Forgive Us Our Debts

Introduction: Continuing the Lord's Prayer and Review of 'Daily Bread'

0:08 As we announced this morning, we will be continuing our study tonight where we left off in the Sermon on the Mount, considering the latter section of these petitions included in what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer.

0:32 I was telling one of the folk in preparation for this morning's message, I started out hoping to cover the three petitions relative to our needs, and then as my preparation finalized, I gave up hope of covering all three, but I had notes prepared for the two and only got through the one.

0:55 At times it's rather frustrating, but it's a blessed kind of frustration. It's far better to have to quit and feel there's something more that you have to share than to spin out ten minutes and feel you've got to mark time for the next thirty. I imagine that would be an awful experience. From such may the Lord deliver us.

1:15 Matthew chapter 6. This passage that we commonly call...

1:18 Let's call the Lord's Prayer.

1:23 After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Matthew 6, 9, our Father who art in heaven, the approach to prayer, recognizing who God is, the God of heaven, recognizing our relationship to him, he is our Father, and then the three petitions relative to the concerns of God, hallowed or sanctified be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, and thy will be done in heaven, as it is in heaven. And then when we have spread before God those concerns of his heart, we move to the three petitions relative to our basic needs. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We saw this morning under the petition, give us this day our daily bread. That each time we pray this, we are acknowledging that God is the supplier of all our temporal needs, and we must learn that and cultivate that consciousness so that we'll learn the grace of dependence upon him and the grace of gratitude. Every good and every perfect gift, James 1, 17, cometh down from the Father of lights.

2:47 And so the Lord tells us to pray daily for the supply of our temptations. That we may learn to acknowledge the Father as the supplier of those temporal needs. And then each time we pray this with conscious understanding, we are acknowledging God's concern for this area of our lives. And I trust you caught something of the thrill of this, that the God who's occupied with his glory and his kingdom and his will is concerned about my bread.

3:18 He is the God of infinite, transcended glory. But he's the God of intimate, tender concern for his children. And then each time we pray this, we've got to die to that inordinate desire for the luxuries of life. We're praying for bread, not for whipped cream.

3:36 Now if God gives you the whipped cream, be thankful. But all he's told you to pray for is bread. Give us day by day our bread. And so we must die to that terrible itch for security.

3:48 We want to see everything lined up for the next 40 years. If I tried to do what insurance men tell me I ought to do for my family, I'd have no bread on the table. They'd make you feel that if you didn't have things set so that if you died, your wife could move into the ritziest section of town and live happily ever after until the millennium, that you're just failing as a husband. And we've got to die to that pressure that's on us in our society, the crave for security.

4:14 What more blessed security is there than to be the object of the concern of the heart of God? That's the security. That's the security I want.

4:23 And even a stock market crash can't touch that, Bill. Can't touch that. Even if the stock market comes crashing down and everybody feels the world has come to an end, it doesn't change the father's concern for his children to supply bread. It may come a bit harder in a little scantier quantities, but the psalmist said, I have been young and I have been old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging.

The Necessity of Forgiveness for the Soul's Health

4:52 Now we move tonight to this next petition relative to our needs. Having petitioned God for the most basic need that we have, this physical need, small comfort we can receive from the supply of that need if we cannot live in the consciousness that there's nothing between our souls and the Savior. A healthy body is no comfort if I have an unhealthy soul. And a polluted, defiled conscience.

5:28 Bread and to spare upon my table is of little comfort to me as a Christian if I go into the closet and there's a brassy heaven above me because of sin in my life. To be surrounded with all the luxuries of life, materially, and not to know the blessed luxury of the conscious smile of God is to be a pauper indeed. And the true child of God knows. And so having petitioned God for that basic need of his physical sustenance, our Lord teaches us then to pray that God would forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Understanding 'Debts' as 'Sins'

6:07 Now let us first of all try to get hold of what did the Lord Jesus mean for us to pray when he said, forgive us our debts. Why didn't he use the word sin? Well, if you'll notice, in the parallel passage in Luke chapter 11, our Lord does use the word sin. For we have another account of what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer.

