Catechism on Forgiveness (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5 where the Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Mike Abendroth here. Still on steroids, but I'm going to try to be calmer today. Soothing, chamomile tea. I cannot remember the last time I had any calamine lotion. I go back to that old song, Poison Ivy, calamine lotion.

Okay, well, two things, Israel, February 17th, 2015. You still can register, NoCompromiseRadio .com, Israel link, we'd love to have you go with us. Sea of Galilee, Mediterranean Sea. Last time we swam in the Mediterranean, we swam in the Sea of Galilee.

I think it was even evening, we did like the 10 p .m. swim. It's kind of weird, spooky. I think we did the 10 p .m. swim in the Mediterranean as well, a bunch of Omaha Bible Church people too, crazy people.

And then we swam in the Jordan River, and is there someplace else, isn't there a body of water around there somewhere? Mediterranean, Jordan, Sea of Galilee, oh, Dead Sea, of course, but of course, swimming in the Dead Sea.

You know, they made the hotels on the side of the Dead Sea, and then the Dead Sea has so receded because of its evaporation, and because more water is taken from the Jordan, and not allowed to go into the Dead Sea.

Now you have to walk, I don't know, you're prone to exaggeration over time, you have to walk five or ten minutes from the hotel down these wooden plank walkways to get to the sea because it just keeps receding, receding, receding.

So like my hairline, sad. Other thing is get fed online. October 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th, I'm teaching for the folks over there. They've asked me to teach Christology, and I said yes. Interactive on Skype, something like Skype, and I think it's set up in a way where I'm talking, I'm the big face on the screen, and when some student asks a question, they turn to be the big face on the screen, so we can listen and interact on the personal work of Christ, my favorite subject.

Catechism as a Teaching Tool

Well, I've been thinking about forgiveness. We were in Matthew chapter 18, started a series, and I thought to myself after I preached about forgiveness a while back that I wanted to talk a little bit more about forgiveness, and so we're going to call this show Catechism on Forgiveness, all right?

That's the name of the show today, Catechism on Forgiveness. Now, if you're from around here, these parts up yonder, here in New England, when you hear a catechism, you probably think, what? What's the first thing that comes into your mind?

Most people think that I meet, they don't think of Christian catechisms, they don't think of Westminster catechism, Lutheran catechism, they think of Roman Catholic catechism, right? They think of catechisms and catechumens, they think of Roman Catholicism.

So, what is a catechism? Is it only Roman? It's basically a teaching tool, teaching religious things in the form of question and answer. So, it's an instruction for people in the form of Q &A, and you have a set amount of questions and answers, and you're trying to teach truths religiously.

This is, that's a catechism. I looked and found some Graeco-Roman mystery religions, that is the cult of Mithras. That's not Mothra, that's Mithras. And you could teach people about this cult with questions and answers, and you would get the secret inside knowledge.

Zodiac catechism? Where is the animal, O Lanu? And where the man? Answer? Fused into one, O master of my life, the two are one, but both have disappeared and not remains but the deep fire of my desire.

That sounds like, I don't know, Jimmy Fallon should be lip syncing, the deep fire of my desire. Early in the 16th century, Latin word catechismus, the Greek word catechizine, or you could say catecho, is to teach orally, to teach out loud, and so you're going to try to teach people doctrine, truths about God from catechisms.

And so, it can mean Christian catechism, of course. Some of the most famous Christian catechisms, well-known ones, Luther's small catechism. How does it begin? What is the first commandment? Answer? You shall have no other gods.

Question? What does this mean? You should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. So, you're teaching the catechumens, those receiving the instruction, truths. And so, it's a good thing to catechize your kids.

We took the first two kids, we just ignored the last two theologically, but the first two, we took them through a children's catechism. Who made you? God made me. What else did God make? God made all things.

And so, you could just teach kids doctrine through the Q &A. Calvin, in 1545, had a Genevan catechism. I do like its preface, our pretty face. Wherefore, those who publish catechisms ought to be more fully careful on their guard by producing anything rashly, that they may not for the present only, but in regard to posterity also, do grievous harm to piety and inflict a deadly wound on the church.

