The offense of God

 

I was asked the question once, “Is there anything that God cannot do?”

Let me rephrase the question by putting it on a more personal level.  “Is there a sin that is so grievous to God, that He cannot forgive it?”

Is there a sin that we may have committed that may put us in danger of being unforgivable?

What if you had killed someone? I am not talking about unintentionally killing someone, but actually taking the life of someone with intent.

Could God forgive that offense?

I have read that 50% of the women that are sitting in an average Sunday morning service have had an abortion. If that is true and some have told me that 50% is a low estimate, then there are lots of women who are carrying around the guilt of murdering their unborn child and that burden is so heavy that the weight of it is slowly killing them.

One of the most powerful Christians who ever lived was a murderer.  Saul of Tarsus hated Christians with so much passion that he actually hunted them down so he could have the pleasure of watching them die. You can read about it in Acts 8:1 and 9:1. God forgave him and then used him unlike anyone else since.

Listen, if you are carrying around the guilt of abortion get that heavy burden off your life.  All that it takes is for you to confess your sins        (I John 1:9), and repent (Ezekiel 18:32), (Acts 3:19-20).

Please, please, please, don’t carry that heavy burden one more day, you can go to bed tonight with that heavy burden lifted from your life.

What about adultery and fornication, are those sins forgivable?  Contrary to what our debased culture teaches us today these are indeed serious sins.  There are a whole list of  scriptural warnings of the futility of these offenses to God.  Luke 16:18, Mark 10:11, Matt. 19:9, ICor. 6:9 plus many more. If someone has fallen into one of these sins is there hope?

In John chapter 4 Jesus met a woman near a town called Sychar in Samaria who had been married 5 times (It doesn’t say that she had been widowed 5 times) and she was presently living with a man who was not her husband.  Upon this woman’s confession she was forgiven by Jesus and after being relieved of her burden of sin she became a passionate testifier of God’s forgiveness.

Another time in John chapter 8 he forgave a woman who had been dragged to Him after being caught in the very act of adultery. Jesus forgave her and then told her to repent and change her life style.

What about lying?  Is that unforgivable? In John 18 Simon Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples lied three times when asked if he even knew Jesus.   Peter was forgiven and became a strong witness for Jesus and even died a martyr’s death.

What about stealing? With his dying breath, Jesus forgave the thief next to him on the cross of his sin.

I should think that I have touched some of us, if not all of us with at least one of the sins for which Jesus died, myself included.

But we have not answered the original question, “Is there a sin that Jesus cannot forgive?”

If one were to ask the average church goer to come up with a definition of GRACE he or she would probably say something like this. “It’s an umbrella of favor that I live under that allows me to live knowing that my sins are forgiven.” Now, I am not saying that they would use those exact words, but if you were to observe their lifestyle, that is what they believe.

Allow me to give you the definition of GRACE according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  “Grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such GRACE is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is GRACE because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost a man his life, and it is GRACE because it gives a man the only true life.  It is costly because it condemns sin, and GRACE because it justifies the sinner.  Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of His son. “Ye were bought with a price.” And what has cost God much, cannot be cheap for us. Above all it is GRACE because God did not reckon His son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us. Costly GRACE is the incarnation of God.”

If we contrast that Biblical definition and our responsibility to it as Christians, with the contemporary church goers definition we find GRACE to be not costly, but cheap.

GRACE is preached today as an inexhaustible treasury of blessings, so infinite that there is no limit to what I can get away with and still come under its covering.

Today’s believer shows little desire to be delivered from sin.  As a matter of fact today’s Christians live very much like the rest of the world, so much so that you’d be hard pressed to pick one out in the market place on Wednesday morning.

Cheap GRACE does not require forgiveness, does not require repentance, does not require confession, and does not require integrity, or discipline.

I live in a world where all my sins are justified and forgiven before I even commit them.  I can go and sin as much as I can get away with and rely on GRACE to forgive me.

You may ask, “Surely you don’t mean to say that people believe that?” My answer to that question is that there are thousands of churches today who make their living peddling that very belief. Why do you suppose people flock by the thousands to those huge mega-churches?

The wide road that leads to HELL as outlined in Matt. 7:13 is easy for it asks nothing whereas the narrow one which leads to life requires everything, even our very lives. The narrow road that leads to life is so narrow that Jesus tells us that only a few enter through it. Some translations render it, “Only a few find it.” It is not only narrow but it is a steep climb. Proverbs 15:24

So, is there a sin that God cannot forgive?

I would suggest that to continue in one’s sins without contrition, hoping that God will overlook your sins is such an abuse of His GRACE that is so deadly that even God cannot forgive them.

Someone has said that, “Today’s church has gathered like eagles around the carcass of cheap GRACE and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of Christ in her.”

We must heed the command that Jesus gave the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.”

Let’s see what John the apostle said in his letter.  I John  3:9 says “Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them so they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.”

Read Matt. 7:22-23 NKJ         I Cor. 6:9-11

AMEN