All right, we'll go ahead and
look at a few other things here before we eat lunch. You know, I went through talking
about justification in that last portion and showing about Jesus
being the central part of that. And I guess maybe, you know,
I should have, hindsight and after talking with Larry in between
the break there, you know, maybe even, uh, should have addressed
the fact that what is actual justification you know i mean
sometimes people and i was one of them who get all these terms
propitiation justification reconciliation redemption and all these words
sometimes i don't understand or i don't you know i get would
get them mixed up but uh justification is basically the act of declaring
one uh not guilty To be justified is to be declared not guilty.
And so that's what Jesus' blood or His mediatorial work did for
us. God considered us not guilty. I'm sure all of y'all that's
ever been in church for any time has heard the saying justified. If you break that up, justified,
never sinned. That's how God looks at us, justified,
never sinned. And that's true. We are justified
as if we had never sinned. Matter of fact, there's an actual
scriptural verse that is directly related to that very little quip
that we use, but it says that, blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord shall not impute sin. That means that if sin is not
imputed to you, then you are not held guilty of those sins. And the reason that it's not
imputed to you is not because of your worth or your works or
your life or obedience or your faith. The reason that it was
imputed to you is because it was a gift of God because of
the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. It was a gift. Christ gifted himself as our
mediator, as our advocate, as our substitute, as our propitiation. All those things that Jesus did
for us, it was a gift from God. We call those spiritual blessings,
right? And with that being the case,
turn to Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter 1 I don't know
if you guys as Bible is like mine. It's just about wore out
at Ephesians chapter 1 Ephesians chapter 1 we we see that we have been blessed
with all spiritual blessings, but particularly, I'd like to
look at now in the remaining time that we have, and any brothers
that wanna comment on this as well is welcome to, but I would
also like to see that since we have been elected, and since
Christ as the Lamb slain has been our redemption, And because
of that redemption of the lamb slain, we have justification,
a judgment hammer that came down and rung throughout all of time,
not guilty. We have forgiveness of sins. God forgives sins, why? Because Jesus' redemption paid
for those sins. Jesus justified us so that our
sins are not counted unto us, but unto him, right? Isn't that
what happened in the eternal covenant? Isn't that what happened
when the advocate or the mediator went before God and pled for
their justification? See, God could not justify them,
why? Because they would be guilty.
They would be guilty of sin. They are guilty of sin. Every
one of us are guilty of sin. Just because we believe in eternal
justification doesn't mean that we believe that we've not ever
sinned. We believe that we've truly sinned. We believe that
we, just as in Adam, all have died, right? We have all died
in Adam. Every one of us has been, of
our father Adam, given sin and death in our life, every one
of us. We are all sinners by nature. Unable to keep the law
of God. Unable to do what's right. Unable
to be justified in our own. And so Christ, his redemption,
and whenever he in the eternal covenant as the mediator advocate
came before God and said, count them not guilty, God said, well,
I don't think this conversation actually happened this way, but
for our understanding of this, God cannot justify us and be
just, except there be one to mediate between, for one to substitute
for us. See, God cannot be just and love
you. God cannot be just and save you. God cannot be just and declare
you not guilty and forgive your sins. Why? Because God is holy
and a just God. He will not let sin go unpunished. He will not let the trespass
continue. He will not overlook those things
and let them go and not be judged. He is the righteous judge. And
there is absolutely positively no way that any sinner can ever
be justified before God and God be just, except one worthy enough
to take their place as their substitute. And if God, the righteous
judge, deems that substitution viable and worthy of all acceptance
as being a true substitute and sees that substitute as the offender
themselves, then God can be just and be the justifier. That's
why it has to be outside of anything that we do because anything we
lay our hands to is gonna be contaminated with sin. Whether
it's our faith, whether it's our works, whether it's our knowledge,
everything that we have in and of ourselves in this carnal body
is tainted by sin. and it is not worthy to count
to be the grounds in which God justifies. Your God-given faith
itself is not enough to be counted as the grounds upon which God
says not guilty. Why? Because even the God-given
faith that we have is not always active and in perfection. If
that was the case, then the disciples never would have said, we believe,
help thou our unbelief. They would never have said, increase
our faith. Jesus never would have looked
at some of them and said, oh ye of little faith. The Bible would not say that
he has given a measure of faith to each man from zero to a hundred. if everybody had a hundred percent
faith. So we don't have anything to
offer that God can deem as worthy of justification. So God would
be unjust to do that. But that is what's so precious
about this free gift, is because we don't have anything to give
God, to offer God, to work for God, we don't have anything to
put up for that, Christ died for us. And so we have gifts
and have been given those gifts and been blessed with those gifts
before the foundation of the world. Why? Again, going back
so that no flesh will glory in his presence. and so that the
glory will be in the Lord. That's why we have that. And
so in Ephesians chapter one, we find, or because of those
things, we have forgiveness of sins. And so in Ephesians chapter
one, we find this very thing told to us. Look at verse seven,
if you would. In whom, speaking again of Christ,
in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins. Now, I don't know about you,
brethren, but sometimes we like to ponder and spend our time
thinking on the eternal aspects of salvation and how glorious
they are. in election and predestination.
