Mark 3:20-30

Mark chapter 3, and we're going to be starting with verse 20 and going through verse 30 this morning. As you turn there, I have a question I want to present to you this morning. The question is have you ever felt like you've committed a sin that God cannot forgive? Let me ask it again. Have you ever felt like you've committed a sin that God cannot forgive?

There was a man growing up in my home church several years ago who didn't go to church for many, many years because of what he had done in his life, including some things that he had done in the Vietnam War.

He felt like he was unworthy of God's forgiveness, and so for many years he did attend church and eventually began to come to church, my home church, but even for awhile as he was coming to church, you would go to the altar and he would pray and people would counsel with him, but he would continue just to have a hard time accepting the fact that God could forgive him for what he had done in his past.

And one particular Sunday, he finally believed that God was big enough to forgive him, and he came to Christ, and for many, many years, well actually just a few years actually, after he was saved, he lived out the rest of his life on fire for the Lord. And so it's an incredible story of God's forgiveness in his life. But if you would say that you've ever felt that way this morning, then I really believe this message will speak to you today.

It has many things to say to all of us, but I think particularly those that have ever felt this way. And if we were honest, all of us in this room have probably felt that way at one point or another in our life. And so let's go ahead and begin. In Mark chapter 3, verse 20. It says, "He came home, and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.

When his own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying, 'He has lost his senses.' The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, 'He is possessed by Beelzebub, and he casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.' And he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables. 'How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished. "'But no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven, the sons of men and whatever blasphemies they utter.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin,' because they were saying he has an unclean spirit." Let's pray together this morning. Dear God, we thank you for your word, Lord, and even though this was a very difficult passage this morning to grasp, Lord, I pray that you would open our hearts to what you have to say, and you can speak clearly to us, Lord. I pray that you would forgive me of my sin, Lord.

Lord, I'm a sinner saved only by your grace, and I pray that you would make me a clean vessel to deliver your word this morning. That your Holy Spirit would speak through me, Lord, that it wouldn't be my words, but it would be your words, Lord. And I pray that everyone in this room, Lord, that their hearts would be open to what you have to say through your word, that we will be quick to listen, Lord, and that we would be willing to act on what we hear. And we just ask it all in Jesus' name.

Amen. So this morning, we're going to look back at these verses and kind of go through together this passage, and there's some difficult parts that we'll get to in a little bit, but I want to give you a little bit of background this morning on what's going on right before this passage. The book of Matthew also has this passage recorded, this story recorded, and we get a little bit more information in Matthew.

And one of the things that we know in Matthew is that Jesus has just healed a man who is-- who cannot speak or hear. And we see that not only has he healed them of that, but he's driven out a demon who is possessing this man. And so we'll see later on in the passage as we get there, we need to know this important background information as we get to where we're going in just a few minutes. Excuse me.

But we'll see: the first amazing act in this passage is that we see in Matthew, actually it's not recorded in Mark, but we know it's there for Matthew, right before the first amazing act is Jesus driving out a demon and healing a man. And so in verse 20, it starts out and says that he came home and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.

And so I think the point here is that if you think about times in your life where you haven't had time to eat, usually it means you're pretty busy, right? I don't know about you, but if I don't have time to eat, as much as I like to eat, then I must be pretty busy. But not only are you pretty busy, but you also must be doing something pretty important to skip a meal.

And we can see that I'm sure the same thing is true here with Jesus, is that Jesus was willing to sacrifice his most basic needs to put others first. These people were important to him. It was an important thing. He was willing to skip a meal to minister to these people and to love these people, and really that's the second amazing act that we see. So the first one is he heals this man.

We know about that from the book of Matthew chapter 12:22 through 24, but then we also see the second amazing act that he performs, and that's just putting people above himself. This was a radical thing in that day that he would do such a thing. And a lot of times when people live radical lives for God, what happens? They begin to get accused.

