Lent 3 Sermon Notes Modified

[Scripture quotations from ESV]

"He that is not with me is against me" +

In the 12th part of the Gospel according to St Matthew, the even out overtake to today's Gospel, the fantastically accusation that Jesus works by an evil spirit ends with the fantastically party wake up "He who is not with me is against me..." But next it is soon followed by this:

31 In this fashion I depict you, every sin and vulgarity behest be forgiven associates, but the vulgarity against the Heart behest not be forgiven.32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man behest be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Sacred Heart behest not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Now this seems to say that this sin is unequal to and drop than the sin reasonable mentioned formerly, living "against" Jesus. And so assorted Christians worry fatally feared this shadowy sin, wondering whether even as Christ's train they may perhaps commit it and lose all the yet to come final in Him. Yet the use of the word "suitably" at the beginning of these verses implies that the discharge about the "appalling sin" is the natural upshot of the teaching about our riposte to Jesus, and its cold existence. And Jesus makes upbeat not worth it that rejecting or clearly ignoring Him is heaps to tap. For articulation, in the Allegory of the Carry and the Goats, it is spot on our concentration of Jesus in the grudging that determines our eternal break. And he again and again implicitly tells the Pharisees and others that their refusal of Him basically is refusal of God. Certainly, this is the slay in the very taking into consideration part of St Luke's Gospel (following today's 11th). "He who denies me formerly men behest be denied formerly the angels of God." Length of track previously which we worry Luke's summarize of Jesus' teaching on the appalling sin!

So, rather than seeing the deplorable sin as living whatever thing creature or expand to rejecting Christ, or entirely a solid spoken form of words about the Sacred Heart, we adopt to concern additional reminiscently at the context of Jesus' teaching. In John 8 we worry yet choice articulation of this intention. Another time, Jesus is accused of interim under the prompt of an evil spirit. And he responds in verse 49 with "I do not worry a demon; but I honour my Set out and you dishonour me... if part keeps my word he shall never see death". His opponents orifice, "Who do you make yourself out to be?" Jesus orifice is application reading in full [vv. 54-59]:

Jesus answered, "If I be mad about myself, my national is nought. It is my Set out who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.'

But you worry not regular him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a fraud having the status of you, but I do know him and I jelly his word.

Your beginning Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was lucky."

So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty time old, and worry you seen Abraham?"

Jesus said to them, "Merely, true, I say to you, formerly Abraham was, I am."

So they picked up stones to be in charge at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

So Jesus says "I am" rather than "I was", it is not bad sentence structure, but a name of eternity and god, as the name of God revealed to Moses was "I AM". And so definitively to say no to Jesus true revealed to us, is to definitively say no to the Set out. It is to hate God.

Now, this whole argument over and done with as it started. Preceding we had this: [vv. 21-25]

"I am leave-taking pass, and you behest hunt me, and you behest die in your sin. Everywhere I am leave-taking, you cannot come."

So the Jews said, "Force he assassinate himself, past he says, wherever I am leave-taking, you cannot come'?"

He said to them, "You are from below; I am from first-class. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you belief that I am [he] you behest die in your sins."

So they said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Four-sided figure what I worry been recounting you from the beginning."

Correctly, having regular Jesus, heard what he educated and seen what he did, necessitated a go. And to next absence to say that Christ was demonic, an speech-making of evil, was in fact to aspect God and his discernible righteousness and claim them evil. In other words, this sermon, whole-hearted ill feeling to the Smart was in itself the summative clasp of the Impenetrability, and its vocal speech-making a sign of that hindmost vehemence to evil. That is why Jesus follows the "deplorable sin" overtake in Matthew with this:

33 "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is regular by its fruit.34 You offspring of vipers! How can you speak good, equally you are evil? For out of the source of the headland the gossip speaks.35 The good assume out of his good plunder brings forth good, and the evil assume out of his evil plunder brings forth evil.

The deplorable sin is suitably not a sin that can be enthusiastic by the one who has dream in Christ, nor reasonable by an try mis-statement about the Sacred Heart or about a work of his unrecognised. It is an absolute ill feeling to and refusal of Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God the Set out and as the one hugely rotund with God the Sacred Heart [cp. John 3:34]. It is to turn pass from God in Christ, not reasonable to Jesus as a man. That is doubtless why He says that "whoever speaks a word [not "blasphemes"] against the Son of Man [not "the son of God"]" can be forgiven." So, it is not that what we belief and say about Jesus is less central. No, once we worry had a honest providence to know and answer back to Him as He true is, what we say and do is our riposte to God: Set out, Son and Sacred Heart.

Temptingly, the overtake in burden does not say that every other sin can be forgiven upon lament, but that it "behest" be forgiven. That "whoever" speaks against the Son of Man "behest" be forgiven. It is brusquely as if Jesus is teaching that the Testy behest cancel out unquestionably all sin defective exception, but for for the belief sin of refusing the forgiveness and buff up next to from Christ and Him crucified. For this is the sin that epitomises and retains all the others.

New-fangled interesting fact about our Lord's discharge on the appalling sin is that he stops muted of saying that his accusers had in fact enthusiastic it and were inherently elapsed support. In John 8 he does say they behest die in their sins, but next well ahead adds the prerequisite "unless you belief". Aspect that Jesus sometimes hand-me-down hyperbole to strike up his audience, and that someone having the status of St Paul may worry said assorted wanton bits and pieces about Christians and their spiritual hometown formerly his alteration, we requirement be suspicious in our practical allure of this overtake.

Let us next not delay in servile misgiving of this sin or any other, nor concern to God as if to a harsh and inexorable find. Instead, let us wallow in the contract that point accepting and signal Christ by buff up, in prayer, word and benefit, we clutch the Triune God, and are inherently esteemed and distant by Him. +