Common Mistakes/Misconceptions/Counsels

Introduction: The Conditional Nature of Forgiveness

0:04 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, June 1st, 2003, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now as we did this morning, so again this evening I ask you to follow with me as I read two brief portions out of God's Holy Word. The first is in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31 and 32, as Paul is setting out the alternate lifestyle of the new humanity in Christ, contrasting what the people of God are to be with the Gentiles who yet walk in spiritual darkness and ignorance and hardness of heart. He directs the people of God, And then in Colossians chapter 3, verses 12 and 13,

1:24 Put on, therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving each other. If any man has a complaint against any, even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. We return tonight to the series of studies concerning the biblical teaching on forgiveness, especially the forgiveness that we, the people of God, are to be constantly extending and conferring upon one another. And thus far I've attempted to give you a brief summary of what the people of God are to be with the Gentiles who yet walk in spiritual darkness and ignorance, attempted to show the central place of forgiveness in biblical revelation, to set forth a biblical definition and description of forgiveness,

2:39 and then to demonstrate that God's forgiveness of us is both the basis, the motive, and the pattern of our forgiveness of each other. And then this morning we address the crucial question, What are the conditions? What are the conditions without which forgiveness is neither conferred by God nor received by the sinner? If God's forgiveness is the pattern of our forgiveness, then it is crucial to ask the question, Is God's forgiveness of us unconditional, or is it conditioned by something in the sinner?

3:23 And so we turn to our Bibles, and I trust all of us were persuaded that both in entering into life, that is, in conversion, and in the ongoing experience of the Christian life, that is, in sanctification, God's initial forgiveness of us as a judge, and His continual forgiveness of us as a father, are conditioned by the repentance, and faith of the sinner. No sinner has any right to say that God has conferred upon him the wonderful gift of forgiveness, and that he has savingly received the gift of forgiveness, if he's a stranger to repentance and faith. For we have the clear word of Jesus, except you repent, you will perish, and he that believes not shall be damned. And likewise with the child of God. He who covers his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy.

4:38 And it is if we confess our sins as the children of God, that he is both faithful and righteous to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so we, I trust, were persuaded out of the Scriptures, that God's forgiveness is conditional forgiveness. Those conditions are not meritorious. They are not self-wrought.

5:07 Nonetheless, they are conditions which God in His moral government has established as absolutely essential before He will confer forgiveness, and before the sinner can truly receive forgiveness. And then I reminded you, that in the act of forgiveness itself, particularly thinking of horizontal or human forgiveness, the one who forgives makes a solemn four-pronged promise. When you say to someone who has asked your forgiveness for a specific sin, I forgive you, you are making this promise. I will not knowingly remember this thing against you. Secondly, I will not speak of this thing to any others. Thirdly, I will not raise it with you again. And I will not allow it to be a barrier in the restoration of our relationship.

Mistake #1: Confusing Relinquishing Vengeance with Granting Forgiveness

6:13 Now this evening, in the time allotted, in preparation in one sense for our communion time, but basically as a continuation and an addendum to our study this morning, I want to lay out before you some of what I regard as the bad counsel and the misconceptions with respect to the subject of human forgiveness. My subject is common mistakes concerning the duty and privilege of mutual forgiveness. And I have four mistakes that I want to identify, and as I have wrestled with my Bible, as I have read much literature on the subject of forgiveness, it seems to me that these are common mistakes and a failure to recognize these biblical distinctions can only result in confusion of thought, which in turn will give birth to confusion in experience. Life is determined by thought. Doctrine shapes practice. And so I want to address these common mistakes concerning the duty and privilege of mutual forgiveness.

7:31 Mistake number one is a failure to distinguish between the relinquishment of vengeance and the granting of forgiveness. A failure to distinguish between the relinquishment of vengeance and the granting of forgiveness. When we are sinned against, especially if it's a serious offense, or we perceive that we have been sinned against, our instinctive sinful response is, I'll get even. I will pay you back for what you have done to me.

8:15 Now according to the Scriptures, no Christian at any time, under any circumstances, is to retain this disposition of vengeance. The I'll pay you back disposition has no place in the heart of a child of God. I'll pay you back or I wish I could pay you back. These are dispositions utterly forbidden by the Word of God.

8:46 In Romans chapter 12 and verse 19 we have this very clear directive given to God's people who are to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. And here they are told in verse 19, Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance belongs unto me. I will recompense, or literally, I will pay back, says the Lord.

