PSALM 116:4 The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. 4 Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!“
LEVITICUS 24:10 Now an Israelite woman’s son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, 11 and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. Then they brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. 12 And they put him in custody, till the will of the LORD should be clear to them. 13 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.
MARK 9:39 …no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.
MATTHEW 12:31 …every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
MARK 3:28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”
1st JOHN 5:16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life–to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
LUKE 12:8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
JOHN 14:23 “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. 25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
MATTHEW 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
REVELATION 16:9 They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed [ASV: 'blasphemed'] the name of God who had power over these plagues. They [still] did not repent and give him glory.
REVELATION 2:11, 20:6,14 & 21:8 — He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’ …Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years… Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire… But as for the cowardly(!!), the faithless(!), the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Those who place their full hope and trust in the nail-scarred hands of Christ Jesus, are given the Holy Spirit to teach, guide and convict of sin. His indwelling is our protection in a dark world controlled by Satan who would enjoy nothing more than for us to die twice, the second being the ‘death’ of one’s soul, in hell — a process which begins here, on earth, with a hardening of heart via repeated turning away from God’s offer of grace at the cross.
If we reject (blaspheme) the Holy Spirit and His work, substituting our own ideas and will, and rejecting conviction (something which I suspect can occur in any number of ways, both explicit and implicit) we are left with no source from which to avoid what this sin-infected world will naturally do to us, both body and soul, without Christ. It is as if we have unplugged from the source of power, leaving ourselves to stumble in the dark. At a certain point, as Revelation 16 illustrates, we cannot find (and do not even want to find) the plug and the socket to connect back in.
PSALM 95:7…Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation… (see also Hebrews 3 & 4).
I have had some very convicting moments this week in and around what the Holy Spirit wants to do. There have been things that I have been “called/ asked” to do in the past that seem to myself or others that may seem really bizarre. Like Abraham was asked to take the son of promise and after everything that had happened, take him up and sacrifice him on the mountain. Do we have the kind of faith that will trust the God of heaven to do the impossible? Things like save those around us from sin, and do it even though they don’t get it?
I will do well to remember the Passover Lamb, the Blood of Jesus, God’s own Son.
The Passover
Exodus12
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb? That is the first response to the Spirit of God.
By: jeff on May 25, 2012
at 4:56 am