who has known my theology for a long time, I have no idea that anybody here has or will anticipate very much of what I shall say tonight in this sermon on the unpardonable sin. But I want to have a scriptural basis for everything that I shall say. Therefore I want to read from the word of God. 1 Matthew 12, beginning at verse 22, if you want to follow me. Matthew 12, verse 22. Then was brought unto him one possessed with the devil, blind and dumb. and he healed him insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, Is not this the son of David? Our Lord became popular with the masses when he performed this miracle of healing the blind and dumb man. so that the crowds were amazed and said, Is not this the Son of David? Is this proof that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised Christ? The Pharisees were in a tough spot. But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out demons, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons or devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city 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 demons, 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 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 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. Now, I want to read three of those verses from the Amplified New Testament. This is not a literal translation. and interpretation along with the translation. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy, that is, every evil, abusive, injurious speaking, or indignity against sacred things, can be forgiven men. But blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not and cannot be forgiven, and whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Spirit, the Holy One, will not be forgiven, either in this world and age, or in the world or age to come." Now, I want to read from Mark, the third chapter, verses 28 to 30, three verses. with the same background. Verily I say unto you, all sin shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemous, wheresoever they shall blaspheme. But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation, because, they said, he hath an unclean spirit. Now I want to read those verses. from the Amplified New Testament. Truly and solemnly I say unto you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever abusive and blasphemous things they utter. But whoever speaks abusively against or maliciously misrepresents the Holy Spirit can never get forgiveness, but is guilty of and is in the grasp of an everlasting trespass. For they persisted in saying, He has an unclean spirit." Now I want to read from Luke, the 12th chapter, and one verse, the 10th verse, Luke 12, 10. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven." Now, I want to read that from the Amplified New Testament. And everyone who makes a statement or speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him. But he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, that is, whoever intentionally come short of the reverence due the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him. For him there is no forgiveness." I have taken this time to read both from the Authorized Version and the Amplified New Testament so that you can see right in the beginning of this message what the unpardonable sin is. You have already discovered that it is a sin directly against the Holy Spirit and not against anybody else. And you have already discovered that it is a particular sin against the Holy Spirit, not just any sin. There are many sins committed against the Holy Spirit, but the unpardonable sin The sin for which there is no forgiveness is the particular sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost. Now, in my judgment, I have read to you all that the scriptures say directly, at least, on the subject of the unpardonable sin. Some think that Hebrews, the 6th chapter and the 10th chapter of Hebrews, deal with this subject. I do not think so. They do indeed sound a warning against the sin of rejecting Jesus Christ. But rejecting Christ is not the unpardonable sin. Dr. Broadus thought that 1 John 5, alludes to the unpardonable sin. But if so, it throws no light on what the sin is. First John 5, verse 16, John said, There is a sin for which you need not pray, a sin unto death. Now, this question of the unpardonable sin has been much abused and misunderstood and misused. One is afraid that it has been used to frighten unregenerate people into a church of Jesus Christ, making them a two-fold more child of wrath than they were before. Wrong views of this matter have driven men to despair and, no doubt, some into insanity. I have had considerable dealings with people who were imbued with the idea that they had committed the unpardonable sin. That when Jasper Wilkerson killed Marvin Stearman, his brother-in-law, He thought he had committed the unpardonable sin, and he sent for me to visit him at the jail. And when I visited him, he was weeping and in terrible despair, not because he was in jail, but because he felt he had committed the unpardonable sin and was beyond redemption. Of course, I assured him that he hadn't. I had correspondence some years ago with a dear woman in West Kentucky whose brother had been led to believe in a revival meeting that because he had failed to come forward and had persisted in rejecting Jesus Christ, that he had sent away his day of grace. and had committed