And we see the critics of Jesus in this passage come out, and we see the accusations begin in verses 21 and 22, and unfortunately the first critics we see are those of his own family. Look at what it says in verse 21. It says, "When his own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying, 'He has lost his senses.'" We know "his own people" is translated "people from the side of him", which literally means his family. His own family was criticizing him.

They were saying that he had lost his senses, that he was out of his mind, that he was crazy, that he had gone mad. So I don't know about you, but one of the thoughts that comes to my mind when I read this was, "Why in the world did his family think this?" I think there are two probable reasons why his family thought this. The first one would be that they were concerned about his physical and mental health.

Think about it: based on all they had heard, what Jesus was doing, that he was healing people, that he was driving out demons. If you heard that one of your family members was doing that, would you be a little bit concerned, maybe? If you think about it, if you think about somebody you know, that you care about, that maybe has become unhinged? Maybe they seem like they've gone off the rails, and they're doing some very odd things, and they have some very abnormal behavior.

Maybe you, too, would be caring enough about this person to try to go to them to protect them from the people that were pressing in on him, that were keeping him from eating. For the religious leaders who they had heard were accusing him. From neglecting his basic needs of eating to make sure that he got the care and attention that he needed to become normal again.

I think all of us would probably do that for a family member or someone we loved, so that's probably one of the reasons that they thought he had lost his mind.

But I think the other thing is very clear to us in scripture is that they did not believe he was really the Messiah, and you might think, "Well, surely his own family believed that he was the Messiah," but we know in John chapter 7, verse 5, we know it says very clearly that even his own brothers did not believe in him as the Messiah while he was still on this earth, before he had died on the cross and rose from the dead. And so they might've been afraid.

And how his radical life would affect them and how that would affect them with the powers that be, with the religious leaders, with the political leaders. I'm sure they were thinking, if they didn't really believe he was the messiah, "Well man, what he's doing, his radical lifestyle...how's that going to affect me? Am I going to be persecuted by these religious leaders as well?" So what can we learn from Jesus in this beginning part of the passage?

Well, I think one of the first things we see is that those closest to us may not understand our passion for Christ, but we must always put obedience to God first. What did Jesus do? He continued to minister to the people. He didn't let it phase him. He continued to put God first and what God had called him to do as his first priority.

So many times in life, the more radical that we are for Jesus Christ, the more others, even our own family, even sometimes other Christians, will often criticize us because they see us as abnormal, as someone who has lost our mind, who is too radical. You know, when you think about this Thanksgiving break that we just had, many of you were around family members, I'm sure, that maybe do not believe in Jesus Christ, and maybe they see you as a radical person.

"Well, he or she is one of those radical Christians. I don't want to hear what they have to say. They're crazy. They've lost their mind. They've gone mad." And maybe you've experienced that in your own family. But there's hope, because God will often use our faithfulness-- and actually, I should say it this way: God will always use our faithfulness to produce fruit, because the Bible says that God's word never returns void, and that includes our witness for Jesus Christ. Even in our family.

We know from Acts chapter 1, verse 14, that later on, after the ascension, Mary, and guess who else? Jesus's brothers were among the believers who were left.

And not only that, but we know that his brother James went on to be one of the major leaders of the early Jerusalem Church, and most historians believe that his brother James wrote the book of James, that we know of in the New Testament, and others believe that his brother Judas wrote the book of Jude in the New Testament, and so not only did his family come to Christ because of his obedience and putting God first and continuing to fulfill God's plan that Jesus had for his life, but we see that

not only do they become believers, but they became incredible, passionate leaders for the cause of Christ later on. So God will use our faithfulness to produce fruit, even in our family. So we see critics. The critics come out, and we see criticism from his family, but we also see criticism from his foes, don't we?

In verse 22, it says, "The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, 'He is possessed by Beelzebub, and he casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.'" So the second accusation that we see is from his foes, and we see that they're accusing him of being possessed by Satan himself. We know these scribes came from Jerusalem. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the man with the withered hand, and the man with the withered hand had been healed by Jesus.

