Last week we were looking at God’s plan to complete and finish the covenant. We saw in Hebrews 8 that God does not say, “I will make a new covenant,” but that, “I will finish a new covenant.”
We have seen and we have learned over the last few years that God did have a plan to seal up the Word, to close up the Word, “till the time of the end.” That is basically what the completion or the finishing of God’s covenant involves. God gave his revelation. He gave His covenant, the old covenant and then the new covenant, which is the whole Bible.
The Old covenant had some truths, but some things were veiled. Then the new covenant came, the New Testament, and more information was given. We could see a lot clearer, but still there was a lack of understanding. There really was an ignorance. There was an ignorance of what the Bible was teaching.
This is really what ignorance means. It just means that you do not understand; you do not comprehend. Today this has become an insult, “You are ignorant!” But this is not what the word means. The word just means that someone does not fully comprehend or understand, or does not understand at all.
So that is the “fault,” the “fault” that God found “with them,” the Old Testament and the New Testament, or the old covenant and the new covenant. There needed to be more clarity. There needed to be a completion of it in order to finish it, where God had to really step in as He has done. He had to step in and open up the eyes of His people, their understanding, so that they will begin to comprehend.
This is what is going on today, and this is how the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, is taking center stage. He is coming to the fore. He is the One whom you can read about in the Bible, all over the place. When we do, we think that it is either talking about the Father or the Son. But actually, there is a third Person of the Trinity and it is the Holy Ghost.
He is a Person. He is not an “it.” He is not an “it,” like we read in Habakkuk; if we can go back there, in Habakkuk 2. Habakkuk is right before Zephaniah. In Habakkuk 2:3, it says:
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
You can basically put “He” or “Him” in every one of those places where we find the word “it.”
…at the end He shall speak, and not lie: though He tarry, wait for Him; because He will surely come, He will not tarry.
Hebrews 10 confirms that this is the right understanding of this passage because it is quoted there and it says, “He that shall come will come,” not “it.” So the Holy Spirit is who is going to come “at the end” and “He shall speak.”
This is what we saw in a couple of verses last week. Remember Mark 13:11. This is a verse that really lays this out and describes what is going on today:
But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
This is as Habakkuk 2 said, “He will surely come.” What did it say? That is how good my memory is…I just read it and I can not remember it. In Habakkuk 2:3:
…at the end He shall speak, and not lie:…
“He shall speak.” How is He going to “speak”?
God definitely has closed the Book. It is completed. When He moved prophets of old, they wrote down what God wanted them to write, and we have the full Bible.
People try to say, “There are some Bibles and they have other books.” That is not the Word of God. That is not the truth. Those are words of men. Of course, Satan is always trying to corrupt Scripture, to corrupt the Word of God, in whatever way that he can.
So there are some books out there that claim to be Holy, the Apocrypha books, and some churches have been deceived. They have put them in the Bible, just like they are any other book of the Bible, but they are not. There are only 66 books—the books that we have—and at the very end of the last book, in Revelation 22:18, God says:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
So God is definitely letting us know that He is not going to speak audibly. He is not going to come in a dream or in a vision or with a tongue or in any other way. There is no possibility of this, and any gospel that brings this kind of information is “another gospel.” It has added to the Bible, so it is not the truth.
But it does say here in Mark 13:11 not to worry and not to meditate, to not think before what you are going to say “in that hour.” “That hour” is the “hour of His judgment.” Revelation 14:7 and Revelation 17 and 18 speak of the hour of judgment. This is the hour of Great Tribulation.
God is forewarning anyone who had eyes to see, which no one did, that they should not bother with trying to develop a theology or with trying to come up with an end-time scenario. They were not going to be able to figure it out; it was not possible.
Of course, everybody did it. Every church had their end-time doctrine and teachings and theology, and everyone was wrong. Without exception, every church that came up with an a-mill, pre-mill, post-mill, all those doctrines, and wrote many books of theology based on them, were all incorrect. Not one was right. Everyone had a little bit of truth, but not one had it exactly right.
So “neither do ye premeditate,” or meditate on what you are going to say, “but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour.” This is like Luke 21:14-15, which says:
Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
God is going to open up the mouth of His people; just as it says here in Mark 13, “that speak ye.” “Whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye,” and this is why you are hearing this from people.
