All right, Matthew 12, starting verse 22. Then a demon-oppressed man, who was blind and mute, was brought to him, that's Jesus, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all 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 Beelzebul, 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 casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your servants 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. Or 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 in the age to come." The Word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we come to your Word, the words of Jesus, inspired by your Holy Spirit and given to us so that we could hear from you. And so we come now and we simply pray that you would speak. You know me, you know my heart, you know that I come with fear and trembling, that these words are hard to understand and then they're even harder to speak. You know the hardness of our own hearts that we would love nothing more than to have nothing to do with these words. And so I pray now that your perfect love would cast out fear, that we'd come to your word openly, humbly, to hear from you, and that you'd speak words of grace and truth to us now in this moment. We pray this in the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, amen. Have you ever wondered to yourself, how did they do that? Like, how does that happen? Last summer, my family went to Dauphin Island, and we went to the island. It's off the coast of Alabama, and we're standing on the beach, and we're taking in the surf and the water and the surroundings and everything. And out there in the middle of the ocean is this gigantic offshore drilling rig. And I just wondered to myself, like, how do they do that? How do they build this gigantic structure out in the middle of the ocean? How do they get the tools out there? How do they support the structure? How do they build everything? And how do they drill down? And then where do they take that oil? Like, you know, I studied physical education in college. I have no clue how these things happen. I can teach you how to skip. I cannot tell you how they build an offshore drilling rig. And that's not the only place. I look at all these things around me, and I'm like, how do people do that? You're watching the Masters this week, and you watch this guy hit this 300-yard fade with the perfect trajectory to land it right within a spot so that he can have a perfect approach shot up to the green. And I hit a ball, and I can't get it 100 yards over the fairway. How do they do that? You know, I have a friend whose brother is going to have an art exhibit at Filbrook. It's going to be featured. And he actually goes to church here. His name is Cass Fahler. But his brother, Timo, is going to have an art exhibit. And he takes rebar and rock and stained glass, and he creates these magnificent sculptures. How does he do it? Like, where does this come from? You know, there's someone in our church, there's several musicians in our church. You guys write music. You put lyrics to it, like I write a poem and it sounds like a fourth grader wrote it, right? You write lyrics, you put music to it, you compose things that are just beautiful. And I just ask myself, how do you do it? And then you begin to think about God. And you have to ask yourself, how does God do it? Look at just our little church. How does God take all these people, from different backgrounds, from different classes, from different places, from different stories, and bring them all together to worship and serve Jesus together. How does God take people who would have nothing to do with Him, that don't want Him, that don't want to know Him, that don't want to understand Him, and He brings them into a relationship with Him? How does He do it? How does He comfort people who Has He comforted us in the midst of everyday life that is a continual burden, that is a continual struggle, that there is suffering day after day after day, and yet He does it. How does He do it? I heard a story this week that, again, that just made me ask this question. How does God do it? It's the story of Nabeel Qureshi. He was a devout Muslim. He was raised in a devout Muslim home in the Middle East, a home in which when he was born, the first words that he heard was his father uttering Muslim phrases to him so that he would grow up to be a good Muslim. And eventually he came to the United States to study. He went to Dartmouth, a committed Muslim. And one day he was walking through the halls and he saw a student reading his Bible. He was like, that's odd. Christians actually read their Bible? That'd be a plug for reading your Bible in public. Good things can happen. And so he stopped it. He actually developed a relationship with this student and they became friends. And that student challenged him to examine his beliefs on the Bible. And so Nabil spent two years studying the Bible, examining the evidence for the truth of the resurrection and the truth of the scriptures. And then after those two years, that friend said to him, now I challenge you to study the truth about Islam. And so he spent the next two years studying the truth about Islam and the truth of the Quran. And at the end of those studies, he came to the conviction that the real truth was in Christianity, and in the Jesus Christ that was recorded in the Bible, and he left his father and mother and home that he had already left metaphorically, he left it spiritually, and he left his Muslim faith and became a Christian, and devoted his life to ministering the gospel to Muslims. How does God do that? Well, I believe that Jesus gives us that answer here in this passage. It is through the work of the Spirit that