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Daily Program

Lies Women Believe About Sin, Part 8

Series: Lies Women Believe About Sin

Wednesday, May 8 2002

Leslie Basham: You can hide your sin and even outrun it for awhile; but until you bring it to Jesus, you'll never get rid of it. It's Wednesday, May 8; and you're listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss.

Ignoring a stain on your clothes doesn't make it go away, and ignoring a sin or its consequences doesn't make it disappear either. Let's join Nancy as she helps us understand the only way our sin can be forgiven. She's in the middle of a series called Lies Women Believe About Sin.

Nancy DeMoss: We've been talking about lies we believe about sin. We looked first at one extreme deception, which is that my sin really isn't that bad. And then we've been looking at another deception at the other end of the spectrum, which is that my sin is so bad that God couldn't possibly forgive what I have done.

You know the truth about both of these lies is revealed at Calvary. If we want to see what God believes about sin and about forgiveness, then we have to go to the cross of Christ. When we see Him giving up His life on Calvary, we see that He had to pay an incredible price for sins that we trivialize as being just weaknesses or character flaws or problems. But we also see in brilliant Technicolor the love and the mercy of God for even the chief of sinners.

You know if ever anybody had a reason to feel that "God can't possibly forgive me for what I've done," I think it could have been the apostle Paul. Think about what Paul had done as a man brought up in the Word of God, as a religious leader of his day. Not knowing Christ, he persecuted believers--sending them to death. He killed Christians. Then God stopped him dead in his tracks, as you remember, on the road to Damascus while he was en route to murder more believers.

He met the resurrected Christ. He believed, he repented of his sins. Christ came into his life, but don't you imagine for the rest of his life that the enemy could have taunted him with what his life was like before Christ came into his life? And accused him, "How do you think God could have forgiven you? Just think of what you've done!"

Paul talks about that in 1 Timothy 1. He says, "I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man." He was honest about his past failures. He didn't try and cover them up or whitewash them. He said, "That's what I was."

We just might want to fill in the blanks for where God found us. What were we before we came into faith in Christ? What are some of the things we have been guilty of since we came to faith in Christ? Paul was specific and honest. Then he says, "The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly." I love that word.

Aren't you glad that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound? That's God's math. It doesn't work in our figuring. Paul says, "The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst" (1 Timothy 1:15).

If we're not sinners, then we're not candidates for a Savior. Verse 16, "For that very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life."

What's Paul saying? He's saying, "My sinful past--I'm not proud of it, but it actually has become a trophy case, a showcase for God's grace. When people know what I was like and what I did and what kind of man I was--and then they see that God has forgiven me. When they see that God has set me free from that past--that He has transformed my life, that I am not the same man that I was--they will look at me; and they will say, 'Wow! What a great God! And what great mercy God has had on sinners!'"

Then I think he's suggesting that other sinners will take hope--that they too can be forgiven, no matter how great their sins may be. As Paul continues on in that passage he says, "Christ Jesus wants to make me a display case for His patience and His mercy."

Then as if he just can't help himself, he launches out in this doxology. I can almost hear him singing it--Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen.

That doesn't sound to me like a man who is living under the guilt and shame of his past sin, does it? Here's a man who's free. He's been released from that sin. It's not that he didn't do it; it's that the penalty has been paid. We know that Calvary covers it all--the blood of Jesus. I love some of those hymns that speak to us of the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus--Calvary covers it all, my past with its sin and stain.

And as I read that phrase, I think about things in my past that I'm ashamed of--times when I, with knowledge, sinned against God with my tongue, with my spirit, with my behavior, in my relationships, in rebellion--my past with its sin and its stain, Calvary covers it all. My guilt and despair, Jesus took on Him there and Calvary covers it all.

My Dad used to love--and we often sang--that old Gospel song:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Nothing can for sin atone--
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
Naught of good that I have done--
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Jesus died for that sin, and there is no more sacrifice that can be offered for my sin. In fact, the Scripture says that He paid the price and offered Himself up as a sacrifice once and for all. We were in Hebrews 10 looking at that passage yesterday.

