Address—Bruce Conrad
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Good afternoon. Let's begin our meeting this afternoon with him, number one in the appendix.
Hymn #1.
Forgiveness, which was a joyful sound to guilty sinners doomed to die. We publish it the world around and gladly shout it through the sky.
The first three were much transgression is forgiven. May love with fervent ardor grow some brother could start a suitable tune to hymn number one in the back of the book, please.
Or Lord Jesus, we thank Thee for the opportunity today to open Thy Word and to consider things from it.
We consider thy great love for thy people shown out so fully.
My willingness to come, as we often seen from Godhead's fullest glory down to Calvary's depth of woe. We thank Thee too, Lord Jesus, for Thy present work for us on high, interceding for us. It's our great High Priest, the Captain of our salvation and our Advocate with the Father. We thank Thee for Thy care and Thy deep, deep love and investment in US. How Thou art acquainted with all our ways.
Thou art so interested in us and we bless thee and thank you for this.
And so as we open thy word, we pray that thou bring before us that which would be for the a blessing and profit of thy people. And we just commit the time to thee, and ask these things for Jesus in thy worthy and thy precious name. Amen.
Well, perhaps, as you saw from the hymn selected, I would like to speak about the subject of forgiveness.
You know, sometimes brothers up here and they start the meeting out with prayer and they say I asked the Lord to.
To speak to them as well as to the persons that are in the in the meeting room or in the hall.
And it's not just a formality. I'm sure others who have been in this had this responsibility. It's, it's uncanny the way after you speak on something, uh, you're, you're riding home or you're on a trip the next day or you're back at work. And some of the things that you brought out, it's just as if someone else had brought them out the day before. And you ponder on them, you know, and they touch your heart and they, and you're more curious about them than you were before.
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Your conscience may be exercised, and this is, uh, this is an interesting thing. I see some smiles out there and that is indeed the way it worked. I spoke on, uh, uh, Full disclosure, I spoke on the subject of forgiveness once earlier this year in another conference. My exercise then was totally different than it is right today. I just took up a little part of it and then after speaking about it, the Lord just kept flooding me with the subject.
And I really been, uh, like a learner on it. I felt a little disingenuous taking it up.
Because I had taken it up once before for that reason. And then I heard a brother, uh, another Bruce and he, he made a comment that I found interesting. He said this particular labor from the, uh, 19th century, his name I won't mention, but he said, yeah. He says, I don't really fully understand the subject until I've spoken on it four times. And, uh, I don't recall ever purposely speaking on a subject twice.
And when I think about that brother's gift and ability, it would take me 40 times to speak about something to, to ever, uh, gain in my understanding like, like his was.
But at any rate, that's, uh, a little bit of, uh, of, of, of, uh, of preamble here because my thought is to take it up more comprehensively than I have before as I've pondered it and seen that there are more aspects to it than I perhaps realized the last time I took it up. So if you turn, please, to Luke 24 and take up the subject of forgiveness in the way that most of us know it best.
And that is the subject.
Of the eternal forgiveness of sins that you and I have received by putting our trust in Christ in Luke 24. The Lord Jesus there.
Inverse UH-47. He's.
With the two that he encountered on the way to Emmaus.
In verse 45 then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and saith unto them. Thus it is written, And thus it behoove Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And then turn please to Romans chapter 3.
Passage that was read this morning at the.
Breaking of bread.
Romans, chapter 3.
And verse 24, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission or passing over of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time his righteousness, that he might be just.
And the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
I suppose the younger ones here, raised in Christian homes, have had the gospel preached to them, talk to them, uh, shared with them.
Before, they probably can't remember the first time it's been part of the of the fabric of their lives.
And it's perhaps not a a, a, a something that we realize that here in Luke 24, we have turned a corner in God's history, the history of God's ways with men on the earth.
In Romans chapter 3 we read here that God through the work of Christ, through the mercy seat, has declared.
His righteousness, that's this is God's righteousness. The gospel in Romans is concerning his Son. It's not primarily about you and me, though we're part of this great sphere of blessing that he is, uh, accomplishing presently for the glory of his son. But the Gospels concerning his son and in the gospel, this good news, he is revealing his righteousness.
It's God's righteousness, and so here in this passage in Romans chapter 3A, well known passage, God declared at the cross of Calvary His righteousness for passing over sins that are past. That's not your past sins. That's not my past sins, though they're all forgiven when we put our trust in Christ. These are the sins of those men and women of faith that we had referred to the other day in Hebrews 11.
