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I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions and day five of our look
together, our last day of our look together through Mark chapter three. We're
going to look at verses twenty to thirty-five today, and as I read these verses
in just the moment, you're going to see that there are two very difficult to
understand passages in these verses. One about his family and some things that
Jesus said about his family, and another about the Holy Spirit and what Jesus
had to say about blasphemy and the Holy Spirit.

So listen as I read this passage, and let me remind you, even as I read this and
we see these difficult passages, that when a part of the Bible is difficult to
understand, it often holds a deeply encouraging and life-changing truth.
Something that really lets me get to know God in a deeper way. With that in
mind, let me read for you Mark chapter three, verses twenty to thirty-five.

"Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his
disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went
to take charge of him, for they said, 'He is out of his mind. ' And the teachers
of the law who had come from Jerusalem said, 'He's possessed by Baalzebub, by
the prince of demons.

He's driving out demons. ' So Jesus called them, and he spoke to them in
parables. How can Satan drive out Satan?

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is
divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself
and is divided, he cannot stand.

His end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house and carry off
his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his
house.

" I tell you the truth. All the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven
them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.

He is guilty of an eternal sin. He said this because they were saying, "He has
an evil spirit. " Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived.

Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around
him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you. "
"Who are my mother and brothers?

" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said,
"Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God's will is my brother and
sister and mother.

" Jesus has some things to say in these verses that make you think. Let's take
what I suppose you would think is the easier of the difficult passages to
understand first. Jesus says, "Who are my mother and my brothers?

" His family shows up and is concerned about him and says, "We asked Jesus to
come out and see us. " Instead of saying something kind about his family, Jesus
says, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?

" What is he talking about here? It isn't that he doesn't want to honor his
family. He did.

Remember, Jesus the first 30 years of his life was with his family, ministering
to his family. Remember that Jesus took care of his own mother from the cross.
When he said to the Apostle John, "I want you to take care of my mother, here's
my mother," he said to her.

Remember in the family of Jesus that he had four half-brothers and at least two
half-sisters. Half-brothers because Joseph was the father of the others and God
was obviously the father of Jesus. We know this from Matthew 13, 55 and 56 which
says that James and Joseph and Simon and Judas were with them as brothers and
all as sisters, at least two sisters also.

So Jesus has a large family and they've come to try to get Jesus to come out of
the crowd and he says this strange thing about, "Who are my mother and brothers
and you're my mother and brothers? What's going on here? " Well, there's a
couple of things to realize.

First of all, realize just from a practical sense that family doesn't always
give the best advice. Sometimes your family does, but at other times your
family, because they love you, they want to protect you at all costs. And Jesus'
family, they see he's not eating meals.

They see he's crowded in. And so they're saying, "We want to pull you away from
all this, Jesus. " They didn't realize who he is.

They didn't come to save the world from our sin. They didn't realize they
couldn't pull him away from that. And sometimes your family will try to pull you
away from directions that God wants you to take.

I'm not saying always that your family's advice is bad, but you need to realize
that sometimes families want to protect others at all costs. And Jesus realized
that. But there's also something deeper here.

He said to the people that day, "You are my family. You're my mother and
brothers and sisters. Everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ can call Jesus your
brother.

" And this is a reminder that Jesus did not come for just one family or one
people or one nation. Jesus Christ came for all. In fact, he says here, "Whoever
does God's will, that's my brother and sister and mother.

" Now, how do I know if I'm doing God's will? I'm seeking to follow Jesus. Jesus
came to show us God's will.

These verses about family, I've talked to some who struggled in the family that
they grew up in, and these are extremely encouraging verses to those people
because they realize that our greatest family is the family of God. The truth of
the matter is two believers, one who works in a rice farm in the interior of
China and the other who's working on the 60th floor of an office building in
Manhattan, those two believers are in the most lasting ways closer in family
relationship than two identical twins, one of whom is a believer and the other
not a believer, because our most lasting family relationship is a relationship
in the kingdom of God. That's what Jesus had to say about family relationships.

He also talks in these verses about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, one of
the most confusing phrases to most of us in the entire Bible. He says blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit is a sin that cannot be forgiven. What's he talking
about here?

Here's the simple, quick answer. The Holy Spirit's work is to convict people
about their need of Jesus and to bring people to Jesus. Blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit is to reject that work.

Rejecting Jesus Christ and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, they're one and
the same. I can be forgiven all sins, but I can only be forgiven through Jesus.
So to reject the Holy Spirit's work of bringing me to Jesus, that is a blasphemy
that cannot be forgiven, because I'm rejecting the very power of forgiveness in
my life.

Now that's the quick answer, but how do I know that's the answer? Where does
that come from? Let's just take a moment here to understand how you understand
difficult passages of the Bible, because I've had people very deeply upset and
confused by this passage of the Bible.