6:29 And I think we can infer from this that our Lord, when he tells us to pray, forgive us our debts, he has in mind, forgive us our sins. And we'll see why he used the word debt. But in Luke chapter 11 we read, verse 2, when ye pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

6:52 Verse 3, give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. So here the words sin and debt, these words are used interchangeably. So when we come to seek to understand what did the Lord Jesus mean by the phrase, forgive us our debts, it is obvious by paralleling this with Luke 11 that we are praying here for the forgiveness of our sins.

7:23 As the children of God, we are praying for the forgiveness of our sins. We are pleading with God that he shall forgive us for those things that we have done contrary to his will and to his word. Now when we do that, we're making several very clear acknowledgments. First of all, we are acknowledging that sin is an unpaid debt.

Acknowledgment 1: Sin as Unpaid Debt

7:47 Now do you ever conceive of your sins as an unpaid debt? The introduction to the Shorter Catechism, and I believe it's in the Shorter Catechism as well of the Westminster. The Westminster Confession of Faith says this, what is sin? And the answer is, sin is any want or lack of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.

8:09 Any failure to conform completely to God's law or any act by which I step over the boundaries of God's law, that's sin. Now God's law, summed up under two simple statements, our Lord told us, is this, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. So every day that I live as a Christian, failing to love him with the whole heart, I allow my heart to go a-whoring after other things that sap away the focus of my affection to my God.

8:47 Every day that I do not love him with the whole mind, I allow my mind to be engaged in unworthy things that are not ennobling and enriching and edifying. I allow my mind to be polluted with junk that I read or see upon a TV. I don't love God with the whole mind. I don't love him with the whole soul.

9:08 I allow the soulish part of me to be dissipated in things that are not pleasing to God. To that extent, you see, I have failed to conform to his requirement. So I have incurred a debt. That law requires that I love him with the whole heart.

9:26 I have failed to love him. Therefore, my sin is the incurment of debt. And in another sense, I have incurred debt. For every time we sin, God's justice demands a payment.

9:42 God's justice says the wages of sin is death. If there's sin, there must be payment. And so every sin brings us into a state of indebtedness. God's justice cries out and says, give me payment.

9:56 Give me payment. God's law. God's law stands there making the requirement and we fall short. And so when we pray, as our Lord taught us to pray, forgive us our debts, we are acknowledging afresh that all sin brings me into a state where I have unpaid debts toward God.

Acknowledgment 2: Inability to Pay the Debt

10:17 But the second thing that I do when I pray this petition is that I acknowledge that I can't pay the debt. For notice what our Lord taught us to pray, not this. Oh God, here is...

10:29 Some penance to pay for my debt. Or, oh God, Father in heaven, here are some vows of obedience for the future that will cancel out my debt. Father, here are some resolutions concerning the areas where I fail that will somehow nullify my debt. No, we're taught to pray, forgive the debt.

10:50 We are brought to that place where we consciously recognize that every sin has incurred a debt, in that we fail to do what God has required and are indebted in that sense. Our sin is a breach of God's justice and justice demands payment. And I come in the words of the hymn, even as a Christian. And I sing, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.

11:22 I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. I find I sing. I find I sing. I find I sing.

11:30 I find I sing. I sing this other hymn far more intelligently and often as a Christian than I ever did in my unregenerate state, just as I am, without one plea. But that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. I sing that far more as a Christian than I ever thought of singing as an unsaved fellow.

11:53 Far more. For there are times I have no warmth of heart. I have no sense of burning love to God. And it may be upon the heels of a miserable failure in life or in thought or in ministry or some other area.

12:08 And what can I plead before God? My sin cries out, you have a debt. And I come saying, O God, I have no way to pay that debt so just as I am. I come.

12:19 And our Lord wants His children to cultivate that attitude. And so He said, when ye pray, come not only recognizing your sin as sin, but recognize it as debt. Debt. Debt incurred and debt that you are absolutely helpless to forgive.

Acknowledgment 3: God's Willingness to Forgive

12:39 And so our Lord tells us that we are to pray, forgive our debts. The third thing we do when we pray this petition intelligently, we are not only acknowledging our sin as unpaid debt, acknowledging that we can't pay that debt, but we are acknowledging God's willingness to forgive that debt.

12:59 For you see, whatever Jesus tells us to pray for, it's obvious that that thing falls within the will of God. For as we mentioned several weeks ago, one of the great problems of prayer is that we cannot pray in faith for anything that we're not convinced is the will of God. 1 John chapter 5 makes this unmistakably clear. This is the confidence we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He hears us.