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These are the sins of the Old Testament believers that have faith in God as it as it says of Abraham. It says it doesn't say Abraham believed in God though we did. Abraham believed God and it's one thing to sit here young people and to believe in God says the devils do also entremble, but to believe God is to believe what he says.
And Abraham believed what God said.
And God imputed it to him for righteousness. And that's the righteousness of faith. And Abraham was justified in faith. But if you walked up to Abraham, or if you walked up to any of the just men and women of that age before the cross, and you could say, say to them, do you have your sins forgiven? Do you know for a surety that you're going to be in heaven? I think they had a sense of optimism because they believed God, but it wasn't.
A thing accomplished then, and so it wasn't something that could be preached that a person could believe God and receive as a present possession the forgiveness of sins. And if you put your trust in Christ today, that's what you have. You have as a present possession the forgiveness of sins. So we read in Ephesians one or Colossians one, those precious verses we read.
That we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
It is a present possession. It has to do with God, not with man. You'll recall when the Lord Jesus healed someone when He was here on earth, He said to them something that one of those persons, something very striking. He says go and sin no more, lest the worst thing come upon you. Hmm. Did He say that to you when you accepted Christ as your Savior?
He didn't say that to me when I accepted Christ as my savior because it was a different type of forgiveness.
That the Lord was speaking about when he was here on earth before the cross. And it was a different type of forgiveness that David was rejoicing in even when he when he pinned by divine inspiration in the 32nd song. Blessed is the man whose sins are covered. And it's one thing to have something covered, isn't it? It's one thing to have something. I'll deal. We're having company and I've got 1/2 Constructed something or other in my yard and I cover it over.
Umm.
That's one thing. It's another thing to have it taken away. In the book of Hebrews we read about sins taken away, sins removed, and since the work of Calvary's cross.
Forgiveness is no longer just something that's promised in the future as it was to Old Testament Saints. It is preached now as something that can be had now, today through faith. And as I say again, if you put your trust in Christ, you have the forgiveness of all your sins, all your sins. They were all future as as we might look at it in time to the Lord Jesus Christ when he died on Calvary's cross.
Your passage, your future sins. And sometimes people get confused and troubled about that.
They were all future in your life. And when we put our trust in Christ, we can say all my sins have been put away by the sacrifice of Christ. Through His precious blood. I get the value of what He accomplished on Calvary's cross. When I put my trust in Him, I received the forgiveness of sins, the work that put away my sins.
Is something that can be never changed. It's an eternal transaction. I can't.
Undo it. I didn't do it in the 1St place. He did it. He accomplished it. And when I put my trust in him, all the value of what he has done flows out to me and I have received this from him forever. You know, if you, if this little little boy here transgresses about against that boy there, I can encourage him to apologize. I can encourage him not to do anything. But he didn't sin against me.
And when the Lord Jesus spoke.
And, and he, he said in the hearing of some religious men, he said to the person that he had healed, he said, thy sins be forgiven me. And they were all up in arms. They said, who can forgive sins but God only. They spoke the truth. Nobody can receive sins in this way but God only. And that is the point of the Lord Jesus, that that Son of God came and he has the authority to put away sin.
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And so God in through the prophets.
And, and the Old Testament prophecies prophesied of a forgiveness that would be accomplished in a future day. Righteousness, forgiveness of sins was promised. And when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, the work of atonement having been accomplished, now we're in a new That's why in Romans three, I think it says to declare at this time.
At this time.
When you see that word now in in the book of Romans or another New Testament epistles, take note of it because it speaks to something that is now that wasn't before. And so we have the forgiveness of sins and God wants us to have settled peace, that peace between US and God has been made by his work on Calvary's cross. He doesn't want the answer that sometimes you hear from people and you say you may labor with.
As we have with some of our relatives and explain the gospel and put the word of God before them. And the next day when you're getting ready to leave, you say now if I don't see you again and I hear that you've passed away or you got you drowned on the ocean, well, I see you in heaven. Are your sins forgiven? Well, I hope so. And you know.
You feel so a little deflated. I hope so. God doesn't want. I hope so from you. He once I know so from you.
And he's made provision for that. And the gospel is preached to you as something that has been accomplished, that you can lay hold of and possess now the forgiveness of sins. And when you have that, he gives you assurance. We read 1/2 a dozen times in the New Testament about assurance, assurance of hope, assurance of faith. And God wants you to be sure that you're on right terms with him, that you're good with God to say in, in, in American sway that there's nothing.