And we love to ponder on the glories of God and who He is
and His sovereignty and His kindness and His goodness and things like
that. And that's great. But brethren, I tell you what,
whenever it comes to forgiveness of sins, what a glorious thing
to hear, not guilty and forgiven. See, somebody can be declared
not guilty but still not forgiven. See, a person can go in front
of the court and well, OJ, good example. You know, he can be
acquitted and on the record, it shows not guilty. But then
again, there's a lot of people that has not forgiven him for
what he did. At least I think that he did
it, but... Has not forgiven him see someone
can be legally declared not guilty because of circumstances But
not forgiven You can still hold a grudge. I they're not guilty,
but I'll tell you what But here's the good thing not only does
God call us not guilty, although we were guilty I He also has
forgiven every one of those sins. See, Jesus just didn't die for
those sins so that we could be declared not guilty, so that
God would not account those sins to us, but to him, but he died
so that we would also from God's perspective, be forgiven of those
sins. I forgive you. I don't hold anything
against you. See, that's the difference between
justification and forgiveness. Justification is the legal action
of God saying that you're not guilty, but forgiveness, and
I know I'm going to get some flack from this, is the heart
of God saying, I don't hold that against you either. I legally
don't hold you to it, but I also, in love, ain't gonna remember
it anymore. You're forgiven of that. Everything's
forgiven. Now there is a legal aspect of
forgiveness when someone has been justified in a court of
law of crimes, then all those crimes then are forgiven then.
They're not held to their account no more. They're forgiven or
they're done away with. They're wiped clean. They're
wiped away. But still, in the mind of people, that's still,
just like with OJ, in the mind of people, it's still there.
But see, in the mind of God, the Bible says he doesn't remember
those. that He has removed our sin as far as the East is from
the West, never to remember them anymore. Now, all of us here,
we're all human, and we've had scuffles and skirmishes between
each other or someone, and there's been a time where we've said,
you know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, or I'm sorry,
you know, will you forgive me? And sure, I forgive you. But
then, months down the line, something comes up again, and what all
of a sudden from the back of our mind, up comes what happened
the last, well, remember last time? Well, I thought you forgave
me of that. Well, I did then, but, you know,
well, that's not forgiveness. Forgiveness means to wipe it
clean and not to think of it anymore. not consider it anymore,
not to hold it to their account anymore. They can't be brought
up. We have the term double jeopardy,
right? In our law system, double jeopardy. You can't be convicted
twice for the same thing. And in forgiveness, whenever
someone is forgiven of the things that they've done, that means
they can't be held accountable for that again. And so if me and my wife got
into an argument, and I said something wrong, and she says,
well, I forgive you, then that should be wiped clean. And that
should never be the precedence of another argument down the
line, and vice versa. But if I bring that up or she
brings that up again, then we really didn't forgive and wipe
the slate clean on that. We just tucked it to the back
of our mind and indulged the other person and just said, okay,
well, I'm gonna, you know, because I wanna live at peace with you,
I'm just gonna say I forgive you. I mean, something to that
effect. But see, that's not how it is with God, brother. Your
sins not only was taken by somebody else, covered by somebody else,
but it's forgotten and wiped clean from God, never to be brought
up and used against you ever again. There is no double jeopardy
with God. God isn't gonna, at the judgment
seat, all of a sudden say, well, yeah, I know I said I was gonna
forgive you, but because the last 10 years of your life, you
were in rebellion and you sinned it up, boy. I'm gonna have to
now bring up all that. No, God doesn't do that. Matter
of fact, brethren, all of our sins, every sin for which we
will ever commit was covered in the blood of Jesus Christ.