9:20 Here the child of God has been wronged. He has been offended. He has been sinned against. And the instinctive temptation and desire is to be the pay-backer himself.

9:35 To take into his hands the responsibility to pay back another for the wrong that has been done to him. But this text says, No, you child of God are not to avenge yourself, but you are to give place to the wrath of God. You are to place vengeance in the proper hands. God alone, who is the divine paymaster, will repay anyone who has sinned against you if that person's sin is not repented of and forgiven in the way of God's appointment, God will pay him back.

10:17 But payback is God's prerogative, not yours. Even the desire to pay back and to take that place is a usurpation of one of the rights and prerogatives of God alone. And so when there is something that would create in my spirit a disposition of vengeance, I am immediately to recognize it and say, No, Lord, vengeance has no place in my heart, in my spirit, in my mouth, in my hands, in my actions. Vengeance is your business, Lord.

10:56 You will pay back. None is to take vengeance but those appointed by you. And right on in chapter 13, the apostle makes it plain that God has deposited the right of vengeance in certain circumstances in the hands of human government. Verse 5 of Romans 13, Wherefore you must needs be in subjection not only because of the wrath, but for conscience sake.

11:23 I'm sorry, verse 4. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain. He is a minister of God and a venger, same family of words, for wrath to him that does evil. God says vengeance is mine.

11:40 I deposit in the hands of human government a certain dimension of that vengeance. I don't put it in your hands to take personal vengeance upon anyone else under any circumstances. Now this is what often happens. Someone is deeply, grievously wronged.

12:00 And the spirit of acrimony and bitterness and vengeance takes root in the heart. And the spiritual life comes to a horrible, horrible, crippled state while vengeance has any place. The pus-sacks of vengeance in the soul create a very unhealthy and sick soul. And so there is a child of God who feels something of this vengeful spirit and they recognize before God they come across a passage like this or they're very conscious that their prayer life has become very dull and lifeless.

12:40 The heavens are brass and they're saying, Lord, what is it? And God puts his finger on the fact you have a vengeful spirit in this person who has wronged you. You have a disposition that says, I want to get even. If I could and get away with it, I'd kill him.

12:57 If I could and get away with it, I'd severely beat him up. I would do something to harm him. Vengeance has that disposition throbbing through it. And then that individual believer sees his sin, comes before God and says, Oh God, forgive me for my vengeful spirit forgive me that I've had this spirit of vengeance that I ought not to have allowed to percolate into the substructure of my soul.

13:27 Oh God, forgive me for my vengeful spirit. And they relinquish vengeance into God's hands and there is a tremendous relief in their souls. Once again the heavens are opened as they pray. Once again there is a sense of communion with God and freedom and health but what often happens is that they think what they've done is that they have forgiven the one who provoked them to be vengeful.

13:57 When in reality they have not forgiven them because that person has not owned his or her sin. The cause of the offense is still there. What they have done is relinquish any thought that they have a right to vengeance. And unthinking or uncritical writers have constantly made the mistake of confusing the relinquishment of vengeance for the extension and conferral of forgiveness.

14:29 And the two are not the same. It is perfectly right for someone who has relinquished his own sense of right to personal vengeance to still desire that God will bring vengeance in his own way and in his own time for the glory of his name. How do I know that? Well you turn to Revelation chapter 6 and here there are people who have so attached themselves to Christ and been willing to confess him against all opposition that they've been martyred.

15:09 They've been put to death for the sake of the Lord Jesus. And we read in Revelation 6, 9 these words When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. Here are the glorified spirits of martyrs under the altar. Now how did John see souls?

15:39 You ask the question so have I I don't know but it says he did. Sorry, I don't have any other answer but it says I saw underneath the altar souls of them that had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus. They are part of the company we read about in Hebrews this morning. The spirits of just men made perfect.

16:03 Their spirits are fully sanctified, fully purged of all the remnants of remaining sin with which they struggled even as they went to their death for Christ's sake. And what are they praying? Verse 10 And they cried with a great voice saying, How long, O Master, the holy and the true, do you not judge and avenge your blood on them that dwell on the earth? You see, if giving up vengeance as a personal right means forgiveness there'd be nothing that these people would need to have as the occasion of crying to God for vengeance. If they had, quote, unconditionally forgiven those who killed them, why would they now be praying, How long, Lord, before you avenge our blood? Do you see the absolute contradiction with the notion of unconditional forgiveness and that putting vengeance in God's hands means that I forgive the person towards whom I had the vengeance? No, they are distinct and separate issues.

