Meditation: Forgiveness

What you're about to hear is the way that your soul can most certainly be redeemed. God has provided a perfect salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ cast yourself entirely and without reserve on the Lord Jesus Christ and his work on the cross as your only hope for salvation God has given us greatest gift our Lord Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sin. It's a free gift of eternal consequence that brings us peace and reconciliation with a holy God LOI bill right and today on the truth Paul that Pastor Don Green shares a special message titled free forgiveness. Let's join our teacher right now in the truthful you ever stop and think ever stop and wonder why it is the people die. Scripture attributed to the death penalty that God requires percent death entered the world through sin. Romans five verse 12 says if you've ever had someone close to you pass away someone close to you Diane you know that awful feeling of of separation and the sorrow and the grief that attends it and the weight of that. Well, that's just a that that that the measure of that gives us some sort of a measure of the sense with which God views sin is a weighty matter of of sin and guilt, and death. The horror of its guilt. The weight of the severity of the condemnation it deserves can be measured in part by the effects that it produces. And when we feel that weight of separation that occurs at death we get a measure of how much God hates sin and how dark and severe.

Our rebellion is now let me ask you question everyone of you. Let me ask you question that seemed too severe to you. Does that sound like an overreaction on the part of God toward us, I mean after all we all took kind of trying to do our best and really stumble a couple of times but this is what happens. Well, no know if that sounds too severe to you. If the death penalty sounds too severe to you. Maybe you have missed a fundamental aspect of the character of God. A fundamental aspect of the character of God found in his holiness found in his utter righteousness and another familiar passage can remind us of this of his holiness in Isaiah chapter 6 beginning in verse one, the prophet says in the year of king Uzziah's death.

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted with the train of his robe filling the temple seraphim stood above him, each having six wings with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory and the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said well was me, for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah saw a a vision of the holiness of God revealed to him and he was shattered and undone. He was immediately convicted of the weight of his sin and the guilt of his tongue when he was exposed to the holiness of God in similar manner. The prophet Habakkuk says about this God, he says your eyes are too pure to approve evil and you cannot look on wickedness with favor you know you all hear stories from those of the charismatic persuasion, their teachers, their TV personalities saw the Lord and Bob Loblaw. People write books about how they went to heaven and saw Jesus or whatever you can know for certain that those things are not true by the reaction that they describe in having seen the Lord never in those stories. Do you get a sense of the majesty. The majestic holiness of God never are the. The purveyors of these false vision, saying that I fell down at his feet, undone by my sin. But that's the scriptural testimony with those who truly see him look at the book of Revelation, the apostle John when he saw same reaction fell at his feet like a dead man. In light of these truths.

Holiness of God in the universality of our guilt and the depth of our guilt. Beloved. What are we, what are you and I except miserable sinners in the eyes of such a holy God. And we cannot deny that we cannot deny our condition. Scripture says in first John chapter 1.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

In like manner, in the same chapter. It says if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. This is the reality of it are great need for forgiveness are great need for cleansing our great need to be washed from said to be cleansed from our miserable guilt and even as Christians, even as Christians. God's word says in James chapter 3 that we all stumble in many ways. Some of you of more tender conscience more tender disposition feel the weight of that in your you you weep tears of remorse over the ongoing nature of your sinfulness you feel that some of you perhaps are a little bit too self-confident and cocky in your spiritual life. The Scripture would reduce us to utter humility and you know if you think about it my friends.

I speak as one needing these words as much as I speak them needing to hear them as much as I speak them. Think with me if you would even even the best things that we do are marred by sin are marred by in adequacy. JC Ryle says this he says our faith. How feeble our love help hold our works. How few are sealed how small our patients how short breathed our humility. How threadbare our self-denial held more fish are knowledge how dim our spirituality. How shallow our prayers. How formal our desires for more grace how faint we simply cannot.

And we do not measure up to this holy God on our own. Do we do you sin is like a burden that needs to be lifted from our back Scripture describes it as as an arrow missing its mark. It is like a debt that needs to be paid. It is like a terminal disease that needs a miraculous and radical cure. We are all great sinners, we all need a great forgiveness and why is that why do we need a great forgiveness because the Scripture says in Hebrews 9 it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment. Think of yourself truly according to Scripture submitted your mind to the analysis of Scripture of the measure of your soul, beloved, and you'll realize how desperately severe your condition is that apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. You would be heading toward an appointment with God that held nothing but condemnation and eternal punishment in store for you lost and without hope, guilty and without want to intercede on your behalf. What a what a sad and miserable condition. We are by nature well, that's the condition that's our need for forgiveness.