Positionally between you and you can say that you would know that you're accepted with God and this is the truth of justification, which we will not digress on, Lord willing today, but a wonderful line of things that is as well to realize that not only has the work of Christ justified me with respect to my sins when I look back, but I look forward in the other direction and I see that I have justification of life.
I have been assigned a place before God, as the hymn writer had put it. We stand accepted in the place that none but Christ could claim. We have a life that is impossible of sinning. We have a life that has no sin attached to it. We have a life that cannot sin. And God sees us now in our position as justified. It's not just as if you hadn't sinned somewhat. People used to say that justified means just as if you didn't sin.
Well, you may not have sinned, but maybe you could in the future. That's really not the thought. It's better than that. We have justification. We read in Romans of life and he wants that assurance. I was in to us to have that insurance. I was reading the other day a little bit in Jo in the story of Joseph in in the book of Genesis. And I had never noticed before how many times Joseph weeps at the very end of his life when his brethren are back there in Egypt. I think I counted briefly. I didn't have much.
Time and I was just reading a little bit I think I counted 7 times you wept maybe maybe it's eight you can check. But the last time he wept it was interesting because it's after Jacob his father had died and they buried Jacob and it was a great burial and then his brethren they get nervous and they say you know Joseph has been so kind and so loving to us while our father was alive and they kind of.
Talked it as I read it, a story to send, send a messenger to Joseph as if it were from Jacob saying, umm, you know, dad said that after he dies, you're supposed to still be nice to us. I'm not quoting it, obviously. Exactly. Joseph wept. He wept. He, you know, he had done so much for them. He had the distinct sense that God sent him before them to preserve their life, to save their life by a great deliverance and now all the riches.
Of Egypt at their disposal and his heart was to them way above the fact of the occasion of their sin in betraying him to the to the slave traders. And so in a similar way, if you sit here and you think somehow that it's a pious thing or a holy thing to doubt your own salvation, you're just flat out wrong God does not take pleasure in that kind of a of an emotion or a feeling in your.
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Goal He wants to give you the assurance of faith and to know that your sins are forgiven and that you're accepted and you're good with God. Why I'm gonna get to that, hopefully, Lord willing here. And so let's turn now to umm, to 1St John chapter 2 for another aspect of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not the peak.
Of Christian blessing, we maybe can say if we can. Just gonna sort them out a little bit.
Neither is it the end or the culmination. I can remember when I was, uh, when I was first saved as a young man and uh, in the joy of my first days and weeks of being a believer, I just felt like, you know what? I remember walking down the lane to my house and thinking my life is 100% success.
Just take away my life. It's just 100% success.
That which I sought after that which troubled me.
And, and, and and left me with such a feeling of confusion and emptiness, without direction, without hope, all of that now gone and realizing that I knew the truth in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In a certain sense, I said, and I don't mean to speak irreverently. Let's like stick a fork in me. I'm done.
And I remember having the sense that if I just walked down and just died right there, I felt like, you know, you should write right onto my tombstone success because I was brought to Christ and I had that eternal relationship with the very God of glory. But I was very wrong because my life at that sense at that time was just beginning. And so it is with you and me as believers. God has saved us for a reason.
He has invested the pain, the suffering and sorrow of His beloved Son on Calvary's Cross and all that contradiction of sinners leading up to it for a reason. Why did He save your soul, and why did He save mine? He wants our company, as we had in the reading in First John. He wants our fellowship. He wants our company.
So as we had in the reading in in uh.
In John 17 and we flipped back a little bit to 1St John chapter one, the Father and the Son before the worlds were made. The Son was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. And there was that perfect fellowship and commonality of thought and everything else. And it's in was in God's purpose that that fellowship should be shared with the sons of men.
That's one of the aspects of God's wonderful purpose that we, you and I, sinners of the Gentiles, are the Gentiles.
Dogs not worthy to eat the crumbs.
Well, the children's table.
He has exalted us, lifted up the beggar from the dumb hill to.
Set us among Princess.
That we might have fellowship with the Father and with the Son.
And so.
If we read in first John chapter one.
Verse seven. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ. His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Yes, he wants our company, wants our fellowship.
When the Lord Jesus, as we read John 17 the other day, he addressed God, Holy Father, He's the Holy Father. We are in dwelt with the Holy Spirit, We have been positionally made holy, we have been sanctified by the work of the Spirit unto belief of the truth. And it says in the passage we just read, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.
In other words, we're not deceiving others because they know that, even though we're children of God.
