Sermon
The Sin God Does Not Forgive
August 4-5, 2001
Pastor Donald Sheley

Let's take our Bibles, and if you're using the pew Bible, we're at page 388 today. Our theme during the summer has been a consideration of many of the great Psalms, and so we've called it 'A Summer in the Psalms'. Two weeks ago we started with this particular Psalm, Psalm 51, in your Bible and we noticed at the top there's this indication that it's a Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. And Nathan the prophet approaches him and as a result David knows that his sin now is out in the open, and this is his prayer:

Have mercy upon me, 0 God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight--that you may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation; and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it: You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, and a broken and a contrite heart--these, O God, You will not despise. Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem. Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

A prayer for pardon, an expression of the pain and the guilt that he felt because of his sin and his deep hurt. There is a similar prayer that he prayed. Go back just a few pages to Psalm 38. It's an interesting Psalm. It shows the depth of his confession. He says, O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chastened me in Your hot displeasure! For Your arrows pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering because of my foolishness. I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are full of inflammation, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and severely broken; I groan because of the turmoil of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You. My heart pants, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes, it has gone from me.

My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off. Those also who seek my life lay snares for me; those who seek my hurt speak of destruction, and plan deception all the day long. But I, like a deaf man, do not hear; and I am like a mute who does not open his mouth. Thus I am like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth there is no response. For in You, O Lord, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God. For I said, "Hear me, lest they rejoice over me, lest, when my foot slips, they exult themselves against me." For I am ready to fall, and my sorrow is continually before me. I will declare my iniquity; I will be in anguish over my sin.

Now in our notes today we've covered the first 7 pages. Take your notes and join me on page 8, and that phrase today, we want to consider a part of his prayer where he says, dear Lord, I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is always before me. Page 8 in your notes, and if you'd like some just raise your hand; there are some, I think, left over. David had already acknowledged his sin to Nathan. In fact, he didn't have to -- Nathan knew all about it because God had revealed it to the prophet, and the prophet confronts David with it. And now in his prayer he is saying, God, I acknowledge I'm a sinner. I acknowledge my transgression. And remember we learned a couple of weeks ago that the word transgression means a willful, deliberate, stubborn act against the laws of God. David said I'm a transgressor. I have willfully, stubbornly, rebelliously, intentionally violated that which I knew to be godly and right.

To acknowledge our transgressions, there is confession; and to have our sins ever before us, there is conviction and contrition. Let me talk to just for moment about this whole matter of confession of sin. You might write this verse down in the personal notes column of your notes. It's Proverbs 28:13 and this is what it says: He who conceals his sin does not prosper. That's a divine law. Ask anyone who's tried. Confession is far better than concealment. And thus, the Scriptures tell us if we conceal our sins we're going to pay a terrible price, for we will not prosper in any way.

I think of the many confessions of the Scriptures. I think in Joshua 7 there is the story of Achan. You remember Achan is the man that after he has been told not to take any of the spoils from the city of Jericho -- the gold is to be given to the Lord's treasury, but everything else is to be destroyed. When Achan walks through that city that's now under the judgment of God and he sees the Babylonian garment and a number of other items and some shekels of gold, he takes them and hides them under the carpet in his tent. The result is, God's judgment comes down upon the whole nation. Victory has been great in taking Jericho. The walls have fallen down. Joshua says go over next-door and take the little town of Ai. We need it, but they are defeated and 36 soldiers die in the defeat. Now Joshua the leader knows something is wrong. God's judgment is upon us. His blessings have been lifted and he's now trying to find out, who has sinned. He goes through the long process and finally he comes down, and if you're with me in Joshua, you might want to turn there, it's Joshua 7 at page 153 in your Bible.

Verse 19 of Joshua 7. Now Joshua says to Achan, "My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me." And Achan answered Joshua and said, "Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done: "When I saw among the spoils the beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent." A confession, but a sin that had brought great calamity upon his nation and 36 people died while he's concealing those spoils beneath the carpet in his tent.

There's another confession I think of this morning, and that's the confession that Jesus talks about in Luke 15. It's page 704 in your Bible. It's the prodigal son, and Jesus tells the parable and says a boy said to his dad, I want my portion. Dad arranges his portion and the boy runs off and lives in sin. When he comes to himself, it says in verse 17, But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!' I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven. It's interesting in these confessions the admittance is that the sin truly has been against God Himself. Achan says it. Saul says it in his confession, and Jesus puts in the mouth the words in this prodigal son, he said, I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Confession of sin -- if we conceal it will always bring anguish.

