Gooding, David: 4 - Forgiveness

And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. A certain lender had two debtors, the one owed five hundred pence and the other fifty. When they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most? Simon answered and said, He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And turning to the woman, he said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath wetted my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Thou gavest me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but she hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that even forgiveth sins? And he said unto the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee. Go in peace. There is scarce a more beautiful subject in the whole of God's Bible than this matter of forgiveness. God labors long to assure our hearts of the boundless forgiveness that he is prepared to offer us fallen men and women. He piles up vivid metaphors and similes to help us grasp the extent of his forgiveness. His prophets declare that he hides the sins of those who repent in a thick cloud through which none can see. Or again, he casts their sins into the depths of the sea, down in those depths of water where nothing is ever perturbed or brought to the surface. He casts their sins behind his back, so says scripture. And our Lord reminded us that the forgiveness that God gives is a free and a frank forgiveness. In the story, the parable that we have just read, our Lord phrased it thus that the debtors were forgiven when they had nothing wherewith to pay. And the particular word that our Lord used to express forgiveness was a word which means that it was completely an act of grace. God made them a gift, so to speak, of their debts. The New Testament, in fact, uses two words to describe forgiveness. There is this word that indicates that it is a gift. It is an act of grace upon God's part. It is a something that we cannot deserve or buy. The other word indicates that forgiveness is a release, for sin is like a chain, and the guilt it brings does in fact chain us on the inside. It has been left for modern psychology to show us the physical damage that unforgiven sin can do. There may well have been a link between some unforgiven sin and the paralysis from which that man suffered, whom our Lord healed. Do you remember the occasion? The man I refer to was the one that was let down through the roof of the house on a bed. He was paralyzed, and our Lord, looking upon him, said first of all, not rise up and walk, but thy sins be forgiven thee. Who knows but what his gracious but penetrating eye saw through into the depths of that man's personality to a sense of guilt, hidden, submerged, maybe, but was binding that man's physical frame in paralysis. Forgiveness is a something that casts off those shackles and sets a man and woman free. We should not forget too that God has ability not only to forgive, but that other power, an ability to forget. We in that do not resemble him, for very often when we have been deeply wounded and are prepared to forgive, we find it virtually impossible to forget. But God assures the repentant heart that he not only forgives, but using his omnipotent power deliberately forgets. Says he, their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. So that Bunyan, in his allegory, painted the thing beautifully. When his pilgrim arrived at the heavenly city, unable himself to forget the sins of his past, and timidly a- inquired about them at the heavenly portal. My son, the answer came, I don't seem to have heard of them. With all God labors to show us the necessity of our coming for personal forgiveness. He taught us to ask for it as frequently as we ask for our daily bread. It is one of the vital necessities of life. And solemnly our Lord warned the Pharisees who refused to believe him, reminding them that if they believed not that Jesus was the Christ, they would die in their sin. And dying in their sins, it would be impossible for them to come where he was in the world to come. I want this evening, therefore, uh, to study this beautiful subject and try to deal with some of the difficulties that becloud the minds of many. For difficulties there are, and perhaps more numerous than one might suppose. In spite of the fact that God has so often repeated himself, in spite of the fact that our Lord phrased it thus that it was easy for him to forgive sins. For he did not say, judge you, which is the harder thing to do, to say thy sins be forgiven thee, or rise up and walk. But he phrased himself thus, what is easier to do? Thy sins be forgiven thee, or rise up and walk. But spite of that, it is the fact that many people live through their lives without this sense of forgiveness, in fact, without having the forgiveness, and as our Lord indicated, some people unfortunately die without it. I say I wish to deal with some of the difficulties, and I am not thinking in particular of the difficulties that they feel who have it well inculcated into them that they have to make some sort of reparation for their sins. That, of course, is so foreign to scripture, I need not trouble to deal with that. Nor do I, uh, uh, intend to deal with the difficulties that they feel who have it taught to them that they can only obtain forgiveness through some human intermediary. People who feel that they are not free to come themselves directly to God, but must come through the services, and sometimes the expensive services, of a human intermediary. I want rather to deal with those people who feel quite free themselves to read God's word, feel quite at ease and, or at least know their freedom to come themselves and have personal dealings with God. And first of all, the difficulty that some assert that it is impossible for us to know our sins forgiven. That, whether you believe or not, is a statement that some people are in the