And so when he forgives, he doesn't forgive on instance by instance. Now that's what we're taught
growing up, right? That's what we learn whenever we are taught
to pray and ask forgiveness for our sins. And somehow, whenever
we're taught to ask forgiveness for our sins, that it's just
an automatic thing that we think that, well, God forgives us on
an individual basis according to our sins. Brethren, He forgave
us of every sin that we would ever commit in Christ Jesus at
the time that He considered Christ Jesus as the representative of
us covering our sins. And so our forgiveness of sins
is not because I asked forgiveness, it's because Jesus. See, Jesus
is the center point of forgiveness. See, if I ask forgiveness for
my sins and God will only forgive me if I ask forgiveness for my
sins, now forgiveness is centered upon Mike. So forgiveness can't
be centered on Mike or I could give glory to God. Well, I got
forgiveness because I asked for it. God gave it, yes, but I had
to ask. He wasn't gonna give it unless
I asked. See, so even forgiveness itself,
so that no flesh will glory in his presence and that the Lord
might receive the glory, forgiveness too has to be centered upon the
Lord Jesus Christ and not upon you. It's not by your asking
for forgiveness. It's by the shed blood of Jesus
Christ. And so we see here in Ephesians chapter one, verse
seven, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness,
of sins. It's through His blood that we
have the forgiveness of our sins, not our asking. Colossians chapter
one, if you would. Colossians chapter one, verse
14. in whom we have redemption through
his blood, even the forgiveness of our sins. So if you didn't
trust Paul's letter to the Ephesians, how about Paul's letter to the
Colossians? Paul's being consistent at least to the varying churches
he's writing to. He says that it is in Christ
Jesus that we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness
of sins, or and the forgiveness of sins. We have redemption and
forgiveness through sins. He didn't only redeem us from
sin, but He forgave our sins because of Him. because of His
blood. It was His shed blood. That's
why Christ had to die. That's why His blood had to be
shed. God accounted that as righteousness and that is what covered us in
justification and allowed God to forgive and not be unjust. And whenever I mean aloud, I'm
not saying that God's less powerful, okay? I'm just saying that that's
the grounds of justice. That's the grounds of righteousness.
God made a perfect salvation where he is still holy and just,
and we, even though sinners, can be saved. What an amazing
thing, brethren. whenever we look at these things.
And sometimes it helps to break these things down and look at
them like this, to see the depth, oh, the depth of his salvation,
the depth of his grace and the glory that's in him. 1 John chapter one, 1 John chapter one, Verse seven, very familiar verse
to us. But if we walk in the light as
he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. Walking in the light. Is that something that we can
turn on and turn off? If we walk in the light as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin. That's almost sounds
like a conditional thing, doesn't it? But if we walk in the light
as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. But brethren, again, this is
a statement of fact. But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we will have fellowship one with another
in the blood of Jesus Christ. It cleanses us from all sins.
See, it's a statement of who we are, what we are, how we are. It's a statement of fact, not
a condition. If we walk in the light as he
is in the light, The only way that we can walk in the light
is if He guides us. He is a lamp unto our feet, a
light unto our pathway. We can't walk in the light unless
He guides our steps and directs us. Otherwise all of our walking
will be in darkness. So the very fact that we walk
in the light means that He is guiding us. Now some are going
to say, well that means that you have to be obedient. You
know, you have to be doing, you have to be living right. You
have to be doing right. You have to be living righteous.
You have to be obeying God. And what are the things that
we put on that? You gotta be tithing. You gotta be praying. You gotta be studying. You gotta
be witnessing, going door to door and visiting. You got to
be, you know, is that what the Bible says? No, it doesn't say
that. Doesn't say that at all. That's
what we're being told in all these places around the place,
that that's walking in the light. Walking in the light is Christ
in you, the hope of glory, living, working in you to his pleasure
and his power. That's walking in the light.
I can't do nothing to turn that on and turn that off. Reading
the Bible more is not gonna make me walk in the light more, it's
gonna reveal that I don't walk in the light sometimes, right?
