The words spoken directly by Jesus weigh on the heart; hold to His words. In Matthew 12:31,32, Jesus has this to say about blasphemy: Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men…neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Attributing the works of the Holy Spirit to the devil, when one is in the position to know better, is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit: this is not the result of honest-hearted doubting but of dishonest doubting. How dangerous to be dishonest in your doubt!

People have blasphemed against the Holy Ghost in services where His gifts are in operation. At times during some of my services, the Lord has spoken to me, telling of the blaspheming that was going on. The blasphemers have left the service, never again to feel the presence of God, never again to have the Holy Ghost deal with them. In their hearts they had decided that the works of the Holy Ghost taking place in the service were works of the devil.

Those who call the Holy Ghost a devil will seal their doom unless they are very, very sincere in the misconception. Blaspheming will take place in many churches, some of them full-Gospel churches. Those who blasphemed in my services were people who supposedly accepted the whole power of God—they knew better than to call the works of the Holy Ghost works of Satan. I did not decide they had blasphemed; it was something the Lord told me was happening. What a terrible feeling knowing people are walking out into the night never again to feel God in their lives! There are some ministers who actually are devil possessed; their teachings may sound very persuasive, but they are in conflict with the Word of God. The Lord knows the ones who belong to Him.

God Repented That He Made Man

The Lord tells us in Genesis 6:3 that His Spirit will not always strive with man. After Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden, God was grieved; but He allowed them in their sinful condition to go forth and multiply upon the face of the earth. Man came to the place that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). All the sins Satan could bring into the mind of man were put into operation. The Lord grew from a state of being grieved into vexation and wrath. When the anger of the Lord does not leave, it brings about severe judgments. The Lord repented of ever having made man, and He destroyed all mankind with the exception of Noah, who found grace in the eyes of the Lord and his family.

The Lord said not to let the sun go down on your wrath. If you have done something to anger the Lord, take care to make it right immediately; don’t let the sun go down on His wrath, either. When the Lord becomes grieved with you, you’re on the way to vexing the Lord; and, if you still refuse to look at your error, you are in danger of blaspheming. When God is in a state of anger, He is on the verge of closing the door forever on the object of His anger. He has closed that door on people in the past; He is closing it on many today. There is an anger that comes into the heart of God that has no mercy mixed with it whatsoever. One day that spirit will no longer be held back; there will be no mercy for mankind. Read in Revelation of the judgments He will pour out on the earth. Many today do not realize this; they have heard of the mercy of God and think He will always be merciful. If you want to find the real Spirit of God, study the Old Testament and learn how swift and sure His wrath fell on the disobedient. Then in the New Testament read how a merciful Christ stands between man and the anger of God. After Christ ascended into Heaven, we see the Holy Ghost beginning to work in the lives of men in a marvelous way. All three, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost always work together. But God the Father had His dispensation which we read of in the Old Testament; Jesus had His dispensation when He walked the earth; and then came the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, a time in which we still live, a time that rapidly is drawing to a close. Each figure in the Godhead has been predominant in His own dispensation.

Jesus Drew the Line

Now the Holy Ghost is moving in a great way all over the land to prepare the Bride of Christ for the catching-away hour. There are many insults He will take, just as there were many insults Jesus took when He was on earth. His beard was plucked out; He was reviled and taunted. But when the scribes said that Jesus was able to do His works because he had a devil in Him, Jesus answered: he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness. Why did Jesus say that? Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit (Mark 3:29,30). In other words, when the scribes saw the Holy Ghost performing works through Jesus, they called the Holy Ghost an unclean spirit, a devil. Jesus drew the line, this was the first time He told the people there was a sin which held no forgiveness.

Many church members in America are on the road to committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In this Holy Ghost outpouring, people will either accept the power of God or they will blaspheme against the Holy Ghost. Years ago, when God was preparing me for this ministry and dealing with me day and night about the discerning of spirits, He told me this would happen. The Lord talked with me; I lived in His presence. I ate very little, not because I was fasting, but because staying so much in His presence seemed to make food all but unnecessary. The Lord let me sleep just enough to keep up my strength. Perhaps in an early morning hour He let me doze off a little and then, gently as you wake a small child, the Lord would waken me; I would be refreshed, ready to learn more from Him. In this way the Lord taught me of the things to come, taught me how I would be able to discern different spirits. The Lord told me that I must understand every move of the Holy Spirit in my services: I must thoroughly understand the workings of the Spirit and also the workings of the devil and of the flesh so that never would there be a confusion among the three. In order for me to fulfill the mission the Lord was sending me on, I must know all these spirits. The Lord told me that people, even ministers, would blaspheme in my services. The Holy Ghost has spoken to me, telling me that blaspheming is taking place.