Of course, man despises the ways of God. As God has determined to work this way, to open up the understanding of individuals, then those individuals teach. This has been God’s plan of bringing the Gospel, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” This is God’s plan. This is how He has decided to bring the Gospel to the world. Yet all kinds of people despise God’s methodology. “You are following that man!”
No, no! God is going to speak, but how is He going to speak since the Bible is closed? He is going to “speak” through a person, through individuals, through people. There is no other way that He can do this.
Even people who should no better, who realize that the Bible is closed—the canon is closed; He is not going to bring anything else—these people, they know that, many of them, and still they despise many teachings that are coming forth from the Bible. They just write it off as coming from man, yet no one is claiming that these teachings are coming from a dream or a vision or a tongue.
These teachings are coming from comparing Scripture with Scripture, “spiritual things with spiritual,” “here a little, there a little.” 1 Corinthians 2 says that when you do that, “the Holy Ghost teacheth.” “The Holy Ghost teacheth.”
Of course, people are the ones who use the Concordance that God has provided. They search out the words. It has to be through human mouths, but “the Holy Ghost teacheth” if it is done right. If this is done in accordance with God’s methodology, then it is God the Holy Spirit who is saying not to blame any man or any person. Remember what God said to Samuel, “For they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me.”
This is exactly how it is today. I am sorry if people do not like a certain person, for whatever reason. They do not like his voice. They do not like whatever is it about an individual. Yet if you reject not the person so much but the words that are coming from the Bible that the person is speaking, you have not rejected the individual, you have rejected the Holy Ghost. You have refused to listen to the truth of the Word of God.
So this is a grievous and serious thing for anyone to do, especially today, especially today. In times past, this could have been overlooked, in a certain sense. But today, today there is even far greater danger with this kind of way of looking at those who bring the Gospel, if they are doing it according to God’s will, if they are teaching faithfully.
So it says here in Mark 13:11:
…for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
“In that hour,” the Holy Ghost is going to “speak.”
Now let us go to Daniel 12:4. It says:
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
This verse, we are familiar with, and we are getting more and more familiar with it. We know the picture. A good illustration is a well of water.
There is a historical account in the book of Genesis where the Philistines had stopped up, I think it was Abraham or Isaac’s well [note: speaker is referring to Abraham’s well]. They stopped it up; they threw dirt in it.
That word “stopped” [note: in Genesis 26:18] is the same word as “closed” here in Daniel 12. And that is the idea. They threw dirt in the well, many feet of dirt. Anyone traveling on a hot day who wanted a drink would go to the well, pull up the bucket, and they would get a bucket of dirt.
This is what God did with the Bible. This is what God did with the Bible, as He told Daniel to “shut up the words, and seal the book.”
God likens the Bible to water, so when Matthew Henry or Jonathan Edwards or Robert Hawker, these men of old, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, when these men who were very dedicated, diligent Bible students, who knew the Hebrew and the Greek and Latin, who spent hours in studying the Bible, when they would come to certain passages looking for truth, they would bring up a bucket of dirt because God shut up the well. He closed the Book.
Then later on, that same “well” in the book of Genesis was dug again. There was “water” there all the time. It was just that no one could find it. They had not dug down deep enough.
But later, the Philistines, I forget who did this, [note: speaker is referring to the Philistines] but this is just a picture that we are looking at and I am not trying to make any kind of spiritual association; this is just the historical picture. Later, they dug again the well and water was there and the people drank.
So this is the same thing when the time comes, the time of the end, “in that hour” when the Holy Ghost speaks, we go to the “well,” just as men of old have done. But this time, we find “water”; we find abundant “water.” We find all kinds of truth, and this is why Daniel 12:4 says:
…knowledge shall be increased.
Knowledge is going to be increased in our day. Even though it is true that the electronic medium and scientific fields are really developing many, many things that the world has never known, that is not what is really in view.
