[0:00] Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 22, I'm reading to verse 37. If you're physically able and desire to do so, I'm asking you to join with me as we stand together and we read the Word of God together, found in Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 22, reading down to verse 37.
[0:18] Just as a forewarning, we're going to read one of those passages that seems to be one of the questions that is always asked among believers. We will see it in our text this morning. Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and he healed him, so that the mute man spoke to Saul.
[0:37] All the crowds were amazed and were saying, This man cannot be the son of David, can he? But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, This man cast out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.
[0:49] And knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself, and how then will his kingdom stand?
[1:02] If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
[1:15] Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property unless he first binds the strong man? Then he will plunder his house.
[1:51] You brood of vipers. How can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good, and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.
[2:04] But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they will give an accounting for it on the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
[2:15] Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity of gathering. Thank you for the opportunity of coming and rejoicing in song and lifting your name on high.
[2:27] Lord, we rejoice in the opportunity of fellowship. God, we are so thankful for the opportunity to read your word together as a corporate body of believers. Lord, we pray that now by the power and presence of your spirit that you would speak to our hearts, that we would come surrendered to all of our thoughts, all of our concerns, all of our opinions, Lord, that we would come cast upon you and say, Lord, speak to your people.
[2:52] We ask that the truth of scripture would captivate us, that it would draw us in closer to you, and that the truths that are revealed will be the very thing that we need to hear and be the very thing that shapes and conforms our lives to your glory and to your honor.
[3:07] We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 22 and reading down to verse 37, includes the text, which is quite often one of the most asked questions, and we'll get to it within the text, and that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
[3:24] Have I committed the unpardonable sin? It is only here in scripture that we find the mentioning of the unpardonable sin, and we see the context of that, the thing that there is something which can be done, which cannot be forgiven in this age or in the age to come.
[3:40] But rather than just looking at that text and looking at that verse, we want to take it in its context, and we have to understand it as it sits in this passage. Some Bible scholars will tell you that this unpardonable sin is confined to just this event, something that takes place here in the life of Christ when he is working and moving among his people and at this particular time and therefore can no longer be committed.
[4:04] I'm not necessarily of that opinion or of that conviction. Rather, I think that he is speaking of something which transcends time and is something that is applicable throughout the ages, but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, so we will get to that.
[4:16] But what we see here is that Christ has been manifesting himself and manifesting his lordship over things, and he has already manifested his lordship over the Sabbath in the first part of Matthew chapter 12 because he is Lord of the Sabbath, something greater than the temple was present among them.
[4:34] When Jesus himself showed up, he is the very Son of God, he is the very declaration of the Word of God, and he is the manifestation of God himself because he is the Emmanuel.
[4:44] He is God in the flesh. And he has shown his right to rule every aspect of the law and every aspect of legalism and efforts. And now things begin to transform because if you remember in that manifestation, there was brought to him a man on the Sabbath who had a withered hand, and he restored the hand, and people really got bent out of shape about that because he was working on the Sabbath, and he said it is good to do good to men at any opportunity.
[5:11] But we make a shift here when we're getting into verse 22, and we really see, I want you to see this morning, a surrender to the lordship of the king. Well, it looks like to have an absolute full surrender to the lordship of the king because he is the king of kings and the lord of lords.
[5:28] And as king, he has a right to be lord over his people. And that means he is the one who interprets how things happen. He is the one who dictates and really who manifests not only the truth of Scripture, but the reality of God's meaning or reality of God's interactions with man.
[5:47] And here he is showing what it looks like to surrender to that lordship. And unfortunately, so many people don't and want, and we see that in the text.
[5:58] And we are introduced to this aspect of surrender. At the very beginning, it says, Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus. Now, this is some of the realities which we, I mean, just be honest.
[6:11] In the Southern Baptist realm, it tends to, for lack of a better English word, just wig us out a little bit. It seems to kind of take us a little bit over the edge and get us a little bit out of our comfort zone because the reality of demon possession seems to be something that is just assumed in Scripture, right?
