All language subtitles for Dealing with Difficult Problems - Forgiveness.en

Thirty years ago when my daughter was just a little girl I was working on the staff

of a church in Cincinnati

And every year we had a special week of services hat we called the Annual Preaching Mission

This was somewhat unusual for a Presbyterian church that we would have a heavy emphasis

for one week on evangelism

In fact, every year we even, during this week would have altar calls which was also unheard

of in such circles

We would bring in a visiting preacher

And I had to participate and assist in the worship service on this particular evening

And there was a children's program that went on simultaneously in a different part of the

church

I took my little girl that evening and put her into the children's program and then

I went over to the church office and prepared for the worship service

Well that night the church was packed

There were a couple thousand people there

And at the end of the sermon, I was standing at the front of the chancel and I looked out

and I saw these people coming down the aisles to the front of the church

And to my utter astonishment numbered among them was my little daughter

And I thought, MOh, no

She's too young to be involved in this sort of thing because she can't possibly understand

what this is all about
M

But nevertheless, she came down and she made her profession of faith

And after the service, I was driving her home

And I said, "Honey, what made you want to come forward during that part of this worship

service?"

She said "Dad, I don't know

She said "I just couldn't sit still

I had to go up there

It just was like something was pulling me and drawing me and I just had to go "

And I said, ’’Well, how do you feel now?"

And she says,
MOh, Dad," she says, "I feel so clean "

She said, "I feel just like a brand-new baby"

And I thought "Well maybe she does understand what it's all about," because the experience

that she had, even as a young girl, was an experience of the forgiveness of God

And I related to that in my own daughter's life because my conversion experience was

very similar

My conversion to Christ came when I was alone in my room

I was on my knees in front of my bed, and
I beged God for His mercy

And I was overwhelmed with a sense of complete pardon and forgiveness

And I wanted to go out of that room and run down the street and shout

And I felt like I'd crawl over glass to tell anybody I could about the greatness of the

mercy of God, because what our salvation is about is forgiveness

Now in our last session we looked at the difficult problem of guilt

And I mentioned the college student that I counseled many, many years ago who after

she had talked to another counselor who tried to explain away her guilt, she said "But

I still feel guiltyM

And I said to her 'That's because you are
guilty

And the only answer that I know of to real guilt, is real forgiveness

The only answer to objective guilt is objective forgiveness "

Now, just as we saw the confusion that may exist between subjective guilt feelings, as

distinguished from the objective reality of actual guilt

So we have the same kind of confusion between objective forgiveness and feelings of forgiveness,

which are the subjective side of forgiveness

And sometimes they are not always in agreement with each other

That is, sometimes we cannot be forgiven even though we feel forgiven

Or we can actually be forgiven and still not feel forgiven

My favorite illustration of that is another woman who came to me in the church on one

occasion, and she was all distressed

She was struggling with her guilt and she told me about what she had done

And she said "Doctor Sproul, you're a theologian and I need to find a answer to what I can

do with my problem
vi

She said, "I'm guilty,” and she confessed her sins and all that stuff

And I said "Well what have you done'?"

And she said, "Well, I've asked God, ten times, to forgive me of this sin

And I'm still not forgiven

What can I do?"

She was looking for me to give her some profound theological insight that she couldn't get

anywhere else

And I said, "Well, what I think you need to do is to get down on your knees and ask God

to forgive you
n

She said
"But I've already done that ten

I said, "I'm not asking you to ask God to forgive ou for that sin that you've requested

forgiveness for ten times

I want you to get down on your knees and ask God to forgive you for your arrogance "

"What?" she said

She's angry

She said, "Arrogance?

What arrogance?"

She said, 'Tve been the model of humility

I have been on my face before God, day and night pleading with Him to forgive me for

this sin

I said, "And how many times have you done

And she said, "ten times

I said "And what is it that God says?

Does not God say that, if you confess your sins He is faithful and just to forgive you

your sins, and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness?

Does God say that?"

She said "Yes

I said "Did you confess your sin?"

"Yes," she said( "but I don't feel forgiven
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I said, 'That’s the problem

I said, "You only have to confess your sin
once to God

If you are honest and sincere in your confession, God promises, absolutely, to forgive you and

1o cleanse you from all unrighteousness

Why I'm asking you to go back on your knees is for refusing to believe the promise of

God when He has given you His commitment and His word to forgive you

I'm asking you to ask God to forgive you for having your sense of forgiveness rest upon

your feelings, rather than the integrity of His word "

"Don't you see that you've cast a shadow on God's integrity based on your feelings'?