Where it says, “knowledge shall be increased,” it is talking about the Bible. It is talking about the Word of God. God is going to take the wraps off of Scripture. An individual who has been studying in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, a true child of God, and never understood things, suddenly during the point of the Great Tribulation, after that first 2300 years [note: speaker meant to say “days” instead of “years”] when God begins sending forth the “latter rain,” will begin to learn and discover truths and will see things that they never were able to see before. This is because God has opened up the source of the Gospel to the understanding of His people and He is revealing Himself.
We have looked at this before, but let us go back to Genesis 45. I think that we will get a pretty good insight into what is going on today. Beginning in Genesis 45:1:
Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.
Who remembers the historical situation? What did Joseph do when his brethren came to Egypt looking for corn? Remember? What did he do? He hid himself, in a sense. He pretended to be this severe ruler of Egypt.
Joseph was a ruler of Egypt, but his features would have been different because he was a fully grown man at this point. When they had cast him into a pit and sold him to the slave traders, he was only 17; now he would be in his thirties.
If I showed you a picture of myself at age 17, compared to what I look like now, if you had not seen me since then, you might have a little difficulty recognizing me. In that picture, I have a little bit more hair; but in a picture of myself today, I do not.
So that is how Joseph was able to do this. He was a grown man and he definitely would have had different clothing, different features. He spoke in the Egyptian language, so he made himself strange to them. He hid himself. He hid himself, did he not? He veiled himself.
That is why it says here in Genesis 45 that he could not refrain any longer. He could not refrain, so he “made himself known unto his brethren.”
Why is that important? Because Acts 7 tells us about these days, this famine, and that it was “great affliction,” the exact same two words in Matthew 24 translated “great tribulation.” By doing this, God is typifying this seven-year famine as the Great Tribulation.
We find that the first two years, Jacob and his family are suffering in the land of Canaan. Then they hear that there is corn in Egypt, so they are coming to Joseph.
Who is Joseph a type of? The Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ. Christ made Himself strange.
So Joseph hid himself from His own family for the first two years of this famine, which we know is a picture of the Great Tribulation. But now, he can not refrain any longer, so he makes himself “known unto his brethren.”
Look in Genesis 45:2. We read in Genesis 45:2-7:
And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Do you see what I am seeing here? Joseph, who is Christ, is revealing himself after two years, and he tells his brethren that the famine has been two years in the land; so they know when it began. This is the year 1887 B.C., by the way. We know this from Mr. Camping’s books and the work done on the Biblical calendar of history and so forth.
It is 1877 B.C.; so they could know that in 1879 B.C., the famine began. It is two years since it began, “and yet there are five years.” It is 1877, so now Joseph is telling his brethren that in 1872, the famine will end—the famine, the great affliction, the Great Tribulation.
He hid himself and now he is revealing himself, and he is telling his brethren when it began. They know the dividing point, because it has been two years and now there is going to be a big change that takes place. They were in Canaan and now they are coming out of Canaan into Egypt, and they have five more years to go. So they could know exactly the year when the famine would end. They could know exactly.
So if we just substitute this…I remember saying this a few years ago when we did a study on Genesis. God is telling us here, He is giving us information in spiritual language, but He is telling us that we should know the year that the Great Tribulation begins, the dividing point of the Great Tribulation, and the time of the end of the world, based on this verse alone. Because Joseph is telling his brethren, “1879; it is now 1877; it will go to 1872 B.C.”
Look where we are in history. Look at what is going on today where we know exactly when the Great Tribulation began: 1988. We know exactly the dividing point of the Great Tribulation: 1994. We know exactly when the Great Tribulation is going to climax and come to its conclusion: A.D. 2011. Of course, God took it much further and He has given us exact dates. We know in 2011, it will be May 21st for the rapture and October 21st will be the end of the world, the destruction of all things.
But the knowledge that we have today, in other words, what we have learned, God foretold. He wrote about it in the book of Genesis over 3800 years ago. He made sure because in Acts 7, He called it Great Tribulation and He said, “Look at it.” Look at the spiritual picture, and you will learn that God is going to reveal Himself. In that hour, the Holy Spirit will “speak.”
We have actually learned that it is not only the timeline of history or the end of the Church Age or the end of the world, as far as the knowledge that is increasing. God is also revealing information on faith, repentance, baptism, the resurrection, eternal judgment, and many other things.
