The model of what it means to be a good shepherd is found in the Bible, in Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.

There was a time in the history of Israel known as the Exile. It happened when the Babylonians were expanding their empire, capturing and dominating territories and nations, one after another. Over a period of about 25 years they dominated the land of Israel more and more, taking away captives in three waves, until finally they captured and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, and they chained up most every one left – every able-bodied man, woman, and child left in the city – and marched them to Babylon where they were sold as slaves, scattered all over the Babylonian empire. Ezekiel grew up in the years leading up to the Exile, and his ministry as a prophet took place in Babylon, during the early decades of the Exile. And God told him to prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. And this is what Ezekiel said.

Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them (Ezekiel 34:2-4).

Then, on the basis of this indictment, Ezekiel continued:

So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them (Ezekiel 34:5-6).

Scattered. The sheep have been scattered. Why has this happened? It is the fault of the shepherds. The sheep are scattered, partly because of the negligence of the shepherds, partly because of the harshness of the shepherds. The next few verses go on to indicate that now God is against the shepherds. Since the word pastor is just shepherd in another language, this is a passage that people called to pastoral ministry do well to ponder.

And then Ezekiel declared this, as the word of the Lord:

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God (Ezekiel 34:11-15).

So. Psalm 23 gives us the model of what it means to be a good shepherd over the people of God: the good shepherd gathers the flock, brings them to good pasture and still water, and restores the soul of any who get into trouble along the way. Ezekiel 34 gives us a burning indictment of how bad it is when bad shepherds take care of themselves but don’t take care of the sheep: the sheep get scattered and lost. And Ezekiel 34 goes on to insist that God is the one who will come, in order to fulfill the ministry as The Good Shepherd, gathering the flock back together after it has been scattered by the failures of the bad shepherds.

It is against this background that we need to consider how Matthew reports on the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day, about ten centuries after the time of Psalm 23, and six centuries after the time of Ezekiel. Matthew 12 is a complex chapter, and we can’t cover it all in one sermon. But the primary thing we have to see is that there is a stark confrontation going on between Jesus and the Pharisees. Here’s Matthew 12:22-32:

Then they brought to [Jesus] a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see. All the crowds were amazed and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons.”

He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered.

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:22-32).

And let me read verse 30 once more, with words Jesus addressed directly to the Pharisees: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

The Pharisees were the religious leaders, the moral teachers, the Bible preachers: they were the shepherds of Israel in the first century. Christ’s accusation against the Pharisees was that in their opposition to him, the Pharisees did not gather in the lost or needy sheep; instead, they left them to perish, or actively drove them away and scatter them. The gathering and scattering of Ezekiel 34 are echoed by the gathering and scattering of Matthew 12:30. In each case the religious leaders are expected to care for the people: and they have failed to do so.

Matthew expected Christians to be serious Bible readers. He expected we’d see the allusion to Ezekiel 34 in this admonition about gathering and scattering. And we’d recall what God promised in Ezekiel 34, “I myself will search for my sheep … I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep,” and we would see Jesus as the fulfillment of that promise. Yet Matthew did not want to make it too easy. He wanted his readers to remember this promise and see that it is fulfilled in Jesus, but he did not want to give it away. He wanted to give us a chance to discover it for ourselves.

But there’s always a risk when the teacher leaves part of the lesson for the students to discern on their own, isn’t there? There’s a risk that we might not get it. So Matthew carefully provided one more clue.

In Mark 3:1-5 and in Luke 6:6-11, we find the story of a healing on the Sabbath. As Mark begins to tell the story, he notes how the opponents of Jesus were looking for a reason to accuse him. Then Jesus asked his opponents this question: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” The sequence in Luke 6 is the same. But Matthew also tells this story, in Matthew 12:9-14. There’s the man with the withered hand, and the Pharisees trying to figure out how to bring an accusation against Jesus. And then Jesus asked them a question: but it’s a different question than what we read in Mark and Luke. Jesus asked them this: “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep!”