habit of making. I remember a friend of mine, now well on in middle life, a very active Christian worker among, um, young people and a hospital visitor. He came to know God's salvation as a, a, a lad. In the school where he was, he had a teacher who frequently stressed to the children that it was impossible for anyone to know their sins were forgiven. I remember his telling me how, as a lad one day, when the script- the teacher had been more emphatic than usual on this during the scripture period, there followed, uh, the weekly composition class. They were told that they were to write an essay on what they would like to be when they grew up. My friend, though only a little lad at the time, wrote his essay on David Livingstone. He said, I would like, when I grow up, to be a missionary like David Livingstone, a man whose sins were forgiven and who knew it. You well may imagine the, uh, consternation it caused in that classroom. And yet it is seriously held by people like that woman teacher. I must confess, I find it difficult to know how anyone with an open Bible that can read English can possibly maintain the view. Let me cite just a few quotations taken almost at random from scripture. John the Baptist, we read, was sent to give unto the people the knowledge of salvation through the remission of sins. Not merely salvation, not merely forgiveness, but the knowledge of it. The apostles, we read, were in the habit of preaching in these terms, be it known unto you that through this man there is preached to you, and the word means to preach as a herald preaches it, in public wide proclamation. God is anxious that people know, let it be given the widest publicity, that there is forgiveness of sins. God wishes us to know it. That, of course, was the dispute between our Lord and the Pharisees. They had the idea that we must wait for the final verdict until the final judgment. The thing that was concerned them was to have a young preacher of some thirty years going around the countryside and telling people outright, your sins are forgiven. They thought it savored of presumption. They thought it bordered on blasphemy. And yet there was no doubt in anybody's mind to whom Christ spoke those words. When he said, thy sins are forgiven thee, they knew it. Obviously. In fact, this is all the joy of forgiveness that we know it. As David is cited in the New Testament to this effect, oh, the happiness, he says, and the blessedness of the man whose sin is forgiven, whose iniquity is covered, to whom the Lord will not impute unrighteousness. David's future was clear. He lived in the certainty that God would never impute to him unrighteousness. And it made that stately king burst out in joyful happiness. I sometimes wish our Christianity were not quite so stately, and that we had more room for the spontaneous giving rain to our feeling when we consider the forgiveness that God has given us, and the knowledge and certainty of the same. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it would not be forgiveness unless we might know it. Would you call that forgiveness? If you in your heart forgave someone who had sinned against you, but you said to yourself, I shan't let him know I've forgiven him. Is that forgiveness? To leave the fetters of his guilt in place, to make him think he is still chained. That is the very opposite of forgiveness. The very word itself demands that the person who is forgiven shall know it. But more deeply, there arises in many people's mind some lingering idea that there accompanies forgiveness, some kind of a feeling, some kind of a holy emotion, and because they have heard it is so, they look around inside themselves to find a suitable emotion, a suitable kind of feeling that could give them the courage to believe that they had been forgiven. This is especially so with people that have been taught to believe that the way we get forgiveness is to love God, and that the more we love God, the sooner are we forgiven. Because in some quarters that is positively taught, I should like to spare a moment just here to demonstrate what is the true interpretation of that portion of scripture upon which that erroneous notion is built. That is why a moment ago I read the story of the woman in Simon's house, the woman whom Christ forgave, and then the subsequent parable that our Lord preached to Simon. It ends with those words, wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. And in some quarters it has been systematically taught, on the basis of these words, that that woman's sins were forgiven because she loved much. And then a little loose theology will tack onto that another verse out of its context, that love covereth a multitude of sins. And from that weave a theory that if only we love God well and truly, that will cover up our little peccadilloes and a good many others too. That, of course, is absolutely immoral. God cannot excuse any sin because we love him. Sin in those who love God is just as serious as sin in those who are his enemies. And it is not true that our love for God merits his forgiveness. I would like to prove that to you from this very story. We must, of course, take the thing in its context. Let me argue it from the parable that our Lord spoke. There were two debtors. The one owed much, the other owed little. And when they had nothing to pay with, they were bankrupt, their creditor forgave them both. Forgave them because they loved him? Well, certainly not. No, the point of the parable is as our Lord expounded it. Tell me now, Simon, both men have been forgiven. Which of them will love his creditor the most? Well, said Simon, the man who has been forgiven most, as a result, will love most. You see which way round it is. It was not that the man that loves most will be forgiven most, but the man that has been forgiven most, as a result, will love most. The forgiveness came when they were utterly bankrupt