Episode 80: Prerequisites for the forgiveness of sins

In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father and Son and Holy

Spirit forever. Amen.

Glory be to the everlasting mercies which sent you to us, O

Christ, the Light of the world and the life of all.

Give us wisdom by your law and enlighten our impulses by your

knowledge. Sanctify our souls by your

truth, and grant that we may be obedient to your words and may

fulfill your commandments at every hour.

O you who enlightens the rationale with the knowledge of

your greatness, do enlighten, my Lord, our thoughts that we may

meditate upon your holy and divine scriptures at all times,

O Lord of all, Father and Son and Holy Spirit forever.

Amen. Just confess and God will

forgive you. Say the repentance prayer and

receive Jesus Christ in your heart and you're set for life,

eternal life saved as motivational, encouraging, or

somewhat magical. That sounds and only sounds.

There's a lot more to it than that.

In Luke chapter 13, verse 24, Jesus teaches us to strive,

Luke 13:24

strive, that is, make every effort to enter the narrow,

narrow gate. Why?

Because God is holy and we need to continue to live in the

holiness we received from the holy mysteries of baptism.

Again, in Matthew Chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus instructs

Matthew 7:24

everyone therefore that hears these words of mine.

So you listen to them, you hear them, and does them doing shall

be likened unto a wise man who built his house upon the rock.

And again in Chapter 7, verse 21, Jesus proclaims not all who

call me Lord Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but those who

do the will of my Father in heaven.

And Saint Paul reiterates and instructs that we must be

changed. We must be transformed, not just

accept. So, going back to just

confessing or confess, let's find the true value in the

method and process of confessing, pleading,

supplicating the Lord, Not merely slouching in a chair with

feet stretched out while being wiggled and chatting or chilling

out with God. No, beloved.

Let's read an example which Jesus gave in the parable of the

man who owed 10,000 talents. You remember that.

And his master was holding him accountable, not dismissing it.

He was holding him accountable. Let's look at what he did this

man in Matthew chapter 18, verse 26 we read and falling down or

Matthew 18:26

kneeling the servant worshipped him and he said, my Lord, be

patient with me and I shall pay you everything.

He didn't ask for forgiveness, he asked for patience.

Now this is after what he was told or what was told of his

punishment, because simply he had nothing to pay.

In verse 25 we read and when he had nothing to pay, he was

bankrupt. Moufless, they say in the Arabic

language, the Lord commanded or his Lord commanded that he would

be sold. This is extreme right?

Not only him, but his wife and his children would be sold and

everything that he had so that he would pay.

Now that's cruel. At first glance, selling wife

and children. Now that seems cruel at first

glance, selling wife and children.

But when we look closely, we see that Christ is emphasizing the

total alienation from God when one is in sin, when one has a

debt to God. So right now, beloved, if you

are engaged in joining and willingly sinning and remaining

in sin, dear bro and sis, you are alienated from God.

But don't fret. Don't be troubled.

God is ready to forgive, not dismiss your sins, but to

forgive. We need to remember, beloved,

God does not simply dismiss sin, but rather calls for

accountability, giving us the gift of confession and

repentance, just as he didn't merely dismiss the original seal

of man for which Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, was held

accountable, so that we are graced with forgiveness through

him. So again, looking at Matthew,

Matthew 18:26

chapter 18, verse 26, and falling down, that servant

worshipped him and he said, my Lord, be patient with me and I

shall pay you everything. Let's break it down.

Let's learn from it. Let's begin to put it in

practice. Number one, he fell.

He crumbled with guilt, conviction.

He crumbled with grief. There.

These are the prerequisites, beloved, that we must have.

These are the do's and the haves for confession, grief, being

sorrow. Sharma Look at what Paul writes

to the Corinthians in his second epistle, whom he had grieved by

his epistle. 2nd Corinthians, 78 to 9:00.

For although I grieved you by my epistle or by an epistle, I have

no regret. I don't care.

I don't regret grieving you, even though I was sorry.

I felt sorry for you. For I saw that the same epistle,

though it grieved you for an hour, but on the other hand it

gave me great joy, not because you grieved for yourselves, but

because you grieve, or your grief brought you conversion.

So for those who don't think much of or take offence of what

Saint Paul writes when he is referring to, you know, the the

he stands to on society and on even the Church when it comes to

sin, immorality and filth. Well, I pray that it will bring

you conversion from this sin. It will bring you conversion

from immoralities and lewdness. And I pray that the conversion

comes about like that of the falling down man who was

forgiven his debts. Again, he didn't ask for

forgiveness. He said, I will repay you.

But when you continue to read the parable, let's not do what

he did next. We won't go into that.

You want to go and kneecap someone because he owed him 50

talents, but he owed 10,000. Secondly, we see that he

worshipped. He held his Lord in reverence.

He adored his Lord. He submitted to his Lord.

He threw himself at the mercy of his Lord.

And that's what we need to do. We need to bend down ease.

We need to go down beloved prostate.

We need to Revere a door, throw ourselves at the mercy of God in

supplication again, not sitting in a chair with feet stretched

out, being wiggled. And what is it?

Twiddling our thumbs and talking to God.

Not running around and hooraying and and claiming that I am

praying to the Lord, not jumping up and down.

You know, I saw. I saw this.

Most most Blasphemous video This is in a church, Beloved.