David said I've got festering and foment, and I feel the foulness, and you must remember he's lived with this for months. Because from the time he sinned until Nathan approaches him, it could have been a year or more, and so this festering, this foulness, this anguish, this turmoil was there. And he said that thing is ever before me. I can't get rid of it. I think that every time he walked into the bedroom with Bathsheba he couldn't forget the night he committed adultery. It was always before him. It's interesting, God can forgive the He doesn't block out the memory. He said it's always there. I can't get rid of it. God, You've got to forgive me. I acknowledge my transgression.

Now I talked with a lot of you today and you will agree we understand that sentence that David prayed, my sin is ever before me. You know, as the little boy I learned that lesson early, at least a portion of the lesson. My father worked in a sawmill. The sawmill had a little grocery store. That was during the great depression in the '30s. The sawmill at times couldn't pay so they would give coupon books to the employees and you could use the coupon books to go to their store to buy food for the family. One day my mother said to me, son, look in the coupon book and see how many coupons are there. I think there are 12 pennies of coupons. That's all it took to buy a loaf of bread, 12 cents. And I looked, but there were 13 cents in the coupon book. I said, yes mother, there are 12 cents in the coupon book. She said, go to the store and get our bread. I went to the store bought the bread, and with the extra coupon I bought a Tootsie Roll for one penny, and it was a big one.

When I got half way home I stopped under a tree and I ate that Tootsie Roll, but it didn't taste good. It was bought was stolen money. When I got home I was quiet, but I was hurting inside. I knew what I had done, and my sin was ever before me. When it got suppertime and mother served the bread, my sin was ever before me, and even the bread didn't taste good. I went to bed that night and my sin was ever before me. And late in the night I couldn't sleep, and my mother and father's bedroom was at the bottom of the stairs. And I'm sleeping up here and in the night I say Momma! I've stolen a penny. She said come on down son we'll talk about it, and in the middle of the night I said, momma, daddy, I told you today there were only 12 cents in the coupon book and there were 13. I took the extra penny and brought candy. I understand what David says; my sin is ever before me.

It's interesting this one thing about sin; we've talked about, He forgives us, He'll take out the nail, but He doesn't take out the nail hole. He can forgive and forget, and He does, but He doesn't erase our memory. I'm seventy years old and that happened 65 years ago, and that thing is still ever before me. I know it's forgiven. David said something so true, we sin and time and life and actions write indelibly across the memories of our heart.

Now in this whole matter of sin -- we've talked today about confession. If we conceal it, it will just agonize the soul. Some three weeks ago I had sitting in the service on a Saturday evening a man, and I could see his eyes were filled with anguish. And after the service he came up to me and said, Pastor, can I talked with you? I said yes. So we went over there on the side and he said, Pastor, I know that God forgave David. I know he confessed his sin, but is it possible to sin a sin that God does not forgive? Is there such a thing as the unpardonable sin? He said, I think I've committed it. I said, Sir, the very fact that you're here is proof that you haven't committed it. Because once a man commits that unpardonable sin, all the moral thermometers of eternity are eradicated from his being and he has no concern or care if he did commit it. You've not committed it. So I want to take just a minute in our closing sermon, because this is very important and has troubled many people.

What does the Bible say about sinning a sin that ultimately God will not forgive? So I'm going to give you the verses. Come with me to Matthew chapter 12 in your Bible. I'd like all of you just to follow because I'm going to give you all the verses in the Bible that I think relate to the subject. Matthew chapter 12; in your pew Bible it's page 657. The occasion for these verses is that Christ's work and the His miraculous powers, by the religious leaders of His day, the Pharisees, they contributed it all to the work of Satan. They said it's the work of Beelzebub. Yet they knew that God was at work in their midst. They purposely attributed the power of Christ and gave Satan the glory.

Look at what He says, verse 31, Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or into age to come. Now hold your finger there because we want to take all the verses that relate then we can come to a consensus. Let's go to Hebrews, and in your Bible it's page 806. Hebrews 6, it says here, "Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits." In other words, he's saying these are the general doctrines of our Christian faith, but I want to talk to you about something a little deeper today.

Verse 4, "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come." Remember he started this paragraph with-it's impossible. "If they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame."

Now let's take one other verse, 1 John 5:16, and it's page 821. Let's read verse 14. I'm giving you all the verses in the Bible that talk about the sin that God ultimately does not forgive. Look at what it says in 1 John 5:14, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him." A marvelous revelation of prayer, isn't it? Verse 16, "If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that." A fascinating verse, isn't it?

