I found a really good sermon on the Unpardonable Sin which seems to be a popular topic right now. It came from an Anglican pastor and it’s really good. He emphasizes the depth and darkness of this sin for those who think it can be accidentally unwittingly committed, but more importantly he emphasizes the riches of God’s grace and mercy over even the worst of sins. Here is an excerpt:
“Whereto then should this aweful warning of our Lord, loving (we must well know) in its very awfulness, tend in us? Not assuredly to make us dread, lest we have committed the unpardonable sin. Such a thought, we may boldly say, bold through the mercy of our God, is but a temptation of Satan. To fear lest we have committed it or have been near committing it, is a proof that we have not yet committed it. We see in the Gospels how they who are the types of it, went on unchecked from one wickedness to another; how the rebukes of the loving Saviour incensed them, His acts of love increased their hatred. There is no pause, no misgiving, no faltering in their sin. Mercy and love harden them the more, as though impenitence had been the very proper fruit of love. When our Lord performs an act of healing, “straightway they take counsel against Him to put Him to death;” they have not the compunctions of a heathen judge; nothing diverts, nothing moves, nothing startles them; they go on, as blind men insensible of any hindrance; the suggestions of Nicodemus, the expostulation of the blind man healed, the witness of their own servants, “never man spake as this man,” the testimony of John, the love of the multitude, the works of the Father, His wisdom, their own shame, all which could arrest their course, is cast aside. How could they be healed, whose disease grew through the very means of its healing, His works of power and His love? We have not sinned away all grace, if we have the grace left to fear. Nor again is the end of this warning to make us fear or think of others. “Judge nothing before the time,” says the Apostle. Who knows whether any now seemingly impenitent, may not yet be touched by the melting grace of God, may not, at the touch, start into life, and, much forgiven, love much, sorrow much, love more than we?
Read the whole thing here.