and had nothing therewith to pay. The love came not in order that therewith they might carry the forgiveness. The love came as a result of the forgiveness. Let's put the parable in the larger story. The parable was told to help Simon with his difficulties over this woman. The woman was a notorious woman. She had come into the room, and our Lord had permitted her to touch his feet, to pay him very close attention. Now, Simon had always been very skepti- skeptical about this young preacher. While there was much in his teaching that Simon had to recognize was good, he was particularly concerned about this novel idea that people could know their sins were forgiven. And he doubted this teacher that dared tell people that outright. He asked the Lord to lunch, and then watched this woman very closely and watched the Lord, said he to himself, now, if this Jesus were a prophet, he would know what kind of a woman this is. She's off the streets. And if he were a prophet, he wouldn't let a sinful woman like that touch him. Our Lord's reply with Simon, she isn't a sinner any longer. Her sins, those many ones, those notoriously many sins, have been forgiven. We must not let the old English of our authorized Bibles lead us astray here. He did not use a present tense, are now this moment forgiven. He used a perfect tense, said he, Simon, this woman's sins, her sins, the many sins, have been forgiven. When, he didn't say. Simon, of course, would have been disposed to challenge the statement, how do you know her sins have been forgiven? How do you know? It would have been useless for Christ in that circumstance, with such an unbeliever as Simon, to have turned around and said that I'm, well, you'll know, Simon, because I'm telling you so. Simon did not believe our Lord's authority anyway. Therefore, our Lord was obliged to o- to appeal to evidence to show she had been forgiven. How may we know the woman has been forgiven? Well, I say that, Simon. There's the evidence. Look at her love. That will show you, the way she loves me will show you that she has been forgiven. Y- you've admitted it, he said to Simon, haven't you? You've admitted that when a man who has been burdened with a big debt that he cannot pay, when he is released from the burden and forgiven, he begins to love his creditor. On that same evidence, I point you to her love, and I hold it as proof before you that she has been forgiven. Do let us observe the way round it is. The love follows the forgiveness. And let our faith grasp that. We need not go hunting around inside our hearts to try and muster up some love for God, or any holy emotion whatsoever, as being something necessary to make us sure God has forgiven. But rather, in our bankruptcy, lay hold upon the forgiveness God provides, and the knowledge that we are forgiven will in itself work in us the gratitude for which God looks. I would like to underline that before I proceed. We may gratefully thank God that his forgiveness is not a matter of the will of the wisp of emotion. Neither our emotion nor his. It is something far more deliberate and determined than that. My forgiveness, truly speaking, is not a matter of my feeling at all. And when we think a little bit more closely, even forgiveness between human beings is not a matter of feeling on the part of the person who is forgiven. I borrow my friend's car. I go out and do a, a bit of reckless driving, and I smash the thing up. My friend hears of the unfortunate accident, ponders the situation a while, feels terribly indignant, and then his Christianity rises to the surface, and in his heart he forgives me. And I'm lying in hospital all the while, and I haven't yet seen my friend. And in addition to my aching bones, I'm stewing inside. Whatever will he say? Whatever will the man say? And what shall I say to him? And I'm feeling terrible. If only I knew what he is feeling and what he's already said and what's in his heart. But I haven't heard that yet. And all I know is my feelings. My feelings, of course, are strictly irrelevant. It's his feelings, if any feelings, that are going to count. And once he says, I have forgiven you, if only our emotions were rational, they would cease plaguing us. Sometimes they're not so rational, are they? There are people who, perhaps earlier in life, have done some grievous sin. It has so shocked their sense of respect that they've never been able to remove the remorse from their consciences. And sometimes, as they feel again the pangs of remorse and shame, they confuse that with the knowledge of forgiveness, and imagine that if only they were truly forgiven, they would cease to have any feelings of remorse. They are, of course, confounding two different things. Our feelings are irrelevant. Once God has said, I forgive you, we have the forgiveness, whatever our feelings. But I may well describe those difficulties as merely superficial difficulties. The next one I raise is perhaps the most common of all. People can readily believe, oftentimes, that God has forgiven them up to the present. For the rest of life, they think that they go on trial. They would not dare to claim that their future is completely clear. As one woman expressed it to me, she said, well, I believe I- I- I'm saved up for the moment, but, um, you see, what would happen if I did some grievous sin in the future? And in consequence, they live not at all at peace, but with a foreboding still in their hearts. And if you try to persuade them that the forgiveness that God gives is complete, a forgiveness that covers the whole of a man's life, they will argue, but surely that cannot be so. How can God forgive sins that are still future? They can quite well perce- conceive the idea that he can forgive things that are past. How could he possibly forgive sins that are future? And then more thoughtful people see here a moral difficulty. They say that cannot possibly be so. We