As we move on in that passage, we see the result that this can have in our lives. The price has been paid; He now has gone up to heaven. He is sitting at the right hand of God. He promises us that our lawless acts and sins He will remember no more (Hebrews 10:18), and where these have been forgiven there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.

So what difference does that make in our lives? How shall we then live if this is true? Verse 19, "Therefore brothers, now we have confidence to enter the most Holy place"--right into the presence of God where no one but the High Priest ever dared to go in the Old Testament under the Old Covenant, when they were still offering all those animal sacrifices. "But now," he says, "Brothers, sisters, children of God--we can all enter in with confidence." Not with our head hanging down--not saying, "My sin is so great I don't know how God could ever forgive me."

He has forgiven us. So He says that now we with confidence can enter into the Holy Place--how? By the blood of Jesus. He says there's a new and living way open for us through the curtain. Remember that great veil that stayed between the people and the holy place where God's presence was? What happened to that veil when Jesus died? It was torn from top to bottom. Access was granted into the presence of God. And he says, "Since we have a great High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith" (verse 21).

Don't you love that language? I talk to so many women today who are living perpetually under the guilt and the weight of sin that they have confessed. I'm talking about women who are believers, but they're not believing that His Blood was sufficient for their sin. There's some sin they committed--and they know what it is in their mind. Sometimes they haven't even had the courage to tell anybody what that sin is--but they're thinking, It's so big, I just can't get free from the guilt and the burden of it.

I'm saying; and Gods Word is saying--what sin could be as big as the covering provided for us, the atonement provided for us, by the blood of Jesus? So He says, "Now draw near to God. You don't have to shy away. Where that sin has been confessed, it's been put under the blood of Jesus." There is forgiveness. So He says, "Come with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience."

When you're forgiven and you accept that forgiveness, you can sleep well at night--no more need for a guilty conscience. We've been talking for days about the weight of our sin, and this message in Hebrews is not good news until we've come to the place where we feel the greatness of our sin against God. Having seen the weight and the guilt of our sin, we've got to move into the New Testament, the New Covenant--and see that Jesus has made it possible for us to come boldly and with full assurance, with a clear conscience, into the presence of God. And so he says, "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10: 23).

Leslie Basham: That's Nancy DeMoss, reminding us of our position in Christ. We'll hear more from her in just a few moments.

If you'd like to dig deeper into what you've heard today, we encourage you to get Nancy's book Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free. We have the paperback available for the suggested donation of $13 on our Web site, ReviveOurHearts.com. Or give us a call at 1-800-569-5959.

We appreciate hearing from you and are encouraged by your calls and letters. Would you let us know that you're listening and praying for the ministry of Revive Our Hearts? We need the prayers and financial support of our listeners in order to continue touching the hearts of women. You can send your letter to Revive Our Hearts.

Your sin can have a profound affect on those around you. We'll talk more about that tomorrow. Now here's Nancy with one last thought.

Nancy DeMoss: My sense of being clean before a holy God, my clear conscience, the ability to sleep well at night, the ability to approach the presence of God with boldness and with assurance has nothing to do with my being a good person. It has everything to do with the fact that God is faithful and that the sacrifice has been paid. I enter by faith into that provision. The psalmist said, "Oh Lord if You were to make a list and keep a record of my sins, who could stand?" Could you? I couldn't, but--"There is forgiveness with Thee" (Psalm130:4).

Forgiveness--so I can go back out and sin all the same sins all over again? Not a chance! There is forgiveness with Thee so that You may be feared. When I see my sin and the extent of it and the list that made me unable to stand before the presence of God; and then I see the great forgiveness of God purchased for me by the blood of Jesus--my heart attitude is one of gratitude and devotion and love and saying, "Oh God, I want to live as pure as pure can be. I still can't do that, but You can do it in me by Your power. And that's what I want." 

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

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