the unpardonable sin. I was living in Florida when his sister first wrote me about the terrible shadow he was under, almost insane, and she wanted to know if I could give her any help or tell her anything to do or to say to her brother. I gave a fresh study of this subject. I went into it the best I could, and I studied it as I have studied few subjects. And we passed letters back and to. And so far as I could tell, I had not been able to help this woman help her brother. And years passed, and I moved back to Kentucky. And when I had forgotten about the family, one day I was happily surprised to get a letter from this woman saying that her brother had come out from under the cloud and had been gloriously converted and was a happy Christian. So when I find people who are disturbed and who are fearful that they have committed the unpardonable sin, I immediately assure them with positive conviction that they have not committed such a sin. Now, in the beginning of this, we need to make a very necessary distinction. We must distinguish between an unpardoned sin and the unpardonable sin. I want to give credit to Brother Grady Herndon, who is the first man that I have ever heard make that distinction. And when he did, it stuck and it stayed with me and blessed my heart in the study of this doctrine. There are many unpardoned sins, but only one unpardonable sin. Every sin where there is no repentance in faith is an unpardoned sin. Murder may be an unpardoned But murder is not the unpardonable sin. And so we must, in the very beginning, distinguish between unpardoned sins and the unpardonable sin. We must distinguish between sins that may be forgiven on repentance and faith, and the sin which cannot be forgiven, for which there is no forgiveness. And unless we make that distinction, we are apt to go astray as we pursue our study of this doctrine. Now first, I want to mention some things that the unpardonable sin is not. And I want to say in the first place that the unpardonable sin is not any sin against humanity. and who can describe the sins that men commit against one another. Man's inhumanity to man still makes countless thousands more. And it looks as if the human race is so full of hatred and animosity toward one another that the race threatens to destroy itself. There isn't any sin against humanity that cannot be forgiven. In the second place, it is not any sin against Jesus Christ, and I want to emphasize that. Many of the sins against the Son of Man, such as denial of his deity in virgin birth, denial of his blood atonement, ignoring his claim of lordship, in short, rejecting him as the Lord Jesus Christ. And these are sins of the deepest dye, but many who have been guilty of these sins against Jesus Christ have repented and have been gloriously saved. If rejecting Jesus Christ is the unpardonable sin, then I dare say every person here tonight would have been guilty of the unpardonable sin. Wasn't there a time when you rejected Jesus Christ? If rejecting Christ was unpardonable, then you couldn't have been saved. If rejecting Jesus Christ is unpardonable, how many times and how many days would you have to reject him before it became unpardonable? Jesus Christ plainly says that sinning against him is not the sin that hath no forgiveness. Why, certainly the man who rejects Jesus Christ and who never trusts him and keep on rejecting him until time runs out on him, of course he won't be saved. But that doesn't mean that he's committed the unpardonable sin. Multitudes of people will be in hell who have never committed the unpardonable sin. So the unpardonable sin is no sin against Jesus Christ. Why, he even says you can blaspheme me and speak against me and do all sorts of sin, all manner of sin against me and get forgiveness. Then in the third place, the unpardonable sin is not any sin against the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. There is no sin covered by the Ten Commandments that cannot be pardoned. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, and therefore There must be forgiveness, forgiveness from every part of the curse. So you may have broken every one of the Ten Commandments without having committed the unpardonable sin. Then briefly, it is not any sin against God the Father. Jesus Christ said, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Then the unpardonable sin is not the sin where one comes to be past feeling. I have talked with people who thought that was the unpardonable sin, that people just keep on sinning and sinning and sinning until they are no longer convicted of the fact that they are doing wrong, and they are past feeling. Well, in Ephesians 4, 19, 18 and 19, or 17 to 19. