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Book: Acts
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Acts 13:38 The Forgiveness of Sins
I. The scene.
A. It is the Sabbath day, we are in a Jewish synagog in Antioch of
Pisidia and Paul is preaching Christ to them.
B. The things he tells them about Jesus.
1. He was the fulfillment of the promise of God to David
that the Messiah would come through his seed.
2. That He was the Savior.
3. Those that dwell in Jerusalem and the rulers fulfilled
the prophecies concerning Him by condemning Him.
4. They desired that Pilate would slay Him.
5. His death on the cross was a fulfillment of prophecy.
6. He was buried in a sepulchre
7. God raised Him from the dead.
8. After His resurrection He was seen many days by His
disciples who bore witness to the resurrection.
9. God fulfilled the promises that He made to their
fathers by raising Jesus from the dead.
10. The body of Jesus did not see corruption.
11. Through Jesus is preached the forgiveness of sins.
II. The forgiveness of sins.
A. The psalmist declared, "O how happy is the man whose
transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered."
1. He spoke of the misery that he felt while he felt the
guilt of his sin.
a. Day and night God's heavy hand was on him.
b. He inwardly was as dry as the drought of
summer.
2. The sense of guilt can drive you crazy.
a. Literally.
b. Knowing the harm that a guilt consciousness can
bring, modern educators have done their best to
so liberalize the thinking of man, that he can
commit any kind of action without the least
sense of guilt or remorse.
c. This is sort of backfiring on our society today
and the new generation coming up, seems to have
no sense of guilt, thus they are killing one
another without remorse or conscience.
d. To have any kind of social order their must be
a sense of right and wrong. A sense of guilt
when you have done wrong.
e. Look at the history of the nations, when they
lost their moral base, they were not conquered
by outside foes, but collapsed from within.
f. There are tremendous problems in Russia today
because of the lack of the sense of what is
right and wrong.
g. Corruption and graft are the rule of the day.
h. The United States is not far behind.
3. No matter how much man may speak of the relativity of
morals or values, God has written His law on every
heart.
a. A person may put up a good exterior while dying
on the inside.
b. It's what you feel when you have put your head
upon the pillow at night and you are away from
the crowd and the party, it is just you and
God. You have tried to brush Him aside, but He
is always there.
c. Paul speaks of the law of God written upon our
hearts, our conscience bearing witness, and our
thoughts either accusing or excusing.
B. Man's greatest need is the forgiveness of sins.
1. Unforgiven sin will not only torment you as it did the
psalmist.
2. Unforgiven sin will bring you death.
a. God has already pronounced the death sentence
for sinners, "The soul that sinneth shall
surely die."
b. God's word declares, "The wages of sin is
death."
3. This is more and worse than just physical death, this
is spiritual death.
a. The Bible declares that it is appointed unto
man once to die, and after that the judgment.
b. There is something after death.
c. John in Revelation speaks of seeing the
judgment throne of God and all the dead small
and great standing before God while the books
are opened and they are judged out of the
things written in the books.
d. He said, "That whosoever was not found in the
book of life were cast into the lake of fire."
He called this the second death.
e. You say, "In the opinion of many theologians
that lake of fire bit is figurative speech, it
is not literal."
f. Do you want to gamble your eternal destiny on
the opinion of man who has been wrong many
times, or the unerring word of God?
4. If there were not a heaven to gain, and a hell to shun,
do you think that God would have allowed His Son to
suffer that horrible death at the hands of sinful man?
5. The glorious message of the gospel is that you can have
the forgiveness of sins.
6. More than that.
III. "By Him all that believe are justified from all things, which is
something the Mosaic law cannot do."
A. When you are guilty of breaking the law, the law cannot justify
you, it can only condemn you.
1. To be justified is to be declared innocent of the
charges.
2. You do not know how complete is the forgiveness of God
is until you understand justification.
3. We know what it is to be guilty and to be forgiven.
4. The law could provide the forgiveness of sins. It could
not justify.
5. Jesus not only offers the forgiveness of sins, but
justification, the total blotting out of all charges.
6. Many times even when you have been forgiven, the past
deeds haunt your conscience. You are tormented by the
thoughts of what you have done, you still feel
condemnation.
7. Jesus goes one step beyond offering you the forgiveness
of your sins, He offers you justification.
a. What a joy and blessedness to know that your
sins are forgiven, what a greater joy to know
that you have been justified. The record has
been cleared, the charges not dismissed, but
expunged.
b. There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus.
8. You might well ask, "How can God in true justice do
that?"
a. By charging your offenses to His Son.
b. Isaiah the prophet foresaw all these things and
declared, "All we like sheep had gone astray,
we had turned every one of us to his own way,
but God has laid on Him the iniquity of us
all."
c. God cried, "For the transgression of My people
He was stricken."
d. God then declared, "By His knowledge shall My
righteous Servant justify many, for He shall
bear their iniquities."
IV. Paul had been showing all along in his message to that congregation in
the synagog on that sabbath day that Jesus was the fulfillment of
the prophecies of the scriptures. He then speaks of one more
prophecy.
A. He warns them to beware lest they perish by fulfilling a
prophecy in Habakkuk which declared, "I work a work in your
days, which you shall in no wise believe, though it be declared
unto you."
B. God's work of redemption has been declared to you. The
forgiveness of your sins, and justification through His Son
Jesus Christ.
C. If you will believe in Jesus Christ, you will be justified of
all things.
D. To reject the message is to put you in danger of facing the
judgment of God without having your name written in the book of
life, thus you face as the Bible declares, "That certain
fearful looking forward of judgment and fiery indignation which
shall devour the adversaries."
HEB 10:28 He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or
three witnesses:
HEB 10:29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought
worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath
counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified,
an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
HEB 10:30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance [belongeth] unto me,
I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall
judge his people.
HEB 10:31 [It is] a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God.
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