And even though we're believers on our way to heaven, that we're still capable of of displaying the flesh of displaying that old nature, humbling as it is. So if we are have the mistaken notion that we have no sin, if that sin principle is doesn't exist in us anymore, we're deceiving ourselves. But then there are sins. And so it says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
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And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This second act of forgiveness here is not the first aspect of forgiveness. That is, we could call it eternal forgiveness or judicial forgiveness. As I was saying with the analogy of the young boys, sin ultimately and primarily is against God. When David expressed that Psalm of repentance, he said against thee, and the only have I sinned?
I believe that was in the occasion of Uriah the Hittite.
And you could honestly say to yourself, are you kidding me? He doesn't think that was a sin to defraud Bathsheba in that way. He didn't think that was a horrible sin against Uriah to take his beloved wife like that and then to have him killed and then to cover it. It was a sin against those other individuals. But I think what pressed on David's soul was was was his.
The rekindled fear of God. He had sinned against God.
And so if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This type of forgiveness has been called restorative forgiveness.
And this forgiveness is based upon confession. And so when we get away from the Lord, whether it's for an hour or a day or a year or 20 years, the way back is open to us. If we were to read in the second chapter, And I don't want to spend too much time on this in the second chapter, in the first verse, if any man's sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ the Righteous.
And so.
God's investment in US.
The Lord Jesus occupation and investment in US is such that all of us have an advocate with the Father.
And if we send the Advocate works in our souls through the Holy Spirit to lead us, the goodness of God leadeth us to repentance, and leads us as the fruit of repentance to confession and the process of restoration, so that we would judge the the cloud that has come in to rob us in a practical manner of fellowship of the enjoyment of our place, our position, of our.
The older brothers and and when I was young used to speak about communion a lot.
And I think it was brother Barry used to speak about communion. It was like a spider's web, he says. So easily broken and and indeed.
Our foolishness, our distraction can break our enjoyment of that relationship. It doesn't damage the relationship with the position. It takes away from the enjoyment of it. And so it says here we have an advocate not with God as such. We have peace with God, but it says we have an advocate with the Father.
We have relationship. God is our Father, and he wants our company, He wants our fellowship. And in order that that fellowship and that communion be maintained, we have to judge ourselves. And so we could read in First Corinthians 11, when the subject of the Lord's Supper was taken up, the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said.
I'm trying to think of the verse before.
I think it's around the 32nd of First Corinthians 11. I'll just turn to it briefly here. Let a man examine himself.
And so let them eat of that bread and of that cup, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily. It's, it's, it's how you do it.
Edith and drinketh damnation or judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
And so.
When we allow sin to come into our life in a practical way, breaking the experience and joy of that communion and fellowship, the way back is through repentance and confession. If we confess our sins, it doesn't say he's merciful and kind to forgive us our sins. It says He's faithful and just. And it says that because the truth of propitiation is brought out in that passage, showing that God is faithful to.
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He looks at the work of Christ and he says that those sins were paid in full by the work of my Son, and God is faithful and just to the value of that work and to His Son. And on that basis we continue on in our relationship and The thing is confessed and judged and God can righteously resume.
Cause us to resume the enjoyment of that relationship, you say? Well, what about a horrible sin? We're gonna get to that next.
You know, I was encouraged really when I was young, reading. I remember hearing Adrienne Roach when I used to visit in Dorothy all the time.
Brother Roshi said, he said, when I was young, I, I read through the the Pentateuch by CHM and it laid a good foundation for my soul. I remember him saying that like it was yesterday. And I thought, well, he seems like he's got a pretty good foundation as a teacher. And I started to research CHM myself and reading through the Life and Times of David. I was very encouraged because I.
I don't know which book it's in, but in one of the books he says, you know, the life of a St. it's it's like 1000 fallings away and 1000 restorations. And the kind of restoration we need is not just if we do some horrific or horrendous thing like the case in First Corinthians 5, it's just getting cold and getting away from the Lord in our soul.
And it's a wonderful thing that even a natural thing sometimes, maybe it's just older people get this way. You get so tired, you just physically worn out and you just marvel. You say, I can't believe how tired I am. This is like, this is incredible. And you lay down and you go to sleep and you wake up and you say, I can't believe. How does sleep work? This is a miracle. How does it work that you just lie down and you lose consciousness?
And you wake up seven or eight hours later and you feel we have energy again. It's really a miracle. And natural life is a miracle. Nobody fully understands it. Spiritual life is that way, too. I remember staying at A at a home once when I was in my early 20s.