I can remember a young man calling me years ago who said he had sworn against
the Holy Spirit once in his life, and because of that he felt like it was
impossible for him to ever be saved. Is that the kind of burden that God has
given us here? Is that what he's talking about here?

Or maybe you're worried that you've somehow committed this sin and you didn't
know it. You slipped into blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So you think you're
a believer, but you're not because you committed somehow in some unknown way
this unforgivable sin.

How do I know that this sin is the same as rejecting Jesus? Well, here's how I
know. By the way, you understand difficult passages.

One of the rules for understanding difficult passages is you understand words in
the light of their meaning and context. Jesus talks about blasphemy here, and
the word blasphemy means to speak against. To speak against the power and the
majesty of God.

So this isn't something you fall into accidentally. This is something you are
clearly doing. In this day, the religious leaders were saying that Jesus was
Satan.

They were saying that God in human flesh is Satan. That was an extremely obvious
rejection of Jesus. Another rule for understanding difficult passages is that
scripture always best explains scripture.

And so what does the Bible say about blasphemy? Well, there's a few scriptures
that are very important. Isaiah 520 says, "Woe to those who call evil good and
good evil.

" That's what they were doing in that day. They were calling Jesus evil, who put
darkness for light and light for darkness. So way back in the book of Isaiah in
the Old Testament, there was this warning against blasphemy.

"Woe to those who do this. " This is not some new warning. It's a long-standing
warning.

There's something interesting though about blasphemy when you see what scripture
explains about scripture in 1st Timothy 1. 13. Paul says there, "Even though I
once was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy
because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.

" Blasphemy in and of itself is not the unforgivable sin. Is blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit that's key here? Paul says, "I was a blasphemer, but he
obviously was saved.

He obviously had a relationship with God. " So what does the Bible say about the
Holy Spirit? Probably the key verse to understanding blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit is what Jesus said in the book of John.

John 16, 8 to 9, Jesus said, "When the helper, the Holy Spirit, comes, He will
prove to the people of the world the truth about sin, about being right with
God, and about judgment. He will prove to them that sin is not believing in Me.
" That verse unlocks our understanding.

The Spirit's work is to convict us of the fact that we need God, that we sinned,
and to lead us to believing in Jesus Christ. And if I reject the Holy Spirit's
work in my life, I'm not going to be led to believe. And if I'm not led to
believe, my sins cannot be forgiven.

Now we could go into many other rules about Bible study to understand blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit. Rules like understanding unclear passages in the light
of clear passages. If this phrase meant that somehow I could be lost and never
saved, even though I called in the name of Jesus, you'd have to erase John 3, 16
from the Bible.

That's not what this means at all. There's also rules of Bible study about
understanding words and verses in light of their context. And Jesus said this,
the context of Him saying this, was the religious leaders attributing His good
works to Satan.

That's how serious this was. In fact, there are some people who believe you
can't even blaspheme against the Holy Spirit today. That you'd have to be in the
exact same situation where you see God in human flesh, and you say what He's
doing is satanic.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but I do understand this. Blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit involves a serious failure to see God's work. And then you get
so selfish about it, you get to a point where you attribute the works of God to
Satan himself just to cover yourself, just to cover your own selfishness.

You want a very simple test about this if you're worried about whether you've
blasphemed against the Holy Spirit or not? A very simple test is this. If you're
worried about it, you haven't done it.

If you've got a spiritual heart that's sensitive enough, that's concerned about
whether you've done this, then you haven't. The person who blasphemes against
the Holy Spirit doesn't care anymore. And there is a warning here from Jesus
that if I continue to reject God in my life, and that rejection deepens in life,
there comes a point where I've hardened my heart so deeply against Him that I
just can't get back.

This idea that I'm going to reject God all my life, and then at the end of life
maybe I'll receive Him if I want to, that's a foolish idea, and Jesus says so in
these verses. As we've looked at these difficult to understand scriptures today,
I would say to you that the two key truths that I can bring for encouragement in
my life are these. Number one, Jesus is my brother.

I'm part of the family. And number two, the Holy Spirit is my counselor and
guide. It's the power of God at work in my life, and He wants to work in your
life today.

Let's take a moment to talk to Him. Lord Jesus, help me to remember and to live
out today this broader truth of what it means to be a part of your family. When
I feel disconnected or alone, help me to remember I am not.

You are my brother. And I want to thank you, Holy Spirit, first of all for
guiding me to faith in Jesus. And then I want to thank you, Holy Spirit, for
guiding me daily, for guiding me to live out the faith you've given me in Jesus.

Thank you. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Well, be sure to join us next week.

We're going to be looking at Mark chapter 4 together, the exciting life of
personal growth and change that is promised to us by Jesus.