Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit - can be forgiven?

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit – can be forgiven?

By Exchange in E-Mails

One frequent visitor of our web site (Visitor AT) wishes to find out whether God will forgive him for blasphemy the Holy Spirit while he was neither aware the importance of this offence against God nor he did blasphemy the Holy Spirit or not.

Message from Visitor AT # 1:

Dear John,

I am in big trouble. I have sinned against my family and Jesus. For one year, I have been irresponsible and neglecting my duties in the house such as cleaning, cooking, doing the dishes, etc. I was very lazy. On top of that, I was selfish and mean to my wife. I was always angry because I didn’t have my way with her. And I did not help her taking care of our baby son. Because I did all these, my wife went away together with our baby son to stay with her parents in Asia. Now that they are gone, I miss them so much. I was in a terrible condition but I feel much better now. Thanks to Jesus.

I had sent many e-mails to my wife asking her to come back. She told me that she would come back and I would be able to see our son again but she wanted me to change first. She asked Jesus for help and He answered her prayer. I was still very angry with her for the way she left me. However Jesus sent a friend to comfort me and talked to me about many things. When I saw God’s power moving and I began to see clearly all the sins I had committed. He also changed my heart. I think my wife is having difficulty to decide if she should come back to me. Without her, my situation is getting tighter everyday and I cried a lot because I miss them. Please pray for me and ask God to bring her back to me.

In Jesus love,

(Signed Visitor AT)

Reply from John Sun # 1:

Dear (Visitor AT),

It is a big surprise to me when I read your message. This is because I saw the picture of your son you sent to me recently. He is so lovely and smart. I thought you must be very busy with your work as well as your family and having a smooth and cordial relationship with your wife. However, my surprises became diminished when the following messages came to my mind:

1) The more you tried to go closer to God, the more aggressive the Devil would work in your mind.

2) Jesus came to this world for the sinners, not for those who believe they are good enough. In fact, except Jesus, there isn’t anyone who has no sin.

3) God will forgive your every sin (except the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit). People cannot forgive other people because they do not have God’s Spirit in their hearts. We need to invite the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Try our best not to leave our hearts empty – at all times. Otherwise, the Devil may bring more stronger partners into our hearts. To the contrary, if our hearts are being occupied by the Words of God and the Holy Spirit, the Devil will find no way to come in.

Your wife left you because of your wrong doings and non-co-operative manner. Let me suggest a basic requirement from both parties out of a marriage. A marriage is to share the good things God gives to a man and a woman (whom was a stranger to each other, born and raised from different backgrounds and life styles). This basic requirement is to “love” each other. In fact, it is the New Commandment Jesus gave to His disciples (John 13:34-35). Think about – “Sacrifice” – it is a foundation of LOVE. ‘Sacrifice’ can bring happiness to both persons as one party only if mutual sacrifices are evident. “Love” as defined in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 can also be used as a reference .

The fundamental duty of a true Christian is to take the ‘Daily Bread’. No matter how much time one may need to squeeze out of his/her activities every day, even it is only for five minutes, use three minutes to read the Words of God and the remaining two minutes for prayers. This “Daily Bread” can keep you strong spiritually.

According to John 6:63, the Words of God are also the Spirit and the Life. Fresh and blood cannot assist anyone to achieve eternal life. It is extremely important – if you do not defeat Satan (the Devil), he will defeat you. There is nothing in between these two. If you are being defeated by Satan, then, he will take you as his slave again, just as what he did to Adam and Eve. But, the situation is different after Jesus came down from heaven and was born as a man. Jesus defeated Satan as a man so that He created the way for His true believers to follow the same way to God’s Resting Place as He did (John 3:13).

Thanks God as Jesus brought us the Words of God when He came the First Time. If we study His words carefully, we can find a lot of Love and Forgiveness. If you do not have any preference as where to start taking your “Daily Bread” (reading the Holy Bible), then, I suggest you to start from Matthew Chapter two (skip Chapter One as it documented the forefathers of Joseph), then, follow the remaining chapters of Matthew and the entire book of John. Read these two books as many times as you wish until you can memorize some of the verses you believe are important in life.

Matthew tells how we may go to heaven. And, John tells us who Jesus really is and the reason why He came down from heaven.