And also in in Dorothy and this older brother was also staying there in Holloway's house and having coffee in the morning and, and all of a sudden the brother came out of his bedroom and Mrs. Margaret said to him.
But called him by name and says, how are you this morning? And he said, I'm wonderful. He restoreth my soul.
And I thought, whoa, I didn't know brothers like him needed to have their souls restored. I figured I needed to have my soul restored like a couple times a day, but but not him. And I've never forgotten that 40 years ago. And it is a wonderful provision of God for our souls that he can freshen us that way. The psalmist said, I think it's in the 19th Psalm. The law of the Lord is perfect.
Restoring the soul brother at breakfast this morning. I want to digress too far.
Brother at breakfast this morning was recounting how he went back to, to some place in his childhood experience and he pulled his car over and sat there. And I, I, maybe I'm getting his story a little bit mangled up, but he's saying, you know, I was just remembering the freshness of my joy in Christ. And those of us especially saved a little later in our youth or, or, or a as adults, we could remember. And the Lord remembers that too. He says, I remember.
The love of thine espousals will now run after me in a wilderness.
You know, and not so he values, he values that and in Revelation chapter 2, this the Spirit of God addresses the Saints in Ephesus and says thou hast left thy first love. And it's beautiful that he says it that way because people always quote it. You've lost your first love as if you can never reclaim it. You can reclaim it.
You can have it back.
You can have it back tonight or tomorrow.
Maybe you have it back.
You can leave it. You can have it back. You restoreth my soul. I wouldn't tell you I, I, I'm happy to say I've known the Lord now for many decades. I wouldn't exchange the joy I had as a new convert for the joy I have today and the appreciate the appreciation I have today for my beloved God and Father and for my Savior that soon I will see.
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And so.
Restorative forgiveness is a beautiful thing. Confess our sins doesn't say we have to ask for forgiveness again.
Doesn't want us to ask for forgiveness again. You have forgiveness of your sins. Judicially. It's based on the work of Christ. It's forever and cannot be changed.
But if you've gotten away from the Lord, he wants you to confess your sins and he's faithful and just to forgive you and he restoreth he the Psalm psalmist says in Psalm 23, he I think it says restoreth my soul. Well, what if it's chronic, though? What if we it's not just as CHM said thousand fallings away in 1000 restorations. I think he was speaking about the life of David. What if it's chronic and we really get off into.
We get away from the Lord. Let's turn to Galatians chapter 6.
Keep my eye on the time here.
Galatians, chapter 6.
Verse 7 Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. He that soweth to his flesh, shallow the flesh reap corruption, when he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
There is a subject in the Scriptures that is good to understand and is called we. We call it, I guess we call it this, the government of God.
And if there's one principle that sort of, uh, expresses that line of things, it's diverse in Galatians 6, uh, chapter 6 that we just read, and it applies to Satan's Sinner alike, so that even if an unbeliever organizes his life and walks in an upright manner, in a manner of human righteousness, he'll have a better life.
But it's even a child of God, on the other hand, that knows that he has secured his eternal destiny with Christ, lives carelessly. God is not mocked as a man, doesn't say, as a believer, as a brother, as a man. Souls, souls shall we also reap? And so we reap what we have sown.
Am I not eternally safe? I am indeed.
But.
Allowing sin to continue its outbreak in my life.
Draws through the love of God His chastening hand.
There are other things which draw his chastening hand. Chastening is a good thing. We had it last week in Denver. That's the subject of chastening. It's a privilege. It really literally means instruction.
We receive instruction. When you were brought into God's family, unbeknownst to you and me, we were enrolled in the School of God.
God had already started our instruction before we were saved.
Picked your parents, picked where you would live, picked all kinds of things, picked your physical limitations or or lack thereof, and we're in the school of God.
And he has a custom curriculum for each one of us. And he puts us through things not because necessarily we're careless or or or naughty or something, but to instruct us. He took Job, a righteous man, and he instructed him through many, many long chapters until Job was blessed more than he was at the beginning.
And so there is God's interest in us in chastening to to to prevent the apostle Paul had a thorn in the flesh and he prayed that it would be taken away, but he got peace from the Lord who who communicated to him that it was going to stay is that is that under the government of God. It's the chastening. It's the instructive hand of God. He puts you and me through experiences that.
Prepare us for something we don't know we're going to encounter. He puts us through experience or in circumstances that prevent something that he knew might happen in our tendency.
