SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/1/2022 9:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Blaspheming
the Holy Spirit”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 12:22-32
Message of the verses: “22 Then there was brought to Him a demon-possessed man who
was blind and dumb, and He healed him, so that the dumb man spoke and saw. 23
And all the multitudes were amazed, and began
to say, "This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?" 24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said,
"This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the
demons." 25 And knowing their
thoughts He said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste;
and any city or house divided against itself shall not stand. 26 "And if Satan casts out Satan, he is
divided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand? 27 "And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons,
by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges. 28 "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit
of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 "Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s
house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man?
And then he will plunder his house. 30 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and
he who does not gather with Me scatters. 31 "Therefore I say to you, any sin and
blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be
forgiven. 32 "And whoever shall
speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever
shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in
this age, or in the age to come.”
I
believe that it is comforting to know that no matter how severe the sin, God
can forgive it. If you want to think
about the worst sin ever committed you only have to go to the crucifixion of
Jesus Christ and just before Christ died He said “forgive them for they don’t
know what they are doing.” MacArthur
adds “The degree of sin does not forfeit forgiveness, because even killing the
Son of God was forgivable.”
The
volume of people sins does not matter when a person truly comes to Christ for
salvation. If a person comes to the Lord
at say, 88 and has led an awful sinful life, but truly comes to Christ in repentance
asking to be saved that person will be saved, in a similar way that a seven
year old comes to Christ, and has only committed the normal sins of childhood,
that person can also be saved by coming to Christ.
A
particular kind of sin cannot keep a person from salvation if they come to
Christ for salvation. As we look
throughout the Bible we see God forgiving all types of sin from murder, adultery
covenant breaking, blasphemy, drunkenness, extortion, and every other kind of
sin imaginable. MacArthur writes “He
forgives self-righteousness, which is the deceiving sin of thinking that one
has no sin. He even forgives the sin of
rejecting Christ; otherwise no one could be saved, because before salvation
everyone, to some degree, is a Christ rejecter.
There is no forgiveness of even the smallest sin unless it is confessed
and repented of, but there is forgiveness of even the greatest sin if those
divine conditions are met.”
As
we continue to study the life of Christ in Matthew’s gospel we will see that
gradually the people of Israel began to escalate their sinfulness for Christ
and eventually would bring about the death of their Messiah, which was led by
the “religious rulers” in the country, as they added blasphemy to their charges
against Christ at the end.
I
will conclude with the following quote from John MacArthur: “For centuries God’s people had longed for
the Messiah, their divine Deliverer. The
hope of every godly prophet and teacher of Israel was to live to see Him, and
every Jewish girl dreamed to being His mother.
Yet when He arrived He was denied and rejected. In 12:22-32, Matthew details five features of
the climax of that rejection: the activity
of Jesus healing a seriously afflicted man, the amazement of the crowd over the
miracle; the accusation against Jesus because of the miracle; Jesus’ answer to
His accusers; and the anathema His accusers brought on themselves.” This is what we will be looking at as we look
at these verses found in the 12th chapter of Matthew.
2/1/2022 9:52 AM
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