Now, to me, that's fascinating because Calvin knew, with a series of questions and answers, how you could embed truth into people. So, you better make sure you put the right stuff in because this is such a good way to teach.

It's an effective way to teach. Question one, Master, what is the chief end of human life? Genevan catechism. To know God by whom men were created. What reason have you for saying so? That's question two.

Because He created us and placed us in this world to be glorified in us. And it is indeed right that our life of which Himself is the beginning should be devoted to His glory. What is the highest good of man?

Question three, the very same thing. So, catechisms are questions and answers designed to teach, let's use the Christian context, teach Christians about who the Lord is and what He requires. Heidelberg catechism is probably the famous, most famous catechism that I can think of.

Maybe it's the one I like the most. You ought to get yourself a copy of the Heidelberg catechism, the original one, and read it. What is thy only comfort in life and death? Answer, that I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins and delivered me from all the power of the devil and so preserves me that without the will of my Heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head.

Yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation and therefore by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him. This is a little harder to memorize, but what great truth.

What's my only comfort in life? What's my only comfort in death? Here's who Jesus is, my faithful Savior, satisfying the requirements for my sins. I have to read another Heidelberg catechism. How many things are necessary for thee to know that thou enjoying this comfort mayest live and die happily?

I mean, what do you need to know? Really, this could be the whole show on No Compromise Radio. What do you need to live a joyful life, to die well? What are the things necessary? If you're going to sit down, you're on your deathbed and you're going to try to write a little note to your grandson, granddaughter, here's what you need to know.

Summing everything up, what would you say? Heidelberg catechism says there are three things. Three things necessary. First, how great my sins and miseries are. Second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries.

Third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance. And there, my friends, we have the Heidelberg catechism's paradigm for life. Guilt, grace, gratitude. Right? That's it. Now, maybe more famous than the Heidelberg is the Westminster catechism, the shorter catechism, 1647.

What is the chief end of man? I mean, I like the shorter catechism, but I somehow find myself going back to Heidelberg more. What is the chief end of man? Chief end is to glorify God and to what? Enjoy Him forever.

And so catechisms summarize Christianity, basically, in the form of questions and answers. And so this is how we instruct people so they always remember the situation. And so today we're going to have part one, forgiveness catechism, a question and answer instruction series on forgiveness, because it is such an important topic.

You can go ahead and just reread Matthew 18, verses 21 through 35. Remember, Peter comes up and says to Jesus, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times, you know, the rabbis forgive three.

So, you know, two X plus one. I do not say to you, Jesus said seven times, but 70 -7 times, that is 490. Just it's a number, a large number. You don't count. There's no math equations when it comes to forgiveness.

And then he gives a parable. And basically the parable is indicative of this truth. If God has forgiven you of all your sins, past, present, and future, and you have a huge debt to God, and that debt has been forgiven when other people sin against you, you are less than God and less holy than God and less great than, you know, not as great as God, then you ought to forgive.

If God forgives all your sins, you can't say, I won't forgive some sins of other people. And that is Matthew 18. So today, question and answer about forgiveness. And it's probably going to take us this week and who knows, maybe next week.

I've got the Jimmy Baker $3 ,000 end of the world Fick Newtons. And so, you know, we're going to be fine. Fick Newtons, by the way, are good. If you get the Paul Newman ones, it seems like maybe those are more organic or something, but they're good for bikers.

So you can just wad up those Fick Newtons. I mean, just picture that in your mind right now. Just take four Fick Newtons and smash them between your hands, kind of palm them into this round form, wad them up like a big ball.

And you just plop that thing in your bike jersey. I think James White does that. I mean, one of these days we're going to have some NoCo, extended NoCo family bike jerseys. Somebody could design us one and then we need to ride together.

So who do I think would be good to ride? Pat Abendroth, of course, would be good because he'll be up front and he will, you know, lead the way. I'm just going to draft him. Hey, he's 30 pounds lighter and he's nine years younger.

