Insane Accusations (Part B)

Don't think that you can just do whatever you want in God's creation and get away with it while thumbing your nose at God. He's not God then.

You have choices to make. Don't be Satan's sucker. Let the Lord's light shine on you.

Let His love put His arms around you. Enter into His holiness. Take whatever anger you have at the world and at life and whatever else you can't figure out and make it work for the Lord in love and kindness towards others and truth. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in the Gospel of Mark chapter 3 with his continuing study called Insane Accusations. Blasphemy, what is it? It is a personal attack on God. It is not just an attack on the things of God, the people of God.

It is an attack on Him personally, whether intended or not. It's sacrilegious. Paul said, I was a blasphemer, but I didn't know better and God showed mercy to me. It is irreverence.

It is defiance. Leviticus 24, there Moses laying out the severity of blasphemy says, and whoever blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who was born in the land.

When he blasphemes the name of Yahweh, he shall be put to death. Is there anything in that that is foggy, unclear? It's to the point, is it not? And he is being to the point with them. So there is an at-that-moment meaning to what he is saying and there is an at-this-moment meaning to what he is saying. And it's not all captured at this moment. It's captured throughout the Scripture. Life is that way.

I mean, you don't just live off of oxygen. You need food. You need sermons from this pulpit.

There are just things you need. For them, they saw firsthand the evidence of Jesus. They heard him preach.

They had no charge against him. The credentials for his messiahship were clear and they demonized him nonetheless. And for that he says, you can't be forgiven.

If this is how you're going to do it, understand this. This is a blasphemy. Not against me, not against the Father even.

It is against the Godhead because it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people. And they weren't moved by it. The sins of men are sometimes from ignorance.

This was not ignorance. This was just, we don't care for you, we don't like you. And there's nothing you could do to make us like you. And so he says, you're condemning yourself. You're cornering yourself into a position where no one can find grace for you.

It is a dark place to be. This is ultimately what happened with Judas. We'll come to that in a moment.

Because the Bible does lay out for us some of those who are damned without grace. With no way out. We'll come to that in a moment. So there was a right at the moment meaning to his words that was exclusive for that moment. But then there's more that goes beyond that moment. There is the near fulfillment and there is the far fulfillment. There are partial fulfillments. There are whole fulfillments to prophecy, for example. When Peter in the book of Acts said, this is what the prophet Joel spoke about. Your young men shall see visions, you know, and he goes on, your old men shall dream dreams.

He was giving a partial fulfillment, not a complete fulfillment, because there's still much to be done. Incidentally, while I'm on the book of Acts and that powerful moment there in Acts chapter 2, when the church was born and the Spirit was given, there's something in my devotional time I was reading that stood out to me. Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. And on your manservants and on your maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days. Right before that he says that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Sons and daughters.

Are there any sons and daughters here? Are you drinking from the world's hell holes or are you a part of the group that the prophet spoke about? Your sons and daughters will prophesy. They will speak God's word, not hell's word.

They will not look to the world and say, tell me how to live because I'm too stupid to know. The manservants and the maidservants of the Lord look to the Word of God and say, thus says the Lord, this is how we shall live. Are you child enough to do it or not? It's up to you. Because you play games with God, you'll find out Satan's not playing games. He wants to eat your soul alive, send you to hell and you get nothing for it.

It comes down to who are you going to believe? And if you want Satan to give you a hell shot to the head, then you go take it. But if you want to be a child of the Lord, you need to stand in the gap, stop your retreating, and say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

What is wrong with that? What can anybody say about the righteousness given to us from the Bible? Or take the Ten Commandments.

Do you have a charge again? Ten Commandments, thou shalt not murder. Well, I don't really like that one. Okay, boom. Is that how it's supposed to go? That kind of logic?

By that logic, we can just kill each other? Of course not. Thou shalt not steal.

Who would have a charge against that? The Bible is wholesome. It is right. It is what you need.

And backing up away from it to get a drink from the world is not worth it. It is a poison that you won't be able to stop if you insist on turning from Christ. Okay, I'm going to come back to that, and I hope I come back to that hard.