Well. What kind of person would rescue a sheep that fell into a pit? A shepherd would do that. Any shepherd worthy of the name – which is to say, a good shepherd – would rescue that sheep.

So earlier in chapter 12 Matthew included a saying of Jesus that would give his readers the image of a good shepherd rescuing a sheep that fell into a pit. It’s a deliberate move on Matthew’s part, giving us that clue about a fallen sheep to help us recall the prophecy about the shepherds of Israel from Ezekiel 34, so that when we heard Jesus talk about scattering and gathering, we’d get it.

That makes this verse a stern admonition, and at the same time it makes it a haunting invitation. “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” If the Pharisees do not put themselves on the side of Jesus, if they do not get about the work of gathering with Jesus, then they are against him, and in fact show that they have become the bad shepherds who scatter the flock. Those who are against Jesus thereby prove themselves to be the shepherds whom God is against, in Ezekiel 34:10. It is a stark warning to church leaders, to pastors, elders, and deacons, to all who seek to lead God’s people. If we are not with Jesus, we are against him. If we do not gather with him, we are those who scatter the flock.

Yet at the same time it is an invitation. We could be those are with Jesus. We could be those who, following the example of Jesus, help to gather and restore the lost sheep.

That point of invitation develops out of a healing. Matthew 12:22 reports: “Then they brought him a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him.” A man unable to see, unable to speak, held fast by some demonic power: and now set free. Surely this was cause for great rejoicing and celebration All the people in the crowd were amazed, it says. But not quite everybody was happy. The Pharisees explained it this way: “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons.”

Now when you are determined to find fault, you will find fault. Haters gonna hate. When your heart is full of injured self-righteousness and you need to blame your troubles on someone, you will find a way to blame them. That’s how it was, with the Pharisees. They were so opposed to Jesus. So angry. They were looking at this astonishing moment of restoration. They were looking at a man whose life was so crippled, now made whole. They were looking at one of the lost sheep so thoroughly trapped in the pit, now set free. And they scorned it. “It’s evil,” they said “This healing: it’s the work of the devil.”

We want to watch how Jesus rattled off three quick responses to this accusation. First, in verses 25-26, he pointed out that if Satan is divided against himself, one part of the kingdom of evil fighting against another part, then Satan’s kingdom is about over, and that’s good.

For the second response, we’ll jump ahead to verse 29: “How can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man?” The image is of how the power of Satan imprisons people, they become his possessions, possessed by the devil, they cannot escape from his house as he keeps guard over it, and no casual passerby out on the street is going to set them free. They are trapped forever in the strong man’s possession, unless someone comes along who is mightier than Satan, who can tie him up: after that, then the rescuer can easily take away the strong man’s goods, setting free those whom the devil has possessed. To bind the evil one and set free those whom he has captured: this is not a work of evil, but a work opposed to evil, a work of good.

Third, back to verse 27. “If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out?” Maybe Jesus’ words were ironic here, because the Pharisees didn’t actually have any exorcists with the power to bind the strong man, and set free those who were possessed by demons. But maybe he intended his question literally. If some of the Pharisees were engaged in ministries of healing and restoration, did the Pharisees call that work evil? Clearly not: the Pharisees would call it a good thing, whenever one of their exorcists set someone free from bondage to the devil.

So these three quick responses all point to this reality: it’s a good thing, when someone enslaved to great evil is set free. That’s not the work of the devil. It’s the work of the Spirit of God. And so the summary comes in verse 28: “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.”

But what if you were so opposed to Jesus that you refused to see the great good that is there, when someone who has fallen into the pit is lifted up and rescued by the Good Shepherd, and what if instead you looked at that work of the Spirit of God and called it evil?