13:27 And if we know that He hears us, we know we have the petition we desired of Him. Now I can't pray. I can't pray in faith that God will send a meteorite down in my backyard simply because I have an interest in meteorites and would like to pick one over. How can I pray in faith for that?

13:44 I can't do it because I have no grounds to believe that that's the will of God. I can't pray just to satisfy some curiosity of mine that God will make the sun stand still or make the world stand still to be more technical as He did there in the battle of Joshua simply because I'd like to know what it was like. No. But if I am in a situation where I'm in a situation where I'm in a situation where I'm in a situation where I'm in a situation where I'm in a situation where I'm in a situation in the purpose and plan of God where even a mountain needs to be removed in the will of God, Jesus said, Faith shall say to a mountain, Be removed, and it shall be removed.

14:14 But that's the problem, discerning God's will. Here's the great problem of prayer. This is why there are no little books or formulas on prayer that can do much good if you want to somehow escape the agony of seeking to discern the will of God in areas where the Word does not speak clearly. But oh, I need never doubt, as a Christian, whether or not God wants to forgive my sin as His erring child.

14:38 I never need to spend one second doubting whether or not the Lord wants to forgive me as His child. Why? Because my Lord taught me to pray, Father in Heaven, forgive my debts. Forgive my debts.

14:54 Perhaps our Lord knew there would be times when we as His children, we just couldn't believe that God would be willing to forgive the thing we've done. The situation in which we've enmeshed ourselves, we carry, we pray to ourselves to believe God will forgive. But whether we can or not, remember the Lord says, you're to pray this way, Father, forgive. And I think of that wonderful verse in Psalm 86, in verse 5, For thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive.

15:19 Thou art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon me. Now I know there are people who abuse the grace of God. There are people who take wonderful verses like 1 John, 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse from all unrighteousness. And they use it as a license to sin.

15:44 As they set their faces to sin against God, they deliberately think, oh well, after I've done it, I can claim 1 John 1, 9. And they go on year in and year out in that condition. Beloved, that's an abuse of the grace of God that will land a man in hell.

16:01 But though men abuse that truth, it's still there in the Bible that no matter what, no matter where, I have stumbled as a Christian if my heart has been basically changed by the grace of God from a heart that loves righteousness, from a heart that loved sin, a heart that wants to be holy no matter how deeply I've become stained. The truth is there. Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive. And if we would learn to pray according to the pattern of our Lord, then perhaps some of us wouldn't have the problem we have at times of wallowing in a period of guilt and we can't seem to get release.

16:41 Why? We can't believe that God is ready to forgive. We somehow feel that we have to groan and moan for a few months to atone for our sin. No, dear ones, could my tears forever flow, could my zeal no longer know these, for sin could not atone.

16:58 Thou must save and thou alone. There's the truth of the Bible. And as much as I will cry, I want to cry out against the abuse of grace. I want to cry out in the defense of grace that God is ready to forgive His erring children.

17:16 And one of the most precious examples of this that I know in all of the Bible is that passage in 2 Samuel in the life of King David.

17:27 Will you turn for a moment to this? I know of no passage that illustrates it more clearly.

17:35 2 Samuel chapter 12. How much is the desire of God's heart to forgive His erring, stumbling children?

17:47 You know how David stumbled.

17:52 Adultery, murder by proxy, deception, deceit for a period of almost a whole year. The prophet Nathan comes and by the Spirit of God exposes David's sin. And David sees his sin. He knows that he is the man in this parable that Nathan has given.

18:11 Now notice carefully the wording. Verse 12 of 2 Samuel 12. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Son. And David said unto Nathan, now get this, David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord and.

18:33 I love that little and. That's one of the most precious ands in all the Bible. If it wasn't there, there could be a good long period of time between that sentence, David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. There could be, there could be a period of days or weeks or hours, but when the end is there, I believe it's there by the Spirit to give us the impression that immediately following the confession of David, we have this wonderful response from the prophet.

19:01 Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin.