[6:26] It seems to be something that is just out there. And you just read it like they brought a demon-possessed man to Jesus. And it seems to be just an ordinary occurrence. And even here in the text, Jesus speaks of the Pharisees' children or the sons of the Pharisees, which would be like the students of the Pharisees casting out demons.
[6:43] We read that in the book of Acts. Remember? The seven sons of Sceva going and casting out demons. And they're having this exorcist. What Jesus does not imply is that they were ever good at casting out demons.
[6:53] He said they at least attempt to cast out demons in the name of Jesus and Paul. Remember that? Paul and then the Jesus that he preaches. And then they were overwhelmed by the demonics. One thing that we have to affirm, whether or not we can understand it or comprehend it in our cultural context, one thing we have to affirm is the reality of demon and demonic presence.
[7:16] Okay? We have to affirm that. And we see this in Scripture because so often we are confronted with this reality. And this isn't just a Jewish concept.
[7:27] This isn't just something that the Jews thought into existence during the Intertestament times. This isn't something that seems to be really confined to their context and culture because Christ himself brings it up quite often.
[7:40] And therefore, it is something that we must just admit to that there is a reality of a demonic presence. And we come to Scripture not with really what we always bring to Scripture, our interpretation through our context or our culture or where we live.
[7:57] And when people speak of demon possession, now we get a little carried away. We get a little bent out of shape. And we tend to be on one extreme or the other. But we meet the text exactly where the text meets us.
[8:08] And it says that there was a man who was demon-possessed. And that demon possession led for him to be mute and blunt. And they brought this man to Jesus. And here we are confronted with man's greatest need.
[8:20] This man's greatest need seems to be so apparent to each one of us. And this man's greatest need seems to be so obvious that we almost don't even need to talk about it. But yet we are confronted with it in the text.
[8:32] Now, before we really get to the man's greatest need, we need to understand this. A man or an individual with a great need needs to go to one place because they brought him to Jesus. All throughout Scripture, we meet individuals with great needs.
[8:46] We meet individuals with great lack or great want or great desperate conditions. And the answer for every one of them is to be brought to Jesus.
[8:59] Because man cannot do anything with their need. Man cannot do anything with their problems. There is no man that we can bring another individual to who stands in great need.
[9:10] And we say here, take care of this man's needs. Because man will always fall short, right? Man will always fall flat in meeting the greatest need of man.
[9:22] So man's greatest needs are met and confronted and really cured at one place. And that is at Christ. So that's a long way of saying if you're trying to find your need met anywhere other than at the feet of Christ, you're in the wrong place.
[9:40] And if we're trying to meet anyone else's needs in any other way than bringing them to Christ, we're taking them to the wrong place. Because man's greatest need is only met and fulfilled and cured at one place, and that is at Christ.
[9:57] So they bring this man to Christ. Now, if we read this and we were to see this individual, we would say this man had two great needs. Number one, he was mute. Number two, he was blind.
[10:08] So he couldn't speak and he couldn't see. Seems to be some really just glaring needs that this man has because he can't see and he can't speak. And this seems to be a problem.
[10:19] And we would have the tendency to see this individual, and even maybe if we were this individual, to think that the greatest needs that this man has are physical. But the text tells us that his greatest needs are not physical because the Bible tells us the reason these physical problems exist is because of a demonic influence.
[10:40] He was demon-possessed, and therefore he was mute and blind. So while on the outside it looked as if his greatest problem was a physical need, the truth of the matter is that his greatest problem was a spiritual issue.
[10:58] Because when Jesus addressed the spiritual, it took care of the physical. And we know this from the text because it says he cast out demons, or the Pharisees had a problem with the reality.
[11:11] Jesus didn't just take care of the mute problem and the seeing problem, right? He didn't just cure the eyes and the mouth. He didn't just take care of the physical attributes. He cast out a demon, and then therefore the physical became in line with what was being taken place in the spiritual.