If we wish to defeat Satan, we must possess:

a) The Words of God, and
b) The Holy Spirit, and
c) Frequent Prayers, and
d) Good Deeds, and
e) Endure to the End

The Devil (Satan) seems to be a wild beast and he is always looking for a prey. When the Devil could not find a man, he even asked for pigs to be his prey (Matthew 8:30-32). So, don’t leave your heart empty (Matthew 12:43-45).

Our body is the Temple of God (1 Corinthians 3 & 6). So, try not go back to sin. Just like when my mother asked me to quit smoking, I always found different excuses to defend myself. Until I had a cancerous tissue on my lips and I saw so many tobacco companies paid huge amounts of compensations to those died of lung cancers, I finally decided to quit smoking. I did not do it myself, three times in a row (on the third day, the end of the first week and after three months) when Satan tried to convince me to smoke again with all types of excuses, I could not resist him based on my own power. Each time when the Devil challenged me to smoke again, I raised my two hands and called Jesus to help me. Now, I had quit smoking for more than seven years. You must be surprised to hear that about 10 to 20 years ago, I was a heavy smoker and I used to in-held ten large cigars plus three packets of Marlboro per day. I behaved like a smoking machine.

With God, there is nothing difficult, we need just to follow His rules and ask for His help. He promised to give us rest and take away all our burdens (Matthew 11:28).

Last of all, we should remember that the first topic of Jesus’ preaching was Repentance. And the Resurrected Jesus asked John to write seven letters to seven different churches. Six letters out of the seven warned the church members to repent (Revelation 2 and 3).

God likes to see repentance from His true believers. When we repent by confessing to Him of all our sins, our sins will be forgiven. While our sins have been forgiven, we like to go close to God instead of evading from Him when we sinned.

I shall pray for you. But, don’t forget to pray starting from Repentance and
followed by giving thanks to Him (Luke 17:11-19).

Blessings,

John

Message from Visitor AT # 2:

Dear John,

Thank you for your good advise. I can’t thank Jesus enough for all the good deeds that I have been getting from Him through you. Every now and then, my heart had been hardened towards Jesus and I have denied myself of the need for Him in my life. I think what Jesus would say about me would be – I have had my fill so I don’t need God anymore. I think Jesus had tried to warn me many times thru my wife, yet I kept on refusing to listen. Of course you were right when you said that I was taken as a slave to Satan, it was because all of his temptation that I strayed away from the path I had been walking towards Jesus. I was BLESSED by Him as I heard your teaching to me for all good lessons about life and marriage. Yes, Jesus has been speaking tenderly to my heart and my mind about what it MEANS to have a family and a family with a child. And you were of course right again that I needed to repent. Because without repentance I can’t allow God to have full control in my heart in order for me to overcome many problems that this world throws at me. You have really opened my eyes John, thank you again.

I guess this would be a good time for me to confess to you another thing which I had tried to hide from you for years. I am a smoker. More or less one pack per day. Jesus has been telling me smoking is sin and I keep on ignoring it. I have been doing it for more then 15 years. I cannot take good care of this temple God has given me. I am powerless to break my addiction and I cannot be sure whether I urgently need to quit. I need to do it but I can’t make up my mind. It seems that my body works on itself without my mind. Please do something for me, John.

The third point in your email you said that God will forgive every sin except BLASPHEMY of the Holy Spirit. It reminds me of the issue I faced a few years ago. I told someone that “the Holy Spirit lead me to do this”, I wasn’t exactly sure if it was the Holy Spirit. At that time I did not know exactly what was the Holy Spirit, I only had heard of the name. Obviously, I wasn’t a real follower of Jesus at that time. I believe only a true follower of Jesus knows who is the Holy Spirit. Only after I talked to you the first time, I decided to surrender my life to Jesus. It reminds me today when I heard you mentioned it again. My past worry was roused and I kept asking God if I committed the sin of blasphemy the Holy Spirit. I kept on asking Him and He repeatedly telling me: “No, you did not blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Finally, He asked me: “Where is your faith in God?”. What is your thought about this?

In God’s Love,

(Signed Visitor AT)

Reply from John Sun # 2:

Dear (Visitor AT),

I wish to share with you a vision God gave me about man’s destiny. All man can be divided into two major groups or two destinations.

The First Group are those True Believers of Jesus.