So let's just make an observation. In the book of the Matthew it says that if we attribute, come to that point where the power of Christ is attributed to the power of Satan, and we sin, blaspheme against the Spirit of God, there is no forgiveness. Hebrews says that a person can be so touched by the world to come in great spiritual dimensions yet reject that to the point where the rejection leaves him no other place for repentance. And John says there is a sin that has no value to pray about. So, the question is, what is that sin? I went to my theology book and I wrote this one, just listen now, this is not in your notes, but Dr. Grudem I think gives an excellent explanation. Here's what He says, in the Matthew 12 passage Jesus is speaking about a sin that is not simply unbelief or rejection of Christ, but one that includes (and He includes three things). #1, a clear knowledge of who Christ is and of the power of the Holy Spirit working through him. #2, a willful rejection of the facts about Christ that his opponents knew to be true. #3, slanderously attributing the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ to the power of Satan.

He goes on, in such a case the hardness of heart would be so great that any ordinary means of bringing a sinner to repentance would already have been rejected. Persuasion of the truth will not work, for these people have already known the truth and have willfully rejected it. And demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit to heal and bring life will not work, for they have seen it and rejected it. In this case it is not that the sin itself is so horrible that it could not be covered by Christ's redemptive work, but rather that the sinner's hardened heart puts him or her beyond the reach of God's ordinary means of bringing forgiveness through repentance and trusting Christ for salvation. Thus he says, the sin is unpardonable because it cuts off the sinner from repentance and saving faith through belief in the truth.

Berkhof, one of the great theologians, says, "This sin consists in the conscious, malicious, and willful rejection and slander, against evidence and conviction, of the testimony of the Holy Spirit respecting the grace of God in Christ." And thus, what actually happens, if you take another verse and tie it with it, Paul says in Romans 1:28, you might want to turn there. It's a fascinating verse. He lists people rejecting the knowledge of God, turning their own bodies over to be used in unseemly manners, and then in the verse 28 he said; and God hath turned them over to a debased mind. In some translations it says God forsakes the mind, and was He does -- you can go so far and medal so long and resist so much the truth of God until that point comes when the thermometers that are moral are extracted from the human being and he's left without any moral compass whatsoever.

Verses 29 through 32 of Romans 1 tells what happens. A life filled with unrighteousness, maliciousness, viciousness, immorality, and he goes on and on; when God no longer allows the moral compass and removes it from the human heart. So the point is this, when a person sins the unpardonable sin, he doesn't care. He's gone so far. He's purposely rejected truth that has been so clear to him, that ultimately, in Genesis 6:3 it says God Spirit does not always strive with man. It's a fascinating and interesting thought, isn't it? When God's Holy Spirit is at work and truth is being revealed, may God give us responsive and loving hearts.

You say, Pastor, you've been preaching a long time. Have you ever met someone who you felt probably sinned the unpardonable sin? In my 50 some odd years maybe one that I know, because I don't know the hearts of people. God deals with each one of us. But I remember back in my high school/college days there was a boy raised in a godly home, had a lovely mother, his mother was my Sunday school teacher, and in this godly home this boy grew up with a cynical -- I mean almost a defiant -- attitude against the things of God. And I'd sit with him in service and he'd sit there mockingly under his breath and almost curse the preacher in everything he said. Then when it came time -- we always had an altar service at the end of the service -- he'd get up and put on this great demonstration and come forward weeping. And he'd get saved all over every Sunday night. All mockery. Then he'd get in his old 36 V-8 Ford convertible and go out and sin the sin of anybody else in town. And I watched him over a period of months and years as he hardened and became more malicious and vicious towards the things that were sacred.

His mother wept. Finally Bethel moved to Oregon, lived a godless life, and died a wicked death. Thank God His mercies are from everlasting to everlasting. David knew his sin was wretched, but he knew that God was merciful, and he wasn't going to conceal his sin. He wasn't going to cover it. He said, God, I acknowledge, I don't cover anything, I can't cover anything from You and this thing is before me. And in his passages as he writes in the Psalms he knows God graciously has forgiven him.

What's the lesson we want to learn from this one phrase today? It's this, sin concealed is foolish because once it comes out, that which is done in the closet shall be shouted from the housetops. It's much wiser just to say, I've sinned and I'm sorry. That's much more acceptable than defiant concealment. Don't conceal your sin. Secondly, you may be one that you've played around with the sacred for years, but have never fully surrendered and totally given your life to Christ, I've watched and God moves so close, but He allows us to exercise our ability to choose. He's a perfect, eternal gentleman, and we can so defy truth, so ignore it, so reject it until finally the sacred has no meaning whatsoever; and that's a tragedy.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this genuine prayer of a sinner's heart because all of us are sinners. Help us to learn today that sin concealed is utter foolishness; sin confessed brings mercy and forgiveness. And if there are some of us sitting here today and we've tried to cover things, that we admit like David the festering goes on deep within us, give us the wisdom and the courage to make confession to You and to those injured and clear this matter today. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you folks.