I hope that you will experience the joy of the feeling of forgiveness

But the actual state of forgiveness really has nothing to do with how you feel about

Just like before the law of God, you're either guilty or you're not guilty

So in the terms of the presence of God. you are either forgiven or you're not forgiven "

And so we need to cut through the confusion and come to an understanding of what real

and authentic forgiveness looks like

Now I don't usually depend upon clever devices of alliteration to outline or structure my

speeches or my messages

Some people are very good at that

I don’t normally practice it; but today I'm going to depart from my normal procedure and

give the five Rs of forgiveness

The five Rs

You've heard of the three Rs, reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic

I'm going to give you the five Rs that had to do with forgiveness

I'll mention them all at once first and then we'll look at them seriatim

First of all the first R is repentance

The second R is remission

The third R is restitution

The fourth R is reconciliation

And the fifth R is restoration

The
five Rs repentance remission, restitution,

T? _ oilhenrcj f inn five Rs repentance remission, restitution,

^ R-ocfni'^fion
‘‘reconciliation and restoration

reconciliation and restoration

These are all intimate parts, or aspects, of actual forgiveness

I said to the woman again the college student I said, 'The only cure for real guilty is

real forgiveness

And the necessary requirement for real forgiveness is real repentance

There is no forgiveness before God without
repentance

God does put a condition upon His forgiveness and that is that we repent"

Now, there's a host of confusion about this not only with respect to our vertical relationship

to God, but also with respect to our relationships with other people

Somehow, the idea has permeated the Christian community that it is always the Christian's

duty, in every life situation, to grant forgiveness to those who sin against us, unilateral!

and immediately whether the people repent of their sins or not

That we are simply not allowed to withhold forgiveness from people

I don't know where people get that from the New Testament, except that our Lord on certain

occasions did unilaterally pray for the forgiveness of His enemies without their repenting and

before their repenting

Even on the cross He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do "

Now we are certainly to emulate Christ in terms of our gracious attitude toward those

who have violated us

And we must always stand ready to forgive at the drop of a hat

But the whole system of church discipline in the New Testament, and the judgment at

the gates of Israel in the Old Testament, has to do with seeking redress before the

councils of the church for those who have violated us and who have not repented

And there are those occasions where we can withhold our beneficence towards people if

he have sinned against us and have not repented

Just as God will not just unilaterally forgive everybody, unless they repent

Now the other side of that is that if somebody does violate us and that person repents if

we refuse to forgive them, then we heap a house of coals upon our own heads

It is our absolute duty to forgive those who repent of their sins against us, with these

severe warnings that Jesus give

If we refuse to forgive those who sin against us when they repent how can we expect God

to forgive us?

We live by forgiveness and we should be manifesting a spirit of forgiveness in response to the

race and tenderness of God

But what does repentance mean'?

Well, we have a slogan in our culture, "Love means never having to say I'm sorry "

That certainly doesn't come from the word of God

Love means being willing and prompt to say "I'm sorry," when I have violated another

person

So repentance means "A Godly sorrow for having broken the law of God having violated

the relationship with God. having violated our relationships with each other"

That is a true sorrow, and a sorrow that carries with it a desire and a resolve to turn away

from that sin

It’s not simply enough to acknowledge that I'm guilty but I have to say, "In my guilt,

not only am I guilty, but I'm sorry" and,
"Oh. God

Please help me not to do that again "

Now obviously, we're told by Jesus that if your brother sins against you seven times

seventy, and repents seven times seventy what are you supposed to do?

