ourselves ensconced in a pattern of reasoning and behavior where we can justify completely to our own satisfaction and the dissatisfaction of God, disobeying Christ, not doing what He said, not walking as He walked.
I speak to you, I speak to me, where do we stand on this? Is it our commitment to walk in the teachings of Christ and to do as He commanded? Is it our commitment as a church to follow the Great Commission and to teach all of those that we bring in to observe, to do all that He has commanded? Is it our commitment as Christians to receive the power of God, to work the works of Christ? Or do we have a line of rationalization which allows us to say, well, it’s in the scripture, you know, but it’s not for us. We are not supposed to do that. Well Jesus stands and says, he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. How can you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say?
My dear friends, judgment must begin at the house of God. Think for a moment what it would mean if all of the professing Christians in the United States stopped shoplifting. Judgment must begin at the house of God. And if we are not willing to assume this, we are locking ourselves in. And there is at least no guarantee that we have not put ourselves in the position of those who resist the Holy Spirit, and by resisting become insensible to the point that we can look at what is good. We can look at His work. We can look at His teaching and say, ha, it’s of the devil, or say, ha, it’s indifferent, or say, oh, what a pain, and disregard it.
Reasons are a terrible sign that we approach this awful condition. Excuses, slightly different from reasons, excuses are also a terrible sign.
The final passage I want you to look at with me today is in Luke. We find here a parable in the 14th chapter of Luke, a parable of how people responded to the call of Christ to walk into the kingdom of God and to live in it. And he says in the 15th chapter of the 14th chapter of Luke, and when one of them that sat meet with him heard these things, he said, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Now, this is typical, you see. Jesus knew that people in the abstract would say, how wonderful it is to be in the kingdom of God. How wonderful. But then he knew when the issue was put to people, an overwhelming number would find something else to do. How blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. And then he said unto him, a certain man made a great supper and made many, and sent his servant at suppertime to call to say to them that were forbidden, come, for all things are now ready.
Now, these were people who not only had an invitation beforehand, but then he sent his servant out to remind them and say, now it’s ready, you’ve been invited, now come. Very likely many of these people had accepted, like the son in another parable who said, I go, Father, to work, but did not go. And very likely many of these people had returned their RSVPs and said, I’ll be there, fella. Set a plate for me. But now the call comes and says, it’s time for action, will you come?
Verse 18, and oh, how this is the story of the world. They all with one consent began to make excuses. The first one said, well, I bought a piece of ground, and I have to go and see it. As if that piece of ground, if he didn’t go and see it, wouldn’t be there any longer. Might just get up and walk off, couldn’t do it another time. But you see, the Master wants us to see how trivial and empty these excuses are. I bought a new boat, I have to go try it out. We bought some new furniture, and we’d like to get it arranged. I must needs go and see it. Well, why is he going to see it? He’s already bought it. Why does he need to go see it? There doesn’t need to be a reason, there only needs to be an excuse. Pray thee have me excused. Another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them. Pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife. And therefore I cannot come.
You walk down the street, near to your home, if you look as you drive along the streets as you go home, you will be looking at people who have every excuse in the world for not following Christ. If you ask them, they will tell you what their excuses are. To be sunk into excuses is another frightful and terrible sign that we are approaching the place of those whose sins have never forgiven, of those who in their blindness simply can’t hear.
Paul describes the people of Israel and their relationship to God in the 10th chapter of Romans he says, quoting Isaiah the Lord saying, all day long I’ve stretched out my hands to a wicked and gainsaying people.
In Hebrews chapter 3 we find those words drawn from the experience of Israel in the wilderness. Today if you hear his voice, harden not your heart, as in the day of provocation. Today if you hear, harden not your heart, because the day may come when you go over that cliff in your mind and you simply no longer hear. You say, I will turn when I want to. You can’t even want to. If you want to now, you’d better thank God that you want to now, because the time may come when you don’t want to. And the greatest trap in the world is simply to not want to. And you think, how wonderful, I’m doing what I want to, but your wants have you captured.
Some weeks ago there was a terribly pathetic picture on the news of a young man who had been using angel dust and various other kinds of drugs until his mind had simply been blanked out. And it was very touching because, as the interview proceeded, you understood that this young man didn’t even know what was wrong. And he was called upon to make a judgment about what he had done and what had happened to him and whether it was wise and good, and he could not make a judgment about it.
If you bury your head in the way of the world and the ways of the flesh sufficiently long, you go over that cliff. And it isn’t that the love of God ceases for you, it is that the love of God cannot reach you because you have turned off the instrumentality which would call you to it. And that is the sin that hath never forgiveness.
Let’s pray. Before we begin to sing, let us take just a few moments for each of us to search our own hearts. And I’m not going to be searching your heart, I’m going to be searching mine. Because while I realize that much of what I’ve said this morning may not apply to many of us, yet there is this, that some small measure of it may apply to all of us. Are we ready to surrender all and follow Christ? Is there something, is there some point of reputation or favored lust, some hindrance on hold, where in our minds we have said, oh no, not that, I won’t give that, I will not surrender. I think that may be true of many of the dearest saints in this group. It may be true of many of those who are most devoted. And I intend in these moments of quietness to search my own heart. Today if you hear His voice, harden not your heart, lest the day come when you simply will not hear, and you’ll be left to your own devices, possibly for eternity, oh God give us grace, that it should not happen to us, and give us power to turn those about us away from the path which would destroy them, for Jesus’ sake, amen.
We’re going to give an invitation now for those who may wish to come for a decision number 408. We’ll stand and sing, Bob will lead us. And if you feel that we could be of help to you this morning, there will be those here at the front to assist you, let us stand and sing together, amen.