Mark 3:20-30
²⁰Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. ²¹When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."
²²And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebub^[3] ! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons."
²³So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: "How can Satan drive out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. ²⁷In 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. ²⁸I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. ²⁹But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."
³⁰He said this because they were saying, "He has an evil spirit."

Wow, Mark packs a lot into these few verses. The teachers of the law are so dumbfounded by Jesus' teachings, so different from their own, that they cannot admit he is the Son of God but instead refer to him as Beelzebub, or the devil himself. Jesus, who has been driving out demons, explains that Satan cannot drive out himself, and a house divided cannot stand.

We can apply this to our own lives, apart for Beelzebub or Satan--if we are divided as Christians, we are not as effective in our ministry. There are so many factions of the church and disagreements over doctrine--I wish we could all come back to the main truth of the Bible, that Jesus saves, that he has power over evil, and that we can tap into that power through His Holy Spirit, to minister to others.

The last part of this passage has troubled many people--regarding the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In my past studies and listening to many teachings regarding this, I believe that this means the "unforgivable sin" is rejection of the Holy Spirit for eternity. In other words, as long as we have breath and life, we can reject the truth of Scripture and still there may be hope that we turn to Jesus before life's end. The unforgivable sin, I believe, is rejecting God's gift to us, His Son and Holy Spirit, and dying in our sins, without knowing God in a personal way.

But when we come to him through his Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to do wonderful things--including driving evil away. I am thankful that God is victorious over sin and the evil that seems so prevalent in our world today. Someday, he will reign over all and everyone will recognize that Jesus is God, and there will be peace. Until then, we need to keep tapping into his power to fight the enemy.


- posted by Suzi @ 6:29 AM