SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/1/2020 11:04 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “God’s
Pardon”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 6:12
Message of the
verse: “12
’And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
We continue to look at sin in this
SD, and it is my prayer that all who read this will learn something new from
this quotation from John MacArthur’s book “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer.
“Isaiah 48:22; ‘There is no peace,
saith the Lord unto the wicked.’
“Romans 8:20 says, ‘The creature was
made subject to vanity [emptiness].’
“So man’s whole life is stained with
sin. And the 50 million or so that die
every year face the ultimate consequence of it.
“The Bible takes great care to
present to man the full meaning of sin.
There are five New Testament words for sin. First, hamartia,
Greek for ‘missing the mark.’ It is used
137 times in the text and is an archer’s word.
Generally, the idea is that you miss because your arrow falls
short. Some people’s arrows go farther
than others, but nobody’s get there.
“We miss the mark. What is the mark? In Matthew 5:48, our Lord said, ‘Be ye…perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’ When we are like God we hit the mark, and
when we aren’t, we don’t. Welcome to the
community of those who miss the mark.
“The second New Testament word for
sin is parabasis. It means to step
across a line, God’s line between right and wrong. It is doing what is forbidden in thought, in
word, or in act.
“Third the word anomia, based on the word nomos
(or law) means lawlessness. This is a
flagrant rebellion against God.
“Notice the progression in these
words. Hamartia speaks more of our basis incapacity, our nature. Parabasis
means we just can’t restrain ourselves from the forbidden area, a little
more flagrant than hamartia. Parabasis is more self-directed, more
premeditated.
“But when you come to anomia, that is open, flagrant
rebellion. This describes the man who
does not want God making any claim on his life.
“Then we come to the fourth and fifth
words, the words used in the phrase in question and in Matthew 6:14-15
following the Disciples’ Prayer. The
fourth word is trespass, or paraptoma,
which means to slip or fall (see Galatians 6:1). ‘Brethren, even if anyone is
caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit
of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be
tempted.’
“Fifth, debt, or opheilema, is a very interesting
word. It is used only here in Romans 4 as
a noun, but its verb form is used many times.
It is a word not that familiar to us in terms of sin. But the verb form is used thirty times,
twenty-five in a moral sense, and it means to owe a debt. When you sin you owe to God a consequence.
“At the end of the age, at the great
white throne judgment, God will judge the ungodly out of the books (Revelation
20:11-15). What books? The books that record the unpaid debts.
“Among the rabbis and the Jews of
Matthew’s day, the most common word for debt was hova, an Aramaic word also meaning responsibility. When you read about the Disciple’s Prayer in
Luke, Luke says, ‘Forgive us our trespasses’ because he speaks in possibly a
more classical manner. But Matthew, with
his Jewish orientation, zeroes in on his concept of debt because he knows his
Jewish audience.
“We owe such a massive debt to God
because of our unrelenting sin that we could never pay it off. Even Peter said, ‘Depart from me; for I am a
sinful man, O Lord’ (Luke 5:8).
“Even Paul said he was the chief of
sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).
“Jesus taught all men everywhere to
pray, ‘Forgive us our debts,’ and in so doing He laid out the universality of
problem of sin. The Holy Spirit came
into the word, says John 16, to convict of sin.
Any man who honestly faces the reality of his character cannot be other
than conscious of his debt to God and his need to be forgiven.”
I want to now quote from MacArthur’s
sermon on this topic as he quotes Arthur Pink: “Arthur Pink says, “As it is contrary
to the holiness of God, sin is a defilement, a dishonor, and a reproach to
us. As it is a violation of His law, it is a crime; and as to the guilt
which we contact thereby it is a debt. As creatures, we owe a debt of
obedience unto our maker and governor. And through failure to render the
same on account of our rank disobedience, we have incurred a debt of
punishment, and it is for this that we implore a divine pardon.” In other
words, we owe such a massive debt to God because of our unrelenting sin that we
could never pay that debt. Do you know that? Never pay that debt.
Like the unfaithful servant, who owed so much it never could be paid in
his whole lifetime, we can’t pay the debt. We can’t pay it, and that is
precisely our problem. We are sinners who owe a debt that is so
monstrous, it’s inconceivable that we could pay it. Never done. And
if ever, beloved, you ought to come to God, you will come to God on the terms
of recognition of that debt. That’s right.”
Our
next word we want to look at is much more pleasing as it is forgiveness.
12/1/2020 11:43 AM
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