And the brother told me lately, you know, there's no time when the, when the man who I forget what you call the husbandman is closer to the vine and to the fruit than when he's pruning it. It's the closest he probably ever gets to those grapes, to those vines is when he prunes. And so he prunes us too, that we might bring forth more fruit. But if we're careless and chronically careless, I would say, then God allows his governmental hand upon us, not just for our.
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Benefit. But there's angels looking, there's the community looking, there are others looking. We think of David in his life in the sin of of Uriah the Hittite and so on. And even after David confessed his sin and he received assurance from God that he would not die because he had he was forgiven. God also had forgiven your sins. But David started out on a long, long rope.
Through the government of God.
And the prophet told him that you have given great occasion of the enemies of the Lord to blasphemy, and the sword is not going to depart from your house. And we know the sad story of how four of David's sons were taken from him. And so the government of God is a serious thing for you and me. We can say it's the government of our Father. And so there is an aspect of governmental forgiveness as well.
And if we judge ourselves?
If we real, if we have some sense, if you have some sense in your soul that God has allowed something in your life for a reason, and the Lord gives you a sense of that reason. And there are two things that the Lord looks for and He found them in Job at the end of the account in the book of Job, He looks for repentance, and Job repented. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine I see thee, and I have repent, and I abhor myself.
Repent and dust and ashes. And then he prayed for his friends. And it was important that he had that broken gracious spirit with his friends who had so spoken so much truth in a out of context way that wasn't representative of what the Lord was doing in Job's life. And Job felt that and he when he prayed for his friends.
God removed that governmental.
Uh, uh, gift that he had given him in his life. So there is such a thing as governmental forgiveness. There is such a thing as being restored in your soul and not having governmental forgiveness.
And so David, was he the rest of his life mourning and and and on his face like he was when he was first convicted? No.
But he was under the government of God the rest of his life, and yet the Lord restored unto him, as we read in the Psalms, the joy of his salvation.
And and so it is. So it is in our lives, God. God's ways are higher and beyond us. And he allows us at times to not receive governmental forgiveness in a thing, but he has already given us restorative forgiveness. We have joy. And as we mentioned before, it's a wonderful thing that the grace of God comes in for us to minister to us as we experience.
His government isn't that unique. He comforts us, He strengthens us, He encourages us, gives us grace to bear up under the circumstances of life that are difficult, that is allowed in our lives for blessing under His governmental hand who teacheth like Him.
And so we could go on about the government of God. It's a large subject, but there is governmental forgiveness in the book of James or at the end of John we read about if there are any sick, let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And if he hath committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
And so there is this aspect, it's not the oil, by the way, it's the prayer of faith. It's very interesting. And so there is this aspect of things that we, it's helpful to be intelligent about God's ways with our brethren, God's ways with us and restore restoration of communion does not mean that we sometimes don't have to reap the serious things we've sown in our life and we can reap them and still be in communion with the Lord while we do so.
And that's next aspect of forgiveness.
Is really connected with governmental.
And it's personal. It's personal forgiveness. So if we turn back to Matthew Chapter 5.
Or Matthew chapter 6. I'm sorry.
Matthew 6.
And verse 14, If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not mend their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Now let's turn to Matthew 18.
Verse 21.
Then came Peter to him to the Lord, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him till seven times.
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Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until 70 * 7.
So that we refer to them. Let's hold your finger there and let's turn to Ephesians chapter 4.
Ephesians 4.
And verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. And then over in Colossians 3. Since we're traveling in that direction right now anyway, Colossians 3.
And verse 12 put on therefore is the elect of God.
Holy and beloved bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel or a complaint against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And so it is plain in this aspect of things.
How God looks for that fruit in our lives.
We have the mind of Christ.
We have learned that we've been delivered from so great a death. We have been forgiven so much. And so it is normal to the Christian life if we are offended by something someone says to us or some circumstances, what whatever it might be, we can take it to the Lord. We realize, you know.
Yeah, they did that. You know, I've probably done the same thing. It's not that we we painted as if it weren't something that it is.
But we forgive, we have a forgiving spirit. And so if we turn back to Matthew 18, the Lord puts before the disciples this parable of the Kingdom of heaven, like in verse 23 of Matthew 18 likened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him 10,000 talents.
So I understand this is multiple millions of dollars. That's a big debt.
But for as much as he had not to pay, as Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. Now just a note to stop here, as you can I hope, surmise. This is not eternal forgiveness or judicial forgiveness. It cannot be fought with money. It cannot be paid for.