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feelings, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. I dare say there are people in this community who have sinned and sinned until the alarm clock of the conscience no longer rings. They give themselves to a life of licentiousness and lasciviousness, and sin with greediness, and do not feel bad about it. That's awful, isn't it? But that isn't the unpardonable sin. That sin belongs generally to the heathen. That belonged to the Gentiles, generally speaking, when Paul wrote this epistle to their church at Ephesus. That isn't the sin. You might find a man who just passed feeling, and you can talk to him, and he has no sense of sin. But that doesn't mean that he is beyond redemption point and can't be saved. Then the unpardonable sin is not every sin against the Holy Spirit. You hear folks talk about the sin against the Holy Ghost as the unpardonable sin. There are a lot of sins against the Holy Spirit, the sin of quenching him, the sin of grieving him, the sin of despising him, the sin of lying to him, and the sin of resisting him, and so forth. None of these is the unpardonable sin. It's a particular sin. against the Holy Ghost, and Jesus tells us what it is, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. I won't go into that any further, but I do want to say a word or two on the positive side of it, what the unpardonable sin is. It is expressly said to be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Well, you ask, what does that mean? The Amplified New Testament helps us to blaspheme somebody. It's to speak injuriously against him. It's an insulting or a slanderous remark about a person, abusive language directed toward somebody. Every blasphemy is not unpardonable. It is only the blasphemy, only the blasphemy, the abusive language insulting, slanderous remarks about the Holy Spirit that is unpardonable. The Jews at Antioch speak against Paul and his doctrine, contradicting and blaspheming, but that wasn't the unpardonable sin. Paul, before his conversion, compelled the saints to blaspheme, but that wasn't the unpardonable sin. Paul tells the Jews that they caused the name of God to be blasphemed among the Gentiles. That wasn't unpardonable, and Paul himself was formerly a blasphemer. And yet none of these cases of blasphemy was the unpardonable sin. Now, the scriptures we read give a clear and unmistakable instance of blasphemy against the Spirit, And so we have a case in point. We not only have a definition of it, but we have an example of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. The Pharisees blasphemed the Spirit when they said concerning Jesus, He hath an unclean spirit. They blasphemed the Holy Ghost when they said, Yes, Jesus healed the blind and dumb man. He cast the demon out of him, but he did it by what power? By the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. They attributed the work of the Holy Spirit to an unclean spirit, and they did that intentionally. They did that deliberately. They meant to do that. And they meant to blaspheme the Holy Spirit when they said, He is an unclean spirit. Now, there is a case in point. Of course, they blasphemed the Lord, too. But this was not what made their sin unpardonable. Now, another thing I want us to consider are conditions under which the Spirit is blasphemed. First, there must be an unmistakable work of the Spirit. It's never a case of mistaken identity. Dr. Broadus thought that the sin was committed in connection with public miracles, and therefore is not committed in our day. That is his conviction. That's mine. I don't believe the unpardonable sin is being committed by anybody today. If so, in very, very rare instances. What conditions must exist? There must be such conditions existing so that the work, the person and the work of the Holy Spirit is recognized. There can't be any case of mistaken identity. When a person blasphemes the Holy Spirit, he knows what he is doing. He knows that he is speaking injuriously against the Holy Spirit. Paul blasphemed, but he didn't believe that Jesus had the Holy Spirit. He didn't blaspheme the Holy Ghost. He blasphemed the Lord Jesus Christ, and he thought the Lord Jesus was an impostor and didn't have the Holy Spirit. So there must be an unmistakable work of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Broder says that there is no allusion in this instance to the gracious work of the Spirit in calling and renewing and sanctifying the soul. It is the Spirit of God as giving power to work miracles. Then second, there must be knowledge that it is the work of the Spirit. I know that we have a group of professing Christians in our part of the country, and I guess they are down here, who in their worship they are rather excitable and do all sorts of ridiculous things. We call them Holy Rolls. up in Kentucky, and I never attend their meetings. But I know brethren who have attended their meetings, and they come back and say, well, it seemed like it was ridiculous the way they did. But I wouldn't laugh at them, because I was afraid I'd commit the unforgivable sin. Well, there's no danger along that line. unless you think they have the Holy Spirit, and you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, it's something you have to do knowingly. The Amplified New Testament said intentionally, deliberately, knowingly. You recognize the Holy Spirit, and you say he's an unclean spirit. If anybody here has ever done that, then you've committed the unpardonable sin. But I doubt if anybody here has ever done that. I doubt if you have ever positively recognized the Holy Spirit in a public miracle. So anxiety or fear of having committed the unpardonable sin is in itself evidence that no one has committed it. Right now and the rest of the time I am going to deal with a question. that I've never known of anybody else dealing with. And I'm giving my opinion. I'm not dogmatic. And yet I have rather positive conviction that I'm right. And you can follow me and then draw your own conclusion as to whether or not I'm right or whether I'm in error. But the question is