Therefore
I say to you, every sin and blasphemy [every evil, abusive,
injurious speaking, or indignity against sacred things] will
be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the [Holy] Spirit
will not be forgiven.
—Matthew
12:31 AMP
I believe it was a year before the Lord
showed me that legalism was a problem in my life, I was plagued with the fear
of the unpardonable sin. I had so many blasphemous thoughts bombarding my mind.
What made them so scary to me was they were swear words against the Holy Spirit.
But I could see that, oftentimes, dread and fear had something to do in causing
the thoughts to reoccur―and that if I could only stop fearing the thoughts,
they would probably vanish or at least, their power over me would be greatly diminished.
However, each recurring thought would cause me to fear the unpardonable sin;
after all, hadn’t Jesus said that whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will not be forgiven? It caused me much agony during that period.
There were times when everything in me would
cry out: God has condemned you! He has
rejected you! He has spoken woe on your life! It’s too late! You have committed
the unpardonable sin! You are doomed! While on the other hand, I still had
some hope and some ray of light that somehow, I had not committed the
unpardonable sin. However faint it was, that hope helped me dare press toward
God, in spite of my strong fears. I would take this Scripture: “Against hope
believed in hope.”[1][2]
God being against me for sure met the requirement of “against hope believed in
hope.” I would remind myself that He is the hope to the hopeless, which meant
that He would be the solution to rid me of all of my fears even if those fears
concerned Him. In fact, the Bible says that God is able to deliver us from all
of our fears, not just a few but all.[1][3] The thought
of His nature, His great love for us, and that He is a savior at heart also
helped disarm such fearful thoughts. Because God was to be my helper, I began
seeking Him. I was in so much inner turmoil that I asked Him to deliver me from
those thoughts and from my fears.
As a result, He gave me a dream one night. In
the dream, the evangelist Jesse Duplantis was a pastor of a church. There was
this lady who kept judging and criticizing him freely. I was aware that this
lasted for a long period of time. She constantly found something to say against
him and didn’t hesitate to openly share what she thought of him. Then she would
come back the next week and the next week and the next week and do the same
thing: Condemn the man. However, one day, she came, as was her custom, but
instead of saying something against “Jesse,” she said something against “Pastor
Jesse.” The moment she spoke against Pastor Jesse, she was gone. She was no
more. There was no more sign of her. And that was the dream.
In the dream, as long as the woman criticized
and spoke against the man himself, she was fine, but the moment she spoke
against the office, the mantle, in other words, the moment she spoke against
the anointing, she was no more. Now, I am not saying that if we ever used the
word “Pastor So and So” and said
something not too kindly, that we have committed the unpardonable sin. The
reference to the word “Pastor” in the dream had spiritual significance in that
it represented the anointing. This dream helped set me free from that
irrational fear. I realized that involuntary blasphemous thoughts against the
Holy Spirit crossing my mind (though they certainly felt voluntary at times as
fear tricked me and got the better of me) didn’t really fit the description
provided to me by God in the dream. Not only that, God showed me that
committing the unpardonable sin doesn’t happen overnight. But if one will keep
playing with fire, keep disobeying God by devouring others and by slandering
God's anointed ones, then one has to be careful that he does not touch the
anointing. It is preferable to leave all men and women alone, to leave them
with God, and to pray for them with a sincere heart and a humble mind. The
apostle Paul said in Romans 14:4 that to his own master a servant will stand or fall. And he added that indeed, he will be made to stand, for God
is able to make him stand. Therefore, let’s be imitators of King David who had
King Saul at his mercy and chose not to kill him, saying to himself, “Do not
touch God’s anointed and do His prophets no harm.”[1][4]
Furthermore, in a way, the lady in the dream makes me
think of the Pharisees of Jesus’ days. The Pharisees were religious, but they
didn’t know God for they didn’t recognize and receive the very Son of God when
He came to them in the flesh. Religious spirits are usually puffed up, and they generally love to put down and criticize people. Such are not the fruits of someone who
has an intimate relationship with Christ. Jesus didn’t die to give us a religion.
He died to give us salvation. The spirit of fear isn’t of God (2 Timothy 1:7). The
child of God who loves God and lives in the reverential fear of the Lord doesn’t
need to live in the fear committing the unpardonable sin. God is a God of the
heart. Legalism, on the other hand, has no regards to the heart at all, but
looks at the outward spiritual performance apart from the heart condition, intents
or motives.
As I look back, I know that the fear of the
unpardonable sin was all part of the devil’s evil scheme. You have
to realize how powerful a tool this sort of fear is to the devil in helping him
defeat God’s people. If you begin to believe you have committed the
unpardonable sin, you will become hopeless and begin to give up, to return to
your sins or, even worse, be utterly ruined. It will lead you down the path of
destruction very fast.
We have to be careful what we allow ourselves
to believe; let us consider the end result of what we choose to believe. The
enemy wants us to be hopeless. However, the Bible shows that God is the hope to
the hopeless.[1][5]
There is a difference between being religious and having an intimate
relationship with Christ. Jesus said that He will in no wise reject those who
come to Him.[1][6]
This means that if you want Jesus, if you want to have a
relationship with Him, if you want to serve Him and to live for Him, then you
have not committed the unpardonable sin or you would not have such desires.
Be encouraged dear one. The spirit of fear
isn’t of God. The Bible says that there is no fear in love. But perfect love
casts out all fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears
is not made perfect in love.[1][7]
Begin to believe in and draw close to the love of God and then share that love
with others. Fear cannot dwell where love abides. Rest assured that there is
hope! There is a way out.
—Kathleen
Kaczmarek
[1] See Romans 7:15–23.
[2] Romans 4:18 KJV.
[3] See Psalm 34:4.
[4] See Psalm 105:15.
[5] See Isaiah 61:3.
[6] See John 6:37.
[7] See 1 John 4:18.
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