Somehow you and I need a spiritual bath. Somehow we need a thorough cleansing. Scripture says in fact that we need a new birth.

That being dead in trespasses and sins, we are not able to wash away our own sin that they're not only are you guilty, but you are unable to produce anything that would reverse your guilty condition. You see how severe it is.

Let's turn the corner to the way of forgiveness. In light of your undeniable sin. Where can you find forgiveness where can you find cleansing where can you find the cure.

Where can you find someone to lift the burden off of your back that you cannot reach on your own. That would crush you into eternal death. Where can you find a pardon and a righteousness that satisfies the perfect standard of God will, let's just remind ourselves, let's just remember that you cannot find it at the hands of men you cannot find it. From a pastor. I can't forgive your sins. I can't help you in that way I can help you directly. A priest can't forgive your sins. No matter what they say to the contrary there is not a church that can save you.

There is not a ritual that you can do none of that provides the forgiveness of sin. Nothing can remove the stain and I realizes we say these things that these are weighty matters that were considering, isn't it true that the best thing that we could do is to go to God's word and let it speak to us plainly. Let it speak to us truly does to push aside the flattery of the world or the flattery of our own hearts that would tell.

So it's not that bad, old, you're really basically a good person.

Why would we listen to that.

Why would you listen to that from your own heart or from other voices speaking to you.

When God's word so plainly tells you something directly the opposite. Why would you do that you wouldn't reject the doctor who has the reports from all of the tests saying you have a terminal disease and say Dr. you don't know what you're talking about my friend Joe down the street told me I was just fine.

You wouldn't do that in the physical realm.

Why would you do it in the more serious matter of the spiritual realm. When you have not ate not a human doctor declaring the diagnosis. But God himself telling you the state of your soul. Why would you do that God's word says that you cannot do any good works to evade the judgment all of your righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. Isaiah 64 verse six. Beloved. It's not enough for you to be sorry it's not enough for you to have regret in your harder to feel remorse over what you have done and who you have been.

That's not enough criminal may be sorry for his crimes but the court still requires him to go to prison to pay his debt to society. It's not enough to be sorry. There's nothing you can do. You are miserably and helplessly lost, apart from Christ. Where, then, can we find forgiveness where can we find a rescue a deliverance from this miserable condition is there even one to be had. What is the way to God.

Well, the words of Isaiah 53 still echo in our minds don't they.

Isaiah 53 in Scripture points us in the direction where there is relief where there is forgiveness when it says in verse five of Isaiah 53 he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

The chastening for well-being fell upon him. Verse six the Lord is because the iniquity of us all to fall on him at the cross at the cross, where the Lord Jesus Christ stood in the place of sinners just like you gladly willingly, voluntarily market deep in your heart lovingly stood in the place of sinners, as it were, gathered their sins upon his own shoulders and received the stroke of the punishment of God the eternal punishment of God in his own body so that sinners like you could be forgiven.

You realize right you understand, don't you, that that this was an act of sheer grace and mercy that you did not deserve that you could not have called down from heaven in your own merit or in your own power that this was a this was a sheer gift from a merciful God to provide a way out for sinners like that, a gift, at the cost of his own lifeblood without accomplish work of Christ. What is the way to God.

Now when you cannot work for it when you can't be sorry enough. What is the way to God.

Again quoting her brother JC Ryle hear me closely.

I know some of you perhaps are here visiting. Perhaps someone is invited you, perhaps the gospel is new to you what you're about to hear is the way that your soul can most certainly be redeemed and it is not through anything that you do with your hands.

I quote the way is simply to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior is to cast your soul, with all its sins unreservedly on Christ. You must cease completely from any dependence on your own works. Any dependence on your own doings, either in whole or in part, and to rest on no other work, but Christ's work.

You must rest on no other righteousness, but Christ's righteousness, no other merit but Christ's merit as your ground of hope take this course and you are a pardon soul" God has provided a perfect salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ and the way that he has assigned and established for you to partake of that forgiveness is to forsake your own righteousness to forsake any claim to merit and to cast yourself entirely and without reserve on the Lord Jesus Christ and his work on the cross as your only hope for salvation to receive him to receive his work by a simple decisive act of trust in someone else and not in yourself the trustworthy word of God confirms this force acts 1043 says, through his name. Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. Acts 1338 through Christ forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.