That time was light, and I mean it. I hope I can be more precise, because there's a real devil, and he wants your soul. And as a pastor, I won't stand for it. I don't think any pastor should. I don't think any pastor should enter the pulpit forgetting that there's a real devil and that there are real consequences to siding with him on anything. Well, John's Gospel, chapter 16, verse 8, Jesus said, I'm developing this thought about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and its meanings as taught throughout Scripture, and I can only take certain portions. John 16, 18, When He has come, Jesus speaking about the coming of the Holy Spirit, He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they do not believe in Me, of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more, of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. And just think, people, you know who don't want to hear that?

They won't know what they said. Well, the Bible, you can't trust it. No, I can't trust you. I can trust the Bible.

It's you. I don't have to lock up my truck to keep the Bible from breaking into it. I've got to lock it up to keep people from breaking into it. So don't tell me not to trust the Bible. And as for the other holy books, they're not easy to stop people from believing in them, but they are easy to refute. At least I have found them so. I have found them with broken witnesses. I don't find that with the Bible.

From the beginning to the end, it upholds itself and just looking out the window at science and prophecy and just so many areas of reason, common sense, well, spiritual sense. Well, let me go finish with this. Jesus just said he didn't say of sin because they are fornicating, of sin because they are stealing, of sin because they have murdered, but of sin because they do not believe in me.

Do you catch that? The emphasis is on faith, not on failing unless you fail to believe. And what is the only sin that will really take you to hell? The Bible says the sin of rejecting what the Holy Spirit says about Jesus Christ. That's the sin that will take you to hell.

There's no forgiveness for that. So he says here in verse 29, but it is subject to eternal condemnation. That's the never-ending suffering. So salvation, this is why salvation is the most important thing to the human being. So let's consider these doomed souls and unpardonable sins. Hebrews chapter 2 verses 3 and 4. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard them? How are we going to escape judgment if we neglect this salvation?

You can't. That's the answer. He continues in verse 4 of Hebrews 2. God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will. And God still does miracles.

And he does them primarily in this way when you come to his word and you feel his presence and you sense his will, that is a miracle because you know no one can take that from you. So Cain, Balaam, and Korah, the Bible tells us those men were doomed, Jude 11. Woe to them. Remember the book of Jude? You had the Gnostics going back of the preachers of the gospel and telling the congregation, I don't believe that stuff.

You've got to believe this stuff, just like we see today. And so the writer Jude writing this letter says, let me tell you about these guys. They're like Cain. They're like Balaam.

They're like Korah. They're doomed. Their fate is sealed.

If they want to roll that way, then they're going to have to take the consequence. Woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain, have run greedily in the era of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. You are free to make your choices.

You are not free to choose the consequences. Judas Iscariot, we know he is doomed. John 17, Jesus praying to the father said, those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition. And that is Judas lost. You won't see Judas in heaven. The unsaved that are going to be embracing Antichrist, Paul writes about these in 2 Thessalonians.

He says, the coming of the lawless one, that is Antichrist, is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. They perished because they refused to be saved. So here I am, reading this stuff, I have loved ones who aren't saved, and I am at war with those things that keep them unsaved. I pray for them, almost incessantly it feels like.

I am not going to back down, I am not going to give up that fight, because it's worth it. But at the same time, I will then excuse what the Bible says, because I have a loved one that doesn't believe it. What would happen if we all did that? Well, we know what would happen.

We would have an apostate Christianity. Revelation chapter 14, the angel, and the third angel came, and he said, If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives his mark on his forehead or his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. And they have no rest, day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name. Any of you unclear about any of that?

I don't think so. I think it's right there, God is saying, I am not fooling around. If you want to worship the devil, you will go with the devil. And we are to preach these things when the Spirit opens the door for us to preach them, is for me right now, this is where we come to in the scripture. You know, I asked the Lord, Do you want a topical this Sunday?

Almost every Sunday. And no, where you are is what I want to say. That's the message I get back. Verse 30, because they said he has an unclean spirit. So he tells us, Jesus is saying, that if you charge him with being demonic, how can you be forgiven?

