This matter of forgiving before there is repentance has destroyed the lives of many who thought they could continue living as they please without the need to change. It is only Christ Who changes us, but He will not change someone who refuses to be sorrowful over their sin.
The non-sense I hear often is that we are to forgive for our own sake, it is not only not Biblical it is selfish. When we do anything "for ourselves", we are not taking time to consider the condition of another person's soul, they are irrelevant to us, because everything is about "me." When we care deeply about the soul and eternity of another human being we are willing to do the difficult work with the hope that they will become saved.
Often one or two passages are used to justify the belief that we forgive without repentance.
All the passages concerning forgiveness say "IF THEY REPENT", as a condition of forgiveness. We have to put the entire Bible into context. When we choose one verse alone, we can get the wrong impression, we must put all verses in context with their passages and then with the rest of the Bible.
Luke 17:3-4 "3 Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, I REPENT,’ forgive him.”
Matthew 4:17 "17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 21:32 "32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, DID NOT FEEL REMORSE afterward so as to believe him."
Luke 5:31-32 "31 And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to REPENTANCE.”
Acts 3:18-19 "18 But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19 Therefore REPENT and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;"
Romans 2:4 "4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the KINDNESS OF GOD LEADS YOU TO REPENTANCE?"
2 Corinthians 7:9-10 "9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything [a]through us. 10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance [b]without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
Jeremiah 31:19 "‘For after I turned back, I repented;
And after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh;
I was ashamed and also humiliated
Because I bore the reproach of my youth."
When we forgive before someone is repentant we are removing the sorrow in their heart that leads to repentance, with relief that they don't have to do anything to be forgiven. And we are usurping the authority of God by using psychological human methods to guide us rather than God's standard. It shortcuts God's plan of salvation and makes a sinner believe they are cleansed before they really are made new. We remove the possibility for them to be truly cleansed, only sorrow over sin produces this cleansing.
Our modern culture wants to remove all sad and bad feelings from every experience. I am all for helping someone to "feel" better when they have skinned their knee or were involved in a circumstance that was not associated with sin. But to help them to feel better when they have sinned, removes any possibility that they will take sin seriously.
Romans 2:4 "4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?"
2 Corinthians 7:9-10 "9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. 10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance [b]without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
The goal of the believer should not be to get the world to like us or to make others feel better when they have committed crimes. The goal of the believer is to help the unsaved see the seriousness of their sin that they would be sorrowful enough to repent, that they begin to feel empathy for the victim, the victims family and most of all, that they offended a holy God.
The devil has used a very cleaver ploy, fooling people into feeling as though they are an evil person by holding a criminal to account for their crimes. They give the criminal a pass on all his evil deeds, causing him to believe he need not repent of anything, it will be automatically granted him by God because this is what he sees on the part of superficial Christians who want to feel good about themselves, but don't think deeper than superficial and temporary feelings.
Psychology is the culprit in all this mess, the humanists have decided that no one is bad and everyone should be forgiven because nothing they do is their fault, their parents did something to cause this, his teachers at school, friend and everyone else is responsible for his "bad feelings" that led to his crime, but he has no responsibility for anything. Psychology says he is forgiven because nothing is his fault.
The church has bought into this deception hook line and sinker. They have failed to see the damage that is done to the criminal by "easy forgiveness without repentance." Christ never did this ever, He required repentance for the sake of the sinful heart, without it there is no change, no growth and even arrogance that they can continue in sin and everyone has to forgive them.
Let's consider God's way, praying that God would show us all the things that we believe are right but may be tainted with the psychological thinking of the unsaved world. After all, the unsaved world hates to be accountable, they detest God and anyone who will show them their sin, they love this psychological jargon that relieves them of all responsibility.
How about loving people God's way, forget about ourselves, forget that someone might not like us for "making someone sorrow that brings them to repentance."
The non-sense I hear often is that we are to forgive for our own sake, it is not only not Biblical it is selfish. When we do anything "for ourselves", we are not taking time to consider the condition of another person's soul, they are irrelevant to us, because everything is about "me." When we care deeply about the soul and eternity of another human being we are willing to do the difficult work with the hope that they will become saved.
Often one or two passages are used to justify the belief that we forgive without repentance.
All the passages concerning forgiveness say "IF THEY REPENT", as a condition of forgiveness. We have to put the entire Bible into context. When we choose one verse alone, we can get the wrong impression, we must put all verses in context with their passages and then with the rest of the Bible.
Luke 17:3-4 "3 Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, I REPENT,’ forgive him.”
Matthew 4:17 "17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 21:32 "32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, DID NOT FEEL REMORSE afterward so as to believe him."
Luke 5:31-32 "31 And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to REPENTANCE.”
Acts 3:18-19 "18 But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19 Therefore REPENT and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;"
Romans 2:4 "4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the KINDNESS OF GOD LEADS YOU TO REPENTANCE?"
2 Corinthians 7:9-10 "9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything [a]through us. 10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance [b]without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
Jeremiah 31:19 "‘For after I turned back, I repented;
And after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh;
I was ashamed and also humiliated
Because I bore the reproach of my youth."
When we forgive before someone is repentant we are removing the sorrow in their heart that leads to repentance, with relief that they don't have to do anything to be forgiven. And we are usurping the authority of God by using psychological human methods to guide us rather than God's standard. It shortcuts God's plan of salvation and makes a sinner believe they are cleansed before they really are made new. We remove the possibility for them to be truly cleansed, only sorrow over sin produces this cleansing.
Our modern culture wants to remove all sad and bad feelings from every experience. I am all for helping someone to "feel" better when they have skinned their knee or were involved in a circumstance that was not associated with sin. But to help them to feel better when they have sinned, removes any possibility that they will take sin seriously.
Romans 2:4 "4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?"
2 Corinthians 7:9-10 "9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. 10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance [b]without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
The goal of the believer should not be to get the world to like us or to make others feel better when they have committed crimes. The goal of the believer is to help the unsaved see the seriousness of their sin that they would be sorrowful enough to repent, that they begin to feel empathy for the victim, the victims family and most of all, that they offended a holy God.
The devil has used a very cleaver ploy, fooling people into feeling as though they are an evil person by holding a criminal to account for their crimes. They give the criminal a pass on all his evil deeds, causing him to believe he need not repent of anything, it will be automatically granted him by God because this is what he sees on the part of superficial Christians who want to feel good about themselves, but don't think deeper than superficial and temporary feelings.
Psychology is the culprit in all this mess, the humanists have decided that no one is bad and everyone should be forgiven because nothing they do is their fault, their parents did something to cause this, his teachers at school, friend and everyone else is responsible for his "bad feelings" that led to his crime, but he has no responsibility for anything. Psychology says he is forgiven because nothing is his fault.
The church has bought into this deception hook line and sinker. They have failed to see the damage that is done to the criminal by "easy forgiveness without repentance." Christ never did this ever, He required repentance for the sake of the sinful heart, without it there is no change, no growth and even arrogance that they can continue in sin and everyone has to forgive them.
Let's consider God's way, praying that God would show us all the things that we believe are right but may be tainted with the psychological thinking of the unsaved world. After all, the unsaved world hates to be accountable, they detest God and anyone who will show them their sin, they love this psychological jargon that relieves them of all responsibility.
How about loving people God's way, forget about ourselves, forget that someone might not like us for "making someone sorrow that brings them to repentance."
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