cannot possibly believe that we have forgiveness for the whole of life, else it would, uh, quickly descend into that wicked state of affairs that existed in the Middle Ages. You know how it was then. In those days, men could buy indulgences for sins that they hadn't, um, yet committed. Like the man who, intending to steal a watch, like the man who, intending to steal a watch, bought an indulgence for, for stealing a watch, having secured the indulgence for the, from the priest for stealing the watch, stole the priest's watch. And say people, now, um, if we could know our sins were forgiven for the future, would it not lead us to live as we pleased? Surely that's immoral. I own your difficulties. I own that some of them are very real difficulties. But I want to proceed, first of all, by positively showing you, if you will allow me, that the forgiveness that we receive when first we come to the Savior, the forgiveness that we receive when we come as repentant sinners and are accepted and thereafter become the children of God, that is a forgiveness that covers the whole of life, past, present, and future. And to do that, I propose to read certain excerpts from chapter ten of the Epistle to the Hebrews. A chapter which labors to point out the difference between the old Jewish religion and Christianity. And I think, as I read these verses to you, this description of Judaism, that you will find that Judaism is the idea that most people have. When the scripture thereafter points the difference between that and true Christianity, I trust my point will have been proved. Consider then what the Holy Ghost says about the law. The law having a shadow of the good things to come, he says, not the very image of the things. They can never, with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more conscience of sin. But in those sacrifices, there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. Pause a moment to, to absorb what is being said. In Israel, the situation was this. You sinned on days throughout the year, on most days throughout the year. Then came the great day of atonement with a solemn ceremony, with its sacrifices and confessions, with its words of absolution, and that was that for the year. But the next year they went through the whole process again. Oh, but you say, quite right, of course, surely, because the next year they did some more sins. And isn't that how we have to do, you say, we come, we do a few sins, we come and confess them and get forgiven. Do a few more sins, we come and confess them and get forgiven. Well, what is wrong with that? I beg you to notice that this is the very fault that the Holy Spirit is finding for- finding in the system. He says, now look here at its imperfection. If those worshippers had been cleansed once and for all, then being cleansed, they would never have had conscience of sins again. And not having conscience of sins again, they wouldn't have offered any more sacrifices. For the offerers being once purged would thereafter have had no more conscience of sins, the offerings would have, uh, ceased. But of course, in Judaism, the opposite was true. They kept on offering offerings. Every year they offered them. For with them, it wasn't a once and for all cleansing, but a thing that had to be repeated many times. In fact, it was a something that had to be done every day. The later verses tell us that those priests indeed stand day by day, ministering and often o- offering the same sacrifices oftentimes, which can never take away sin. That was Judaism. Let us be bold enough to grasp the difference between that and Christianity. In contrast to those priests that stood constantly offering, we read of our Lord, but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down. That is a matter of history. He does not keep offering himself upon the cross, in spite of some translators of the New Testament. He sat down. Why did he sit down? Because his sacrifice was finished. You would agree with me that in his sacrifice he offered sacrifice for your sins that are already past. And then he sat down. Might I ask whether his, um, sacrifice accounted for your sins that are yet future? And if it hasn't, do you expect him to get up and offer a- another sacrifice? If those sins have not yet been accounted for, our Lord perforce will have to get up and offer another sacrifice before you can be forgiven. But the Holy Ghost himself is witness to this fact, that now God is prepared to grant complete forgiveness of all past, present, and future. This is the covenant, he says. Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now, where forgiveness of these is, where forgiveness of sins is, where they've all been forgiven, you don't, of course, need any more offering for sin. Is that enough? Or must I add to that another scripture? Writing to the believers at a place called Colossae, Paul phrased himself in this fashion. He says that, um, God did quicken us together with Christ, having forgiven us all trespasses, having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Paul paints a very vivid metaphor. It will repay us if we can persuade our imaginations to picture the thing that Paul is describing. He paints it as though there stood the cross, and here was a long bond written out at length and in detail of all God's ordinances the which we had broken. The effect of Christ's work was that first of all, he got a sponge in the habit of the ancient scribe who wanted to erase from a parchment what had been written, and he sponged the whole thing right out, blotted it out, sponged it out. And then he got that bond, sponged clear, and hammered it to his cross in public proclamation that the whole long, dreadful account against us had been removed and obliterated. That is the image. If any of us would lay claim to being forgiven, we must be sure that the sin for which we seek forgiveness was on that sheet