The great promise of the gospel for forgiveness is found in verse 31: “people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy.” The sin you can’t quite believe you could ever be forgiven for. The sin you want to keep holding against someone else. Every single sin will be forgiven, including those that keep you feeling guilty, and also those you use to keep other people feeling guilty. It’s on the authority of Jesus that we can say what we couldn’t possibly say on our own authority: every sin will be forgiven.

Except – there’s always an exception, isn’t there – except the blasphemy against the Spirit. What’s that mean? God the Father is going to forgive all your sins, it says in verse 31. And what if you get angry at Jesus, what if you say something nasty about Jesus? You’ll be forgiven for that, too, it says in verse 32. But if you speak against the Holy Spirit: that’s deep trouble. Why is that?

If you talk bad about Jesus, he doesn’t hold a grudge: you’ll be forgiven. But what if you talk bad about the Holy Spirit? Will the Holy Spirit hold a grudge? It sounds like the answer has to be Yes: trash talk against the Holy Spirit one time, and you’re toast. Forever. You will never be forgiven for this, not now and not in eternity.

But this isn’t about the Holy Spirit getting all huffy. Instead, it’s about the fact that the ministry of the Spirit of God is the means by which the Lord sets us free. Notice the work of the Trinity in verse 28: the kingdom of God comes to us, as Jesus the Good Shepherd casts out the demons by the power of the Spirit of God. But if you spurn the power of the Spirit to set you free, then how will you be set free? If you refuse to see the difference between the Spirit of Holiness and the spirit of evil, if you reject the Holy Spirit who comes to draw you up out of the pit and transform you to become one of God’s holy people, then how will you be set free?

The Pharisees saw this lost sheep of a man hopelessly trapped in a pit, and they expressed no concern about how they might help him. Yet God said, “I, I myself will rescue my sheep,” and the Spirit of God empowered the Good Shepherd to rescue that needy soul. And then the Pharisees called it evil. Because they didn’t realize, they’re in the pit, too. Just like me. Just like you.

We are all the ones who have fallen and can’t get up. As long as we refuse the power of the Spirit to set us free, we remain stuck. But the promise of God is to rescue us: “I will shepherd my sheep.” The Holy Spirit of God – the genuine presence of the God the Shepherd! – comes to us, like the staff of the shepherd reaching down to lift the sheep out of the pit. If the sheep in its pain and terror bleats out blasphemous words as it squirms out of reach, the Shepherd will not shrug and walk away. And the Shepherd’s Crook doesn’t get mad and refuse to provide any more help. Still, the sheep doesn’t have any other way to get out of the pit: it is trapped there forever, with no possibility of rescue, except for the Shepherd and his Staff.

People often misunderstand this saying of the unforgivable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, reading the words in isolation from their context here, and worrying that they might have committed this sin, placing themselves beyond the possibility of forgiveness. But taken in context, the words specifically apply to the Pharisees, who have seen Jesus setting free a man beset by demonic forces, and they respond by trash talking the Spirit, looking at this miracle of restoration and labeling it evil, the work of the devil.

It’s about the Pharisees. But it might also apply to me. Or to any of us. It could be you. It’s like you slid off of your life’s path of righteousness into the quicksand of some sin that grips your soul. You cannot get free of it. You will inevitably perish. But wait: Someone tosses you a rope, to draw you out of the quicksand. Suppose you spurn the rope, you are too proud to admit your need, you call the rope stupid or useless or evil. The rope will not hold a grudge. But you cannot get out of the quicksand on your own. If you deny the goodness of the rescue the rope offers you, you are lost forever, because you have no other way to get free.

The Spirit of God comes to set us free, to break every chain, to lift us out of every pit, to draw us out of the quicksand. We are fallen and trapped, confused and hurt and angry and desperate: and often as self-righteous as any Pharisee. But let us simply acknowledge our need, and rather than refusing the Shepherd’s care, let us allow the Shepherd to lift us up, by the power of the Spirit of God: so that we can be those who are with Jesus, so that we can be those who gather with Jesus. In the power of the Spirit of God, that’s who we can be.