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There is a price for forgiveness, and that is that we have to be honest with God. We have to lay ourselves bare before God, say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Then comes the promise of forgiveness.
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Our God is a God who forgives. That is such a wonderful truth that we find throughout the pages of Scripture. But God's forgiveness is not automatic. It comes only to those who truly repent of their sin and turn to him for mercy. Hello and welcome to Renewing youg Mind. I'm glad you've joined us on this Lord's Day as we continue sharing sermons from Dr. R.C. sproul from the Book of Acts. If you found these sermons helpful, you can receive the hardcover edition of R.C. s commentary on Acts. Simply give a donation in support of this program@renewingyourmind.org and but right now let's listen as Dr. Sproul explains how it is that sinful people can experience God's forgiveness.
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Yet now brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you, before whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren him you shall hear in all things whatever he says to you, and it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. And you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed to you first. God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquity. You recall that the occasion for this second sermon of Peter's that is recorded for us in the Book of Acts was the healing of the man who was born unable to stand or to walk when Peter and John encountered him by the gate, beautiful as he was begging for alms. And you remember the account that Peter said, silver and gold have we none but such as we have, we give unto you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And to the astonishment of all of those who were assembled there in that portion of the temple, this man stood, walked, began to leap and praise God. And this crowd who marveled, gathered around. And Peter uses that occasion to preach this sermon. The content of this sermon was a scorching denunciation of those who had gathered around on this occasion. Peter pointed the finger in their faces and said, you are the very people who betrayed Christ, who delivered him, who screamed for his blood and are guilty of his murder. It's by the power of that same Jesus that you murdered that this man was made whole. And again, Peter said, it wasn't by my power or John's power, it was by the power of his name. And so, as I said two weeks ago, this was not the most politically correct, winsome, and persuasive sermon ever preached on this planet. But in the middle of this scathing denunciation of the people who are standing there, Peter mellows a bit for a moment and listen to what he says. Yet now, brothers, I know that you did it in ignorance. In other words, one thing and I know, I know that what you did was you murdered the Son of God. But I also know that you didn't know what you were doing. And this, of course, brings to mind immediately the prayer of our Lord in the very midst of his execution, when he prays to the Father from the cross, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Elsewhere, the Scriptures say, had they known, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of Glory. And Peter says, I understand, you just didn't know what you were doing. Let me just pause for a moment here and talk about this whole business of ignorance in the Roman Catholic Church and their historic moral theology. Rome makes a distinction between two kinds of ignorance. One is called vincible ignorance and the other invincible ignorance. That which is vincible is that which may be conquered or overpowered. That which is invincible, of course, cannot be defeated, cannot be overpowered. And the distinction in moral theology is for this reason. If I do something out of ignorance, where I had no knowledge and had no way of knowing what was right or wrong, that would be invincible ignorance. And that kind of ignorance would excuse me. On the other hand, if I did something out of ignorance for which there was plenty of knowledge available, plenty of opportunity for me to learn it, but I was not diligent in my study. I. I was slothful, I was negligent, and I ignored that knowledge that was available to me and then at the end of the day cannot say, well, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I had no way of knowing. My favorite illustration of this is I take my car to Georgia and I drive into the city of Atlanta and the light turns red and I keep on going right through the red light and then I see another red light on the back of a car approaching me. And the policeman pulls me over and he says, hello, my name's Oscar and I'll be your arresting officer this afternoon. Oh no, that's in Winter Park. That that happens. It's not. But in any case I get arrested. And I said, why did you pull me over? And the policeman said, well, because you went through a red light back there. And I said, yes, so what? What's wrong with that? And he said, well, it's against the law to go through red lights. You have to stop at a red light. And I said, well, I'm not from Georgia here. How would I know that? I didn't know that you had to stop for that red light. He said, where do you live? He said, I live in Florida. Well, don't you have to stop? Red light Florida? Yes, but this is in Florida, this is Georgia. How do you expect me to know what your local traffic laws are here? I don't live here. How much of an excuse do you think that's going to be? When I go before the magistrate, he's going to say, look, if you presume to drive your car in the state of Georgia, you are responsible for to know what the driving code is because it's published, it's readily available and it's basically not any different from what it is in Florida anyway. So I could claim ignorance in a case like that, but it would be vincible ignorance. That would not. Excuse me for a moment. But on the other hand, suppose the city planners of Orlando having a shortfall in their budget and they come up with a scheme to add a lot of revenue to the