[11:29] And the greatest need that the individual brought to Christ was not a physical disability. It was a spiritual inability.
[11:42] Because of what was going on in the spirit, he could never be right in the physical. Now let's break that down just a little bit. Man's greatest need, not this man, all of mankind's greatest need is not a physical issue.
[12:03] Even though every one of us have physical deficiencies. Not a single one of us are a perfectly physical specimen of humanity, though we may try to convince ourselves of that.
[12:17] We understand the reality. It doesn't take very long before we realize, I am not what I thought I was, right? We are not just a perfect picture of physical humanity. We all have physical deficiencies.
[12:29] We all fall flat at some point physically. Our greatest need is not a physical issue. Our greatest need is a spiritual issue.
[12:41] So you're saying, Pastor, are you telling me that every physical problem I have is a spiritual issue? No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying our greatest need is not to make sure the physical is taken care of.
[12:56] It is to make sure the spiritual is addressed. Because here is the reality. Stay with me. I know we're getting in deep waters and some people think I've jumped off the cliff and I've went crazy.
[13:06] But just stay with me here, okay? We get so concerned about trying to meet physical needs that we overlook the spiritual realities. And while we can address the physical, we have nothing at all to do with the spiritual.
[13:20] And as Jesus says, in the end, the individual is worse. Because the greatest need is a spiritual need. Now just to get a little bit deeper into this, there's this reality that we find in the text here when Jesus addresses this man's greatest problem.
[13:41] And Jesus now, you're going to get upset at me, but I want you to stay with me here, okay? Jesus says, how can a man enter a strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first bind the strong man?
[13:55] And in context, he is speaking of casting the demon out of this individual. So let's just bring it down to its normal language. Before he could address the spiritual, he had to bind the strong man that was holding him captive and then to release him from the strong man's possession.
[14:12] He had to plunder the strong man's possession and set it free in the spiritual realm. Now the reason you're going to get upset at me is because Scripture says you are the property of one of two areas.
[14:24] You're either a property of Satan or a property of Christ. And that's the only realities you have.
[14:35] You say, well, I never belonged to Satan. I'm not demon possessed. Oh, but you are. Because see, the fall of man handed over all of mankind into the possession of Satan.
[14:49] When Jesus is in the wilderness temptation and Satan takes him up to the highest heaven, Satan makes this bold claim, I will give you all of the kingdoms of the earth and all of the realm, which included all mankind, by the way.
[15:02] And Satan says, for they are mine. I will give them to you if you will bow down and worship. Jesus does not deny the reality that all of the kingdoms in the earth belong to Satan. Jesus says, I'm going to not bow down and worship you because I'm going to defeat you and then take them from you.
[15:18] See, the reality is that when man fell in the garden, we did so much more than have a physical issue. We gave up our spiritual rights. And man handed themselves over through the fall.
[15:31] That is our sin nature, our adenemic nature, the nature of Adam in us, means that we are no longer the possession of God created, though we are created to worship Him and to adore Him, but we have so much and so many the possession of Him.
[15:50] It means, in its central force, man apart from Christ, who gives demons to the people that is fallen.
[16:05] He is fallen. That's why there needs to be more fallen than children who bond to Him and wonder what He now possesses to this love and set up this so we are even demon-possessed.
[16:24] so, so, I'm not a person who is working.
[16:56] I'm not a part of you. And if you're honest, you're just saying, no, I'm still not. No, I want to do these things. So I want to be perfect. I can't do it.
[17:07] Wow. And there's a massive thing. Over. Well, it may not always exist for yourself in the way that you think I'm doing it.
[17:18] But you need something. I can't do it.
[17:54] I can't do it.
[18:24] I can't do it.
[18:54] I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it.
[19:06] I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it.
[19:18] I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it.
[19:30] I can't do it. so Here we see that really the measure and the extent that man will go to deny the reality.
[20:11] See, man goes to break meat to deny what he cannot understand. Man goes to break meat to deny what he cannot understand.
