By No Means Clearing The Guilty

Greetings in the name of Jesus! This is Rob Haymes. This is 15 Minutes With Jesus. Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, Jesus said, there am I in the midst of them. To those of you who love Him in truth: mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. (Jude 1:2)

Thank you Father! Thank you Lord Jesus! We give you praise and honor and glory this morning, thank you Lord. Bless your holy name, Father, bless your holy name. Father, I thank you for this day; I thank you for every person listening and every person reading. I pray that you would minister to all of us the truth of your Word; the truth of who you are, and the truth of your ways which you have revealed in your Word, and I just pray for that in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Today’s program is called, By No Means Clearing The Guilty. Let’s turn to Exo 34:5, Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, (with Moses), and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. Mal 3:6, For I am the Lord, I do not change… This is God. This is the way He is, and He does not change. He will not clear the guilty.  Are you guilty?  Or are you cleared?  Now let me say, right at the beginning, this program is not about condemning you or me or anyone else. This is about the truth of who God is, and how He said He deals with men and women. 

False grace does not clear you; it is a lie. Psalm 32, let’s go there. This is a very familiar psalm; people like to quote the first two verses. But we need to read a few more verses. Psalm 32:1, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. The question is: are you guilty, or are you cleared? Remember, God said, By no means clearing the guilty. He said He is merciful; He said to Moses twice that He is merciful, and He is gracious, and He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, but He also said, by no means clearing the guilty. Let’s turn to 1 John 1:8, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. That is the grace of God: the gift of His Son; through faith in Him; in His sacrifice, when the goodness of God leads you to repentance. Godly sorrow works repentance: you confess it; you acknowledge it, as David did in Psalm 51, and you forsake it. Let’s go there, Psalm 51. This psalm was written by King David after he had sinned with the wife of Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba, and also by killing her husband. Very serious sin, but God sent the Prophet Nathan to confront him. And when he confronted him, David said, I have sinned. He acknowledged his sin. Let’s read, Psalm 51:1, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight—that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean… By the way, hyssop refers to the blood. In the Old Covenant, it was the blood of the animal sacrifices. In the New Covenant it’s the Blood of Jesus, the final sacrifice; the spotless Lamb of God. They used hyssop to sprinkle the blood. So that’s what David is talking about, Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. And it’s only through the shed Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that your sins can be cleansed.  …wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation… you see, he was guilty, and so he was confessing his sin. …and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.  The Apostle Paul wrote, Godly sorrow works repentance: to be truly sorry for your sins. Repentance begins in the heart; it’s not just changing your mind, as some preachers say. 

So when you confess your sin to God, and you acknowledge it, He forgives it. God forgives you and He cleanses you by the Blood of Jesus, and you are cleared!, just as though you never sinned. There is only one way to be free from guilt: true repentance, with faith in the shed Blood of Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God. This is not about condemnation! God is not condemning you. He gave His Son Jesus to suffer and die upon the Cross for your sins, so that you might be forgiven and cleared of all unrighteousness. In John chapter 3, Jesus said, This is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil... They will not come to the light. …for everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.

Satan knows that God will not clear the guilty; he knows that. So he goes about seeking whom he may devour by getting them in guilt before God, and then lying to them in different ways to convince them that they are ok with God. Meanwhile, unless they repent and confess their sin and be forgiven, believing in Jesus’ sacrifice, they will die in their sins, and they will perish. He knows this. It makes no difference how religious you are. God is not a  respecter of persons; He will not clear you if you are guilty. You must clear yourself!, through repenting and believing the Gospel, the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection. And you must continue daily to keep your conscience clear of offense toward God and man, denying yourself; taking up your cross and following Jesus, married to Him; serving God in the newness of the Spirit; doing the Father's will every day and every night. 

False grace teaches you that you are cleared of all guilt because of Jesus’ sacrifice and your faith in Him. True grace teaches you that you are cleared of all guilt when you truly repent and confess; acknowledge your sin to God, and that, when you do, He will not only forgive you, but He will cleanse you from all unrighteousness through faith in Jesus’ shed Blood. If you believe false grace, you believe that you are cleared and you are not guilty, but it’s a lie. Only the Blood of Jesus can cleanse you of your sin, and you must bring it to God for it to be cleansed and forgiven; you must confess it to Him with true repentance, from your heart; you must acknowledge that you have sinned against Him, and then, because of Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins, through faith in Him, you will be forgiven and cleansed. He loves you, and He delights in mercy; He wants you to be forgiven and cleansed and to be righteous before Him. But if you will not repent and confess your sin; if you continue in your sin, He will not clear you! In fact, He will visit your sin upon your children, to the third and the fourth generation. This is the truth about God and His forgiveness. Believe what He said about Himself! He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 

This is why Jesus said that at the Last Day, not everyone who says ”Lord, Lord” will enter into the Kingdom of God, but they who do the will of His Father. Many will say to Him in that day, notice: many, “Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in your name?” And He will say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness.” The righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. If you live after the flesh, you will die, eternally. But if you through the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. No, you cannot live after the flesh and go to Heaven. That’s a lie, straight from the Serpent’s mouth. He says, “You won’t die.” And that’s what his preachers say. Don’t believe them! Believe what is written! God has made His ways clear in His Word. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 

Thank you for reading this message from 15 Minutes With Jesus at roberthaymes.com . May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you who love Him in truth, Amen. (2 Cor 13:14)