17:21 I am never, never to have vengeance in my soul, but for me to commit into God's hand the taking of vengeance when appropriate in His own time and in His own way is a noble, is a righteous and a holy issue. And I believe that a lot of confusion has come into the matter of mutual forgiveness by not making this distinction between the religious and the non-religious. I am sorry, yes, the relinquishment of vengeance and the conferral of forgiveness. I can relinquish vengeance toward people whom I do not forgive. For they have not owned their sin nor sought my forgiveness. And my forgiveness of them is not to the unconditional. If it is, then how do you make sense of this passage?

18:23 God doesn't say to Christians, vengeance is a naughty word in the Christian vocabulary. Forget it! No, God says vengeance is mine. Just put it in my hands, not in yours. And so much confusion, I say, comes by a failure to make that first distinction. Mistake number two is a failure to distinguish between the disposition of a forgiving spirit and the act of conferring forgiveness itself. A failure to distinguish between the disposition of a forgiving spirit and the act of conferring forgiveness itself. God Himself takes the position of one who is described in Psalm 86 5 as ready to forgive.

Mistake #2: Confusing a Forgiving Spirit with Conferring Forgiveness

19:19 We saw in our study of Exodus 34 when God revealed His glory to Moses. It was part of His essential glory. That He is a forgiving God. And He takes the posture to men of readiness to forgive. For thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive. God stands in readiness to forgive. As we saw this morning in the incident of David, God's forgiveness to His sinning, wayward, backslidden child was beating at His heart. God's forgiveness was like a dammed up wall behind the door of God's heart wanting to burst forth and inundate David.

20:03 And as soon as David said, I have sinned, the dam broke. And David is swallowed up, inundated, overwhelmed with God's gracious forgiveness. But the disposition to forgive is different from the act and the conferral of forgiveness. And here I want us to turn to Luke chapter 23. One of the most misunderstood passages of the Word of God. Our Lord Jesus has just been impaled upon the cross. Verse 33 of Luke chapter 23. And when they were come to the place that is called the skull, there they crucified Him.

20:48 And the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. It would have been the Roman soldiers who stretched His hands out, pounded in the nails, who raised the cross, sunk it into its hole. So when it says that they crucified Him, it would have been the Roman soldiers as well as the malefactors. One on the right hand, one on the left. And Jesus said, Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. This text is often brought forward in the literature I've read to show that we are to have an attitude of unconditional forgiveness to anyone, no matter what they have done to us. That's what Jesus did when He said, Father forgive them. Well let's notice first of all, what this what these words are not.

21:39 These words are not a declaration of what Jesus is doing. Look at them. They do not say that Jesus said, Father I forgive them for they know not. This is not a declaration of what is going on in Jesus' own activity of mind and soul.

22:00 He does not say, Father I forgive them. It's not what the text says. Secondly, it is not a statement of absolution. It is not a statement as Father they are forgiven for they know not what they do. Nor is it a statement of absolution directed to them. You are forgiven for you know not what you are doing. That is not what the text says. What does the text say?

22:34 It is a prayer that Jesus prays to His Father. He prays this prayer in His sanctified holy humanity, which has just borne all the indignities that we've just read about in those words in John's Gospel. He's borne the blows with the hands, the crown of thorns, the mock coronation, all of the jeering, the buffeting, all of the horrific treatment. And now He's been impaled upon the cross. And in His holy sanctified humanity, what is the disposition of His holy soul? It is one expressed in these words, Father forgive them. Now is Jesus praying that irrespective of repentance and faith, those foul-mouthed, cursing, brutal, heartless soldiers should there and then be absolved from their sins? Is that what the words mean? So they

23:39 could go home that night and say, Hey, honey, you know what happened? I got saved standing by the cross today. I heard Jesus pray to His Father that I'd be forgiven. I'm forgiven! That's nonsense. Nonsense. What about the leaders in the Jewish hierarchy who would have heard Him say, Father, forgive them. Would they go home that night comforting themselves? We're forgiven.

24:07 They heard Jesus pray, Father. He prayed to His Father, we'd be forgiven. We're forgiven. Nonsense, dear people.