You're supposed to forgive seventy times seven

And that may be that you begin to wonder of the genuineness and sincerity of the person's

repentance, when they continue to commit the
same sin

But that's the nature of sin, and that's the nature of sinners

All of us have been guilty in our lives of committing the same sin more than once

But when God forgives a sin real forgiveness doesn't keep track, as we will see in a moment

Repentance

The word in the New Testament is the word metanoia which literally means a changing

of the mind

Now it's not just an intellectual conclusion that is different from a former conclusion.

but suddenly I begin to see my sin for what
it really is

And where before I was not bothered by it or I rationalized it now I change my mind

and I'm ready to acknowledge the reality of my guilt, and to turn from my rationalizings

and my attempts to deny the reality of my
guilt

Now, when that condition is met, when true repentance which involves an acknowledgement

of your guilt and a sorrow for your guilt and a resolve to turn away from your guilt,

that is followed by the remission of sins

If we turn to the book of Isaiah, in the first chapter verse 18, we read these words, "Come

now and let us reason together, says the Lord

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow

Though they are red like crimson they shall be as wool"

Here in the poetic expression of the prophet we get the stark contrast between blood redness

and pure whiteness

"For with forgiveness and remission of sin comes the cleansing of the soul by the pardon

of God
I!

What does David say'?

"Purge me with hyssop and I will be clean

Wash me and I will be as snow

And this is the promise of God

The term remission means "To send away

You get bills in the mail, invoices, and it tells you how much you owe for the particular

goods or services that you've purchased

And then at the bottom of the page it says "Please remit payment with this invoice "

What does that mean'?

It means send it in

You send it in in the mail

You don't just let the bill sit around in your kitchen

You have to take the payment with the bill go to the mailbox and it gets sent away to

the other person

The word mission means "To send

"Missio
ri

We have missions

We have missionaries

All are involved in some kind of sending activity

But what we're talking about with the remission of sins is, God's sending our sins away from

US

Where He says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far do I remove your transgressions

Isaiah in the temple when the seraph came with hot tongs to the altar, took that hot

coal and came and put it on the mouth of the
prophet

The angel said to Isaiah "Behold your iniquity is forgiven and your sins have been taken

away

They have been removed from us

That's what happens

And in the place of that burden of guilt comes the cleansing of God of the soul

That which I say, which was scarlet, now is white as snow

That which was crimson now becomes as wool

Now we have a popular expression here, about forgiving and forgetting

And the idea is that God forgets our sins

When He pronounces us forgiven. He forgets our sins

Now we can have a very serious misunderstanding
EE51

It's not as though when we ask God to forgive us and He remits our sins and removes them

from us and sends them away that all of a sudden, He has a memory lapse and the great

God of Heaven that is omniscient suddenly can no longer remember that we ever sinned

against Him

That's not what happens

It’s not that God forgets literally the information of the reality of my sin

But the point of the scripture here is that God remembers our sins against us no more

Now a few moments ago I talked about repeated forgiving to repeated offenses and this is

the other thing that we need to understand

When we forgive people what do we mean by
that?

When somebody comes up to me and says, "I'm
sorry

I did this and this, and I violated you and I'll say, "That's okay

For et it

I forgive you
it

What does that mean'?

We can be very cheap when we say that

"Yeah, that's okay

Don't worry about it

And this is particularly true in the marriage relationship, where people are at their closest

possible human relationship and have the opportunity or repeated transgressions and violations

of each other

I do something to my wife and I hurt her and she tells me that and I say, "Oh honey,

I'm sorry

Please forgive me

And she said, "Okay you’re forgiven
IV

And then two days later I do the same thing

op J9A9 noA oq

I do exactly the same thing

Now here's what she's not supposed to say
to me

She's not supposed to say to me 'That's two

Because really in the context of forgiveness it's one

There is no seventy times seven, really

Because once I forgive you of a transgression if you do it again it’s as if it were the

first time

Because by giving my forgiveness the first time I have made a commitment not to remember

that transgression against you again

Not that I forget it

I know it happened

But when the second time comes around I can't say, 'That’s two "

It's one because it's a new relationship

And that's what we need to learn in the discipline of our granting forgiveness to other people

That when we say that we forgive people our "yay" needs to be "yay" and our "nay" needs

to be nay

I once had a fellow write a book, and he was talkin about how God had done marvelous things

in his marriage and he wanted me to write n endorsement for this book

I read the book and it was the whole history of his marital relationship with his wife,

in which in this book all of their dirty linen was aired for the public by way of giving

testimony to the greatness of God to reconcile them, and to help them forgive each other

And I said "Do you realize that what your book is, it's a complete denial of the very

thesis of your book?