this. Why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unpardonable. Did you ever hear anybody deal with that question? I never did. I've never read an answer to that question in anybody's theology. We know what the unpardonable sin is. It's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and I dare not call it anything else. Now, why is it unpardonable? Well, it is not because the sin is too great for the blood of Christ to atone for it. I hope you'll follow me here. It's not because it's too great for the blood of Christ to save one from. This would limit the intrinsic value of the blood of the Son of God. I believe the death of Jesus Christ was sufficient for the salvation of the devil, had it been designed for his salvation. I have put no limit to the intrinsic value of the blood of Christ. I agree with Peter when he talks about his precious blood, and I believe that the blood of Jesus Christ has enough value to save fallen angels and the devil himself if God had designed his death for that purpose. I refuse to limit the value of the death of the Son of God. I will put no limit on the intrinsic value of his blood. And therefore, blasphemy is not unpardonable because it is too great for the blood of Christ to atone for. In the second place, it is not because it is too great for the grace of God to overcome. Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. It isn't unpardonable because it's too much for the grace of God and the Holy Spirit to grapple with. Take, for example, the case of Manasseh, the wicked son of the good king Hezekiah. The record of this wicked king is found in the 33rd chapter of 2 Chronicles. Manasseh, one of the most wicked kings Judah ever had, reigned longer than any of the other kings of Judah. This wicked man reigned for 55 years, beginning at the age of 12. And I want to read you something of his record. Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign. and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. For he built again, but did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. This king of Judah lived like the heathen lived. For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Balaam, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served. Also he built altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And listen to this, and he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. Also he observed times and used enchantments and used witchcraft and dealt with the familiar spirit and with wizards. He wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. Offered his own children in sacrifice to the heathen God and burned them in fire. And he set a carved image. the idol which he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, in this house and in Jerusalem which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel will I put my name forever. So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err and to do worse than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. I'm sure there isn't such a person here, It's possible. If there's anybody here tonight who's lost and you think you've sinned too much and committed such grievous sins that grace cannot deal with and cannot pardon, what do you think about this man? Who would ever have expected Manasseh to be a saved person? If anybody could sin away his day of grace, Surely it would have been this man. If anybody could go too deep in sin to be saved, surely it was this man Manasseh. Surely if there was a sinner beyond the power of the Holy Spirit, it was this Satan-controlled wretch who provoked God so grievously. And yet, what is the sequel to all this? Why, there is a happy sequel to the career of this wicked king. And in this same passage we have the story of his conversion. And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers and prayed unto him. And he was entreated of him and heard his supplication. and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom, then Manasseh knew that the Lord, he was God. So if you feel like you are hopeless, that there is no salvation for you, get encouragement from this wicked king, Manasseh, who committed all the sins in the book. And yet he turned to the Lord in the time of affliction and prayed and was heard and was converted and restored even to his kingdom. So the unpardonable sin, blasphemy, is not unpardonable because it's too much for the Holy Spirit to grapple with and convert from. Take another case, a New Testament case, Saul of Tarsus. Who would have expected this man to ever have been saved? This self-righteous Pharisee, this persecutor of the people of God, this man with blood on his hands, and yet you know the happy sequel to the story of his life. He met the Lord Jesus, put his trust in him, and was saved. Oh, my sinner friend, if you are here tonight, If there is a lost person here tonight, don't you despair, regardless how much you have sinned or what kind of sins you have committed. If you will turn to Jesus Christ, he won't refuse to receive you. Him that cometh to me, he says, I will in no wise cast out. Now, this may shock you, but I believe I am right. The unpardonableness of any sin must be attributed to the sovereign will of God. I do not say that God is arbitrary in this matter. He has sovereignly, not arbitrarily. He has a reason for it, but we don't have it. He isn't accountable to us to give any reason, but he has sovereignly determined that there is one sin he