They will either be resurrected (for all those true believers died before the moment of Jesus’ Second Coming) or raised to the clouds to meet with Jesus (those still alive at the moment of Jesus’ Second Coming). This is the First Resurrection. There is no Judgment pending for them. They will follow Jesus wherever He goes. Jesus will bring them back to this world at the beginning of the millennium. Jesus will also bring them to the New Jerusalem after Satan and his followers have been cast into the Lake of Fire.

The Second Group are those non-believers of Jesus or Christians who failed to invite God’s Words and His Spirit to take control in their hearts.

For those who are still alive, they will face the seven years tribulation. People belong to this group died before the Judgment will all be resurrected. This will be the Second Resurrection or the Final Resurrection. Together with those people still alive, each and every person in this group will face judgment (to be Judged by the Words of Jesus as per John 12:47-48). There are only two destinations after judgment: each person may either be sent to the New Jerusalem or the Lake of Fire. There is no third destination or any location between the New Jerusalem and the Lake of Fire.

As I mentioned to you before, the First Topic of Jesus’ preaching was Repentance. If a person does not know which is right and which is wrong, how can he/she repent? On the other hand, however, once he/she learned about the right and wrong, and then, he/she decided to choose the right one. This person can then make a true confession through repentance and ask Jesus (the One Time Priest) to wash him/her clean with His own blood.

In your case, before you know God well, you had said something negative or you are not sure whether you did blasphemy the Holy Spirit. Yes, God will forgive your sin just as Jesus prayed to the Father requesting God the Father to forgive those who persecuted and crucified Him (as they did not know that Jesus was in fact their Messiah and Savior).

Luke 23:34: “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive these people because they don’t know what they are doing.'” (NLT)

I also wish to share with you another verse of the Holy Bible: ‘“If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty.’ Jesus replied. ‘But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.’” (John 9:41 NLT)

Based on the above two segments of the Words of God, it is very clear that if you don’t know it was a sin, then, God would forgive you as you stated in the last paragraph of your e-mail.

When confronting Satin, you must be decisive. In addition, you must put the Words of God and the Holy Spirit in front of you.

As I mentioned to you before, I had been smoking heavily on and off for 34 years. Nine years ago, I decided to quit smoking. After I stopped smoking for one day, I told myself ‘why you need to stop smoking? Even those doctors of medicine said that smoke less than 10 cigarettes per day had much less chance to attract lung cancer than those heavy smokers. You can smoke less, but you do not need to stop completely.’

While I was hesitating to make a decision and stood in between the two choices, I suddenly talk back to myself – ‘No Smoking! That’s It, no bargain!’

I knew I did have the weakness in flesh and blood, I then raised both of my hands and shouted aloud: “Jesus, Help Me!”. The idea of trying to pick up a cigarette had suddenly lost in my mind. At that moment, I suddenly remembered how Jesus won over Satan in three different challenges as being specified in Matthew 4:1-11. The Second Time and Third Time Satan reminded me to smoke were at the end of the first week and the end of the third month after I quit. Again, I raised both of my hands and shouted for Jesus’ help each time. Now, for nine years, although when I smell the cigar or cigarette, I have a ‘familiar taste’, thank God, with His help, I can stay away from it completely.

Likewise, each time when we face a temptation or challenge from Satan (the Devil), we must be decisive and ask for God’s help. Take an example of a policeman, he always carry a gun and some bullets. The gun is the ‘Way’ or ‘Direction’ we choose. The bullets are the “WORDS OF GOD”. Without the bullets, the gun is useless. We can obtain the ‘bullets’ by reading the Holy Bible daily (regardless how busy you are) as our daily bread. Sometimes, the policeman must make a choice or rather a decision whether to pull the trigger. Without pulling the trigger, nothing will happen from a gun and its bullets. Therefore, the decision is in man not God. Thank God, He made man who can make his/her own choices.

May God continue guiding you and bless you in His Own Way,

John

Message from Visitor AT # 3

Dear John,

It would be a pleasure for me to share my questions and experiences with you to help others in anyway. I would object only if you don’t publish it. If that could make even a little difference in the life of others I would be most thankful to Jesus. I will write more next time. Take care now.

In Christ Love,

(Signed Visitor AT)

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Jesus said: “I have come to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.”

The Pharisees who were standing there heard him and asked, “Are you saying we are blind?”

Jesus replied: “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty, but you remain guilty because you claim you can see.” (John 9:39-41 NLT)