Expert: Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM, L.Th. - 3/28/2007

Question
QUESTION: I have committed it, and have been convinced of it for two years.  What do I do??
ANSWER: Dear Andy:

No, you have NOT committed the unforgivable sin.

How do I know? Well, if you had committed the unforgivable sin you would not have asked this question and you would not care about doing anything about it.

The unforgivable sin is the sin of rejecting God's grace unto death. The reason it is unforgivable is that the person refuses the forgiveness God offers and then dies. After death there is no second chance.

So, you are still alive and you are worried about do something about your sin. Thus, you have NOT committed an unforgivable sin.

Whatever sin you have committed, it is forgivable. Just go to God and ask Him for forgiveness. If you are Catholic, go to Confession. You will be forgiven if you are genuinely contrite and repentant.

There is no such thing as a sin that cannot be forgiven except the sin of dying refusing God's offer of forgiveness.

Have no fear, my friend, you have not committed the unforgivable sin.

Ask God for forgiveness according to whatever faith tradition you come from, and be free from this burden.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you.  I have been in pursuit of this issue for over two years - ever since I was drawn to open the Bible and read Hebrews 6:4-8 and 10:26-31.  I am 42 years old.  I was raised in a Roman Catholic family, and attended Catholic schools for 12 years.  I was fearful, defiant and rebellious as a youth, and constantly in mortal sin.  When I was between 18-20, I invited a devil's curse on me, and specifically opened my arms to the devil and told him to "come and get me."  I also vaguely recall a time when I privately told God and Jesus that I would never accept them.  During my early twenties, I began to withdraw socially, except for my drug-abusing friends, and staerted to develop severe anxiety and social phobias.  Somehow, I went to law school and graduated at the top of my class, although the anxieties and phobias stayed with me.  Faith and religion had no place in my life.  After law school, these anxieties overwhelmed me, and I dropped into a deep depression.  I met a counselor who is also a Christian.  For a short season, I started to explore the faith again - read some CS Lewis and other things, and invoked the name of Jesus.  I met a woman from a good Christian family who I ended up marrying.  I also got hooked up with a Dr. who diagnosed me with ADD, and prescribed me amphetamines.  I severely abused these drugs for the next 5 or six years.  I don't believe I ever had "ADD" - I believe my mind was confused by sin and the devil.  Within a year of invoking Jesus' name, I was denying his identity as the son of God.  I became filled with lust to an excessive degree.  I openly challenged the truth of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.  I became truly depraved, although I practiced civil rights law and thought I was trying to help people.  I also began having this prophetic feeling that something big was going to happen when I turned 40, and I often expressed this to many people.  Hebrews 3 talks about God's patience with the Israelites for 40 years when he cast them out because of their evil unbelieving hearts.  I believe I have lived this.  I wound up committing adultery and rejecting my wife's pleas to return to her and work on our marriage.  We also belonged to an active urban Christian church, which I completely abandoned as well.  I began to focus on Scientology as the source of my healing - again, I believe I was deceived by the deceiver into looking to this as my remedy instead of to the cross and blood of Jesus.  I wound up suicidal and spent a couple days in an institution where I said I needed a miracle or I would spend the rest of my life in an institution.  This was nearly four years ago - when I was 38.  I had many graces come to me, including the twelve step program, invitations and urgings to go to confession, and a host of other direct revelations of grace, all of which I rejected and persisted in my unbelief.  I read Davinci's code, and remember having the thought that "I knew all of this (i.e., the truth of Christ) was BS."  I also was feeling suicidal, and wrote a note that said "God's will be done."  Within a year, I was finally divorced from my wife, in an adulterous relationship, and abusing drugs again - still thinking that things were going to be good when I turned 40.  I later wrote another suicide letter where I proclaimed my death as my only option and only decision I could make.  I put a rope around my neck and around a tree.  I didn't kill myself then, but feel I died the first death.  On my 40th birthday, I woke up in my filthy "bachelor pad" with no one and nothing in a state of complete terror.  I lost everything, and a couple months later was drawn right to the Hebrews verses I referenced.  I have been living with the fearful expectation of judgment ever since.  Even since then, I have fathered a child with a woman I have no feelings for, and was in a depraved state when he was conceived.  I have been to confession numerous times, been to healers and sought prayers of deliverance; yet I remain convinced that I am in an eternally unforgivable state.  I am so terribly sorry for occupying your time with all of this depravity, but I am at the end, and this will likely be the last communication I have regarding this matter.  I believe my end is to be burned, and send this in desperation.  Thank you for your attention.

Answer
Dear Andy:

Sorry for the delay in answering your post, but I wanted to think about this and pray about it before answering.

Andy, God loves you, He loves you more deeply and completely than any human can love another or that any human can love God. God is love and He loves his children. God especially loves His children who are hurting. I can see that you are hurting, and confused, and afraid.

LISTEN TO ME, Andy. BE NOT AFRAID

YOU HAVE NOT NOT NOT NOT COMMITTED THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN.

There is absolutely NOTHING you have described about yourself that is unforgivable. God loves you and is waiting for you to reach out to Him to ask for forgiveness.

That is all the is needed, for you to reach out to God and ask Him to forgive you for your sins.

The unforgivable sin is rejecting God's grace and offer of forgiveness unto death. That means that if you die refusing God's grace you cannot be forgiven of that sin of rejection. The reason one cannot be forgiven of this sin is because they are DEAD. YOU ARE NOT DEAD. Thus you have the opportunity to ask God's forgiveness.

It is not possible for your heart to be so hardened that you will stubbornly refuse God's grace all the way to the grave. How do I know that? Because you have posted these questions and comments. A person who is literally so hard-hearted as to be hopeless is a person who could care less about committing an unforgivable sin. Such a person would not bother to post a question on a forum like this. They would not care.

You care. You asked what you can do about it. A person who is so hard-hearted as to be hopeless would NEVER ask that question. To them there is no reason to do anything about it.

You care, you asked what you can do about this, you are not dead yet, THUS you HAVE NOT COMMITTED THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN.

You ask what you can do. I will tell you.

RIGHT NOW, stop reading this and ask God to forgive you. God is NOT a liar. 1 John 1:9 says that if we will ask His forgiveness He is faithful to forgive us. That is God's promise and God does NOT lie.

Ask for His forgiveness, He will give it.

But there is more. From what you have said in your post I would recommend seeing a psychiatrist about your depression. It is possible to control depression with medication if necessary.

There is also a spiritual element here. You have given yourself to Satan, according to your story, thus we need to get you back from Satan. You belong to God, not the devil.

This is the area that I can help you with. I would suspect that most of your problems stem from this act of giving yourself to the devil when you were young.  In fact, the ineffectual effects of your attempts to get out of this mess may indeed be due to demonic oppression.

Freedom from the enemy is possible. What I am talking about is not a few deliverance prayers, but a full effort to get any demonic attachment out of your life. This involves hard work on your part. If you will allow me to help you, I will work with you for about two or more months, whatever is needed, to help you find freedom. Our "deliverance" process is a process of counseling and prayers that takes a minimum of nine weeks. Some of our clients have taken six months or more to get through the process, and have found freedom at the end of it.

You have not committed the unforgivable sin. You can be helped if you will allow it.

Give me a call and we can talk and see how we may be able to help you. Call me at 605.882.3768

I and our team will be praying for you. There is hope Andy. God loves you, God is waiting for you to reach out to Him

God Bless.