city treasury in a hurry. They meet tonight at 11 o'. Clock. They decide among themselves the beginning Tomorrow morning at 6am it's going to be against the law to go on green. You have to stop on green and go on red. And it'll be a hundred dollar fine for everybody caught going through a green light. And we're going to have traffic policemen at every intersection in Orlando to arrest everybody that goes through the green light. But here's the catch. We're not going to tell anybody it's going to Be our little secret. And so tomorrow morning, 6 o', clock, you drive downtown, you come to green light. You keep going. All of a sudden you're pulled over and charged $100 for going through a green light. And you go to the magistrate and the magistrate says you're guilty because the law says you have to stop at a green light. Now, you had no idea about this secret law, no possible way of knowing anything about this secret law. Now, that's a kind of ignorance that the Church called invincible ignorance. It's invisible. You couldn't. There's no way you could have known. Therefore, your ignorance would excuse you. Now, I'm laboring this point here for a reason, ladies and gentlemen. There are countless millions of people in this world and in our own country who are counting on their ignorance to get them past the judgment seat of God. I never went to church. I never read the Bible. I never studied the things of God. How could you possibly hold me accountable for being a disciple of Christ when I didn't know anything about him? How much do you think that's going to wash on the judgment seat of God? No, that's vincible ignorance. That does not excuse now the ignorance that those who stood at the bottom of the cross and cried for the blood of Christ was not invincible. It was vincible. And despite that it was vincible, our Lord said, forgive them. And despite that, the ignorance that Peter acknowledges here of these who had screamed for the blood of Christ was visible. He still sees that they have a chance still to be forgiven. But the only chance they have is if they repent. Now, there is a progression in the redemptive history that's unfolded for us in Scripture. Do you remember when Jesus warned his contemporaries about their possibly committing the unforgivable sin? I get the question all the time from people. What's the unforgivable sin? Have I done it? Or is it possible that I will do it? Because if I've committed that sin, I'm toast. I have no hope. I'm finished forever. Well, there is an unforgivable sin, and our Lord warned his contemporaries about it. What was the occasion of that? Not only did these people not recognize him as the Messiah as they should have had they been diligent students of the Word of God, but they actually accused Jesus of being in league with the devil. Now, Jesus put up with an awful lot of insults and an awful lot of hostility from his contemporaries. But at this point, he draws a line in the sand and he says, stop. Hold it right there, fellas. You need to be very, very, very, very careful because you've already come perilously close to committing that sin for which there is no forgiveness. He said, you may sin against the Son of Man and be forgiven in this world and in the world to come. But if you sin against the Holy Ghost, if you blaspheme against him, there'll be no forgiveness for you in this world or in the world to come. Now, that's serious business. But did you ever wonder about that? I mean, why would Jesus say that if you sin against him, it's forgivable, but if you sin against the Holy Ghost, it's not forgivable? Is there something more egregious about sinning against the third person of the Trinity than there is against the second person of the Trinity or the first Person of the Trinity? Because everybody in this room, at some point in your life has blasphemed God. You ever take the Lord's name in vain, Ever? Blasphemy, something you do with your mouth, and it's a verbal disrespect and dishonoring of Almighty God, whose name is protected in the Decalogue, and for whom the first petition our Lord put into the Lord's Prayer was, hallowed be thy name. And so maybe if we've ever used the name of Christ or the name of the Father as a curse word flippantly, then maybe it's too late for us. It's certainly blasphemy. And there's not a person in this room who hasn't done it. I mean, we're all cooked. But fortunately, Jesus makes this distinction. You can sin against me and get forgiveness, but you blaspheme the Holy Spirit. You can't. Now, if you notice later on in the New Testament, particularly in the Book of Hebrews, that distinction between sinning against the Son and sinning against the Spirit evaporates. And the reason for it is this. On the occasion when Jesus was killed, the people that were blaspheming him all over the place really didn't know what they were doing. That was Friday. But on Sunday, by the power of the Holy Ghost, God raised him from the dead. And the point is this, that once the Holy Ghost convicts you of the truth of the identity of Jesus, if then you call him a devil, you're finished. Now, I don't believe it's possible, because of the mercy of God, for any Christian ever to commit that sin. But even here in this text, this crowd had come perilously close to it. Because God, the Holy Spirit, this is what Peter does. He takes him through the scriptures to the Old Testament. He said, you. He's speaking to Jews. He said, you people are Jewish people. You're the children of Abraham. You're the descendants of Moses. You're the children of the covenant. You remember when Moses predicted that a prophet would come like himself? Well, he came and you killed him. But Gator says, pat, I know you didn't know. I listened to people blaspheme God every single day of my life. And I think if they only knew that they had any idea how offensive this was to God. They would rather die than talk like this. They don't know it. Should they know it. Yes, they should know it. But there's hope if they don't know it. But notice what Peter doesn't say the way our culture would say. Our culture would look at this and say, well, they didn't know. And God bless those dear souls. They didn't know what they were