So the knowledge that was closed up for centuries is now opened. It is as simple as that. It is now opened so that we are learning what God had sealed. He is bringing it to our attention.
Let us go to 1 Corinthians 13:9. We will just take a quick look at this verse and then we will go to something else. It says in 1 Corinthians 13:9:
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
This is referring to the Church Age and also the first part of the Great Tribulation.
1 Corinthians 13:10-12:
But when that which is perfect is come,…
That would be the Holy Spirit.
…then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
We can look at that historical picture of Joseph. He knew them. He knew them, but they saw him “darkly,” until he revealed himself face-to-face. “Come near to me…I am Joseph.”
You see, this is what God is doing when He is referring to moving on “unto perfection.” “When that which is perfect is come,” the Holy Spirit “will guide you into all truth,” John 16 says. That is an amazing verse. “All truth,” not part; it is not going to be in part, but the total, the whole volume of whatever God wants His people to know before the end comes.
Let us also go to Isaiah 11, beginning in verse 9. It says in Isaiah 11:9-11:
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of JEHOVAH, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that JEHOVAH shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people,…
This is the second outpouring of the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit—the Jubilee. However you want to look at it, in 1994, God began pouring out His Spirit a second time, opening up the Scriptures. This also began that great deliverance that Joseph spoke about, as God is going to save a “great multitude” from around the world.
In Habakkuk 2:14, God gives us a similar verse as Isaiah:
For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of JEHOVAH, as the waters cover the sea.
This is exactly what God is doing. Through the electronic medium, the Gospel is going out through the whole world, the whole world. It is not a far-fetched idea at all. It is definitely within the realm of possibility that a few individuals working at Family Radio, and we know that is how God is sending forth the Gospel, that this is a big way that He is going to reach the world today. God is using a few individuals, plus many other individuals who are part of Family Radio with their support, through radio and internet and satellite broadcasting and through whatever other ways there are through the electronic medium, and it is covering just about the whole earth. It really covers just about the whole earth, where God can use an individual to reveal truth to a person.
That is how God works. He can not work any other way. He did cause Balaam’s donkey to speak, but that was a supernatural act. What Balaam’s donkey spoke was Divine revelation, so even if God caused a donkey to speak, we would have to add it to the Bible.
But God is not moving people like He did the holy men of old. He moved them to write these things that we have in the Scripture. No, God is just directing them, as they look at one verse, compared to another, to arrive at the truth.
Then God provided a platform. He provided the ability for that truth to almost instantaneously reach the whole world so that the “great multitude” can become saved. “The knowledge of the glory of JEHOVAH,” is covering the earth “as the waters cover the sea”
So it is all wonderful; it is all beautiful; it really is. It is incredible how God has developed His plan and how He is so patient. He is so longsuffering that He waited, not hundreds of years, but thousands of years for the right moment, the right point in time. He does everything according to His perfect time schedule. Jesus came in “the fulness of the time.”
Well, “in that hour,” and now, finally, the “hour” has come. Now we are learning things that nobody has been privileged to learn before in history, only because we sit at the edge of the end of the world. This is the only reason. This is the only reason that we are learning these things, just as Joseph told his brethren that it had been two years already, five more to go. And so God has revealed to His people that the Great Tribulation began in 1988 and it will end in 2011, and we are far into that length of time to where there are only a few years left.
So God is revealing Himself; He is revealing truth to the world. It should be beautiful; it should be received with the greatest of eagerness and joy, but let us turn to 2 Timothy 3 where I will read the first verse and then I will skip down a little further. It says in 2 Timothy 3:1:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
Then God starts speaking about men and their sinful activities. Then He says in 2 Timothy 3:5-8:
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
God is saying that there are those who have a “form of godliness,” who are “never able” but they are “ever learning.”
Just walk into a Christian bookstore. What do you see on shelf after shelf after shelf after shelf? You see all kinds of books, most of them based on things related to the Bible. You have pastors and seminaries and theologians who are still working hard; they are still trying to present studies and teachings based on the Bible. They are “ever learning” in that sense, and yet God says that they are “never able.” That is a strong statement: “never able.”