that was then blotted out. Was it? If you grant me that, I want to ask next, how many of your sins were on that sheet? Oh, you say my sins up to the present, I couldn't believe my sins in the future were on the sheet. Let me ask you, how many sins had you done when Christ nailed that proclamation to his cross? Were they not all future? Come, we may not argue as though God were human and limited as we. We deal with a God of eternity. We are told in scripture that the offering that Christ gave at the cross stretches back in its value to the beginning of time, as it shall stretch forward to the end of time, for his offering was made by the eternal Spirit. And let me reinforce that fact by observing tonight why- what I observed on a previous occasion. When it comes to our sins as rebels and sinners, God does not hold court once a week, or once a day, or once a year. The scripture positively says that there is only one court held. It happens after death. It is appointed unto men to die once. You can't die twice. You die once, and then after that comes the judgment. The judgment is not held until the life is complete. In the same way, says Scripture, Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, so that his one offering avails for the whole life in view of the one final judgment. And because that is so, God can offer to the repentant sinner a forgiveness that is a forgiveness of the whole life. How glad you ought to be that I am proving my point. Am I not proving it? How else could you understand the words of our Lord Jesus when he said, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation? How else would you understand the inspired statement at the commencement of Romans chapter eight? There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. This indeed is a truly magnificent thing. But no less than this is the gift that God offers. On what condition? Just two. Repentance and faith. Repentance is an absolutely sine qua non, as the lawyers would phrase it. There is no forgiveness without repentance. When John saw the Pharisees coming to his baptism and knew their secret heart. Who has warned you, said he, to flee from the wrath to come, you generation of vipers? You give evidence, gentlemen, he said, that you genuinely want to be quit of sin. There is no forgiveness for people who want to carry on with sin. The man comes and says, look, I'm troubled about my soul. I, I, I would like to be saved. The thing that worries me is that I've stolen a thousand pounds. And you say, well, have you got the thousand? Yes, I've got the thousand. Could you pay it back? Yes, I could pay it back. But that's just the trouble. I have no intention of paying it back. God's word to such a man is that there is no forgiveness. Oh, let us make it abundantly clear. God doesn't ask us to free our lives of sin that we could not do. But God ours does demand that we repent, that is, we agree with God that sin is wrong. We agree with God that his judgment of our sin is just, and that we are willing to let Christ save us from sin. His saving us from the practice of sin may be a lifetime's operation in which we shall fall a thousand times over. But God does demand that basic attitude of heart. We are willing to let God, to let Christ save us from sin, for which we now seek forgiveness. And there is faith. It is not enough to be sorry for sin. We must come and lay claim to the forgiveness. The story that you tell over here so frequently... about that landlord, a wicked Englishman, I believe, who, uh, nevertheless decided to remit the rents of his, um, people on the estate. There's a story that was told me so frequently in my youth, and I feel illustrates the point so well. He made it public that if the men came between such and such hours on a certain day, he would be in his office and would give them a receipt free and for nothing for their rent that was overdue, which they could not pay. He sat in his office. At long last, a man, um, plucked up his courage and came in. What do you want? said his lordship. Well, uh, please, your lordship, you said, um, you would remit our rents. Of course I will, of course I will. And he signed the receipt. The man went out. His Lordship went off. Then the others came. They hadn't believed His Lordship before. They came to find the door locked and His Lordship gone. The time was up. There was no more remission. Christ has died. God offers forgiveness. But our Lord himself warned us that one day heaven's door will be shut. And there will be people outside who have eternally missed God's forgiveness. They did not really believe it was available. They did not come personally and have dealings with him. They've missed it, and that forever. I must make briefly, as I can, one more point. Forgive me just a few extra moments. I have argued here publicly tonight that when we come as sinners, as bankrupt sinners to the Savior, the forgiveness he offers is the forgiveness that covers the whole life. It would not do for me to leave that statement true as it is, without another to balance it and point the other side. Or else, perhaps some of you would remind me that there is a parable recorded in the gospel by Matthew in chapter, uh, eighteen. And our Lord himself told the parable. He said the kingdom of heaven was like unto a man that had servants, and one servant he had with a very big debt. The servant was threatened with imprisonment. The servant fell down and besought his lord to forgive him, and the lord forgave him that debt. That servant went out back to work. He had another fellow servant who owed him a trifling sum. He throttled that servant and threatened to put him in prison. His fellow servant kneeled before him and asked him for forgiveness, but this time he refused the forgiveness. His fellow servant went to prison. The other servants, busy about their tasks, heard this and reported it to their master. Their