24:13 Don't make nonsense out of the words of Jesus. They're not words stating what He was doing, I forgive them. They're not words directed to the people of absolution, you are forgiven. Nor is He praying that the Father would grant them forgiveness in the court of heaven without repentance and faith. That would overturn everything we saw in the scriptures this morning. So what is it? It is the expression of the deep, holy disposition of the soul of our Lord Jesus that was a disposition of forgiveness even towards these that put Him on the cross, both directly the soldiers and indirectly the Jewish hierarchy. And He says, Father, forgive them. That is

25:09 if they come to the place where they own their sin, Father, take into account they don't fully understand what they are doing. The Roman soldiers do understand to some extent they've been the lackeys of the pressure of the Jewish hierarchy, but they do not fully understand what they are doing or the one to whom they are doing it. Father, show mercy in the light of their partial ignorance. And even the Jewish leaders do not fully understand for Paul said later, had they known what they were doing, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.

25:47 And Paul could say mercy was shown to me because I did what I did in murdering Christians ignorantly in unbelief. Jesus is reflecting the disposition of His heart that can find extenuating circumstances even in the hands of those who put Him on the cross and is saying, Father, my disposition is one of forgiveness extended towards them, but nothing of forgiveness conferred upon them. Now, blessed be God, some of these very ones, some days later, on the day of Pentecost, when they are charged with being murderers of God's Messiah, they are pricked in their heart and they cry out, what shall we do? We looked at it this morning and this morning, Peter says, repent and be baptized unto the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This prayer of Jesus is a beautiful, overwhelming, humbling manifestation of this disposition of a forgiving spirit that we must maintain to those who treat us with the greatest disdain and heap the greatest amount of evil upon us. There is never an act done to us that

27:16 warrants the killing in us of a forgiving spirit. If you ever think there is, go to this prayer. Am I making sense? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

27:34 And then this very attitude is mirrored in the first martyr, Stephen. In Acts chapter 7, Stephen has preached to the Sanhedrin, indicted them for showing the same pattern as their forefathers, has described them in Acts 5, I'm sorry, Acts 8, 7, 51 and following. You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You do always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did so to you.

28:14 Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed them that showed them before of the coming of the righteous one of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers. You who received the laws it was ordained by angels and kept it not. And he crossed the line with that language.

28:34 They gnashed on him with their teeth. They picked up the boulders and they began to stone him. And we read these words. Acts chapter 7 and verse 59.

28:45 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. Now what was his prayer to the Lord Jesus? Was it Lord Jesus here and now blot out their sin irrespective of whether they continue to have a stiff neck and an uncircumcised heart and resist the spirit?

29:25 Would Stephen be so foolish as to ask God to convert forgiveness upon stiff neck and uncircumcised people then and there with that condition being unchanged? Of course not. But he's manifesting the same spirit of his blessed Lord while the rocks are pummeling down upon him. Men are doing their worst to him. He is saying, God, the disposition that was in my blessed Lord when he was impaled upon a cross is the disposition which by the spirit has been implanted in me. It is a prevailing disposition of forgiveness towards these sinners. And if they will meet the conditions of forgiveness, no one will be more delighted and happy. If I know what happens on earth when I'm received into heaven, none will be happier than I, Lord.

30:23 I long that they will know the blessing of your forgiveness if and when they meet the conditions for the reception of that forgiveness. Not irrespective of it. And would Stephen himself forgive them? Yes, he's saying. And if they would repent before you, God, and own their sin before you, and were they here now to suddenly fall upon their knees and say, Stephen, we have sinned grievously in what we've done to you. Can you forgive us? Yes, the prevailing disposition of my heart is one of forgiveness, even in the direction of those who would take my life. I believe that most likely, I'm not being dogmatic, but most likely that this is the meaning of Mark 11 and verse 25.

31:21 And whensoever you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any, that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. Here there's no indication of interpersonal interaction at this point. I think what the passage is saying, that if you stand praying, and certainly part of your prayers, if they are biblical, will be asking God for the forgiveness of your sins, make sure that when you ask God for the forgiveness of your sins, you pray with a heart that has as its prevailing disposition an attitude of forgiveness with respect to others. And I say a failure to distinguish between the disposition of a forgiving spirit and the act of conferring forgiveness itself creates tremendous confusion, and it can bring dear servants of God into miserable bondage. Listen to one of the old writers that I told you was such a comfort when I found him. It's the commentary on Matthew by an old Baptist commentator.