The more I study the word of God, I see how unworthy I am,
I see how sinful I am, I see how holy God is, but that doesn't
cause me to walk. Christ causes me to walk, it's
God. he will put his spirit in you and cause you to walk in
his statutes or in the light. Again, it's based upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, right? The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son cleanses us from all sins. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Well, wait a minute. I thought walking in the light
was not walking in sin. See how squirrely things can
get if you don't have a overall biblical understanding of these
things? If you take these verses, brethren,
in their pulled out context, then, you know, we have some
weirdo doctrines that we can fall under. Look at verse nine. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. Now here's where again, the conditionals
will say, there you go. If we confess our sins, so we
have to ask forgiveness. Did that say if we ask forgiveness
for our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us?
It said, no, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just
to forgive us sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we confess our sins, not if
we ask forgiveness, see God is saying that it's your agreeing
with Him that you have sins. Brother Larry and Sister Rosette
and Mark can attest to the fact that there are many out there
who want to say they are without sin. And so they're just gonna
rip these pages right out of the scripture. But, it says if we confess our sins,
He is fateful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. He's already forgiven us of those
sins, and He's faithful to do that. See, the epistle of John
here is written to the little children, right? Those who are
born of God. Those who have already been given
life, and it's to instruct them about what they already have.
Brethren, listen, Christ has already forgiven you. You're
his, he's forgiven you. If he didn't forgive you, you
wouldn't be his. And he said, and if you confess that sin,
he's faithful and just, he's gonna forgive that sin. Why?
Because Christ died. Not because you asked for it,
but because Christ died. That's why these page breaks
and chapter breaks are so misleading sometimes. Because look, if we
say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not
in us. Now act like there's not even a break there. Keep going
on. My little children, these things are right under you that
you sin not, but if any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. and he is the propitiation for
our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the
whole world and hereby we know uh hereby we do know that we
know him if we keep his commandments he that so i'll just stop right
there but look at the flow of that He's taking them back to
what Christ did as the foundation of their sin removal. He's taking
them back to Christ on why they can, when they confess their
sins, have a peace of knowing that God is faithful and forgives
those sins. Why? Because Christ was the propitiation
for those sins. My little children, we have an
advocate. When you sin, Confess those sins. He's faithful. He's going to
forgive you those sins. Why? Because Christ was the advocate.
But if you say that you have no sin, you make God out to be
a liar because Christ died for you. And He didn't die for you
without sin. He died for you because of your
sin. See, anybody that claims to be a Christian and says that
we don't have any sin makes God out to be a liar. Why? Because
Christ died for sins and he died for you. If he died for you,
he died for your sins. That means you had sins. You
have sins. So anybody that says, well, I'm
without sin, then you made God a liar because God says you have
sins and Christ died for those sins. That's what he advocated
for. We don't make God a liar saying that God said, I didn't
have sins. Although that can be true as
well. If you say that God says I don't have sins, then you do
make God a liar. But how are you making him a
liar now? You're making him a liar because Christ was the advocate
for those sins. And if you say that you didn't
have sins, but you're yet, you're one of his, then you make God
a liar because he found those sins and put them on Christ.
And you're saying he didn't. So Christ is, again, the center
of our forgiveness here. Now it's a glorious thing, brethren,
because we're forgiven. But one thing we must know is
we're forgiven freely. He didn't forgive us because
we asked him. He didn't forgive us because we earned it. He didn't
forgive us because we were worthy of it. He forgive us freely by
His blood. The other thing that we can take
from this is that we are forgiven fully. We're forgiven fully,
not just a little bit. Not to be remembered no more,
right? It's not just a partial forgiveness,
but it's a full forgiveness. But what about at the judgment
seat of Christ? There are many who think that
when we come before God, that even though we've been justified,
even though we've been forgiven, that still, when we come before
God, all of our sins are gonna be brought up before God and
we're gonna be judged for our disobedience or for our omission
of obedience. So then if that's the case, and
I'm not saying that it is, but if that was the case, then forgiveness
wouldn't be forever. But is forgiveness forever? I
will remember them no more? Not only is that fully given
to us, but it's forever given to us. So my question is, is when we
come before the Lord and there is this judgment seat, and I
know the dispensations wanna make several judgment seats and