19:07 Can you picture this? I don't want in any way to be irreverent, but I believe this will help us to see it. When God saw his child fall and stumble into sin, and then one sin leading to another as it always does until David was held by the cords of iniquity and saw no way out, and perhaps had even resigned himself to living in that state of barrenness and deception and mourning away till he died. I don't know.

19:35 But God in mercy sent his prophet to restore his erring child. And I can picture God for a whole year. Again, this is only a human figure. I can picture, I can picture God leaning out over the battlements of glory and looking down upon his child and oh how he longed to reveal himself again to his child.

19:58 That one who had said, one thing have I desired, that will I seek after to behold the beauty of the Lord. That erring child who at one time said, as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. God looks down upon that erring child and he longs to give him those saddest moments and those most satisfying revelations of himself. He longs to cause the winds of grace to fill the sails of his servant that he might be driven on in the course of his Christian experience.

20:30 But he can't do it. God will not do it because his child is sin. His child has not been willing to acknowledge his sin. And God leans over the battlements of glory longing for a year not for his child to do penance, not for his child to make vows, not for his child to somehow try by being a good man for ten years to make amends, but for a whole year.

20:56 God wanted just one thing from his child. He wanted him from the heart to say, O God, I've sinned. And it's as though God was looking down eagerly, straining his ear. This is not necessary for God, but I want you to get the picture.

21:12 And the moment he heard his child say, O God, I have sinned. God says, Just tell my child, I've put away his sin. You get the beauty of it? Action!

21:29 Mind this! In an instant. That's grace, beloved. Grace that is greater than all our sin.

21:41 And I believe our Lord wants us to know that when we pray.

21:46 And if that doesn't thrill you, beloved, I question whether you're saved. I mean that. If that doesn't do something down inside of you, I question whether you've ever seen your sin and your need of forgiveness.

21:57 That the infinitely holy God would say at an instant of time, the Lord, hath put away thy sin.

22:08 Now this is what you've got to know if you're to pray this prayer intelligently. That not only is your sin debt against God, but you can't pay that debt and God is willing and longing to forgive the debt of his children. His willingness to forgive. But there's a fourth thing you acknowledge when you pray this prayer.

Acknowledgment 4: The Necessity of Confession

22:27 You acknowledge the necessity of confession. God forgives without penance. God forgives without novenas and tenders. And trips to altars.

22:40 But God will never forgive without confession.

22:44 For my Bible says in Proverbs 28, 13, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh and shall have mercy. The ground of God's forgiveness is not my confession. The ground of forgiveness is the infinite merit of Jesus Christ the Lord. 1 John 1, 9, The blood of Jesus Christ, 1 John 1, 7, cleanses from all sin.

23:08 The blood of Jesus Christ, but the blood never cleanses what we do not confess. Never forget that. If we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse. You got it?

23:22 If forgiveness of the children of God was automatic, then Jesus never would have taught us to pray this prayer. And He taught us to pray because He wanted us to recognize the principle that in the child of God confession is absolutely necessary to forgiveness and to restoration. And that confession is to be specific. Forgive us our debts,

23:48 plural. 1 John 1, 9, Forgive us if we confess our sins, plural. This is not just coming and making a general confession of our indebtedness. This is part of confession.

24:03 When we confess to God we don't love Him as we ought, but our hearts are not warm to Him as they ought to be. But the Word of God teaches that just as sin is, just as sin is committed specifically, it's to be confessed specifically.

24:21 My confession is not only to be specific, but it's to be to God alone. He said, When ye pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven, forgive my debts. No priest, but the great High Priest.

24:36 Beloved, don't be deceived. Don't be deceived into thinking there's any basic change in that system of doctrine which says we must come to man in order to get to God. But my Bible says there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And Jesus said confession is necessary, but it's to be to the Father in heaven, not the Father in a booth with a little black veil.

25:05 To the Father in heaven. Isn't this what He said?

25:10 Isn't this what He said? That's the Father to whom we confess if we're His children.

Distinguishing Justification from Daily Forgiveness

25:18 But now this poses a problem with some people. They say, Pastor, you taught us two years ago in the adult class, maybe I'm flattering myself to think anybody remembered back that far, but you taught us the doctrine of justification, that when God justifies us, He declares us as righteous because of the merits of Christ, and He forgives all of our sin, past, present, future. We're accepted as righteous in His sight. If that's true, why should I have to confess my sins?