You draft him too. James White, of course, has to be in our peloton. And Eric Mason, he's a pastor in Kansas, Sovereign Redeemer Church, I believe, in Kansas. And so he'll be there, you know, all this carbon fiber everywhere.

I heard that Doug McMaster, I heard he's a biker. There's a guy that follows No Compromise Radio from Sweden. I think it's Sweden. One of those countries. Yeah, I think it's Sweden. I guess it's Ronnie Erickson.

I think he's a, I saw him try to follow me on Strava the other day. Strava, Straver. And so we've got, let's see. So we've got Pat. I think he'd win. James, second. Third, Eric. Four, Doug McMaster. I heard he's a biker.

And let's see, you know, Doug might be fifth. Ronnie, I don't know anything about him, except he's a, you know, a listener friend. And I'll be in the back. That's okay. I'll be in the back. Abendroth will be in the back.

So an Abendroth in the front, an Abendroth in the back, and off we go, riding away. Wouldn't that be fun? So, you know, if I had all the money in the world, I would just make it happen. And so instead of having no co-ever with Phil Johnson, Carl Truman, James White, and myself, then we could have some kind of bike team or something.

We could ride up Mount Washington together, kind of Tyler Hamilton-like, or we could ride up Pikes Peak or something. All right. Question one, no compromise radio, a forgiveness on, a forgiveness catechism.

Forgiveness Is Found Only in Christ

Catechism on forgiveness. Some are short answers, some are long answers. And I'm just going to say that we're going to talk about, do you forgive dead people? Do you forgive God? Do you forgive yourself?

We'll get there. I'm starting from important to less important, because this is the most important. Question one, is there forgiveness in any other besides Christ Jesus? Can you have forgiveness in any other person except Christ Jesus?

Can you forgive it? Now, why do I ask that question? Because in our evangelical day, we are hotly contesting with pluralism. So you don't need to know what the word pluralism. I mean, you don't even need to know that word.

Plural's easy. Ism's easy. Pluralism. You just have to look around and you would recognize it, even though you might not know the name for it, nomenclature. God reveals himself in all the religions. So there's truth about God in every religion, not just unique truth found in Christianity.

To me, the antonym of pluralism would be the exclusivity of Christ. There's truth in all religions. Therefore, we have these comparative religion classes. I like this and all that. The downside of pluralism, well, there are many, but one is Christianity is not the only truth.

Christianity is not singularly true. One guy said, this is pluralism. More than one option. Religion. There's more than one option. Isaiah 43 .10, you are my witnesses, declared the Lord. Understand I am he before me.

There was no God formed and there will be none after me. Pluralism would deny that. I'm the first and the last. There's no God beside me. Isaiah 44 .6. Pluralism denies Isaiah 45 .5. I am the Lord and there is no other besides me.

There is no God. Pluralism denies Acts 4 .12. Salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Pluralism denies John 14 .6 that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.

So exclusivism means there's other ways to God. And so the first thing we need to know about forgiveness, because if you do feel your conscience, if you do know that you've sinned and you do need to have a debt forgiven, a sin cleansed, your iniquity washed, your trespasses taken care of, your transgressions paid for, well, you're going to look around for a lot of different religions to figure out how to get this monkey off your back called sin, this dead off your back.

And pluralism is going to say, search around. And we're saying Christianity teaches, Jesus teaches. We're teaching on No Compromise Radio. There aren't really other gods. You follow other gods are not real gods.

And Jesus's claims are true. And Jesus's claims are exclusive. Every other, this is why Christianity gets a bad name. Every other religion is false. Now, that doesn't mean they don't teach a true truth here or there.

But Jesus is the unique incarnation of God. He's the only Lord, the only Savior. You can't get saved through traditions, through a church, through a man, through a system. I mean, a man, small m, it's the God man, Jesus.

So forgiveness is found only in him. Ephesians 1 7. In him, referring to Jesus, the personal pronoun, we have redemption. Not in ourselves, not in Buddha, not in Moses, not in the Pope, not in Mary, not in Mary Baker Eddy, not in Sun Yung Moon, not in society, not in education, not in Joseph Smith.