If you are not able to do something, it means that it is an impossibility. It is an impossibility, like God says in Hebrews, “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of…the good Word of God…if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance.” That is an impossible thing. They are “never able” to come to repentance. And it is a very serious thing if someone is “never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Let us take a quick look at 1 Timothy 2:4, where it says, speaking of God:
Who will have all men…
This is referring to all of His elect.
…to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Because you need the “knowledge of the truth” in order to experience salvation. If you do not have “the knowledge of the truth” and Christ is Truth, then you do not have knowledge of Christ and you do not have knowledge of the truth of the Word of God, and there is no salvation.
Many are “ever learning.” They are busy studying the Bible, as far as their own understanding of the Bible goes, and yet they do not come to the point of receiving “the knowledge of the truth.” This is very important.
If we go to Hebrews 10, I will read verse 25 just to set the context. It says in Hebrews 10:25:
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
This relates to our day when we are called upon to assemble ourselves with the Word of God, with God Himself, not with any congregation or with any church of any kind or with any group. There is no command that says that we have to meet in a group like this, and there is also no command that says that we can not. But God is saying that we are not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together” with the Word:
…as the manner of some is; but exhorting: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Do we “see the day approaching”? How do we “see the day approaching”? Because God is revealing it. He is revealing it. He is opening it up. So, yes, we “see the day approaching” like never before. We actually see it very clearly.
But then look at verse 26 of Hebrews 10. It says in Hebrews 10:26:
For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
That is the same context as 2 Timothy 3:1, where it says:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
“In the last days,” there will come those who are, as 2 Timothy 3:7 says:
Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
It is a terrible thing “if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth.” So has anybody here sinned “willfully”? Has anybody sinned willfully after they received the knowledge of the truth? Yes.
I was wondering about this. Is all sin willful? I do not know. I know that 99.9% is. Maybe I will leave a small percentage there for the possibility that something is not willful. But normally, when we sin, we know it and we do it anyway. We know that it is wrong. We lie. We steal. Whatever. We sin intentionally, knowingly. Even the people out there who do not have the Bible, they have “the Law written in their hearts.” So they know that adultery is wrong or that murder is wrong. They sin still, willfully, knowing that these things are evil.
So what is God saying in Hebrews 10:26:
For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
It is an impossibility to become saved if you have sinned willfully. That is very strange. Do you want to read something even stranger? Go over to 1 Timothy 1:12-13, where it says:
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me,…
This is God moving Paul to speak. It continues:
…for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
That is another strange statement. It almost sounds like Paul is saying, “I became saved. God bestowed grace. I found that He had mercy on me, and the reason is because I did it ignorantly. I sinned ignorantly.”
To sin ignorantly would be the opposite of willfully, right? If you sin in ignorance, ignorance is having a lack of understanding. You did not know. So this is very strange because that would mean that everybody out there in the world who never heard the Gospel, they should all find mercy because they are sinning ignorantly. Remember in Acts 17, Guy read this earlier from Acts 17, “and the times of this ignorance God winked at,” referring to those who were worshipping idols and false gods.
Yet we know that it can not be that. It can not be that Paul found mercy because he sinned ignorantly. That is not what he is saying; that can not be. So we really need to take a look at what God is talking about when He is referring to willful sin compared to sinning ignorantly.
For instance, if we go back to Leviticus 4:2, it says:
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of JEHOVAH concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
Now let me skip down to verse 13 of Leviticus 4. It says in Leviticus 4:13-14:
And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of JEHOVAH concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty; when the sin, which they have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin…
It goes on to say, in each one of these cases, somewhere in the context, it will say that their sins will be forgiven them.
If we go to Leviticus 4:22:
When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of JEHOVAH his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
And so on. Actually, Numbers 15 lays it out better. It is a parallel passage to this, and it is going over some of the same laws in Numbers 15. It says in Numbers 15:24-31:
Then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bullock for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour unto JEHOVAH, with his meat offering, and his drink offering, according to the manner, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance: and they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto JEHOVAH, and their sin offering before JEHOVAH, for their ignorance: and it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance. And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before JEHOVAH, to make an atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him. Ye shall have one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them. But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth JEHOVAH; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of JEHOVAH, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.