25:49 Well, there's a difference. When you and I come to God as guilty sinners, who've never repented, who've never turned to Christ in faith, who have never been joined to Christ, who've never been born of the Spirit, all turns for that work of God whereby we're brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace, we do not come as wandering children to a Father. We come as guilty criminals before the Judge of the universe.

26:19 And it's as a judge that God justifies us, not as a Father. The word justifies, justification is a term of the court, not of the home.

26:30 There's a difference. And when I come as a guilty criminal who has broken the laws of Almighty God, and by faith I fix the gaze of my soul upon the infinite merit of the Lord Jesus, and I rest the weight of my soul upon Him, as a judge, God declares me accepted in His Son and then adopts me into His family. Now, as one of His children who's justified and the legal terrors of the law no longer touch me for I am seen as in Christ with a perfect righteousness, but as His child I can err and stumble and grieve His heart as a father and notice this prayer is addressed to whom? Our Father who art in heaven. So I come not as a guilty criminal to a judge, but I come as a wayward son or daughter to my Father. And there's all the difference in the world.

27:31 You see it? So those who would say, on the one hand, well, this is no prayer for a Christian since God has justified us in all our sins, past, present, future, blotted out, and we're accepted in Christ, well, I pray, beloved, that transaction was a legal one. This is a filial one. That had to do with the court.

27:52 This has to do with the home. And even if we didn't understand this from the Bible, just good plain old horse sense would tell you you can't get on your knees and look up into the face of a God whom you know you've offended any more than my son can look up into my face when he knows he's done something that's been contrary to my wish and to my will. In fact, this is one of the most convicting things to me as a father. I'd like to give a fresh example of this.

28:21 Just yesterday I was away somewhere. I came back. The first thing my son said, before I had a chance to even ask him how he was doing, Daddy, I did such and such with so and so and I wasn't a good boy. Well, we talked about it and he asked the Lord to forgive him and then we went to the person involved and when he asked their forgiveness, they didn't even realize that what he was doing was apparently done in fun, they thought, but he'd had a little mean streak in his own heart when he did it.

28:50 They weren't even aware of it. And this smote his conscience. And when he saw his daddy, he couldn't come pop up into my arms or up into my lap till first of all, he said, Daddy, you see, that consciousness that's cultivated in a normal, healthy father-son relationship is projected upward in our relationship to God. It'd be nothing but a brazen brat who would openly defy his father's regulations and wishes and then dare to come up with a sweet little smile and pop up on his daddy's knee as though nothing ever happened.

29:23 And you and I are nothing but brazen little brats if we've indebted ourselves to God by failing to keep His precepts and dare to come into His presence and ask Him for favors before we've said, Forgive my debt. Then there's the other problem. I trust no one here has this, but this will be helpful to some of you. And we're in the exposition of the Scripture.

Refuting Sinless Perfectionism

29:49 We need to lay out truths that will be helpful in your ministry to others. There are some who teach that there is a state in this life attainable by the grace of God whereby a Christian no longer sins. He may make mistakes, they say. He may have shortcomings.

30:04 He may have limitations of the flesh. They'll call it everything but sin. Well, if so, Jesus was encouraging people, if this is so, that there is such a place you can attain to, then everybody ought to attain to it. That's the ideal.

30:19 And if that's a possible state in this life, Jesus was teaching us a prayer that would make us content with something less than His best, right? For He said, When ye pray, say, Forgive our debts. And that's just another word for sin as we saw in Luke chapter 11. And so anyone who would teach that there is a perfection attainable in this life whereby we no longer sin, I would say to them, you're running into the face of this key passage of the Word as well as 1 John 1.10.

30:52 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And then a great problem I would have is that my Bible nowhere says if we confess our shortcomings, He's faithful and just to forgive us. It says if we confess our what? Sins.

31:08 It doesn't say if we confess our mistakes. And I've met people who had enough sensitivity spiritually, they wouldn't declare they were absolutely perfect and they would hedge and call it everything in the world but what God called it. If they happened to be a little bit unkind to their wife, that was just infirmity. Well, I've got news for you.

31:30 That's S-I-N. For my Bible says, The works of the flesh are manifest which are these, anger, wrath, and sin. And it's because our Lord realized this, the same Lord who said, Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, taught us to pray, forgive us our debts. You see, the Bible is at the same time a book of idealism and a book of realism.