The salvation that God has wrought for you and me, and the forgiveness of sins associated with it.
Was purchased by Christ.
You and I could never purchase it if we diligently worked our way for it for a million years. So the aspect of forgiveness in this parable is not judicial. It's not eternal forgiveness or eternal status with God which fits a person for heaven. It has to do with one another and with our attitude towards one another. And there are ramifications that are very serious in our failure to forgive one another and to walk.
In humility with our brethren. And so to continue verse 26. The servant therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me and I will pay thee all. He didn't deny that he had the debt. He acknowledged the debt. That's confession, repentance. Have patience with me. I'm in the wrong. I owe you this money.
Have patience with me.
And I will pay the bill.
Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. This is what we would call governmental forgiveness. I should say that governmental forgiveness really has to do with this life. It's this life.
Judicial forgiveness, the first one we spoke about. Eternal forgiveness, has to do with eternity.
Different sphere, different mechanics, so to speak, and so forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants, which owed him an 100 pence, and laid hands on him and took him by the throat.
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Saying, pay me that thou owe us.
And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Same language, isn't it?
And he would not, but went and cast them into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw it was done, they were very sorry.
And came and told unto their Lord all that was done. Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me.
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on my fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee, and as Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him?
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses.
And so the solemn thing here.
Is that this kind of governmental forgiveness can be revoked. It was revoked here. The forgiveness given to this debtor was revoked and he was as it says there in verse 34, his Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors.
And what I learned here and I learned it in other passages in Scripture, is that if I fail to show the forbearance.
Forbearance is when.
I am irritated by something in another.
And I it just has the tendency to push me into a attitude that is not of God or if I receive some action or words or something from another.
Then forgiveness is required. Forbearance and forgiveness we read in Ephesians 4IN Colossians chapter 3.
And the sobering thing is that if I don't walk softly with my brethren and if I don't follow morally the path of our Savior who said he could have described himself in a myriad of ways, but he chose to say I am meek and lowly.
The one who's gonna come out of heaven with 10 thousands of his Saints on a White Horse.
Who seated upon his father's throne, the other shoe is about to drop on this world.
Judgment will fall, and God will be glorified in His judgment. That same one to you and me.
He just he chose to point to being meek and lowly. And how this becomes us. We have been forgiven so much, so much. We could never repay any of it.
As the brother was saying this morning, I think it was in the breaking of bread. The Lord Jesus is the only one that is given to God.
And if we turn around, having received that forgiveness in our harsh with our brethren and holding them to a hard line.
Not exercising forbearance.
Refusing to forgive what happens. Does it damage them? Well, yes, it's not pleasant.
With them, but I if I conduct myself that way and turned over to the torment, to the tormentors and myself, I experience in my Christian life this kind of emotional and spiritual upsetment, if I could call it that, of a perpetual nature that is from God to speak to me about my spirit.
You'll notice at the end of I think 4 different epistles.
Of the apostle Paul.
He says something along the lines of the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy Spirit.
And God is the Father of spirits, and in Hebrews 12 He describes himself that way and allows things in our life that he might perfect that, as I think Job said, perfect that which concerneth me, that He might grow us now, that we might be more and more morally like His Son.
This is sobering and not only am I tormented myself by failure to forgive with respect to personal offense, but it creates in the assembly in the family. It deteriorates into a root of bitterness whereby many are defiled. And in Hebrews 12, the Spirit of God puts his finger upon it a couple of verses back and says, looking diligently.
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Lest any man fail of or fall from the grace of God. And what does that mean?
That means we are our brother's keeper and we're to seek to discern if our brethren have our brother or our sister has lost the sense of the grace of God that God is for me.
That's one of the roots of this, to fail to see that God is for me.
He's for me. And when I lose the sense that God is for me, I start to interpret my circumstances wrong. And I don't process the bumps and bruises of life and the cuts and the scrapes and the offenses and the thing little things that come into my life. I don't process them with spiritual intelligence. I don't process them with grace.
And I can lose the sense that God is for me, and I can become bitter.
Chronic disappointment leads to bitterness, and bitterness is one of the worst roots in the human heart.
And it has the added negative of defiling others.
And so these aspects of forgiveness are connected. We're told to forgive others as Christ also hath forgiven us. Goes way back to the first type of forgiveness we mentioned, eternal judicial forgiveness. We have it if we put our trust in Christ.
If we don't keep short accounts, as the old brothers used to say, keep a short account with God, judge ourselves, we might walk happily in the joy of communion and fellowship with Him.