Again, minutia meant everything to these men. Facts meant very little. Anybody here, you're so offended by facts you'll have nothing to do with them?

Someone can charge somebody with something and you'll just believe it because the facts don't count to you. That's a dangerous place to be. Blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. That's what Jesus said of them. Now to summarize by cross-references, the severity of this Luke chapter 13, Jesus speaking, I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish.

John 8, 24, I said to you that you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. That's the Pharisees here right now. They did not believe.

They didn't want anybody else to believe. And then not stopping there, as I've said repeatedly, they charged him with being demonic and he says to this, there's no forgiveness boys, if you keep this up, there's no forgiveness. Today we have Christians, quote unquote, they say they're Christians and they follow groups, the justify groups, as I mentioned a few times before.

Do you know what they even stand for? Do you know they hate Christ? Do you know that they hate Christians and want to stop the church completely? Do you know if you don't side with them and if you side with Jesus, they're coming after you if they can get to you?

Do you know these things? Do you know they hate the family structure? They don't want a mom and a dad, a man and a woman to be over a family. They want to destroy all that. They're not bashful about this. This is what they're saying.

And if they find out maybe you're not caring for it, maybe they avail it a little bit to win you. Do you recoil at this? Do you say, ugh?

Do you fall down and say, I don't like that? I want to side with them, not Christ. Then where's your faith?

You don't have it. Your faith is maybe tiny or maybe it's missing. You ever say so in this. Don't think that you can just do whatever you want in God's creation and get away with it while thumbing your nose at God. He's not God then.

You have choices to make. Don't be Satan's sucker. Let the Lord's light shine on you.

Let His love put His arms around you. Enter into His holiness. Take whatever anger you have at the world and at life and whatever else you can't figure out and make it work for the Lord with love and kindness towards others and truth. Young people can be very angry at things that they cannot even articulate. They don't even know why they're angry.

They're just angry or afraid or something else. What is the antidote then, Pastor? Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

That's the antidote. It's just like that. You put on the armor and you remember this. The armor is meant to be hit. It's not a fashion show.

Oh, look at this. Is this shiny? This is a new double polished bronze. I thought it would go very nice with this green. I mean, it's like camouflage. I know some of you think camouflage is a fashion statement. You're wrong.

It is not. And I still don't understand if the deers don't... Someone told me deer are colorblind.

That's why they don't have driver's license, I think. So I don't get the whole camouflage thing going for deer. But anyway, okay, you hunters, don't hunt me after.

Just let me have my time, okay? Just show grace. Put on the whole armor because you're going to need it. It's not like, you know, many times today we see... Like law enforcement, they wear, you know, a bulletproof vest.

Most of them will never need it. Christians who put on armor, I guarantee you're going to need it. You're going to get hit. And this is the way we fight. The sword of the word. Verse 31. Then his brothers and mother came, and standing outside, they sent to him, calling him. Now they arrived. They started out in verse 21. Now they get there. In between that, he had his bout with the Pharisees.

Mark 3, verse 21. But when his own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of him, for they said he is out of his mind. They're going to have an intervention. That's what this is.

It's comical. Because he's not crazy. And there's no grounds to think that he is. If he had said, I forgive your sins and did nothing else, then maybe you'd got a point. But he said, I forgive your sins and to prove it, I'm going to do what only God can do. And he healed them. And he did it to many people. Now knowing James, who's in this group, the brother of Christ, knowing his lean towards Judaism, he was probably very uncomfortable with the disdain Jesus had for rabbinical authority.

You know, it didn't sit right. You know, you need to be more respectful to those guys. And he was probably laying to them.

Yeah, for what? Let me tell you what they're doing. So, now to suggest that these were Joseph's children and not Mary's from a previous marriage is not only baseless, it is corruption. It is a corruption of Bible teaching and Bible truth. These were Mary's boys and daughters. And to try to cover up and say, well, she is also in the Immaculate Conception after that and she's just sinless and that's nonsense. She was not sinless. She's not sinful either. And she is, bless him, among the saints.

