The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-07-26
UNPARDONABLE SIN.
Rev. Or. TaImage.Mahes an Effort
to Define 1t.
He Does Not Think. However, It is POSI-
BILE to Commit 1t at This Day-But
Man May Make Some IRE
vocabIe Mistakes.

"A
this week. It's subject. "The UnPardon-
able Sin" is based on the texts:
IAN manner OF sin and blasphemy shall be
forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto
men. And whosoever speaketh word against
the Son OF man. II shall be forgiven him' but
whosoever speaketh against the Holy 1hoss'
Il shall not be forgiven him. neither In TINS
world. neither in the world to come. MAI
thew xii, 81, b.
.sTIe found no place OF repentance, though he
sought It carefully with tears. Hebrews
xii. H.
As sometimes you gather the whole
family around the evening stand to
hear some book read, so now we
gathers great Christian family group
to study this text; and now may one
and the same lamp cast its glow on all
the circle!
You see from the first passage that
read that there is a sin against the
Holy Ghost for which man is never
pardoned. Once having committed 1t,
he is bound hand and foot for the dun
geons of despair. Sermons may be
preached to him, songs may be sung
to him, prayers may be offered in his
behalf; but all to no purpose He is a
captive for this world, and captive
for the world that is to come Do you
suppose that there is any one here who
has committed that sin? All sins
are against the Holy Ghost; but my
text speaks of one especially 1t is
very clear to my own mind that the
sin against the Holy Ghost was the
ascribing of the works of the spirit to
the agency of the devil in the time of
the apostles Indeed, the Bible dis
tinctly tells us that. bn other words,
If man had sight given to him, or If
another was raised from the dead, and
someone there should say: This
man got his sight by satanic power;
the Holy Spirit did not do this; Belize
bub accomplished it, or, "Hhis man
raised from the dead, was raised by
satanic influence" the man who said
that dropped down under the curse OF
the text, and had committed the fatal
sin against the Holy Ghost
Now, / don't think it is possible in
this day to commit that sin. think
1t was possible only in apostolic times
But il is a very terrible thing ever to
say anything against the Holy Ghost,
and il is a marked fact that our race
has been marvelously kept back from
profanity. You hear a man swear by
the name of the Eternal God, and by
the name of Jesus Christ, but you never
heard a man swear by the name of the
HOLY Ghost. There are those here to-
day who fear they are guilty of the un-
pardonable sin. Have you such ankle
ty? Then 1 have to tell you posi-
lively that you have not COM
mitted that sin, because the very
anxiety is the result of the move
ment of the gracious Spirit, and
your anxiety is proof positive, as GER
tainly as anything that can can be
demonstrated in mathematics, that
you have not committed the sin that /
have been speaking of. can look off
upon this audience and feel that there
Is salvation for all. 1t is not like when
they put out with those lifebOats from
the 'Loch Earn for the Vile du
Havre. They knew there was not
room for all the passengers, but they
were going to do as well as they could.
But to-day we man the lifeboat of the
Gospel, and we cry out over the sea:
''Room for allI' Oh, that the Lord
Jesus Christ would, this hour, bring
you all out of the flood of sin, and plant
you on the deck of the glorious old
Gospel craft
But while / have said do not think
Il is possible for us to commit the par
ticular sin spoken of in the first text,
have by reason of the second text to
call your attention to the fact that
there are sins which, though they may
be pardoned, are in some respects ir-
revocable; and you can find no place
for repentance, though you seek it
carefully with tears Esau had a birth
right given him. In olden times it
meant not only temporal but spiritual
blessing. One day Esau took this
birthright and traded it off for
something to eat Oh, the folly! But
let us not be too severe upon him,
for some of us have committed
the same folly. After he had
made the trade, he wanted to get it
back. Just as though you tomorrow
morning should take all your notes
and bonds and government securities,
and should go into a restaurant, and
in a fit of recklessness and hunger
throw all those securities on the coun-
ter and ask for a plate of food, MAX
ing that exchange. This was the one
Esau made He sold his birthright
for a mess of pottage, and he was very
sorry about it afterward; but The
found no place for repentance, though
he sought it carefully with tears"
There is an impression in almost
every mans mind that somewhere in
the future there will be a chance
where he can correct all his mistakes.
Live as we may, if we only repent in
time, God will forgive us, and then all
will be as well as though we had never
committed sin. My discourse shall
come in collision with that theory. /
shall show you, my friends, as God will
help me, that there rs such thing as
unsuccessful repentance, that there are
things done wrong that always stay
wrong, and for them you may seek
some place of repentance, and seek it
carefully, but never find it.
Belonging to this class of irre~oca-
BILE mistakes is the folly of a misspent
youth. We may look back to our col
lege days, and think how we neg
lected chemistry, or geology, or bot
Any, or mathematics We may be sorry
about it all our days. Can we ever
get the discipline or the advantage
that we would have had had we at
tended to those duties in early life?
A man wakes up at forty years of age
and finds that his youth has been
wasted, and he strives to get back his
early advantages. Does he get them
back-the days of his boyhood, the