Jesus carries out God's ministry here on earth through the power of the Holy Spirit. And that even now that Jesus is in heaven ruling and reigning, the work of Jesus is actually applied to our hearts and to this world through the Spirit. God works, the work of Jesus is applied by the Holy Spirit and it is manifested in the lives of Christians. So that's what we're going to look at this morning is really the work of the Spirit and how we can participate in the work of the Spirit. I struggled all week to figure out how to, because this passage is filled with a lot of controversy and a lot of stuff that's really hard to understand. And so I worked all week long on how do I do my traditional three points, you know, I traditionally go point, illustration, application, point, illustration, application. And after about the third time of writing this sermon, I said, you know what, that's not going to work with this. Okay. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to walk you through this kind of verse by verse. and get to the end of what I believe that Jesus is saying here, because I think that's really the only way you can understand it. And then once we get to the end, then we'll get into some application a little bit. I'm going to back load the application on this one. So just try to follow me. Again, plug for having your Bible, because we're going to follow along here. So as I said earlier, Matthew says that Jesus has the Spirit of the Lord on him in Matthew 12, 15 through 21. So then we pick up in verse 22, the Spirit of the Lord is on Jesus to heal this demon-possessed man. To reverse the effects of Satan in his life. He was blind, he was mute. Jesus reverses that so that he can speak and he could see. So then the crowds, they see this and they ask this question, can this be the son of David? So the son of David is a reference to the Old Testament. David was the great king of Israel. God made a promise that one of David's children was going to rule on his throne forever. And so the son of David became a title for the one who would be God's people's savior. And they were looking for a son of David who was going to rescue them. And so, especially in the first century, people were really looking for the son of David to come and save them, right? So then you have those people being like, hey, is this the son of David? Is this the guy? Is he the one who's gonna rescue us? And then you have the Pharisees who pose a different question in verse 24. They accuse him of casting out demons by the spirit of Beelzebub, right? Beelzebub literally means Lord of flies. And theologians say this was originally the name of a Canaanite god. The Canaanites were the people who lived in the Promised Land area before the Jews got there. And so by the time that Jesus came around, Beelzebub was sort of a term for Satan's demons, the chief of Satan's demons. It was actually a way of referring to Satan without saying his name. Those of you who are familiar with Harry Potter, right? You don't say the name of Voldemort, right? You say the one who shall not be named, right? That's kind of what they're doing right here. They're saying this Beelzebub is a reference for Satan, but you cannot say Satan, so they say Beelzebub. Right? But the Pharisees are accusing Jesus of casting out Satan by the spirit of Satan. So the question is, how do you do it? Was it by the spirit of the Lord? Or is it by the spirit of evil? So Jesus in 25 through 31 goes to this long explanation to answer this question about how and why he drives out these demons. Okay? So look at verse 25. Knowing their thoughts, he says to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? So Jesus, first off, uses logic. Logically speaking, it makes no sense for Satan to cast out Satan. Satan is a real intelligent being that actually exists, and he is trying to build his kingdom. Now we, modern Americans, we don't really believe that Satan exists. We don't really believe in a spiritual dimension with evil beings. But most people throughout the history of the world have, and Jesus certainly did. So he's saying Satan, being a real intelligent spiritual being, would logically not want to divide his own kingdom. He would not want to break it down. That doesn't make any sense. It's illogical for Jesus to cast out Satan by the spirit of Satan. So first he uses logic. And then he foots the argument on them in verse 27. And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges. So apparently what's happening is the disciples of the Pharisees were also trying to cast out demons. Either they were trying, or they were successful, or they thought they could. And so Jesus is saying, well, if your disciples cast out Satan by Satan, and you're saying that by casting out demons, I'm teaming up with Satan, then that means you're teaming up with Satan. Their accusation is actually a self-defeating accusation. So again, he's using logic. He's flipping their own argument on them. Way to go, Jesus. Then he gets to verse 29, and he says, or 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. So Jesus shows why he's casting out demons. He's saying that he has come to rescue people from the grasp of Satan. And before he can do that, he's got to bind the strong man. The strong man would be Satan. So Jesus is the one coming in, binding the strong man and rescuing them from the captivity of Satan. How did he do it? How was he doing this? He tells us in verse 28. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. So there's only two spirits that Jesus has referenced here. There's the spirit of Satan, the evil one, and there's the spirit of God. He has logically shown that it cannot be the spirit of Satan. And now he's saying that I'm casting out these demons by the spirit of God. The kingdom of God himself has come upon you. And interesting enough, that word you there is in the plural. Jesus is not saying the Spirit of God came upon the man whom I exercised, although he did. He's saying the Spirit of God has actually come upon you, Pharisees. Even though you don't recognize it, even though you don't acknowledge it, even though you don't believe it, the kingdom of God is actually here and present. Just to recap where we're at. If that wasn't hard enough, now we're getting into the really, really hard stuff. What Jesus is saying is the work of the Lord, Father, Son, and Spirit is to bring the kingdom of God to bear on the earth by defeating and driving out evil in this world and freeing people from slavery and suffering of the evil one. The work of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is to drive out and defeat the evil forces of this world and to free them so that they can be a part of the kingdom of God. That's what Jesus is saying that he's doing here. Okay? So whatever we interpret, however we interpret the next two verses, it has to be consistent with that message. Got me? All right, verse 30. I'm already 20 minutes in. Wow. All right. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. So now Jesus, he's so brilliant, he flips the question on them. He implicitly poses a question, and the question is this, are you with me? You know how I do it now. It's not by the spirit of evil, it's by the spirit of Lord. The question you have to ask yourself is, are you with me? Are you with the spirit of the Lord? Are you gonna gather with Jesus or are you gonna be against Jesus? If you gather with Jesus, you're with the spirit of the Lord and you're in the kingdom of God. If you don't gather with Jesus, then you're with the spirit of the evil one in the kingdom of the evil one. Are you with me? Then we get to verse 31. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. This verse has caused a lot of hurt and a lot of controversy in the church. There's a lot of different views on what the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is. Okay? But I just want to point out two things here. First, it says that every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people. Every sin. Here's the good news in that. Every sin. There is no sin in which you have committed that cannot be forgiven. There is no unforgivable sin. About to qualify that. But every sin will be forgiven. Adultery. Abandonment. Abuse. Neglect, theft, robbery, disobeying your parents, whatever it is, you name it. You take your evil, worst, most vile, most regrettable sin that you have ever committed. And Jesus is saying, yes, that sin can be forgiven. Every sin. That's good news. It's good news. And whatever Jesus says after that has got to be consistent with that good news. So he said, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven, except the blasphemy of the Spirit. So we got to ask ourselves, what is the blasphemy of the Spirit? Here it is. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit means to attribute the work of God to the work of Satan. that what the Pharisees did was they attributed to the work of God, to the work of Satan. Strictly speaking, that's what they did. They called what was good, evil. They called what was good, evil. Look at verse 32. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man won't be forgiven. The Son of Man is the title from the Old Testament that was given to God's divine warrior prince who would come and rescue God's people from their enemies. That was Jesus' favorite title for himself. So he's saying again, you can speak against God's Savior, you can blaspheme him, you can speak against him, but every one of those sins will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come." Wait a second, Jesus. You just said that every sin was forgiven, even sins against you, the Son of Man, but now, all of a sudden, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. What are you saying, Jesus? What does this mean? I think what Jesus is doing here, is he is showing the work of the Trinity in God's rescuing people from Satan, sin, and death. What we say classically is that God the Father planned salvation, God the Son accomplished salvation, and God the Holy Spirit applied salvation. Jesus is not pitting himself against the Holy Spirit. What Jesus is doing is he's exalting the work of the Spirit to its proper place in bringing the work of God to bear on the hearts of God's people to rescue people. The Spirit is essential to rescuing us, to applying the work of salvation to our hearts. So what I think Jesus is saying here, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, is to reject the Spirit's call to the person and work of Jesus. It's to hear the good news of the gospel as the Pharisees did, as the Pharisees saw. It's to hear it and to willfully, stubbornly, hard-heartedly reject it. And so this is really, really important for us because there's typically two types of people that come to this passage. The first type of person that comes to this passage is the tender conscience. And maybe that's many of you that has asked yourself, have I committed the unforgivable sin? Have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit? Have I done that which cannot be forgiven? If you are asking that question, then that is a good sign that you have not done that. That your heart is tender, that the Spirit is at work in your life, that you see your sin and you see your need for grace. that you have been converted by the power of the Holy Spirit. The other person is the one who looks at this and says, I