In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”

When a great work of God is upon us, we must, I must, see it for what it is. How on earth could the Pharisees and teachers of the law interpret this casting out of a demon as a practice of evil? It goes to show how depraved their minds were.

In order to understand this passage in the context of the broad basis of scripture, I turn to Romans. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who SUPPRESS THE TRUTH by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (‭‭Romans‬ ‭1‬:‭18‬-‭20‬)

Evil people who are bent on going against God and his work have some common characteristics: 1) they suppress the truth and 2) they ignore what they know in their hearts about who God is and what he is about.

The second half of the first chapter of Romans goes on to say that they exchange God for idols, because they did not acknowledge or thank God and give him credit for all that he had done and provided. So they then became foolish and took on shameful lusts. They did not think it important to retain the knowledge of God (not to be confused with information about God), so God gave them over to a depraved mind. In rushed every kind of evil. They became full of envy, greed, murder, and deceit.

And finally, this is said about evil people and their fall from God: “they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (‭‭Romans‬ ‭1‬:‭31‬-‭32‬)

Imagine a person who you had to hang out with but you could not trust. They lacked compassion and mercy for others, they lied, they viciously hated anyone who got in their way. They not only did these things but they worked to get society to call people who do evil things, good, and encourage them to do more and more evil. They gave awards for evil-compounded.

These were the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. We know this by how they treated him, the people, and what they called God’s work. When the heart of a man is so depraved that they see the good of God (here a casting out of an evil and oppressive demon) but call this good a worse evil than the evil it removed, this is foolishness. But more than that, they are leading others into darkness and rejecting and lying about the Holy Spirit and his work.

This is what Jesus was talking about here when he said, “People can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

They had already aligned themselves with the Devil and this was obvious because they called the good things of God evil and tried to deceive people’s hearts.

So conversely, in order to stay right with God, I must thank him for his blessings, remain in him and stay close to him through prayer and his word. I must humble myself and promote Jesus as Lord. Doing the opposite of Romans 1:18-32 will result in me not only seeing and recognizing God’s work, but being able to join him, as well.

Lord, thank you for clearly calling out the depraved minds of the Pharisees. They only saw evil when you did good. Help me to shine a light on evil people too, so that they can repent and be saved and others will not be led astray.