PT-4 "God's Pardon" (Forgiveness) (Matt. 6:12)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/2/2020 1:04 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-4 “God’s Pardon” (Forgiveness)

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 6:12

 

            Message of the verse:  “12 ’And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

 

            The first thing that I want to do in this SD is have a little bit of review of what we have been looking at.  First we looked at four principles in this phrase found in Matthew 6:12.  1) Sin makes man guilty and brings punishment; 2) Forgiveness is offered by God on the ground of Christ’s death; 3) Confession of sin is necessary to receive that forgiveness from God; and 4) the knockout punch of this passage—forgiving one another is an essential part of receiving forgiveness for ourselves.  Now from those four principles we have been looking at four words, and in our last two SD’s we looked at the first one which is the word “sin.”  Now today we want to look at the second word, which is “forgiveness.”  Now the other two words that follow sin and forgiveness are confession and forgiving.  These two words will be looked at a later date.

 

            We have come to the conclusion that sin is the problem and since that is true then forgiveness is the provision.  Forgiveness is God’s passing by our sin.  It is His wiping our sin off the record, and it is God’s setting us free from punishment and from the awful guilt. 

 

            Now I want to quote the first part of this section from John MacArthur’s book “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer,” and it looks like we will take a couple of days to do this for one would have to admit that forgiveness of our sin and our sins is the most important thing that any person can have so we will take our time looking at this.

 

            “It is essentially bound up in what Micah 7:18-19 says:  ‘Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?  He retaineth not His anger for every, because He delights in mercy.  He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.’

            “Isn’t that great?  God in the Old Testament says ‘I will remember their sin no more’ (Jeremiah 31:34).  It can be summed up in four simple statements:  Forgiveness is taking away our sin, covering our sin, blotting out our sin, and forgetting our sin.

            “Isaiah 53:6 says He has taken the iniquity of us all and laid it on Christ.

            “Psalm 85:2 says, ‘Thou hast covered all their sin.’

            “Isaiah 43:25 says, ‘I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.’

            “And He remembers our sins no mere.  God literally eliminates our sin.

            “If we ever get to the place in our Christian lives where this becomes common place, we have lost that joy of understanding forgiveness and have hit a dry place.  How thankful we should be for such a forgiveness!  It is only possible because of Christ.

            “God could not pass by our sin unless He placed the punishment for it on someone else, and that is why Christ Jesus died.

            “There are two kinds of forgiveness.  One is judicial forgiveness, and the other let’s call ‘relational’ forgiveness.”  (Now in his sermon he called it parental forgiveness because of the first words of this prayer “Our Father.”)

            “Judicial forgiveness views God as a judge.  He says, ‘You’re guilty, you’ve broken the law, you’ve under judgment, condemnation.  There has to be punishment.

            “But then that same Judge says, ‘On the basis of Christ’s death, He bore your punishment.  He took your guilt.  He paid for your sin.  The price is accomplished.  I declare you forgiven.’

            “Through salvation, full complete, positional forgiveness is granted by God as the moral judge of the universe.  And by that act of judicial forgiveness, all our sins—past, present, future, committed, being committed, and to be committed—are totally, completely, and forever forgive, and we are justified from all things forever.

            “When does that happen?  The moment you invite Jesus Christ into your life.  The moment you are redeemed.  The moment you place your faith in Christ, your sin is put on Him and His righteousness is put on you, and God judicially declares you justified.”

 

            I have to say that this is the best news anyone can ever have, and there is a bit more of this good news we want to talk about, so we will save it for our next SD.

 

12/2/2020 1:35 PM