Colossians 114. In Christ we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, why are we thankful why are we thankful this week because Jesus Christ in great love and compassion satisfied the demands of the law of God on our behalf through his perfect life and redemptive death on the cross he has provided a way of forgiveness for us that we could not have conceived in our mind, let alone achieve with our efforts. A gracious God 2000 years before you were born made complete provision for the eternal well-being of your soul.

He had an eternal plan that he accomplished in Christ. And now, if you are in Christ. You are the beneficiary of a loving and gracious, merciful plan of God that you did not invent you merely received and in in total disproportion to what you deserved. He has instead given you grace and eternal blessing that we are only beginning to taste of which will one day be culminated in the glories of heaven. Sin has been atoned through his blood, all who believe in Christ, receive a perfect pardon all who believe receive the righteousness of Christ credited to their account as a free gift that reconciles them fully to this holy God who is Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the son of God who came into the world to save sinners is the son of man, who appeared in order to take away sins. In light of his great work.

How is this salvation received turn to the gospel of John with me. John chapter 1 John chapter 1 in verse 12. If you are here and you know that you are not a Christian you know that your sins are still on your soul. Your conscience testifies to you that you have not been reconciled to God.

You know, in truth, that you are still a slave to sin that you have not lived your life for God's glory that these thoughts don't have never even occurred to you my friend let me invite you to this word of God. The promises you an immediate eternal perfect gift of forgiveness that can be yours right this moment in John chapter 1 verse 12 it says, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Do you see it.

My friends does it echo and resonated in your heart fresh again that the gift of salvation is not something that you earned it was something that you received is a free gift from the hand of a gracious God, that God did it work directly on your soul to to open your blind eyes to unstop your deaf ears to loosen your mutant tongue to see the grandeur of Christ and the gracious gift of a total and complete salvation of all of from all of your sin a a a magnificent deliverance that was perfect in every respect and given to you and received this gift. Salvation does not come by works, but through faith in Christ. What is this faith what is it like for those of us that are in Christ, let us remember refresh and what I'm about to read the the simplicity and the beauty of what God gave to us in the manner in which it was received. For those of you that are not yet in Christ here. The simplicity of the way that all of your sins can be forgiven and you can be reconciled to a holy God that you can receive new life in Christ and be set free, not only from not only from the penalty of sin, but to be to have the power of sin in your life, broken like a dry branch snapped in a new prevailing principal of holiness established in your heart.

I quote again from JC Royal. How do we receive this gift.

He says and I quote faith.

Simple faith is the only thing required in order that you and I may be forgiven that we will come by faith to Jesus as sinners with our sins trust in him rest on him, lean on him commit our souls to him and forsaking all other hope Cleve only to him.

This is all and everything that God asks for let a man only do this and he shall be saved. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith and this not of yourselves, it is a gift of God not as a result of works, lest any man should boast. Do you know Christ by faith. Have you received him by faith in the way in which we've spoken here he invite you now you can be immediately and instantly forgiven and saved forever by putting your faith in Christ alone. Don't wait. Thinking that you make yourself better before you come to Christ.

It doesn't work that way you won't get better. For those of you that are in Christ. Remember refresh that it was entirely on background that you came. Christ said come to me and I'll give you rest. And here you are. Months later, years later, for some of us. Decades later and we still have that rest because he saved us to the that's an important reminder that salvation does not come by our own works but by the work of the Holy Spirit that produces faith in Christ. You can't earn it. It's a free gift bestowed by the gracious choice of our sovereign God before the foundation of the world.

Pastor Don Greene will bring you more powerful teaching from Scripture next time on the truthful and we do hope you'll join us. Then, but done before we leave today what your encouragement to someone listening, who's begun to realize that maybe they've not receive the free gift of forgiveness through Christ. Yet, my friend, if that's you today. I can only encourage you to go directly to Jesus Christ and ask him to have mercy on your soul. You know the guilty tax collector cried out said Lord have mercy on me, the center Jesus Christ is the friend of sinners and he will receive you if you go to him. The Bible promises that whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. My prayers with you as you see Christ in your hour of thanks Don and Fran, don't forget to visit the truth. Pulpit.com to learn more about this ministry that's the truth. Pulpit.com now for Don Greene on Bill Wright we pray you been encourage. See you next time. For more from the truthful