Than these chronic things can come up in our life and we experience the government of God. And if I bow under his government by confession and repentance and have a forgiving spirit in my personal interactions.
Than many times gone will roll back and give governmental forgiveness. You'll notice in the book of Jonah we had Jonah before us last week and the brother pointed out.
Just in the passage, how when Jonah spoke his prophetic message finally to Nineveh, the king of Nineveh made everyone in the country put on sackcloth, if I remember right and repent and, and, and dust and ashes, if I remember right, and the Lord relieved them of that, of that judgment, there was governmental forgiveness for Nineveh.
The last aspect of forgiveness we touched on briefly is what we would call administrative. And so if we go to John chapter 20.
The Lord Jesus having risen from the dead.
Meets his disciples.
Verse 22.
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.
In Matthew 18, if we were to turn back there, we read again that that the two or three that are gathered together to the Lord's name, You don't have official church structure there in Matthew, but what what you bind is bound in heaven. What you're loose is loosed in heaven. And so ju jump to the end to 2nd Corinthians chapter 2. Most are familiar with the.
With the.
Uh, egregious sin committed by one of the men in Corinthians to take his father's wife. And the Corinthians failed to respond to that properly. They at least should have mourned and grieved about it and they didn't. And the apostle Paul takes them up on it in First Corinthians 5 and tells them to put away from among themselves that we could person.
But by the time he writes the 2nd letter, he has to encourage them the other way. And so in Second Corinthians chapter 2, if I can spot it here.
Umm.
And verse 6.
Sufficient to such a man is this punishment or censure which was inflicted of many, so that contrary wise you might rather forgive him and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with over much sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him. For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether you be obedient in all things.
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To whom he forgive anything, I forgive also. For if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes, forgave I it.
The person of Christ.
And so sometimes we speak of people that have been put away like this, which is really the end of discipline. Discipline, properly speaking, takes place when a person is within the assembly. And there are various aspects of discipline that can be laid on a person for their benefit and for the for the for the order of God's house.
When all discipline seems to be ineffective with a person.
Then the assembly reaches the point where it puts away from among themselves that wicked person saying that discipline is not is, is to no avail. And they put the person outside and God deals with them in that outside place. And so then we say, sometimes we say, well, so and so is restored. I don't mean to make anyone an offender for a word, but.
Restoration is something spiritual that takes place in a person's soul.
The proper word, I suppose, in our English language, as far as I know it, in the King James, would be to forgive a person. And so when a person shows evidence of when they have confessed, which is an action, and when they have gone through the process of repentance, which takes time, then we see that God Forgives, which is an action, and there's restoration, which takes time. It's a process.
And when we see that when the brethren are are feel clear before the Lord.
And what do they do? They receive the person back. And he's really the language of Scripture.
He's forgiven not as to his sins. Who can forgive sins judicially, but God only, but administratively, the person is forgiven in the language of 2nd Corinthians 2. They're brought back into the assembly and the love that they always had for him or her can be confirmed. And it's important to notice. And we skipped over it with respect to the personal offense, but in Luke 17.
It says that my brother trespass against thee rebuking.
And if you repent, forgiven. But in Matthew 18, it's the heart. And so we're always to have that forgiving spirit, but it is not necessarily the Lord's mind to communicate that to a person.
Until there is that evidence of repentance on their part, oftentimes in a confession or an apology or both, and then the love that should always be there in the Spirit can be confirmed. And so these are different aspects of forgiveness. Our time is gone. This is not the highest subject that we could take off in the Word of God. But you know, we have, we have, we are a needy people.
And God has fitted us with what we need, and we need various things in our toolbox as Christians really, for our earthly pathway here that we might be able to understand and have more intelligence.
As to God's ways with us individually and with each other, that we might be able to, uh, respond properly to what he brings into our lives and into the lives of our brethren. That we might be able to go along and be fruitful for his glory, to enjoy the gift of the present possession of the forgiveness of sins, to go along in communion, to be restored quickly.
When we get out of sorts with him.
To realize that we are all in good ways and in challenging ways. We are all under the government of God in our lives, the government of our Father. And then make sure that we are diligent with our brethren, that we are on good terms, and that we things that come up are mended and healed and addressed properly in a scriptural way with love and grace in the heart.
And then in the assembly that we have the joy of seeing some who err from the pathway.
Seeing the happy joy that many of us have seen when a person is happily brought back and takes their place again with their brethren to wait for the godson from heaven together with the rest of us. Let's just pray.