Church-Goers Most Likely to Blaspheme

Jesus, when He talked to those who had blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, was talking to the religious leaders of His day. Religious people, church-goers, not sinners, are the ones who stand in the greatest danger of blaspheming the Holy Ghost. They know the Bible; the people to whom Jesus was talking knew the Bible. However, because the Holy Ghost was not working in the way they thought He should, because they did not like the way Jesus cast out demons, they said Jesus was of the devil. In my services people are healed and delivered by the power of the Holy Ghost, and when someone who should know better calls that power devilish, then they are blaspheming the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of the Holy Ghost casts out demons; I have nothing to do with it. In fact, I am amazed at what the power of the Lord does; I am just a witness to it.

Through the power of God, through the gift of discerning, I can look into the soul and see the demons, see their eyes and mouth. It is a profoundly shocking experience. Had not the Lord lifted some of my compassion, I do not think I could have lived through the experience of learning to recognize these spirits. Supernatural manifestations are astounding things and those manifestations are either of God or of the devil. I had to know which was which. Jesus brought a fantastic ministry to this Earth, and then He turned over His supernatural ministry to human beings. Jesus gave His power to the twelve, to the seventy; and He promised it to all believers: And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;…they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark 16:17,18).

Casting Out Demons Should Not Be a Side Show

Much confusion has been caused by those claiming to have the power to cast out devils when that power did not actually exist in them. In Acts 19:13-17 is the story of some men who tried to cast out a devil in the name of Jesus but who did not have His power in their lives to do it. And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. It’s not only spiritually dangerous to claim you have the power of God when you do not, but in this case it was physically dangerous as well!

Many today are seeking to deceive others about the power that works in their lives. Some have gone so far as to claim they cast out a devil—then put it in a jar for everyone to see. How ridiculous! Can you find any Biblical foundation for putting devils into jars? Of course not! There have been ministers who claimed to have recorded the voices of demons for others to hear, but Jesus commanded demons to be quiet when they came out. If you ever have the opportunity to hear someone’s recording of demons, run away from them faster than you would a branding iron. Jesus never claimed to be something He wasn’t, and He never played with demons. I pattern my ministry after His. I studied the way He handled demons, and He did not turn the casting out of demons into a side show.

You Have No Choice But to Choose

This is a crucial hour, a time when people can no longer tolerantly observe everything going on about them from a smug position of sitting on the fence. This is a time of choosing now whom you will serve: the power of God or the power of the devil. You must know God in such a way that there is no doubt when His Spirit is moving, and that sureness can only come from thoroughly knowing His Word, from being yielded completely to the Holy Ghost and from His anointing. We are getting closer and closer to the Tribulation Period when the antichrist will take over the earth; he will be able to call fire down from heaven and to perform miracles with the elements in various ways. Just as many today are seeking God with all their hearts, many are deliberately seeking the devil. The Lord is allowing these things to become evident so you can recognize the spirit of the age. If you are the Lord’s child there is no need for alarm; His power is greater than Lucifer’s. The power of the devil will be held back until the Bride of Christ is taken from the earth in the Rapture, and then no longer will that keeping power of the Holy Ghost be on earth—the Tribulation Period will have begun under the antichrist’s rule.

Know where mankind is headed; as some are being taken over by demon spirits, others are giving themselves completely to the Holy Spirit. Your only salvation is in yielding completely to the Lord and His Holy Spirit. As some are possessed by the devil, you must be possessed by the Holy Spirit. Through the Lord, you must be able to know what is His and what is the devil’s; know if a minister is preaching the truth, half-truths or lies. Many cannot tell because they refuse the truth when it finally does become evident. Perhaps accepting the truth would have meant they had to retract statements they had made or had to change a living pattern they were secure in, but the cost of their making those adjustments would never be so dear as the price of rejecting the truth. Whenever truth is rejected, the demons of deceit are on hand like leeches to bring in even more distorted ideas. The scribes refused to believe the truth in Jesus, and the demons brought them to blaspheming against the Holy Ghost.

If you have not the love for the truth, you should ask the Lord to give you that love. Contend for it the way you would for salvation or the baptism of the Spirit. You must have the truth; it liberates and sets free. The truth will free you from sin, from sickness and disease. The truth will make you whole.

How Churches Dry Up in the Spirit

The Bible says the Spirit of God will not always strive with people, but the Lord gives EVERYONE a chance. He allows them, at one time or another, to be convicted by the Holy Ghost. But those who have been saved, who know God and yet put thumbs down on His power are on very dangerous ground. Many churches once were on fire with regeneration; some of them even went so deep as to receive the marvelous experience of sanctification, but they drew the line at speaking in tongues, they turned their backs on the fullness of the Spirit. Others went on to receive the baptism of the Spirit, speaking in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance; but there they stopped and turned thumbs down on the gifts of the Spirit. Whenever people refuse to accept any part of the workings of the Holy Ghost, they are in for a drying-up period. Many of these churches who supposedly preach the full Gospel, no longer lead many people to salvation or to the Holy Ghost baptism. They have fought the gifts of the Spirit.