32:37 But like many terms expressive of Christian duty, the word forgive has come to mean, and is often used in a weakened sense, and many anxious minds are misled by its ambiguity. If forgive means merely bear no malice, abstain from revenge, leaving that to God, then in some sense we ought to forgive every wrongdoer, even though impenitent and still our enemy. But this is not the scriptured use of the word forgive. And in the full sense of the term, it is not our duty or even proper to forgive one who has wronged us until he confesses the wrong, and this with such unquestioning sincerity and genuine change of feeling and purpose as to show him worthy of being restored to our confidence and regard. Thus our Lord says, If thy brother sin, rebuke him. If he repent, forgive him. Here again, the example of our heavenly Father illustrates the command to us.

Mistake #3: Confusing Unilateral Covering of Sin with Bilateral Forgiveness

33:49 In his good will he sends rain and sunshine on the evil and the good, but he doesn't forgive men, restoring them to his confidence and affection until they sincerely and thoroughly repent. Thirdly, mistake number three is a failure to distinguish between a love motivated unilateral covering of the sin of another, and the bilateral interaction of conferring forgiveness upon another. A failure to distinguish between a love motivated unilateral covering of the sin of another, and the bilateral conferring of forgiveness upon another. 1 Peter 4, 8 Above all things, Peter says, have fervent love among yourselves. Why? He says because of what love among yourselves will do when it is fervent love.

34:57 It takes a great measure of love in its active high expression for this to be true. Fervent love among yourselves for love covers a multitude of sins. The standard word for sin, hamartia, the missing of the mark of God's standard of absolute righteousness. And Peter most likely had in mind two verses from Proverbs.

35:25 Proverbs 10 and verse 12 Proverbs 10 and verse 12

35:35 Hatred stirs up stripes. If you've got a hate-filled heart, there'll be all kinds of sins. I used the term this morning, peccadilloes. That's not a second cousin to an armadillo. It's a sin, but it's a little sin. Hatred stirs up stripes. Why? Because there's always enough raw material for stripes If you want to go blowing on the coals, using the bellows of exaggeration and overly sensitive feelings to blow on them, hatred will find a thousand ways to stir up stripes. But love covers all transgressions. Love covers all transgressions. And then 17.9 He that covers a transgression seeks love but he that harps on a matter separates chief friends. Now again,

36:41 people don't make this distinction. Is it right and proper for me when someone else has sinned, sinned against me or just sinned in general? Is it right on many occasions for me to see the sin and to choose unilaterally to cover that sin with the blanket of fervent love? Yes, Peter says above all things, have fervent love among yourselves because love goes around with a whole sack full of blankets. And it just delights to cover sins. If by covering that sin, I am not doing harm to the brother who has sinned. You see, it's not a sin which, if unrebuked and unreproved and undoubted will cripple him, ruin him, possibly lead him into hardness of heart and apostasy. No, those kinds of sins the Bible is clear. Exhort one

37:36 another daily, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. If we see a sin that could cripple a brother, it is not love to cover it. It is hatred that does not love him enough to run the risk of him getting ticked off at me for coming to him and lovingly exhorting, reproving, admonishing him. But where it would not harm him to leave it unrebuked, it would not poison the church of Christ to leave it undoubted.

38:08 It would not be the leaven that leavens a little lump, a little lump that leavens the whole. And I make a discernment, a judgment, and you can't come up with a list. I know you want a list. There isn't any list.

38:23 You've got to exercise spiritual discernment and judgment. When it is such a sin, and it's a sin, I can unilaterally impelled by love, cover it. And that's a virtuous thing to do. A virtuous thing to do.

38:41 Love covers, in that sense, all kinds of transgressions. If husbands and wives don't have a sack full of blankets, they've got a rotten relationship. If every time your wife sins, you feel you've got to rebuke her, I wouldn't want to be your wife for a thousand worlds. And vice versa.

39:03 If you're a wife who thinks any time my husband deviates from absolute conformity to the moral law of God in every area, I'm going to get on his case. And no love that covers the multitude of faults. Yes, there is a scale of issues. God's patient in His dealings with us, and we need to reflect Him in our dealings with one another. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities us. Doesn't expect us to grow up equally in all areas at the same time. Some of you are far more strict than God in the way you deal with your spouses. Love covers the multitude of sins. But now listen. The Bible does not call that forgiving. It calls it covering. It's a unilateral act. I choose to take out a blanket and throw it over the issue.