will not pardon. He could, if it pleased him to do so. Consider this question. Who is it that's to determine what sins can be forgiven? Must it not be the God against whom they have committed. So this sin of blasphemy hath no forgiveness, not because it is too great for the blood of Christ, not because it is too much for the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God to deal with. It is unpardonable because God determined that he wouldn't pardon it. that he wouldn't pardon. He could if it pleased him to do so. He is the one who determines what sins can be pardoned and what sin cannot be pardoned. Who else is to determine the question but God? So in conclusion, there is one sin for which Christ did not die. Do you think that Christ would die for a sin that couldn't be pardoned? Here is a sin for which Christ didn't die. He didn't die to make atonement for the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He died to make atonement for all other sins. How gracious is our God! Think of the innumerable kinds of sins that God will pardon on the ground of repentance and faith. And remember, there is only one, only one for which there is no forgiveness. Isn't he gracious? Isn't that wonderful? Then here is a sin for which the Holy Spirit does not convict. does not convict. Whenever the Holy Spirit convicts of a sin, that sin can be pardoned. Here is a sin that Christ didn't die for, and the Holy Spirit will not convict him. Therefore, if you are convicted of this sin, you haven't committed it. It is some other sin you have committed. For the Holy Spirit doesn't convict of the uncardinable sin. He could if he chose. The Holy Spirit is God. He is almighty. He could convict of this sin if it pleased him. So there is one sin God will not pardon, one sin for which Christ didn't die, one sin for which the Holy Spirit will not convict, and convert from the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I want you to notice how the Holy Spirit is thus highly honored in the divine economy. I think I can see the reason for this sin being unpardonable, how the Holy Spirit is neglected and ignored and resisted. and quenched in grief, and his personality is denied? I heard of a meeting once where the preacher wanted to ridicule the idea of the Holy Spirit as a person, and he asked somebody, where is the Holy Spirit? And he got his flashlight, and he got on out of the pulpit, and he went around the house and poking his flashlight under the pews and said he is looking for the Holy Spirit. That was his way of denying the personality of the Holy Spirit. His position is that the Holy Spirit is in this book. The Holy Spirit is chained to the pulpit. The Holy Spirit never operates except through the Word. And all the Holy Spirit there is is in the Bible, the word of God. And so he was looking for the Holy Spirit as a person. Well, I wouldn't want to do that, but I wouldn't even say that that was the unpardonable sin, because that's just a matter of ignorance. And the unpardonable sin is not a sin of ignorance. No, the Holy Spirit's honor I think that's why he's called holy. The Father is a spirit. Jesus Christ is spirit. The third person is the Holy Spirit. The emphasis is put on the holiness of the third person, of the Trinity. And among the members of the Godhead, the Trinity, when they counseled about this, it was agreed that the sin that would not be forgiven would be the sin, a particular sin, against the Holy Spirit. And isn't he honored in that? Yes. People deny his personality and resist him and do a lot of things against him. And they call him by the neuter gender. and speak of him as it, and yet he is an august person in the Godhead, in the Trinity. His personality and deity may be denied by men, and he may be referred to, I repeat, in the neuter as it, but he is in truth a person of high esteem in the Godhead. To God, the Spirit's name, immortal worship give, whose new creating power makes the dead sinner live. His work completes the great design and fills the soul with joy divine. So if there is anybody here tonight and you have had some doubt in your mind as to whether or not you have committed the Holy Spirit, Let me assure you that you haven't, at least if you are disturbed about it. You haven't. For whoever commits this sin will never have any compunctions of conscience about it. You'll never have any dread or fear that you have. So I'm preaching to people tonight whose sins may be forgiven. Most of us, maybe all of us, are saved. Our sins have been forgiven. But if there's a person here tonight who's out of Christ, you haven't committed the unpardonable sin. If you had, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be in this house. You wouldn't have any interest at all in the things of God and eternity. So we can preach the gospel to every creature in this community. I have no fear. that these who are doing personal work in the community will run up on anybody who has committed this sin for which there is no forgiveness. And so in our personal work and in our public preaching, we can say, look to Jesus Christ, every one of you, and live. We can say, Jesus Christ died for sinners like you. Trust him and be saved. It's an awful thing to reject him. Don't do that. You've been doing that, but you can get forgiveness. Trust him tonight and be saved from the guilt of all your sins. Will you do that? Can you do that? If you're here tonight,