31:55 And the ideal to which every Christian presses is 1 John 2.1. My little children, these things I write unto you, that ye sin not. And every true Christian says, Oh God, I want to live a life that is free from the stain of sin.

32:11 But the second verse says, But if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father. There's Christian idealism coupled with Christian realism. But keep it in that order. Don't switch it around this way.

32:23 The problem with the church today is not that we have too many people trying to be perfect. We've got too many people content with a subnormal experience and no real desire to press on to perfection. But if you're really in earnest about pleasing God and being perfect, if you don't know that there's provision for you when you stumble, you're going to do one of two things. You're going to start lying with your conscience and call your sin something other than what it is, and God alone knows where you end up then.

The Phrase 'As We Forgive Our Debtors'

32:50 Or you're just going to get so discouraged that you're just going to want to throw in the towel. And our Lord has given us here this wonderful provision in the prayer that He taught us to pray to encourage us to believe that though our sin incurs debt, the debt we cannot pay, though our sin, though our sin demands confession, we can come with the realization that our God is ready and willing to forgive. But you say, Pastor, you haven't touched on the little phrase, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Well, will you allow me the indulgence of referring that phrase to the verses that follow, that come after the prayer, verses 14 and 15.

33:35 The Lord willing, we'll deal with them in a subsequent message, for if He forgives men their trespasses, your Father will forgive you. But if He forgives not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you. That little phrase, as we forgive our debtors, is vitally united to verses 14 and 15. And so I'm not going to touch on it tonight and touch on it when we come to face the other issue.

Practical Application and Self-Examination

33:59 Well, I hope we get to the last petition tonight, but we'll leave that for next Sunday morning, the Lord willing. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. But as we seek to draw these thoughts to a practical conclusion, may I ask you one or two questions tonight? In closing, the first question I want to ask you is this.

34:22 Do you believe as a Christian that your failure to love God with the whole heart, mind, soul and strength incurs debt every day you fail to do it? Isn't that the requirement of His law, that we love Him with the whole heart, mind, soul and strength? Isn't that the requirement of His law? How could you say, Pastor, don't you know and the Bible says as a Christian we're not under law but under grace?

34:48 No, we're not under the condemnation of the law. We're not under the law as a covenant of works as was our first father Adam. But beloved, is there anything less required of us under grace in terms of our relationship to God? If God is who He is and we are what we are, then it's only right that we love Him with the whole heart, mind, soul and strength.

35:09 The grace of God can't change what's right. It's only right that we love Him and have no other gods before Him. And each day I live failing to love Him with the whole heart, mind, soul and strength. I incur a debt.

35:22 Has this gripped us? Each time I violate His precepts, I incur the debt. Justice demands payment. I must recognize this and seek to cultivate a greater sensitivity to my sin.

35:37 Then I must recognize the second principle that I can't pay that debt. I can remember as a young Christian when I'd fail the Lord, I'd roll up my sleeves and determine to pass out a few more tracts the next day. You don't do that, do you? You know what I'm talking about?

35:56 This is in the heart of every one of us. To feel, well, if I've incurred debt here, well, if I just make a few more vows and I'm a little more zealous over here, it'll kindly equal things out. No, Jesus said you're to pray, forgive our debts. There's only one basis upon which the debt will be dealt with.

36:11 That's grace. Grace. Grace, period. Grace plus nothing.

36:20 Has this gripped your heart? Third question I'd ask you is in terms of our third point tonight. Do you really believe God's willingness and eagerness to forgive you if you're His child? You've been born of the Spirit.

36:33 Do you really believe God longs to forgive you when you sin and stumble as His child? Ah, but you say, Pastor, you don't know how many times I've had to go to the Lord for the same thing. Yeah, I don't know, but God knows. And the Lord knew all about it and He taught us to pray, forgive us our debts.

36:51 Isn't that what He did? I think some of us have a God whose heart is awfully narrow. I'm so glad God's heart's bigger than what I think it is sometimes. Aren't you?

37:04 Bigger than what I think it is. Now, I know someone may take this and run around and use it as a license for sin. That's all right. If you want to abuse grace, God will hold you accountable.