But his own mother is in this group. Mary should have known better. Remember the whole Gabriel thing? Remember Simeon and Anna in the temple?

Remember the virgin birth? She should have said, look, I don't know what he's doing, but I'm not going with you. And so she was wrong about his sanity and his ministry at this point. She'll get it later.

Not yet. And again, beloved Mary, far from perfect. No one should make suggestions or, you know, the Protestants can sometimes ignore Mary because others have abused, I mean, worshipped Mary.

But we need to be very careful. She, I'm sure, was a sweetheart even in those days. But we have to pause here to say Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All, except Hebrews 4, 15, the son, who it says, yet he was without sin. And the only one that says that in the Bible. And it says here, and standing outside they sent to him, calling him. And he made no effort to give them access. Oh, mom and the boys are here?

Oh, well, okay, let's close in prayer and just fellowship for a while. He ignores them. He actually doesn't.

He goes on to do other things, but he makes no effort. He knows they're well-meaning, but they're ridiculous with their intentions. They're wrong. And to charge anyone like this is irrational. This is why the accusation is insane. Okay, take the billionaire in a pilot. You have a billionaire and he has a private jet.

He probably has many of them. And he has a personal pilot. And he flies all around the world with his family and loved ones with this pilot that he thinks is just this great pilot. And every time he gets off the plane, he tells everybody how crazy that pilot, that guy's insane. He's unstable.

You got a woohoo. And then he gets back on the plane and flies all around with him. Who's the insane one? No basis for his charges, no proof, but he can still hurl the ice. So that's what Christ is saying here. These charges against me, the Bible is saying they're unfounded. And don't you do these things. Don't you come and call Christ crazy. Don't you call him demonic. And don't you do this to other people.

Unless you've got strong reason. Verse 32, And a multitude was sitting around him, and they said to him, Look, your mother and your brothers are outside. Because they couldn't get close enough to say it himself. And a multitude was sitting around him. And that's who he gave his attention to.

The multitude sitting around him, not the ones that were coming to stop his ministry and escort him off. And then what? What would they have done with him? Institution.

Well, there was no institution as we think of them. But what is he going to be like? You know, he's the village handicap mentally now. He has an illness. Where was that?

Where was this going? He doesn't stop his ministry, for misguided family matters. John Owen, a Puritan, he says this, it's very interesting. He says, God has work to do in this world, and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements is to cast off God's authority. God has work to do, and not to help him is to oppose him.

It's quite powerful. He says they were outside seeking him for the wrong reasons, verse 33. But he answered and said, answered them saying, who is my mother and my brothers? In other words, there is far more to him than being part of a family. Just a, you know, biological family.

There's more to him. His family is defined by a relationship with his father, and that is what he is saying. And of course, the apostles will develop these teachings even further. And so he was closer to those who had come to see them at the moment than his family, but after the resurrection, we see his family also surrounding him in prayer. He's ascended, of course, but they're with the apostles. Verse 34, and he looked around in a circle at those who sat about him and said, here are my mother and my brothers.

Could you imagine being in there? He looks around. You know, if the pastor is here and he looks around, you're saying, don't look at me.

Don't look at me. But imagine Jesus in the room looking around. What a moment that must have been. But they sat about him, we're told in verse 34, closer than those confused beloved family members. And verse 35, for whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and mother. Notice how he elevates the women. He puts them in. You know, the Pharisees would never do that.

It would just be masculine and that would be it. But Christ, he opens it up. His natural family ties are overruled by spiritual ties.

That's what he is teaching here. So I close with this verse from John's Gospel, chapter 1. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. I hope, I hope, if I've said something this morning in the Spirit and it has rattled you, I hope it rattles you away from the world and into the arms of a Christ that loves you. I hope if you've been wrong about Jesus Christ, that you take steps to make it right.

It ain't worth it. There's a real hell and there's a real heaven. And if you've heard it so many times that it doesn't mean much to you anymore, Satan already has his teeth in you. And you need to be prayed for. You need to come up to the pastors and say, would you pray for me?

Because I don't want to be on Satan's side. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, just like here on Cross Reference Radio.