39:55 You don't know about it. Nobody else knows about it. It's a transaction between me and God and you that you don't know about. I've just thrown the blanket over it. You see that?

40:05 Forgiveness is a bilateral issue. I come saying to you, dear, in this area, I really believe you blew it, sweetheart. And I believe you were disrespectful of me in the way you spoke to me. I believe your response to me in this was tinged with a spirit of insubordination. And I do not believe it's healthy for your soul nor for our marriage to leave it unaddressed. Sweetheart, I believe you sinned in this area. Here's why. I lay it out. Honey, you're right. I was insubordinate. I was cheeky. I was disrespectful.

40:46 Will you forgive me? Yes, dear. As a forgiven sinner, it is my joy to extend forgiveness. I make my four-pronged promise.

40:59 If it flashes up on the screen of my mind, I push the delete button. I'll not raise it with you again. I'll not raise it with another. And I won't let it be a barrier in our community. That's a bilateral interaction. That's forgiveness. Unilaterally, I can throw blankets over many things. That's unilateral.

41:21 Do you see the difference? Am I making sense? Now, why confuse what the Bible separates? And I'm going to answer the question some of you say, ah, but this is being nitpicky.

41:32 Well, you wait and see. I hope you won't feel that way. So that's the third area where there is confusion. And I trust that by God's grace, you see the issue. I could give illustrations, but I'm conscious of the time. Mistake number four. Mistake number four. A failure to distinguish between loving one's enemies and forgiving one's enemies.

Mistake #4: Confusing Loving Enemies with Forgiving Enemies

41:59 A failure to distinguish between loving one's enemies and forgiving one's enemies. Look at Matthew 5, verse 43 and following. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says you've heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say unto you love your enemies, imperative. Pray for them that persecute you, imperative. Why?

42:29 In order that you may be, that is, that you may make it evident that you belong to the family in which the heavenly Father who makes His Son to rise on the evil and the good, sends His rain on the just and the unjust, has a flock of kids who are like Him. That's what Jesus is saying. What does God do? There are people who are His enemies. They are unforgiven, uncleansed. He knows they are His enemies. What does He do? He loves them.

43:06 And He shows His love by sending the same rain on their backyard that He sends on His children's backyard. And He makes the same sun that rises in the east to shine on them that shines on His children. This is a manifestation that God loves His enemies. Be like your heavenly Father.

43:28 Show the family likeness. Love your enemies. But is there one word in there about forgiving them? If they are forgiven, and forgiveness results in reconciliation of relationship, they are no longer your enemy.

43:45 So you are no longer loving your enemy. You are loving your friend. So your enemies become your friend because you've unilaterally forgiven them. You see the confusion?

43:57 Now some of you, it may not trouble you, but taking my Bible seriously, and through the course of my life having more than my share of enemies, I've gone to my knees saying, Oh God, how am I to treat my enemies? And when I've read some of this business that said you just forgive them, forgive them. They are no longer your enemies. I said, Lord, I'm ready to do anything you tell me. But this doesn't seem right. And then I come across a passage like this. I say, no wonder it doesn't seem right. It's ungodly.

44:26 It's not God-like. God loves His enemies while still His enemies. He does good to them, but He does not forgive them. Luke chapter 6. Jesus goes even further in this parallel passage. He gives more imperatives of what we're to do in relationship to our enemies. Verse 27 of Luke 6. But I say unto you that here, love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. Love them, do good to them, bless them, pray for them. Not a word about forgiving them. Not in my Bible. You mean you can do all of that without forgiving them? Yes, because

45:19 God does. God does. Be like God. Be like God in the strength of God.

45:28 Do good to them. Pray for them. Even though they're still your enemies. And God's forgiveness and your forgiveness await their repentance and their acknowledgement of their sin.

The Danger of Confusing Forgiveness: A Tragic Misrepresentation of the Gospel

45:43 Well, for some, as I said, this may seem like hair splitting, much to do about nothing, but that's not so. If you get hold of nothing else, get hold of this. If for forgiveness becomes the everything of dealing with one another as sinners, it ends up becoming nothing. If forgiveness becomes everything, it ends up becoming nothing.