You're telling me that God has given you the grace to forgive each other in your marriage,

and now you're telling the whole world what each of you has done to each other in the

past

You haven't really forgiven each other if you're going to tell everybody in sight what

it is that you've done
ii

So many times, when people give their testimonies in the very testimony that they give they

violate all kinds of people in the process, because we don't understand what forgiveness

sueatu

It's taken away

It's gone

We don't bring it up anymore

That's why forgiveness is not an easy thing to do, if it's the genuine article

I mean I'm really making commitment to a person when I say "I forgive you "

I'm saying 'That's the end of it

I'm not going to hold that against you anymore

I'm not going to harbor it in my soul or have a spirit of bitterness or resentment grow

up inside of me because of what's happened in the past

If you tell me you're sorry, then it's now my duty to get rid of all those feelings and

to work for the renewal of this relationship

Now obviously real repentance and forgiveness involves restitution

I probably should have put restitution before remission

Where true repentance includes a willingness and a desire to make up whatever can be made

up

There are lots of things that we cannot ever give restitution for, certain things that

can't be recalled

n arrow once it is released from the bow, won't stop

You can't yell at it and say "Stopi

Come backi"

It's out there

It's gone

And so the Bible tells us words that we speak, once they leave our mouth we can't call them

back

We can apologize for what we've said, and we can resolve not to say them again, but

Ihey're out there and we have said them

What can I do to make up for it?

Not a whole lot

On the other hand if I steal one hundred dollars from you and I say, "I repent

I'm sorry I stole your one hundred dollars, and you say, "Well, thank you

Where's my one hundred dollars?'

"Well, I just want your forgiveness

I'm going to keep the one hundred dollars

No

If you have it within your power to make restitution, you make the restitution

And we should be willing, anytime we're genuinely penitent, to do whatever we can to make up

for what has been done

Now we can't atone for it and there's where our pride comes into play

The biggest barrier to our gaining forgiveness s that we're too proud to repent and fall

upon the mercy of the court

We say the grace of God is for other people

I’m going to make up for my sins

I'm going to do an extra measure of righteousness to atone for my own sin

You can't atone for your own sin

You're a debtor who cannot pay his debt

And so, we have to disavow ourselves of that kind of pride but making restitution where

possible

Reconciliation

The ministry of the gospel it's called in the New Testament the ministry of reconciliation

And the chief person to whom we are reconciled is God, Himself

And that vertical model of reconciliation is to mirror and reflect the way we're supposed

to seek reconciliation on the horizontal level with human relationships

I know that every person has broken relationships

I've had broken relationships, broken relationships that pain me deeply

Some I can think of times in my life where I've had broken relationships with people

that were wonderfully and marvelously restored

I also can remember times of having broken relationships with people that were never

restored and probably never will be restored

And that's a failure

There's something seriously wrong

Or sometimes you can do everything you know how to seek reconciliation, and never achieve

i.

Can't be found

Can't be done

But we are to seek reconciliation

Now reconciliation, the one necessary requirement for reconciliation is estrangement

People who aren't estranged don't need to
be reconciled

So the prior condition that requires reconciliation is estrangement

And that's one of the problems we have in our culture, with God

People don't really believe that they're estranged from God

People don't really believe that they're an enmity of God, but if you have sinned against

God and have never repented before God you are God's enemy

You are in a posture of hostility and estrangement toward the living God

And the only way you can be reconciled to that god is through conning to the mediator,

who is Christ and repenting of your sin

God stands ready to reconcile with you no matter what you've done in your life but

He will not be reconciled with you without
repentance

But the good news is, when you repent, He reconciles

He enters into a whole new relationship with you

And at an Earthly level when that happens when a relationship is broken and then they

are brought together again, it's a magnificent, magnificent thing

That's why we have the fifth R which is restoration

That's the benefit of repentance

David can say, "Restore to me the joy of my salvation "

God's law had been violated by David

And David broke fellowship with God

And there was estrangement there, as David was going his own way

But when David fell on his face before God; repented of his sin, God forgave him and restored

him into His fellowship and into His relationship

And the restoration of a child of God to God is a subject of which the angels dance

We remember the prodigal son, and of the great stoiy of the restoration of that young man

with his father

In a very real sense, that's our story in terms of our relationship with God

But it's not only our relationship with God

We can have the restoration of marriages, of friendships of other relationships in

our community, because of the power of forgiveness

In fact, what the whole gospel is all about ultimately, is cosmic restoration

The new Heaven and a new Earth brought about through the work of one who came to reconcile

all things to Himself

That's why forgiveness, its reality, its objective character is at the very heart of the Christian