And these religious leaders were furious. And now we see them call in the big guns from Jerusalem. Not only is it the scribes out in the countryside, but the big-time guys from Jerusalem, the guys that were the most influential, come down to Galilee to see what Jesus is saying, to confront Jesus and what he is doing. And we see that these scribes from Jerusalem, these religious leaders from Jerusalem, they were, like I said, the most influential of all the scribes, the highest-up of all.

And I think that tells us this morning, there must've been something incredibly amazing about the authority of Christ. And scripture speaks of this, that they would be willing to come all the way from Jerusalem to try to stop what Jesus was doing and saying, because Jesus was an incredible threat, because of his authority, to the power that they had, to their own power. So we see that these scribes came from Jerusalem, but we also see that they did not even deny that he cast out demons.

You know, you would think that that would be where they would start: they'd just try to pretend like it didn't happen, but they didn't do that. It's because there was no question about it. It was a fact that he had driven out demons, and we see that in last week's message, in Mark chapter 3, verse 11, we see that when he would drive out demons, they would even call him the son of God as they were being driven out of these people.

So because they couldn't deny that he cast out demons, what do they do? They chose to go further than his family. They chose to go further than calling him crazy, and they claimed that he was possessed by Satan. What was holy and good, they called evil. Does that sound familiar today to you? In our world today, we see that everywhere, don't we?

We see people all over the news, all over the TV, whether that's in their actions or their words, we see people calling what is good evil and what is evil good in our world today, and that is a very, very dangerous thing to be doing. We must be very careful about calling what is good evil. So in verses 23 through 30, the rest of the passage, we see Jesus respond. We see that his answer is truly amazing. Look at verse 23: "And he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables.

'How can Satan cast out Satan?'" So we see that Jesus uses three parables in the next few verses to show that Satan absolutely would not cast out himself. So before we get to the answer, I want to look at this word "parable". A parable is a short saying or figure placed alongside a teaching to help us understand its meaning. Let me say that one more time. A parable is a short saying or figure placed alongside a teaching to help us understand its meaning.

So we see the parables were used to reveal and hide truth. Let me explain that. This is important for us to know this morning, as we listen ourselves to the parables. Parables were used, like I said, to reveal or hide truth, but we see that a careful listener-- or, I'm sorry, a careless listener would not understand, and consequently, that careless listener would be judged. But a careful listener would be enlightened by God's truth and benefit.

So for us today, we must be careful listeners so that we can benefit for what is being said in this passage. As we study the parable, it becomes a mirror of how we see ourselves in light of the parable; but not only that, and this is very heavy right here. The next thing is that the crowd did not judge the parable, but the parable judged the crowd. Think about that.

These people were looking at Jesus, trying to find something to accuse him of, trying to find something to convict him of, but all along, the parable, all along, we see the crowd did not judge the parable, but the parable actually judged the crowd. So we look at these parables. The first two: the parable of the divided kingdom and the divided house. Look at verses 24 through 26 again: "If a Kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished." We see Jesus's words of wisdom in these parables, and the first thing that he does is he begins with logic and common sense to refute their accusations. He used some common examples of a kingdom and a house. We all know that these people, they can all relate to what it was like to be a part of a kingdom.

They were all part of a kingdom. We know that they can relate to what it was like to be a part of a house or part of a family. They were all part of a family and part of a house. So Jesus uses some common things that they can relate to to speak logically to them: that of course, a divided kingdom, a divided house will not stand. We all know that. That's common sense.

But we also see that because Satan would never work against himself, there must be a stronger power at work, and he goes further to show us what that power is in verse 27, with the parable of a strong man. Look what he says in 27: "But no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house." We see more words of wisdom from Jesus in verse 27, and we kind of have to unpack this a little bit to understand it.