37:14 But there's some of you that need to use grace, not abuse it. If we'd learn to pray this prayer and to pray after this pattern, then we'd be reminded each day, Lord, in spite of how much I've failed, You're ready to forgive. And then has that fourth principle gripped you? That though God is ready and willing to forgive, we can't get rid of the debt any other way than His grace?

37:38 Has it gripped you that your confession is the trigger which releases that forgiveness? To be more practical, do you confess at the end of the day or halfway through the day, whenever it's been, when you've had those sharp words with your wife, do you actually confess those as sin to God? Do you believe when you get angry with your wife and say things you shouldn't, you've incurred a debt before God? Oh, but you say, Pastor, she's lived with me so long, she doesn't hold it against me.

38:07 I don't care what she does. What about God? What about God? What about you young people?

38:15 When you mouth off to mother and dad, you say, oh, well, they overlook it, they're used to it. Yeah, but what about God? They've got no power to forgive sin that's against Him, you know. They may be kind and not require you to confess to them, but God hasn't changed.

38:30 Are we convinced that confession is intricately united to God's forgiveness? Beloved, it is. He that confesseth and forsaketh shall have mercy, but he that covereth his sins shall not prosper. We need to cultivate that sensitivity to own up before God.

38:48 Lord, those angry words with my dear wife were sin. Lord, forgive my debt. Forgive my debt. You neglected the Word today, yesterday, that's sin.

39:03 You allowed other things to crowd out your time with God, that's sin. Just because we forget about it in time we think sweetly, and that is in Jesus' name, and that's sin. Our hearts are on the mark, and return to your Lord. The blood of Jesus is purified that He does not touch what we won't confess.

39:27 The bread of the blood that we're going to go to is the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus is purified that the blood that we'll eat will not touch what we don't confess, if we confess. Faithful and just to clean. Some of you would need to spend a good bit of time Forgive my debts as I forgive those who are indebted to me.

39:53 May the Lord teach us to pray. May He teach me to pray in the biblical pattern so that having our bread supplied, we might not only have the sustenance of physical life, but we may know that abundant life that Jesus came to provide, life lived in the conscious presence of God with no unconfessed sin to mar our relationship with Him. May God give that to all of us. And for those who may be here tonight,

Call to Unbelievers and Concluding Prayer

40:25 if God is still dealing with you as the rebel criminal, you've never come and bowed before Jesus Christ as a guilty, helpless, hell-deserving sinner, then, dear one, you don't need to come confessing specific sin to a father. You need to come confessing your sinfulness and your helplessness as a guilty criminal in the presence of the Judge of the Universe who holds before you His beloved Son and says, flee to Him. And so whether you be here tonight as the criminal outside the Father's household needing forgiveness, I can point you to the One in whom there is forgiveness. Come, you sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. Or whether you be the child of God, He bids you come as a father, acknowledge your debt, fix your gaze upon the blood of Christ, which not only avails to bring you out of the justice, the wrath of His justice, but which avails day by day to keep your fellowship warm and living. In this way we learn that we don't come to Christ once, we come to Him daily, hourly, for that cleansing which He alone can give. Let us pray.

42:00 Oh, Father, we plead that Thou wilt apply the word to our own individual needs tonight. We look out into all of these faces and realize that we could never of ourselves have some portion, some morsel of truth that would be specifically prepared for each individual. But, Lord, what we cannot do, Thy Spirit is well able to do. And grant that each one seated in Thy presence shall know specifically that Thou art God.

42:30 And grant that each one seated in Thy presence shall know specifically that Thou art God. And grant that each one seated in Thy presence shall know specifically what Thou hast sought to say to them tonight.

42:36 Seal this word to our hearts. Grant that it shall bear fruit in our lives, in our prayer closets, in our relationship to Thee. Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray.

42:50 Teach us the greatness of Thy heart. Lord, forgive me. Forgive us when we have straightened Thy heart and made it a narrow heart in our thinking. When Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy.

43:08 We've never exhausted Thy mercy, Lord. We thank Thee tonight. Plenteous in mercy. Hallelujah.

43:15 Oh, we praise Thee. Help us to venture on that mercy tonight and to leave here with no blot upon our conscience but to know the joy that follows hard upon the heels of cleansing. Grant it, we pray, for Thy name's sake. Amen.