This sermon is from the series THE LIFE OF CHRIST on the theme THAT WE MAY KNOW HIM. It was preached on Sunday, July 12, 2015 at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia by Pastor Paul Mims. You can hear this sermon at www.csbccl.org WHEN YOU SAY NO TO GOD Matthew 12: 22-32 Have you ever said No to God? I am sure that we all have done this many times. In fact, you may be saying No to God about something in your life now. Today we re going to examine how the people said No to God when He was trying to reveal to them his Son, Jesus. It is interesting that the religious people were the ones who were saying, No to the revelation of Jesus in their time. I believe very much in the separation of church and state. That is that the government cannot control the church and neither can the church control the state. In Virginia, I served on the religious liberty committee of the Virginia Baptist convention for three years and was chairman of it for one year. We delved into all matters that involved church and state. It was our position that the church has every right to speak to the government as the conscience of the government and as an influence on morals and practice. But the church has no right to force its will on the government and consequently the government has no right to force its will on the church. That is why we have the First Amendment which assures us of religious liberty. As we look at our culture today, our nation has said, No to God about his revelation in creation about marriage. Think back over our recent history. Those of you who were alive in the 1960s remember how the country said, No to God about prayer in our schools. In essence the country said, We will not allow prayer in our public schools. Then, in the 1970s we said to God, We will not protect the unborn. We will
make it the right of the woman to control her own body. Therefore, we will murder the unborn regardless of what you say about it. We have adopted the belief in our secular society that God can have nothing to do with government and anything that the government controls must be free of God. We have put civil rights above morality and above the one who gives us our civil rights. It is now government above God in our nation. Our governmental leaders are constantly saying to us, God bless America. But how can He bless us when we deny Him at the very core of who we are as a people? This is exactly what the Temple leaders and the Pharisees were doing in the time of Jesus. In this case it was God s chosen people saying, No to God. When God said to them, I am revealing to you the Messiah that I promised would come. They said, No, he doesn t fit our pattern. I. THE NO OF REBELLION In the 12 th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, he tells us of the conflict that Jesus had with the religious leaders. The first controversy was over what was proper to do and not to do on the Sabbath. The story is that Jesus and his disciples were walking through the cornfields on the Sabbath day. The disciples plucked some ears of corn and ate them. The Pharisees said, Look, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. He responds by reminding them how David and his companions even entered the Temple and ate the bread that was on the altar. Then he said to them, But I say to you that something greater than the Temple is here. But if you had known what this means, I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. And another conflict he had with the Pharisees was in the synagogue. A man was there whose hand was withered. And they questioned Jesus asking, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? They did this so they could accuse him. And he said to them, What man is there among you who
has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand! He stretched it out and it was restored to normal like the other. But notice what the Pharisees did they went out and conspired how they might destroy him. This was a profound no to God. In another controversy that He had with the religious leaders, a demon possessed man, who was both blind and mute, was brought to Jesus and he healed him. The Pharisees said a loud No to God and said to the people that Jesus was doing this in the power of Satan. Jesus knew their thoughts and he said to them, Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? 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. Then Jesus said one of the most astounding things that he ever spoke: Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, even in this age or in the age to come. II. THE NO OF UNBELIEF There is a sin for which there is no forgiveness. Perhaps you have heard it called, The unpardonable sin. Sometimes people wonder if they have committed the unpardonable sin. Just what is this sin? Has anyone ever said to you, I will never forgive you for this. Perhaps you have said that to someone who wronged you. If we can feel that