master summoned servant number one and roundly denouncing him, he withdrew the forgiveness that he had given and sent the man off to jail until he should pay his own debt. There you are, says somebody, and now that that proves your earlier contention completely wrong, Mr. Lecturer. But I think not. Though it is not my part to play down its serious and solemn message. You see, in the former instance, we were reading of God's offer to sinners as they come bankrupt for salvation. In this parable, we are reading about men who are servants in the kingdom of God. And there is a difference. I must here press this difference. Not all men and women are servants of God and in his kingdom. To think that is to make a basic fallacy, which will becloud many a scripture. Our Lord positively said that you cannot get into the kingdom of God unless first you be born again. When we are forgiven as sinners, then we may come into God's kingdom and serve him as servants. In that realm too, forgiveness operates, but here at a different level and on different principles. Let me illustrate it from common life. Her Majesty, maybe in some part of her dominions, has some rebels. They have broken loose from her authority. They have raised their own standard in defiance of her government. They are enemies of the Crown. They are caught. It is a question now of men that were rebels and enemies, whether Her Majesty will be pleased to punish them as they deserve, or be reconciled to them and receive them and forgive them. Her Majesty receives them. They are forgiven. The enmity is gone. It's altogether a different proposition from what happens when Prince Philip has promised to be into tea for half past four and doesn't arrive till half past six because he's been playing polo too long. With him, there never was a question of whether she should pardon him or condemn him to the gallows. There never was the slightest hint, I hope, that this misdemeanor would lead to divorce or death, but it would be unmanly and wrong for Prince Philip to think he could come in without an apology that was genuine and sincere, and think his wife should carry on as a full time, all smiles, and say nothing. And when we are brought within the family and kingdom of God, as men and women that have professed to be repentant about sin, God will hold us to that. If we do not judge our sins, then God will discipline us until we agree with him that sin is sin. Be that discipline very severe and end, if it have to, in our physical death. The Bible itself says that that death will not sever our salvation. The child of God who has to be disciplined even to death himself shall be saved and not condemned with the world. After all, he's a child of God. If we are brought under discipline, we may go to the Lord for forgiveness, and if we see fit, escape that discipline. But then the condition of escaping the discipline is that we forgive our fellow servants. If we do not forgive our fellow servants who sin against us, then in spite of our entreaty, there will be no release from the temporal discipline, and God will take us through the mill in life to teach us the seriousness of sin. Let us keep the distinction, and all is clear. There is a forgiveness of our whole life that will never be withdrawn, that we can get as we come as bankrupt sinners to the Savior. Guarding lest that forgiveness lead us into careless living is the kind but firm discipline of our Lord and Master in the kingdom and family of God that is determined to see that we are taught to forsake sin in all its detail. Now the lecture has ended and we go home. We ought, however, surely as we go, to ask ourselves two practical questions. I am a Christian. If by repentance and faith I have heard God's word of forgiveness, and I can look eternity itself courageously in the face and know that I am completely forgiven, that there is no condemnation for me. May God give me the courage to see whether in my daily life I have judged all known sins. I may be free of his discipline, and whether I am prepared to forgive my fellow Christians and all else when they come repentant for any injury they may have done me. But if I have not got that far, if I cannot honestly look God and the future in the face and say I am a forgiven man and woman, I shall never come into judgment if I have not peace with God. Surely wisdom dictates that I do not leave this question unsettled, not even for another night. God says, be it known to you that you are offered this absolute forgiveness. To go to sleep this night without it, carelessly, would be to add to an already long list of sin, one of the most dangerous sins that is possible for a human to commit. Then shall we take the matter to God in prayer. We thank thee now, blessed God, that thy word is so clear and so definite that any may read and all may understand. We thank thee that in thy proclamation of forgiveness, thy sincerity is evident. We thank thee for the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his ascension to thy right hand, for the Holy Spirit's earnest testimony that his sacrifice is complete and sufficient. For the peace of mind that they have who have trusted thee, we do render thee grateful thanksgiving. We pray that thou will give us honesty, we who are thy servants and in thy kingdom, to judge ourselves in the practical details of daily living. Give us a willing heart to show to our fellow men the forgiveness that thou dost so constantly and liberally bestow on us. In thy mercy, we beseech thee, O Lord, look upon any of us here who will never yet come as bankrupt sinners, but may be like Simon of old, have hearts busy apparently in serving thee, but unforgiven and therefore unloving. Speak to them too, we beseech thee, and bring them speedily into the light of thy full and thy frank and thy free forgiveness through that same Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.