This is in a church that preaches Jesus Christ, the only

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Sola Scriptura.

Only the Bible. Only the Bible where they place

the Bible on the ground and someone kicks it as though

they're playing football. This is on, I think it was on

the Super Bowl Sunday. You call that a church?

You go to these churches? Get out.

Plot on out. Get out from those churches.

Beloved, if that church is teaching you to just proclaim

and the Lord will forgive, get out of those churches because we

see that it's totally against the Holy Scriptures.

This is a parable we're talking about that Jesus gave.

Not Saint Paul or Saint Peter or Saint Mark or Matthew.

No, no, Jesus gave this. This is Jesus Incarnate speaking

to us, giving us an example. He fell on his knees.

You need to fall on your knees when you come to confess, when

you come to besiege and plead and supplicate, knees bent, head

touching the ground. Remember the ground is the

footstool of God. When Jesus says do not swear on

the heavens or on the ground or the earth, because the ground or

the earth is God's footstool, in Psalm 95, verse six we read,

come, let us kneel and worship Him.

And we shall bless the Lord God in our hearts, in our minds, in

our deeds, in our actions, because He made US let us kneel,

fall down. Not merely a lip service, no.

So again during this time of the great fast and I pray that you

are fasting, Beloved, as Christians we need to be

praying, fasting, reading the holy Scriptures which are all

tentacles of faith and love we have in Jesus Christ.

You love the Lord Jesus Christ. Do what he did.

Don't be fake. Do what Jesus did.

He fasted, He prayed, He forgave, He humbled himself, do

what he did. So during this time of great

fast as we are being held accountable.

Beloved, you know, we spoke about this last week.

Accountable because of our sins, being held accountable by

Christ, His Church, and even ourselves.

Let us kneel and worship in prayer, confession and

supplication, pleading not to be forgiven because we do not

deserve that. Beloved, we don't deserve it,

but pleading that He, the Lord has mercy upon us so that we can

repay, so that we can begin that process of repentance because we

are truly not worthy. We are truly not worthy because

of our frailty and our many sins and our gracious Lord God, on

the other hand, according to Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20,

Ephesians 3:20

is able by His almighty power to do for us even more than we ask

or think according to His power that works in us.

He will forgive, He will reinstate.

He will grant us authority. He will clothe us with the

garment of grace. He will place that ring of

authority upon our fingers, and He will give us those new shoes

to walk in the Gospels, according to God's perfect will.

This we need to do during this time of Lent to be supplicating.

Fall on your face, fall on your knees.

That's a Christmas song. Nativity.

That's either I'm either late or too early.

We need to truly fall on our knees, as this man did, and

supplicate once again. Beloved, keep in mind we need to

remember this, that God does not simply dismiss sins.

No, we will be held accountable. We are being held accountable

for every deed, every action, and Christ mentions every every

idol word that proceeds from our mouths we will be held

accountable for. So we need to remember that God

does not simply dismiss sins, but rather calls for

accountability, giving us the gift of confession and

repentance. And we see this.

The original sin was not merely simply dismissed.

Someone was held accountable, and that was our Lord and our

Savior Jesus Christ, On our account, the Scriptures say.

On our account, he fasted. On our account, he prayed.

On our account, He emptied himself from all His glory and

took the likeness of a servant on our account.

He was obedient to the Father, obedient Indian to the cross,

the death, the most cruelest death on our account.

He humbled himself and He took on our infirmities.

And through him beloved, we are graced with forgiveness through

Jesus Christ. So think about your sins.

Think about your foolish deeds, acts, actions, gossip, speech.

We've spoken about this. Think about that.

We will be held accountable. Now is the time to throw

ourselves on our knees again with our heads touching the

ground at the mercy of God and asking him to have mercy, to be

patient, to strengthen us, to grant us the desire to begin the

repentance to begin to repay. And what do we repay?

God? How do we repay Jesus Christ of

our sins? We don't need to go and crucify

ourselves. You see this in these South

American countries during the the feast of the Resurrection.

People crucifying themselves on the cross.

God hasn't asked us to crucify. It means nothing, beloved

brother. And if you're if you're

listening from one of these South American, you know,

Brazil, I don't know one of these countries, it means

nothing. You crucifying yourself on the

cross means nothing. It's not literal.

Crucifying means, beloved, to denounce yourself, to deny

yourself, to take up that cross. That's how we repay God.

We repay God by denouncing ourselves, denying ourselves our

will, our desire. We repay our debts by believing

in the blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed on the cross for

you and I, through whom He purchased us through His blood.

We admit this is how we repay God with our debts.

We we confess and we believe, and we we admit that the Lord is

only pleased by the sacrifice of His Son.

I don't need to do any sacrifices.

I need to repent. I need to hang my head as a bow

as we spoke last episode. And I need to come to the Lord

with a contrite spirit and literally, literally now throw

myself at His mercy and ask for the Lord to have patience with

me and to help me and to strengthen me.

And believing that the Lord, as we continue to read this

parable, you read that his master, his Lord, had mercy on

him, and he forgave his dead. He was asking for patience.

His master, his Lord, forgave him his dead.

The Lord is ready to forgive those who are truly grieving

over their sins, their follies, their foolishness, praise and

glory be to the name of the Father and of the Son of the

Holy Spirit and forever. Amen.

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