We see that first, the strong man was Satan himself, or Beelzebub, which literally means "master of the house". It was another name for Satan, but its actual, specific interpretation is "master of the house". And so Jesus uses the very name that they're calling him, referring to Satan, to speak to them with a parable of the master of the house. So we see the strong man, but then we see the stronger man in this parable is Jesus himself.

The house in the parable is the demonic man who was healed that we talked about earlier. That was from Matthew chapter 12, 22 through 24, but it's also a general, broader representation of Satan's kingdom. The house is Satan's kingdom, in a broader sense. So we see that Jesus is stronger than Satan, and therefore, he has the power to bind Satan and any of his demons. Aren't you glad for that this morning?

Jesus is victorious in plundering Satan's house by setting free those who Satan controls and possesses. As I mentioned, in the book of Matthew, we see that right before this happened. Jesus points out that Satan would not-- of course, he would not destroy his own house; but yet Satan's house and kingdom was being destroyed by a greater power that we see in this parable.

And so we see Jesus's words of wisdom, and we see that he explains that the scribes were wrong, and he uses logic, and he even goes a little deeper by this parable of the strong man, but he also addresses the seriousness of their accusation in verses 28 through 30. He gives some words of love, but he also gives some words of great warning. Look at what it says in verse 28. It says, "Truly I say to you--" by the way, when he says that in scripture, it's like saying, "You better pay attention.

You better listen. This is a big deal, what I'm about to say." The original Hebrew language didn't have the same words that we have, so when you see this phrase, that's what that means. That's the way they explained that you better pay attention about what's going to be said next.

He goes on, and he says, "'All sins shall be forgiven the sons of men and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin,' because they were saying he has an unclean spirit." Now this is where it gets tough. This is the difficult part. This is the part that a lot of people don't know how to interpret or understand, and so let's start with the definition of "blaspheme".

What's the general definition of blasphemy? Well, if you looked at any dictionary, the world would say, the definition the world would give you would be "to speak or act in a way that shows irreverence for God or anything sacred". Key word there being "anything sacred", meaning that people from all over the world, all religions, all faith, all gods, would try to say that if you were to speak against their god, that you would be a blasphemer. But we believe different.

We believe there's only one true God, and so we believe that blasphemy truly is only against the one God, the true God, and we see that the religious leaders in this story, their definition of blasphemy would be an act of insulting, reviling, or defaming God or the crime of assuming oneself, the right or qualities of God. And obviously when I say God, according to the religious leaders and according to us today, we're talking about the one true God, the Hebrew God, Yahweh, the God Yahweh.

And so we see kind of what blasphemy is, but what about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? What specifically in this passage, what does "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit" actually mean? We see that this is maliciously and willfully misrepresenting God, refusal to accept obvious truth, or to intentionally claim that God's spirit was evil instead of holy. And we see that going on in this passage with these religious leaders who are calling the Holy Spirit evil.

So I think now, the question becomes, "What did this mean for the religious leaders?" What Jesus says in these verses, what did it mean for the religious leaders? Well, it's important for us to remember this morning that this all happens-- this story takes place before the cross, before the resurrection, before the ascension and the giving of the Holy Spirit to the believers at the day of Pentecost. That's the context in which we are reading this passage, and so we must not ignore that.

But we see the first thing that Jesus shows us is words of love, and when he says that, he makes it clear that all sins and blasphemies will be forgiven. Even in the midst of them calling him evil, Jesus says that they could be forgiven for that if they would repent. And not only that, but later on he goes on. When he's on the cross, what does he say? When he's dying in agony on the cross, when he's suffering on the cross, dying for the sins of the world, what does he say?

He says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Even in the middle of Jesus Christ dying for the sins of the people that killed him, the people that were insulting him, even in the middle of it, he was willing to forgive and ask the Lord to forgive them if they would repent later on. I mean, this is the third amazing act. What an amazing act. We see him drive out demons, the first amazing act.