46:14 If the relinquishment of vengeance is forgiveness, if the maintenance of the disposition of forgiveness is forgiveness, and if loving one's enemy is forgiveness, then what in the world is forgiveness? It lacks its definition and its concreteness. So when I read Ephesians 4, I'm to be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another. Does that mean all these things in one, or does it mean when my brother, when my sister owns his or her sin and says to me, my brother, I have sinned. I am grieved that I have sinned. God has forgiven me. Will you forgive me? That I turn

47:13 and respond and say yes. As a forgiven sinner, it is my great joy to be a forgiving sinner. I make the promise of forgiveness. This issue is dealt with. I will not allow it to flash up and remain on the computer screen of my mind. I will not bring it up in our interaction. I will not speak of it to others. I will not let it remain a barrier to our relationship. I forgive you. Now, time won't permit, I brought the material to show when these distinctions are not made, the tragic misrepresentation of God in the Gospel that occurs. I'll just give you a distillation of it. There was a woman who was violated by her father as a little girl repeatedly.

48:05 And for twenty years she allowed the puss-sacks of vengeance and resentment to build up in her soul. And a Christian was counseling with her and caused her to see that until she dealt with that vengeance, she would never make any progress. It was ruining her marriage, ruining her Christian life. And so she went to her father who had violated her and said to him, Father, I unconditionally forgive you. And he was hard as stone. But this writer went on to say, but she was transformed. She was now able to make progress with her husband in their marriage. The heavens were open in her prayer time. What happened?

48:49 It was a tragic, tragic misrepresentation of what really happened. Was that an accurate representation of the Gospel to go to this hardened, impenitent, incestuous father and say you are freely forgiven? And give him the impression that God might be like my daughter who will unconditionally forgive me whether I own the rotten, foul sin that I committed or not? Would it not have been more God honoring for her to go having seen that she had no right to maintain vengeance in her heart?

49:24 That it was her duty to have the disposition of forgiveness percolating through her spirit and to go to do good to her father, to assure him of her prayers for him, and to say Dad, for twenty years I allowed what you did to me to create pus-sacks in my soul. But God has shown me I sinned by allowing that spirit of vengeance. I have asked God's forgiveness and to the extent that it's colored the way I've related to you, I ask your forgiveness, for I had no right to have vengeance toward you. That's God's business.

50:02 And Dad, what God has done in forgiving me through Christ as I have owned my sin, He stands ready to do for you if you will own your sin. And Dad, I want to tell you, the moment you own your sin, not only before God, but before me, as your daughter, I'm prepared to freely fully forgive you and seek to begin to cultivate a warm father-daughter relationship. Which course of action more accurately reflects the Gospel? Don't tell me these distinctions are irrelevant. They're a tempest in a teapot. No, they are not. They are an issue of rightly reflecting God and the Gospel. And may God help us as we come to this table tonight.

Application for Communion: A Forgiving People

50:53 How do we come? We come forgiven sinners. And you see what a contradiction it would be to say the God of heaven who has infinite charges against us, who could have sent us all to hell, has sent His Son to die, that we might have a just pardon and a righteous forgiveness. What a contradiction to come to that table and take the emblems of His self-giving that we might have forgiveness.

51:24 This is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins, Jesus said. And to have anything in our hearts but a forgiving spirit to one another. Heart free from any sense that we have a right to maintain a vengeful spirit. That we have any right not to love our enemies and be committed to do good to them and pray for them. Dear people of God, the distinctions I've tried to make don't let us off the hook. They press us all the more forcefully to go to Christ to put in us those dispositions that are so contrary to us by nature. May God help us. Let's pray.

Prayer for Understanding and Grace

52:13 Our Father, we marvel at Your grace. We thank You for Your Holy Word, that it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. We pray that You would give us understanding and discernment. All the different crosswinds of teaching, help us Lord, help us. Help those of us responsible to be the guides of Your people, to cut us straight course in the word of truth. Give us all the Berean spirit to search these things out from the scriptures to see if indeed they are so sealed to our hearts afresh the wonder of Your forgiving grace and make us a forgiving people. If there are any of Your children struggling with these puss sacks in the soul of resentment and bitterness and a vengeful disposition, Lord, sweep it all away by the power of Your grace. We pray for those who are resisting the thought that they must have

53:26 a forgiving disposition to those who have done the worst things to them. Give them to see mirrored here in the emblems of the dying love of our Lord Jesus every reason as to why they must be a forgiving people. We ask You, Lord, to meet with us and enlarge our hearts. Receive our thanks for Your help and Your presence in Jesus' name.

53:52 Amen.