way against another human being, we must know what makes God say that. When God says, I will never forgive you for this what does He mean? Is it murder? No, it can t be murder for Moses murdered a man and he was forgiven. Is it adultery? No, David committed adultery and he was forgiven. Is it persecuting the church and killing the followers of Christ? No, Paul did that and he was forgiven. Some even think that divorce or suicide is the unpardonable sin. Some are trapped by the guilt of other sins and fear that they have committed the unpardonable sin. These verses 31 and 32, in Matthew 12, have been interpreted in various ways. One interpretation says that Jesus meant that only the people he was talking to in that day could not be forgiven because the Holy Spirit had not been given at the time. Another interpretation that is popular today is that verbal blasphemy against the Trinity will not be forgiven. I believe that the unpardonable sin is saying No every time the Holy Spirit tries to draw a person who is an unbeliever to Christ. This can be done year after year and it is possible for a person s heart to become so hardened that he or she will lose the ability to respond to the Holy Spirit. This continual rejection of the Holy Spirit s invitation to come to Christ places a person in a dangerous spiritual position. If they die in that condition they have sinned away their day of grace and were not forgiven in this life and will not be forgiven in the next. You see, if a person continually rejects the wooing of the Holy Spirit to become a believer in Christ, that person places himself or herself outside of the realm where one can be saved. But it is safe to say that whenever the Holy Spirit is still working with a person to convict them of their need for the Savior, they have not yet committed the sin for which there is no forgiveness. It is very important for us to realize that God draws us to Himself as His Spirit convicts us of our sin and of our need for the Savior. Perhaps you
said no several times before you said yes. Your yes kept you from committing the unpardonable sin - for when you said yes all of your sins were forgiven and you became a new person in Christ. III. THE YES THAT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE When the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, He was to indwell and empower believers, and convict and draw unbelievers to the Savior. That is how you and I were brought to the Father through the death of his Son and through the conviction of our need by the Holy Spirit. Here is a story that I read that will demonstrate how we came to the understanding of God s love that enabled us to say Yes. Many years ago, before the sensitive and politically correct society in which we live today, there was a boy who was continually in trouble. He was forever breaking the rules and always getting into trouble at school. His father could not understand why. He provided for him in every way with a good home, he spent time with him fishing and going to his ballgames, and he showered him with his unconditional love, but the father just couldn t figure out why the boy wouldn t mind? He had been raised in church and had even been in Sunday school for five years. His father was consistently reading the Bible to him and had never provoked him to anger. His son s behavior was a mystery to him. One day when his son was upstairs playing around with his baseball, which he d been told repeatedly not to do, he ended up breaking one of his bedroom windows. The boy was ten years old and certainly knew better because his father had told him time and again to not play ball in the house. The father headed upstairs and took off his belt. The boy knew what was coming so he voluntarily bent over and kneeled next to his bed but the father said, Son, here, take this belt which his son did. Then his father took off his shirt and kneeled down on the bed and said Son, I want you to give me seven lashes with this belt across my
back. His son started to cry and said that he couldn t do it. His father kept insisting until the son finally relented and started hitting his father across the back with the belt but it wasn t hard enough. He said, Harder son, harder! When the boy finally lashed the belt across his father s back seven times with greater force the father asked him Son, do you know why I had you do this? The son said No. The father said, When Jesus went to the cross for us, He took the worst punishment that has ever been inflicted upon any man. He was pummeled, He was beaten, His beard was plucked out, and He was punished like no one has ever been punished. Who do you really think did this to Jesus? The boy, still whimpering, hesitated and finally said he thought it was the Jews or the Romans, but the boy s father said, No, it was God the Father Who punished Jesus for everything that we have ever done wrong and or will ever do wrong in the future (Isaiah 52:14-15; 53:1-12). He took the punishment that He didn t deserve to save those who didn t deserve saving. That is how much the Father and Jesus loved us (John 3:16). It was God s love most gloriously displayed for us who deserved actually His wrath. The boy was shaken deeply by this lesson and from that day forward, the boy never seemed to get into the same amount of trouble again not perfect but changed. Maybe it was because he wasn t sure how his dad would react again. The boy didn t ever want to use the belt on his dad again although the father never said anything more about it. Whatever is was, the message of God s love displayed on the cross by Christ forever changed this young man and it has forever changed us. (Author Unknown) Now we can say, I pledge allegiance to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the faith for which it stands, one Savior, eternal, with mercy and grace for all! (Christian Today) PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!