We see him put others before himself, a radical thing for him to do, and not even eat so he could take care of these people. Then the third amazing act is his forgiveness, the depth of his forgiveness, that while he was being called evil, while he was dying on the cross later on, he was willing to ask these people to be forgiven and to forgive these people. You know what's interesting about this is, if you think about it, we know in Mark chapter 2, verse 7, they call him a blasphemer.

They accuse him a blasphemy first, and then after this passage, later on, what is the crime that he is convicted or accused of, supposedly, to die on the cross? It was the crime of blasphemy that they accused him of. And even though they were accusing him of this very thing, he was willing to ask them to be forgiven for it. Forgiving for these things. What amazing forgiveness.

We see in Matthew chapter 12, verse 32, in the passage I mentioned earlier, that Jesus even says then that even the sins against the Son of Man could be forgiven, but what about the next verse? What about verse 29? How do we reconcile that? Let's read it again. It says, "'For whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin,' because they were saying he has an unclean spirit." I think it's clear this morning.

I'll get to why in just a second, but the point is that it is not that God is unwilling to forgive, but that the person concerned is unwilling to receive his forgiveness. We see that in verse 22 and 30. The verb in those verses is in the imperfect tense, which would be translated that they kept on saying, they kept on saying that he was evil instead of good.

They kept on accusing him of having an unclean spirit, and what that tells us is that although they literally rejected Jesus in the flesh, even this could be forgiven. It was the continual attitude and desire to reject the Holy Spirit that would eventually be the unpardonable sin if they did not repent. It's an attitude.

It's a state of being, of continually rejecting Jesus Christ, continually calling the spirit of God, which is good, evil, and being hardened and hostile toward the truth and toward the Gospel. Such a willful and deliberate twisting of the truth and rejection of the Holy Spirit makes repentance and salvation impossible. For it has shut the one gate to salvation that God has opened. God does not shut that gate; we do when we are resistant to the Holy Spirit.

We know that God sent John the Baptist, and then he sent Jesus, and then he sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to call people to repentance. How did the Jewish religious leaders respond to all of those things? They responded by killing all of them, including many of the apostles, after the power of God was clearly seen at Pentecost and the Holy Spirit fell on the people. That's how they responded.

So this morning, I want to read you a quote that I think puts this into perspective for us very well from Warren Wiersbe, the Bible exposition commentary. This is what it says: it says, "These leaders had sinned against the Father and Son, but God had forgiven them. When they sinned against the Holy Spirit, they had reached the end of the line, and there could be no more forgiveness.

People today cannot commit the unpardonable sin in the same way the religious leaders did while Jesus was on Earth. The only sin that God cannot forgive is rejection of his son. Even when someone rejects the Holy Spirit and word of God, this does not forfeit future opportunities to be saved. There is still hope as long as there is life. Only God knows when the deadline has been crossed. Therefore, we must never give up on any sinner who has yet to follow Christ."

So what does this mean for us today? Post-ascension? Now, after the Holy Spirit has come and the Son is ascended into heaven and is no longer here, physically in the flesh? What does it mean for us today? Well I want to reiterate that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not an isolated act. It's not a one-time thing, but it's a continual state of defiant hostility toward God that rejects his saving power toward man, through the person and the work of Jesus.

It is one's preference for darkness, even though he has been exposed to great light. So to reject the Holy Spirit means that we are automatically rejecting the Son, because the Holy Spirit is the one who draws us to the Son. The Son is not physically here for us to receive or reject like he was in the Bible, but the Holy Spirit has been sent in his place to reveal truth of salvation and lead us to the Son. So to reject the Holy Spirit means that we are automatically rejecting the Son.

So if we die having rejected the Holy Spirit's called to receive the Son, that sin is what is the eternal sin: to die without Jesus Christ and to reject him as our Lord and Savior. The sad truth is that we will die and spend an eternity in Hell if we were to do this, and this is the horrible thing to think about. It's a horrible thing to think about anybody dying and going to Hell, but it's the truth of the scripture. In fact, the Bible mentions Hell more than it does Heaven.