[20:22] Because man will go to the death of self-devil and control of his own destiny in reality. Man, we'd love to convince himself that by his own effort he could be good, and that if he was physical, then he can assume the responsibility for his spiritual.
[20:41] Man, we'd love to convince himself that if this is a physical, it's going to look right, it's going to act right, it's going to be right, and to face it, and all these things, and really be physical, and that I could just get right.
[20:53] And that's never happened. This is my friend. I have a five-year-old man. Okay? I don't care how hard I've tried, I don't care how much I've been cared for, but there are some things I will never be able to do.
[21:09] Remember, I will never be able to do all things, no, I will not be able to do anything. I will never be able to do anything. I will never be able to do anything.
[21:21] I will never be able to do anything above my head the way I'd like to do things above my head, because I know these things. I understand men have the limits to take the heart.
[21:33] The men in this denial seem to take the heart. I don't need to go there, because I can address the needs that I have. I can take care of them myself. I can send, I can send, I can send, I can send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, I send, so so so being so to be worth, it is the very spirit of God that is.
[23:04] You go read the book of Romans. The book of Romans is a great book. Paul writes in which spirit is true there in Romans. You read Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8, starting in Romans chapter 5.
[23:19] You're introduced to man's poverty. It is there in Romans 5 that Paul makes a transition from sin to an essence. It is there in Romans chapter 5 that Paul says that we need a justification.
[23:36] We need someone to get off filthy. And then in Romans chapter 6 he begins to speak of the vainest effort of the law. And in Romans chapter 7 though the law is holy, the law just reveals my sin nature.
[23:48] And in Romans chapter 7 we find this reality where Paul is fake. That's what I was always to do. I do my dues with sin, wages, glory, and need. And therefore I see that the law is righteous.
[24:00] That is what God said is righteous. But within me there is nothing good. Oh, they confess the man that I am. Who will deliver me from this person? And then he says, but praise be to God, who Jesus Christ our Lord.
[24:12] He is delivered, right? And then he says this is in Romans chapter 8. In Romans chapter 8 he speaks of the little position of the believer. And now he says justified and freely forgiven. And he says perfect and restored and he is all for perfection.
[24:25] Do you know that in Romans chapter 8 the Holy Spirit invented 19 houses? 19 houses. And that one path is capturing the seat of the position of the believer.
[24:42] Because the means of Christ taking care of the spiritual is the spirit himself. God the Holy Spirit intervenes in the life of the individual. He bonds the strong man because while we may be spirit-possessed in the body, there is a stronger spirit.
[24:58] And the spirit of God himself bonds the possessive thing. The spirit of God himself bonds the strong man in all the humanity. And takes captive the captives and be still free.
[25:09] He says, and takes captive the host of tactics and sets them free. What we see is the reality that through the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit the individual sets free. And the place of Romans chapter 8 the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit is the spirit of the individual.
[25:23] So listen to me. You do not think that you save yourself. You do not think that you keep yourself. And listen to the spirit of God who became you. It is the spirit of God who keeps you. And if he is strong enough to find the one who owns you, he is strong enough to keep you in his possession.
[25:37] And it is through the spirit that we find out. And if he is strong enough to keep you in his possession.
[26:09] And if he doesn't, I will send you, send you, send you, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send, send send, send, send send, send send, send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send send so Thank you.
[27:39] Thank you.
[28:09] Thank you.
[28:39] Thank you.
[29:09] Thank you.
[29:39] Thank you.
[30:09] Thank you.
[30:39] Thank you.
[31:09] Thank you.
[31:39] Thank you.
[32:09] Thank you.
[32:39] Thank you.
[33:09] Thank you.
[33:39] Thank you.
[34:09] Thank you.
[34:39] Thank you.
[35:09] Thank you.
[35:39] Thank you.
[36:09] Thank you.
[36:39] Thank you.
[37:09] Thank you.
[37:39] Thank you.