would never do that. I've never done that. It's a little presumptuous, isn't it? I think that's the person that this passage warns, the person that it just assumes or presumes that they have been saved and they're actually really not converted. Are you with me? That's what Jesus is asking. He is saying, I'm at work through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the question you need to ask is not whether I'm in league with Satan. It's, are you with me? Are you experiencing my grace and my goodness? And here's what happens when you experience the grace and goodness of God in your life. He rescues you from Satan's grasp. and he brings you into his kingdom of truth and grace, whether you're religious or you're irreligious. I heard a story not long ago about a man who was religious, who grew up spending every Sunday in church, who came from a Christian family, who assumed that he knew all the right things, and that he believed all the right things, and that his life was perfect. Yeah, he wasn't a perfect person, but he was a good person. He was a moral person. He was a religious person. And one day he was driving down the road, and out of nowhere, God brought him under the conviction of his sin. And he saw that all of his good works were like filthy rags in front of God. And he pulled over at the side of the road in a parking lot, I guess it wasn't on the side of the road, he pulled over in the parking lot of a church that he passed by, and he prayed that God would save his soul. And he says, it was in that moment that I was converted, that God rescued me from being a religious sinner that did not know Jesus. That's what the Spirit does. The Spirit takes people who think they're saved based on their goodness, their morality, their own effort, and He rescues them from that slavery. That may be you this morning. You may be here and you've spent your entire life being religious, and the Holy Spirit is calling after you to lay down your religiosity and actually be converted to Jesus. But there's also, God's not just converting religious people, He's also converting irreligious people. He's taking people that want nothing to do with Jesus, that want nothing to do with religion, that have pushed them away as far as possible, and He radically changes their lives. Heard another story this week about a man who grew up And he totally rejected the faith of his parents. He totally rejected what they believed. And he got involved in drug, two things. He got involved in drug trading and drug trafficking, and he became a homosexual. He adopted a homosexual lifestyle. And the drug trafficking landed him in prison, as it most of the time does. And when he was in prison, before he went in, his dad gave him a Bible, and he walked into the prison, and on his way into the prison, he threw that Bible in the trash can. It had nothing to do with him. Sometime after that, he was walking through the halls of the prison, and he saw a Gideon Bible sitting in the trash can. Somebody had given someone a Bible the same way his father had given him a Bible, and they had thrown it in the trash can. And that clicked something in him. And he picked up that Bible, he took it to his cell, he began to read the words of Jesus in the New Testament, and he got converted. And he gave his life to Christ. And he says that he began searching the scriptures for a passage that would bless his homosexual lifestyle, and he could not find one. He couldn't find one. And so he left that lifestyle behind, and he followed Jesus. And then when he got out of prison, He became a pastor and he committed his life to sharing this good news with other people, to freeing people the way that he had been freed. The question that Jesus is asking is, are you with me? Will you let my spirit free you from whatever sin that entangles you and entraps you that Satan has you bound by? That's the invitation of the gospel. That's what the Holy Spirit wants. That's what God wants. That's what He's calling you to. Whatever has enslaved you, whatever has entrapped you, the spirit of this world, the spirit of the age, the spirit of yourself, the spirit of God wants to free you. And there is not any sin other than rejecting His love and His grace that can keep you from that. And so, if you're here this morning and That's the first question I want to ask you is, are you with me? The second question is this, and I think for those of us who are Christians and they're in the ministry and are like, yes, I want to participate in the work of the Spirit, I think that's the second question we have to ask ourselves is, will we participate in the work of the Spirit? Will we participate? Quickly here on this application. The first is this. The Spirit of the Lord calls us to participate in reversing the effects of evil in this world. Wherever we see evil, that's where Jesus wants to go and he wants to reverse those effects. He wants to reverse it. So there's two errors that we can make that I think this passage brings up. The first one is this. The first one is to call what is good, evil. That's what the Pharisees did. The Pharisees looked at what Jesus did, which was good, and they called it evil. And we can do the same thing. We can commit the same error that they committed. And John and I were talking about this before the service. I actually see this a lot in Reformed and Presbyterian circles. We are very guilty, I think, of looking at true, faithful, good Christian ministries outside our tradition and pointing the finger at them and calling, because they don't do it the way we do it and because they don't agree with us on all the secondary issues, calling their ministry evil when it's actually good. I