So this is confusing. It is confusing because God is saying, again and again and again, the one who sins ignorantly, it shall be forgiven him. But presumptuous sin, or like it says in Hebrews, the one who sins willfully, He will not forgive; He will not forgive. “There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.”
Really, what does it remind us of but the sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost. That is when repentance is impossible. That is when there is “no more sacrifice for sins.” That is when you should not pray for anyone. It is the sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost.
We actually only read about the sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost on two occasions in the Bible: in the days of Jesus and in our day, nowhere else. It was the leaders of Israel who said of Jesus that He had “an unclean spirit” and that “He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils, that “He hath Beelzebub.”
In our day, God uses language in connection with the church where salvation is impossible, just like in the time of these Pharisees. Really, what we could say is that blaspheming the Holy Ghost is a willful sin and every other sin is a sin of ignorance, every other sin, because there is the possibility that they can be forgiven.
When Paul says, “I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief,” he was just saying that he is qualified to come under God’s mercy and that he could become saved liked anybody else. In his case, he did become saved.
But when there is willful sin, there is no forgiveness. Just like with the sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost, “no more sacrifice for sins,” no repentance possible, no forgiveness.
Now we have to think about what God is doing. He brought the new covenant, the New Testament, in the days of Christ, and the Holy Spirit was completely involved in Jesus’ ministry. The Spirit moved Him in the wilderness to be tested. The Spirit, “like a dove,” descended upon Him.
Again and again and again, the Spirit was leading Jesus, and so He was very instrumental in the completion of the New Testament. Yet the Pharisees and the scribes were saying that Jesus was not of the Holy Ghost. They were saying that it was not the Holy Spirit that was behind this; it was the devil.
In that case, they were blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They were sealing their own fate, because it meant that they would never leave the Old Testament congregation of Israel. They were going to stay there. They did not think that Jesus was the Messiah. They did not think that God had sent Him. They were going to remain in the synagogues, in their traditions of circumcision and whatever else they could follow.
As a result, there would never again be forgiveness within the nation of Israel. Never again would God bless the ministry of a teacher of Israel, a rabbi. Never again would God save anyone through the work of the Old Testament corporate body, the nation of Israel.
So now we go almost 2,000 years into the future and God is letting us know. He is taking off the wraps. The knowledge will be increased. It will cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea.”
Yet there are people who, like “Jannes and Jambres,” resist the Holy Ghost. They resist what God is doing. They are in rebellion against Him and they are never able, therefore, to come to the knowledge of the truth. They are going to stay in their congregations. They are going to stay in their church, and they are not going to humble themselves under the hand of God, under the Word of God. They are going to remain.
As an institution, as a corporate body, the New Testament church now has no forgiveness. We have known this because the Holy Spirit came out of the midst. Yet many of them are going to stay there right until the very end. They are not going to move. They are not going to leave. They think that they have the truth. They are going to remain and God is going to destroy them, so there will be no forgiveness ever again once God finished the Church Age.
This does not mean that there can not be people, individuals, who could not still come out of the church. When God says in Jeremiah 7, “pray not thou for this people,” He is referring to the work of the church, the work of the congregations. We should not pray for their missions. We should not pray that people be blessed by the hearing of the pastor’s sermon. We should not pray for any of that, because it is useless. There is no spiritual work by God being performed. Nothing is being done there like that, and yet we can still pray for our family member or friend or enemy, anybody. We can still pray for them that God would open their eyes and that they would come out.
So they could still be like the Apostle Paul “who was before a blasphemer.” Paul was under the teaching of those same scribes and Pharisees who had said that Jesus had Beelzebub. He was growing up in that church, in that Old Testament system of worship. He was sitting under the feet of those men, and they were teaching him that this was “after the way which they call heresy.” What is heresy? Is it of God? Paul was going to persecute those who were “of the way.” He was going to Damascus to hail men and women and throw them into prison because he was convinced that it was not of God. He was a blasphemer, but he did it ignorantly.
God could still have mercy on anyone, even if they had wrong ideas themselves. Even if they had wrong understanding, they could still experience the grace of God and the mercy of God. It is still possible.
Okay, Lord willing, next time we will try to finish this and maybe take a closer look at sins of ignorance compared to willful sins. For now, we will close.