doing. But isn't it nice that God loves them anyway? That's the way we preach today. It's not how Peter preached. I know that you did it in ignorance and your rulers did it in ignorance, but those things which God foretold by the mouth of the prophets, that the Christ would suffer, he fulfilled. Therefore what? Repent and be converted and have your sins blotted out? Boy, do I love that metaphor. Have your sins blotted out. Aren't you glad that pencils come with erasers? I have a hobby. Every morning I do two crossword puzzles. And I have a problem with pride. I refuse to use anything but a pen. You ought to see the mess that I make out of the morning paper with my pen because I don't have anything to erase my errors. Can you imagine God erasing every sin that you ever committed? That's why we're here, folks. That's the only reason we're here, really, is because we have found the place of forgiveness. We have found the one who will remove our sins, who will blot out our transgressions, who will erase the writing that is on the wall against each one of us. But the only way those sins are ever erased is if we humble ourselves, if we acknowledge our sins, if we turn from our sins, if we repent of our sins and come before God with a broken and contrite heart. Forgiveness by God is simply not automatic. The grace that is taught in this day and age is the cheapest thing that the church has ever heard. The idea is that God just automatically forgives Everybody. No. As long as you remain impenitent, as long as you refuse to confess your sins before him, he will not forgive you. So I know you didn't know it, but you should have known it. Because what would happen here was fulfilled and what was taught ages and ages and ages, time and time and time again by the gospel. I remember going on evangelism call in Cincinnati many years ago when I was working with Evangelism Explosion. I had two of my elders with me. And we went to this apartment. And all I can tell you was it was some kind of hippie pad with black strobe lights and everything. And this one girl was dressed to kill. And she was leaving and she excused herself. And the other one was home. And she had visited the church for some musical event. And she invited us in. And one of my elders began to tell her the gospel. And she stopped them right in mid sentence. She said, hold it. She said, my uncle's a Baptist minister. She says, I've heard that a thousand times, so please don't waste my time or yours. And I, you know, I just interrupted. I said, excuse me. I said, you've heard this a thousand times. I don't deny that you have. I said, but could it possibly hurt you you hear it one more time? She said, well, okay. So I picked it up where my elder had left it off. And I finished the presentation of the gospel. I didn't ask her to make a response. I didn't do anything. I just thanked her for letting me finish and being polite enough to let us in her house and we left. Never heard a thing about her for six months. Six months later, she shows up in the new member class. And somebody said, what led you to come to our church to want to join a church? And she told the story of this night where these people that she didn't know came and knocked on her door. And she repeated what she said. I've heard that a thousand times. And she told them, and I told her I'd want to just hear one more time. And she said, they didn't impose themselves. They said what he was going to do, and he did it. And they left. They said, as soon as those men walked out of my door, I went in my bedroom and I fell apart. She said, my face was on the pillow. I flooded the room with my tears because for the first time I really got it. And my sins were forgiven. You see, she knew the gospel, but she didn't know it. She had heard it a thousand times, but she never had ears to hear she had never been brought to repentance. She had never experienced the erasing of her sin. I lay awake at night worrying about people in our own congregation who are here faithfully all the time. Go to the Bible studies, sing the songs, hear the messages. But it's never, never landed in their souls. There is a price for forgiveness, and that is that we have to be honest with God. We have to lay ourselves bare before God, say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Then comes the promise of forgiveness. One last point when he quotes Moses. It said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brother and him you shall hear in all things whatever he says to you. Does that bring to mind anything? Moses said, there's going to come a day where God's going to send you another prophet, just like me, another mediator. And what you have to do is listen to him, hear him. Doesn't that take your mind right back to the mount of Transfiguration when Moses appears with Jesus there with Elijah? And the glory of Christ begins to shine through the veil of his humanity. And the disciples are falling on their faces in terror. Before them, the glory cloud surrounds them. They hear the voice from heaven. What does that voice say? This is my beloved son. Hear him. That's what Peter's saying. This is the Son of God. Listen to him. Because if you don't, your sins will not be erased and your ignorance will not save you.
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God's willingness to forgive our sins is indeed a glorious truth. And what a poignant reminder from RC that God's mercy ultimately comes to us only through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You're listening to the Sunday edition of Renewing youg Mind, the daily Bible teaching podcast of Ligonier Ministries. Next Sunday, we resume our study of Acts. And if you'd like to receive Dr. Sproul's commentary based on his sermons from the series, make a donation today@renewingyourmind.org and we will send you his hardcover book. You can also give by calling us at 800-435-4343. You know, it's been said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. It's a helpful reminder that God is building his kingdom through the bold and often costly witness of his people. I hope you'll join us next Sunday as we explore the courageous witness of the church here on Renewing youg Mind. Sa.