So for us to believe in Heaven, we must also believe in the reality of Hell. So for those of you that are here this morning that would say, "You know, I've never received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." I want to talk to you just for a couple of minutes this morning. You know, his family called him crazy. The religious leaders called Jesus possessed by Satan. After hearing his response today, what about you? The Bible says there is no middle ground with Jesus Christ.

We are either for him and we follow him and we receive him and we know him as Lord and Savior, or we reject him just like the religious leaders did. There is no middle ground with Jesus Christ. Do you believe he is the savior of the world? Do you believe that he is God in the flesh? Someday, we will all stand before him, and we will all give an account of what we did with Jesus Christ while on this earth. We will all have to answer what we did with Jesus.

So will you put your trust in him this morning, or will you continue to reject him in light of obvious truth that is presented to you today, just like the religious leaders did? What will you do with Jesus, if you're here today and don't know Jesus Christ, what will you do with him today? There's a couple of things I would encourage you with this morning. The first is that his forgiveness is amazing. Even while he was dying in the middle of his suffering, he was willing to forgive.

Even while they were calling him evil, he was willing to forgive, and there's nothing that you have ever done in your life that God cannot forgive. There is nothing from your past, no matter what you've done, that God is not big enough to forgive. And so if you're here this morning, the good news is that God's forgiveness is amazing. But not only that: the other good news is that there is still time left to receive his forgiveness. Your deadline has not been crossed yet.

Where there is life, there is always hope. Will you receive him today while you still have time? We're going to have an invitation in just a minute. There's going to be some people at the front. There's going to be some people at the back, some of our leaders that would love to pray with you this morning and help you understand and know and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior this morning. What better time to do it than today, to receive him today?

Many of us in this room, probably the majority, over the majority, are believers. We've already made that commitment to follow Christ, and isn't it wonderful to know that there is no sin that's unforgivable, the grace that we have in Jesus Christ? But we must also see the forgiveness of Jesus, and so what is he saying in this passage to us today? Well, he's saying that we must forgive as Jesus forgave us.

In the midst of all the things that I've mentioned, Jesus was willing to forgive, and if he's willing to forgive us in that way, if his forgiveness is that amazing, then we must, too, if we're going to follow him and be followers of Jesus Christ, to be like Jesus Christ, we must also forgive the way that Jesus forgave us. There is no sin that anyone could ever commit against us, that we should not be willing to forgive, because Jesus did the same for us.

The other thing that I want you to see as believers this morning is that we must not give up on those who have yet to receive. As long as there is hope, there is life. As long as there's life, there's hope. We know that, right, from from this passage? We know that: that until someone's deadline has been crossed, and they pass to another life, the next life, there is always hope. And so we might share the Gospel of truth with as many people as we can, while we still have time.

As a believer, are you doing that? Are you willing to put yourself out there, to sacrifice your own wants and needs and desires, as Jesus did, to tell other people about the hope that they have in Jesus? Eternity is at stake for each of those people that God has put in our life. Are we willing to truly put them first and share with them what God has for them in salvation? Let's pray together this morning. Dear God, we thank you so much for today. We thank you for your word.

I pray for that, anyone here today, Lord, they would not leave while they still have time, that they would receive you. God, we also pray for believers in this room, that all of us would be willing to forgive as Jesus forgave, Lord, that all of us would not give up on those around us. Maybe it's people that we've seen recently over Thanksgiving break. They're the closest to us, our closest family and friends that don't know you, God. Maybe it's a coworker.

Maybe it's somebody else in our life, God. Whoever it is, God, that we would not give up on them, Lord, but that you would use us to reach them for your kingdom. God. That they'll be able to experience that joy and the love that you've given us. Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would move and do what only it can do at this time, Lord, that you would help us be obedient to you and follow you, and we just ask it all in Jesus's name. Amen.