Praise Our God - Part Four
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Introduction
Introduction
Our Attitude Toward God’s Forgiveness Today, it is our joy and privilege to consider the first sentence in verse 3. Who forgives all your iniquities. What should our attitude be as we consider forgiveness.? Somber mindedness. Please do not treat this concept of forgiveness as commonplace or not a big deal. What we will consider regarding Gog’s forgiveness of us should be one of the most shocking truths in all of Scripture. It is does not shock you to the point of humility and ultimately worship leading to a whole life lived for our forgiving God, you yet to receive it in the manner God desires for you.
PRAY
Of David. 1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, 3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. 7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. 13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. 14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. 17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, 18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. 19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. 20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! 21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will! 22 Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Our Approach To Understand God’s Forgiveness
Our Approach To Understand God’s Forgiveness
I want to mention is the way we will approach the sentence itself. I think that is will be helpful for us to align the concepts of this half of the verse differently than the way the sentence itself is translated to us. I would like to rephrase the sentence in the following way: Your iniquity he forgives all of it.
Our Sin Against the Praiseworthy God
Our Sin Against the Praiseworthy God
Your iniquity - Iniquity is evil behavior, a misdeed. It carries the idea of depravity, perversity and leads to guilt due to its wickedness. David is still speaking to himself about himself. The sins that David has committed are his personal sins. He owns them as his own. David is speaking about his personal, volitional (choice) rebellions against God, his Creator.
David is writing about sin. We might ask the question, “What is sin?” In fact, this is our catechism question for today. “What is sin?”
Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, not being or doing what he requires in his law.
What is it that make sin so heinous and so worthy of God’s wrath and displeasure? If you notice how the catechism answer begins, there is a clue as to why sin in so bad. Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created. I might say that sin is rejecting and ignoring God, not being or doing what he requires in his law.
The gravity of sin is directly proportional to the gravity of the One we have sinned against. In other word, the ugliness of sin is directly related and proportional to the beauty of the One whom we have sinned against.
In his book, The Sinfulness of Sin, Ralph Venning highlights the sinfulness of sin because of that fact that sin is contrary to God.
The sinfulness of sin not only appears from, but consists in this, that it is contrary to God. Indeed, it is contrariety and enmity itself. Carnal men, or sinners are called by the name of enemies to God (Romans 5.8 with 10; Colossians 1.21); but the carnal mind or sin is called enmity itself (Romans 8.7). Accordingly, it and its acts are expressed by names of enmity and acts of hostility, such as, walking contrary to God (Leviticus 26.21), rebelling against God (Isaiah 1.2), rising up against him as an enemy (Micah 2.8), striving and contending with God (Isaiah 45.9), and despising God (Numbers 11.20). It makes men haters of God (Romans 1.30), resisters of God (Acts 7.51), fighters against God (Acts 5.39 and 23.9), even blasphemers of God, and in short very atheists, who say there is no God (Psalm 14.1). It goes about to ungod God, and is by some of the ancients called Deicidium, God-murder or God-killing.
1. Sin is contrary to the nature of God. God's name is holy, and as his name is, so is he and his nature, all holy; he is so, and cannot but be so. God is holy, without spot or blemish, or any such thing, without any wrinkle, or anything like it, as they also that are in Christ shall one day be (Ephesians 5.27). He is so holy, that he cannot sin himself, nor be the cause or author of sin in another. He does not command sin to be committed, for to do so would be to cross his nature and will. Nor does he approve of any man's sin, when it is committed, but hates it with a perfect hatred. He is without iniquity, and of purer eyes than to behold (i.e. approve) iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13). On the contrary, as God is holy, all holy, only holy, altogether holy, and always holy, so sin is sinful, all sinful, only sinful, altogether sinful, and always sinful (Genesis 6.5). In my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing (Romans 7.18). As in God there is no evil, so in sin there is no good. God is the chiefest of goods and sin is the chiefest of evils. As no good can be compared with God for goodness, so no evil can be compared with sin for evil.
2. Sin is contrary to the names and attributes of God. (1) It deposes the sovereignty of God. (2) It denies God's all-sufficiency. As if there were not contentment and satisfaction enough to be had in the enjoyment of God, but that vanity and wickedness had more of pleasure and profit than he, whose ways are all pleasantness, and whose service is the health of man! (3) It challenges the justice of God, and dares God to do his worst. (4) It disowns his omniscience. Pooh! they say, God does not see, nor does the most High regard. (5) It despises the riches of God's goodness (Romans 2.4).
3. Sin is contrary to the works of God. It works contrary to God, and is called the work of the devil (1 John 3.8). All God's works were good exceedingly, beautiful even to admiration; but the works of sin are deformed and monstrously ugly, for it works disorder, confusion, and everything that is abominable.
4. Sin is contrary to the law and will of God, to all the rules and orders of his appointment. There is not one of his laws which it has not broken, and endeavoured to make void. Sin is an anti-will to God's will.
5. Sin is contrary to the image of God, in which man was made. God made man in his own likeness, viz. in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4.24). Now sin is clean contrary to this image, as much unlike it as deformity and ugliness is unlike handsomeness and beauty, as darkness is to light, as hell to heaven.
6. Sin is contrary to the people and children of God. It is true, sin cannot hate them as much as God loves them, nor do them as much hurt as God can do them good. Yet, out of spite and envy, it will do its worst, and hate them because God loves them.
7. Sin is contrary to, and set against the glory of God, and all that should and would give glory to him, or has any tendency to do so.
8. Sin is contrary and opposite to the being and existence of God. (This was hinted at before.) It makes the sinner wish and endeavour that there might be no God, for sinners are haters of God (Romans 1.30).
Our Praiseworthy God Forgives
Our Praiseworthy God Forgives
Who - As we have mentioned in previous weeks, the who is Yahweh. This is the personal, living God. He is the God of of the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is Israel’s deliverer. Forgives - This word means to pardon, to stop taking an offense into account. Freeing a person from guilt and its consequences.
5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. 19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. 20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
25 “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
Our Praiseworthy God’s Complete Forgiveness
Our Praiseworthy God’s Complete Forgiveness
All of It - All - The whole, everything, complete. The beauty of this word. God forgives all the iniquity of his people.
As we think about how all sin is dealt with in forgiveness, I want to highlight four things:
First, All believers are forgiven Old and New Testament are forgiven by the work of Jesus God forgives the sins of believers on the basis of the once for all sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the cross. Believers’ sins are no longer held against them, on account of the atoning death of Jesus Christ.
22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; 6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ” 8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Second, Jesus sacrifice does an end to sin and all it consequences.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Third, forgiveness comes after repentance.
13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, unbelievers will not be forgiven.
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Practical Application
Practical Application
Unbelievers, unless you repent and believe you have no hope for forgiveness.
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Believers, bless the LORD.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
Believers, fear the LORD
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
Believers, sin less before the LORD, confess your sin to the LORD.
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.