In him, all the blessings of God, all the blessings that God will ever give are found in Christ Jesus. When Paul regularly says, in him, or in Christ, this is a very significant expression. And we're talking about in whom all the blessings are found.

There's no plan B. There's no other person. There's no other way. The Father chooses in chapter 1, verses 4 to 6, and now the Son dies for. And the praise is to be for this great triune God. We are not a self-redeemed people.

We can't forgive ourselves. Someone said to me the other day, you know, just, we have to just forgive ourselves. Well, there's no Bible verse for that. And I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

But we're sinning against God. And we need to understand that the provision for our forgiveness is through the Son. I could ask it this way. Is God pleased if we try to find forgiveness in any other way?

Is God impressed if we try to find other ways to have forgiveness? The answer is no. The answer is no. Salvation is found only in him. And the society is going to think that's very offensive. But 1 Corinthians 1 .18, we even know that.

The word of the cross is to those who are being, those who are perishing, foolishness. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. God's justice can only be satisfied in the work and person of the Son.

Now, forgiveness is found only in Jesus, right? It's in Jesus alone. Therefore, the praise would be to him alone. So with this triune work of God found in chapter one of Ephesians, no wonder Paul then says, blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he just begins to praise him. If there are two ways to get forgiveness, two gods, we split the praise two ways. And there might be some competition. It'd be hard to do 50 -50 praise. Probably have to give one God a little bit more.

He might be biased. If there are three gods, well, I mean, how do you do that split? 33, 33, 34. 33, 33. 33. That doesn't work. Something's got to give. But since there's one God, you praise God for what that Son has done and did do.

Jude 20, 40. Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory with great joy. To the God, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Glory, majesty, dominion, authority before all time, now and forever.

In him, we have redemption. We have a deliverance. In the Old Testament, Israel was delivered from Egypt, right? The Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt in Deuteronomy 7, 8.

You could be redeemed from trouble. You could be redeemed from enemies. Boaz redeemed the land belonging to Naomi's husband. And he could then have the right to marry Ruth. This redemption, this emancipation of sin slaves, sin prisoners, sin's vice grip, sin's ratchet, sin's cable tie.

You know, like with the cable tie, you can't really undo it. You got to just locked in. We have redemption. And so the first thing I want to talk about is that with forgiveness, there's only one person you can go to for forgiveness.

The Cost of Redemption Through Christ's Blood

Question two, catechism two. How costly was it for God to forgive you? What's the price of redemption in other words? So in him, we have redemption. What was the price of redemption? And Ephesians 1, 7 goes on to tell us.

In him, we have redemption through his blood. The price, the ransom price for redemption was the death of Christ. And we just have a way to say it. And we say through his blood. Here's another way you could say it, Matthew 28, Matthew 20, 28.

Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. It was his life that was given. And so when you first see the word blood, you're probably tempted to think of composition of blood, plasma, cells, red blood cells, hemoglobin, white blood cells, corpuscles, leukocytes, platelets, thrombocytes.

So when you're singing the song, what can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Are you washed in the blood? What does it mean? What did the hymn writer mean? Well, if you're thinking like a Jew without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness.

Sin costs a life. The soul that sins will surely die. And what's the death in a sacrifice through strangulation? No, they slit their throats. And so blood just is a theological shorthand for Christ's substitutionary death.

It's theological shorthand for Christ's sacrificial death in place of. So it costs a lot. When you see the blood of Christ, you have to think of yourself sacrificial terms. Well, time goes by so fast on No Compromise Radio now, doesn't it?

Even when you're taking five tablets of steroids and having some coffee. Well, you can write me at mike at nocompromiseradio .com or info at nocompromiseradio .com. We're talking about forgiveness. We'll talk about that next time.

Same time of the week, same day of the week, a forgiveness Q &A. Aren't you glad there's forgiveness for people like you? I am very glad that I have forgiveness, redemption in Christ.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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