The sin against the Holy Spirit.
I. THE CHARGE AGAINST JESUS. He holds to Beelzebub, and by the chief of demons casts out demons.
1. It was absurd; but absurd arguments readily satisfy passion and hate and those who have no care for the truth. They accused the Saviour, in short, of a self-contradiction in thought and action, which was a moral impossibility.
2. It was wicked. It had the worst element of the lie in it—it denied the truth within them.
II. THE WORST DEGREE OF SIN. Sin has its scale, its climax. There are sins of instinct and of passion and of ignorance. When there is little light to be guided by there is little light to sin against. The next step in sin is where there is deliberation before the wrong is done. Last and worst is where not only the deliberate judgment is gone against, but the attempt is made to deny the principle of judgment in the soul itself. The hands of the watch move backwards; the lamp flags with the very abundance of oil; the man's soul dies. Over against the words "Repent! be forgiven!" stand these, "Irreclaimable! unforgivable!"—J.