What is sinning against the Holy Ghost? It isn’t murder; the Lord forgives murder. It isn’t lying or adultery; the Lord forgives those things. The blood covers all the sins that could be committed so long as the person repents and invites Jesus into his heart. The unforgivable sin is not something obvious like robbing a bank, and that’s the reason so many commit the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Ghost. At the time they do not really realize what they are doing. They think they can discredit the works of the Spirit and still get by. Many who claimed to be infidels have come to the altar and been saved, but they were never dishonest in their doubt of God: they had no foundation, background or experience in the things of God or the way the Holy Spirit works. They didn’t think they believed in God, but when He gave them a chance to accept His reality, they took it—had they rejected God after He made Himself real to them, it would have been a different story. Churches are drying up today because they are closing down on the power of God.

When I was on one of my early crusades, I heard this story of a minister who, while pastoring a church in that town, made a drastic statement against the Holy Ghost. Soon afterwards, he went to another city to pastor. Then, unexpectedly, one day he knocked on the parsonage door, trembling, to relate what had happened one year before: at that time he had told the congregation speaking in tongues came from hell and was going back there. This not only grieved the Spirit, it vexed the Spirit. God became angry and lifted His Spirit from the minister for a whole year. He could feel none of the Spirit of God and continued in his stubbornness for a year. Then one day as he was praying, the Lord came to give him his last chance. The Lord told the minister to go back and make the statement about speaking with tongues right or God would never forgive him, that His Spirit would never strive with him again. The minister was shaking in his shoes as he told the story to the pastor I was holding a revival for. “I want you to forgive me,” he implored. “I’ll go before your congregation and make a public confession if necessary,” he said. “I’ll do anything! God said I would have to make it right.” He made it right, but it was a close call.

One Rejection Too Many

Three times in the Old Testament the Lord told Jeremiah not to pray for a certain people, that it would do no good for He was through with them. This is what God says to the Holy Spirit about those who have gone too far: Let that one go. In the Old Testament, God destroyed people in His wrath; today, in this dispensation of grace, not much of that happens. God’s Spirit, no longer dealing with that person, just lifts from him; and he becomes like one of the walking dead so far as God is concerned. He no longer touches that one. You meet people every day whom the Spirit no longer strives with and will never strive again. They may have a form of godliness, but His Spirit no longer dwells in their heart. Practically every devil-possessed person who comes to me in my healing services claims to have salvation. Again and again the Spirit of the Lord has moved on me to ask these people if they are saved, and the devil that possessed them answers, “Yes, I’m saved.” It’s a lying spirit.

Every time a sinner rejects God he places himself in an increasingly dangerous position; he becomes more helpless in the hands of the enemy. It’s like tying your arm in a sling. If the arm is immobile for too long, the muscles waste away until the arm is useless; you cannot use it even though you try. Some people have rejected God so often that they no longer have enough of their own will left to return to Him; they do not have the strength to accept Him when He calls. The Spirit of God has lifted from them. Some who used to cry because they were under conviction about turning to Jesus, no longer give it any thought; they are too far from the Spirit. At any time they may take that fatal step of one rejection too many.

Let God’s Spirit Penetrate Your Very Heart

The Holy Spirit has come to each and every one of you; He is the third person in the trinity of the Godhead, and He pleads to help you. Why would you refuse? Again and again He knocks on your door, and you say you’re not at home. At first He is grieved, but He keeps dealing with you. Will you reject Him until the anger comes and God commands the Holy Spirit to leave you alone?

In I John 5:16, There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. If you commit that sin, you are dead in the eyes of God: it’s the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Ghost. It is true that the Holy Ghost follows some people all the days of their lives and deals with them on their death beds, but there are others whom the Holy Ghost ceased to visit years before they died. It is extremely dangerous to reject the Holy Ghost at any time. Just because a sinner is unafraid to die does not mean he is all right with God; it means he has hardened his heart to God past feeling the need for Him even in death. Those of you who are lukewarm in His Spirit are displeasing in His sight; He will not accept you when He makes up His jewels. God’s mercy is coming to an end. Night and day He has called for you to come to Him and be filled with His Spirit, and yet some continue to follow afar and others reject His Spirit. The hour is late; darkness is already settling on the face of the earth. God’s message is going forth and still, His Spirit cannot penetrate into the hearts of many of you. The scales will not fall from your eyes; you refuse to hear all He is saying. If you would but yield to His Spirit, give more time in His presence, you will behold His glory and know the coming of the Lord is nigh at hand. Then you will rise up and do the will of your Lord.

Some of you have covered your sin; you will not prosper in His sight. You have hidden your sin in your heart until you have deceived your own heart. The Lord knows the way you take; He knows what is in your heart—there is no way for man to hide that from the Lord. Reach out, yielding all to Him in this hour while His love is still available to you. Accept God in His fullness before you draw so far away from Him that you are unable to turn back. Let nothing in this hour cast a shadow between you and your Jesus. Say, Oh, Jesus, forgive me of all my sins! I believe in you, Jesus; I believe your blood cleanses me right now. I know you are the Son of God, and I want only you living in my heart from now on. Come into my heart, Jesus! Come on in! Now believe He has come in. Study His life; pattern yourself after Him and seek Him daily in His fullness. Pray, fast and live in the Word of God.