think we need to hear this warning. Any person who names the name of Jesus as a Christian and holds the true faith of the gospel, the essentials of the gospel, if they're doing good Christian ministry, even if they don't do it the way we would do it, we cannot call that evil. We're committing the sin of the Pharisees if we do that. Let's not be that kind of church. I don't want to be like that. Do you? I don't want to be found opposing the spirit of God. Do you? But we can't commit the other error either. We cannot look at what is evil and call it good. The spirit of the world tells us that whatever my body says is the truth. Or however I define truth, that's the truth. Or whatever the culture says is true, is truth. That is evil. That wrecks people. That destroys people. That enslaves people. That enslaves us. We cannot call that good. And we need to kindly, compassionately, lovingly walk alongside people and show them that what they have called good is actually evil, and it's actually hurting them. That's how we participate in the work of the Spirit, in rescuing people. The next thing we need to do, so we participate in reversing the effects of evil, and then we participate in gathering to Jesus, not scattering them. Richard Dawkins this week comes out with this video. He's converted to cultural Christianity. There is no cultural Christianity, that does not exist, okay? But how do we discern that? How do we discern what is true Christianity, what is cultural Christianity, and what is just false religion? Jesus tells us here, whoever is not with me is against me. Whoever is not gathered with me scatters. Whether, I don't care who it is, no matter what teacher they are, what tradition they're in, if they're not pointing you to Jesus, that is false teaching. If they're pointing you to health, or they're pointing you to wealth, or they're pointing you to self-righteousness, that is a false gospel. That is false teaching. It is not true. True teaching points you to Jesus. as the Savior of your soul and as the Savior of this world. And even well-meaning Christian teachers that divide the body of Christ, that is sin. Listen to this from Proverbs 6, 16-19. There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are abomination to Him. Okay? Haughty eyes, so pride. Lying tongue, deceit. Hands that shed innocent blood, murder. A heart that devises wicked plans, evil. Feet that make haste to run to evil. A false witness who breathes out lies. Listen to this one. One who sows discord among brothers. The Lord hates it when people sow discord among brothers. Dividing the body of Christ over non-essential issues is evil. It is not the spirit of Jesus. We participate in gathering with Jesus, not scattering them. And lastly, the spirit of the Lord caused us to participate in the forgiveness of every sin. There is no sin that the spirit cannot forgive. That's the gospel that we hold out to people. That's the grace of the God that we believe for us and for others. That's what we call people to. That's what I call myself to. That's what I want us to be a church of, that we're calling people to believe in the grace of Jesus Christ, that all we like sheep had gone astray, each of us had turned to his own way, and the Lord laid on him all of our sins, and he paid for all of our sins, and he rescued us from the penalty of those sins, and he brought us into his glorious kingdom where we can experience his love and his grace. There was a last story here, heard a story about Some kids who were babysitting, you know, these were like teenage kids who were babysitting a group of little kids. And it just, it happened just in a, you know, that happens sometimes. One of the little kids got away and he went and he got outside and he went in the pool and he drowned. He drowned in the pool. And so, terrible, tragic, very sad. Well, at the funeral for the little boy who passed away, the teenager was there, one of the teenagers that was babysitting was supposed to be responsible for him. And two of the siblings of the child that died ran over in the middle of the service to that teenager and embraced them and forgave them in the middle of the service. Extended forgiveness to him in an unimaginable situation. He felt the grace of God, he felt forgiveness. And that young man went on to become a pastor and spends every Sunday preaching the grace of the gospel to his congregation. He experienced forgiveness and so he extends forgiveness, the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. That's what we do. We experience the work of the spirit forgiving our sins and we extend that grace and that forgiveness to others. That's what God is doing. The question we have to ask ourselves is, are we with him? Let's pray that we would be. Please pray with me. Father in heaven, we thank you for these words. They're hard, but I believe that you give them to us because you love us, because you care for us. Because you want us to be with you. Because you want to rescue people. Because you look at this world, and you look at what Satan has done to it, and it grieves your heart. I pray that it would grieve our hearts as well. And I pray that we would want to participate in the work of the Spirit, rescuing people from death. I pray that you'd rescue us. Would you rescue me? If there's anything in me, Father, that calls good evil or calls evil good, would you change it? Would you change me? If there's anything in our congregation we don't want to call good evil, we don't want to call evil good, and we don't want to reject the work of your Spirit, God, would you please work in us that which is pleasing in your sight, O Lord? In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.