judgment times and judgment peoples, but let me ask, whenever and
wherever the child of grace is gonna stand before the Lord at
a judgment, how could any sin of commission
or omission be brought up if they've all been forgiven. So on that ground, and let me
even drag that a little bit further in, people think, well, it's
because of works of service. It's because we've been faithful
to the Lord in serving. Well, is not serving Christ not
considered a sin if we don't serve him? How do you serve Christ? Well, the Bible says there are
several ways that we serve Christ. One is our service to Christ
is what we're doing right here, is the gathering of the brethren
for corporate worship. That's considered service unto
God as the church. It's also whenever we have the
Lord's Supper and baptism, those ordinances that Christ gave us,
that's service unto the Lord. Our edification one to the other,
that's called service to the Lord. And so if I don't do those
things, is that not sin? And what if I do something wrong
in my service to the Lord? I do it wrongly. What if I sprinkle
somebody? Oh, I've now committed sin because
I've sprinkled somebody when Christ said to baptize them. Is that gonna be brought up before
the throne of God? Our sins will be remembered no
more, freely, fully, and forever. And so we can count on that,
brother. It's come from this whole attitude of preachers who
like to scare people or threaten people into salvation. and sanctification, quote-unquote
sanctification, what they call sanctification, or holy living. Boy, you better keep your tabs
with God. You need to stay right with God. I don't know how many
times I used to say that. You just need to get right with
God or stay right with God. If you stay right with God, you
ain't gonna have any problems. You know? As if God is gonna remember those
sins ever. And let me ask you this, for
those who might, again, have an issue with the judgment seat, if all through time God has forgiven
us of our sins and he doesn't hold that against us, but at
the judgment seat, those sins will be brought up, then has
our sins been imputed to us? And if that's the case, because
we already know the reprobate sin has been imputed to them,
we know the reprobate is being judged for those sins, they will
be cast into eternal darkness because of their sins. But I'm
talking about the child of grace, the people of God, those born
from above. If they come before the throne
of God, and there's not forgiveness found, and any sin is brought
up before God, at that judgment seat and they lose or gain because
of that, then is not their sins imputed to them. And at that
point, does the scriptures become null and void that says, blessed
unto him whom the Lord will not impute sin. At that point, then
there is nobody that falls into that category except Christ. And Christ didn't have no sins,
He took on our sins. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord will not impute sin. So if that's the case, whether
you're talking about me or whether you're talking about Christ,
you say, well, maybe it was Christ then, that's not imputed sin.
Well, if Christ has not imputed sin, then he couldn't have taken
our salvation in hand and made it perfect. Because it was because
he was imputed with our sins that our sins are forgiven. So
where is the standing before God? And I'm not saying that
there's not gonna be a judgment, brethren, I'm not saying that.
There is gonna be a judgment. But I'm saying this notion of
people being given more rewards or less rewards and all these
things coming out before God, based upon our efforts and based
upon our works, brethren, and our sin being brought up before
Him, I don't know if you've ever seen the Chick Track. I used
to see those Chick Tracks and give those out a lot and there
was one that always stuck into my mind and that was this one
about this guy who gets to heaven and there's this big movie screen
back behind and God is showing all the things of his life. You
know, him peeking around a corner looking at a girl and you know
drinking alcohol and smoking a cigarette you know those were
all the sins you know that was getting him to hell there and
so anyway all this was displayed up on the screen and it was always
you know kind of putting in people's mind that remember you know surely
your deeds are going to find you out one of these days It's
all going to be displayed before God. And man, I thought in my
head, boy, if every little sin that I ever commit is displayed
up on a screen before all of creation, how embarrassing that's
going to be. Well, we're all going to be in the same boat
because we're all going to have the same embarrassments, I'm sure. But
still, that thought was in the mind. Boy, it just made me want
to walk straight and narrow. But it never made me straight
and narrow. It just made me want to do something. And whenever
I tried to do it and failed, it made me more frustrated that
I couldn't walk that walk. And so that's why I'm so glad
that the Lord revealed to me free grace. that it was walked
already for me, and that that righteousness has been imputed
to me, and that my sins have not been imputed to me, and that
all of my sins have been forgiven, never ever any of them whatsoever
commission or omission to be brought up ever again. So I'm thankful for that. And
I think we ought to be thankful to Christ for his forgiveness
by blood. See, Christ is the center of
our forgiveness, whether it be in eternity or whether it be
in time. He is the center of our forgiveness. All right, we'll
stop there. Does anybody have any comments
that you'd like to make?