At conception, that's when life begins. The sock puppets of Satan will disagree with that. It is the voice of the devil telling you that a fetus is not a human being, is not a person. It is. Well, that's not where I'm going because those who are being used as Satan's sock puppets have an opportunity to be forgiven too.
That's how great this word is. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching a special message called The Greatest Word.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Acts chapter 13 as he begins his message, The Greatest Word. Acts chapter 13 verses 38 to 40. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins, and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you. The Greatest Word, that's the title of this morning's message and the verse that sort of says what we want to hear is verse 38. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. This week, having a conversation with someone who does not attend this church, we'll pray for them, I sensed that there was an emphasis on their part on forgiveness. I didn't say much, I just listened, and it really did not have anything to do with my coming to this verse for this morning's message, but I did become mindful of it as I was preparing.
Well, God puts an emphasis on forgiveness too. These were Paul's words some 13 years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Having been sent out to the Gentile world, he and Barnabas from their church, traveling from city to city, they encountered Elimus, a sorcerer and one of their stops.
He resisted them. Paul dealt with him and that was the end of his resistance. Then, in a synagogue, Paul was invited to speak some word of encouragement, and we have it recorded, that sermon for us, this text in the portion we just read, is part of that sermon. It is actually the concluding part of his sermon. They make his point, the words we just stood and read. They make the point, therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins and by him everyone who believes is saved from all things.
Now the word is justified, but it means saved. Paul presented Jesus' death and resurrection as the fulfillment of prophecy. He invited his Jewish brethren, or those that were Gentiles there too, in the synagogue to accept the facts of their faith. That's an interesting thought, to get somebody to accept the facts of their faith, which for them was Messiah, his death on the cross, the resurrection, the judgment to come.
All of that is in the scripture. What word would you say was the greatest word to man? You might say salvation. You might say Jesus. Maybe you'd say love.
That would probably be the leading word. But by themselves, as grand as those words are, they're inadequate. Once love was the greatest word, but sin changed all that. Before Eden, there was no use for the word that is the greatest word. The greatest word to mankind is forgiveness.
Again, before Adam and Eve fell into sin, there was no such thing. The angels that rebelled against the Lord with Satan, they did not receive forgiveness. Sin, being our saddest word, making forgiveness now our greatest word. I am not now addressing our forgiveness towards each other, but I'm speaking about God-forgiving sinners.
Faith, hope, love. These we must do, but forgiven we must be. If we are nothing, as the scripture says, without love, then we are damned without forgiveness.
That word now becomes very important. If it has escaped you previously, hopefully it's not escaping you now, and if you have not Christ as your Lord and Savior, you're not forgiven. You won't get a pass unless you repent. What would other words do for me without the word forgiveness and all that backs it up from God's throne? Well, those words would forsake me when the death do lies cold upon my brow. Without forgiveness, the name of Jesus won't help me. Salvation will not be mine.
Love will not count anymore. Without forgiveness, there can be no benefit to love and to grace, to all the beautiful things that God has for us. When Jesus was washing the feet of his disciples not long before heading to the cross, he makes a single statement that goes beyond the washing of feet, has everything to do with the washing of the soul.
No pun intended. Feet, soul. John 13, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. If I do not forgive you, I cannot help you. Without forgiveness, all hell literally breaks loose, for hell is the wrath of God, the expression of God's wrath. Separation, eternal separation from him, which belongs to his wrath.
So what is the point of Christianity, of Christ's coming, of showing us the Father, of being full of grace and truth, of his death? What's the purpose of these things if I'm not forgiven? They just serve to condemn me. Psalm 130, the psalmist wrote, if you, Lord, should mark iniquities, that is sin, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you.
I just love how that rolls out. You know, just the first part of that quote from Psalm 130, verses 3 and 4, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? That alone is a lot for me. That's always been a standout verse for me. But then the next part, but there is forgiveness with you.
What a declaration. What good could anyone possibly do for God without that word forgiveness? This word includes all the attributes of God within the word forgiveness in the context of God, his love, his wisdom, his power, his holiness, his justice, his greatness, his goodness, his truth, all of that is in that word forgiveness. The grateful living, those are the ones moved to the source of the one who gives this forgiveness.
It is the greatest word. Those who see their fate as sinners in the hands of a holy God and how great a bullet they've dodged because of his mercy, his grace, which brings his forgiveness, because there's universal condemnation. Everyone conceived is a person and born in sin.
You don't have to wait for them to do it. We're under the curse of sin, each and every one of us. If Christ died for all, then all are under the condemnation of death at conception.
That's when life begins. The sock puppets of Satan will disagree with that. It is the voice of the devil telling you that a fetus is not a human being, is not a person. It is. Well, that's not where I'm going because those who are being used as Satan's sock puppets have an opportunity to be forgiven too.
That's how great this word is. Romans 3, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God means you're canceled. You're out. You've fallen short.
You didn't make it. 2 Corinthians 5, and if you're an unbeliever watching or in attendance, the quotation of the verses may not mean much to you, but there are believers here and it means so much to them to see what their Bible has to say about everything and to hear where it is in case they want to go back to it. 2 Corinthians 5, for the love of Christ compels us because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. There is the gospel.
We're all condemned. The supreme expression of God against our sin was the death of his son on the cross. He could have just destroyed man there in Eden. He could have ignored them and just let sin have its way.
He could have hand-picked the best sinners, which would never be good enough. Instead, he died for all mankind because that's what all mankind needed. And the love of God is just not enough. God so loved the world.
The world is lost. They're not forgiven. The individual can be forgiven, but those outside, those who reject it, they're not. Christ died for the ungodly, we're told in Romans chapter 5.
Those that don't deserve it, such as the wonder and power of salvation through forgiveness. 1 Corinthians, eye has not seen nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him, but God has revealed them to us through his spirit. That is his plan of salvation through his son. That is the forgiveness that he makes available. That is the outcome of his love for the world. The world always thinks lightly of sin. God never does. Not once has God thought lightly of sin. Sin is the single thing that damns the soul. Remove that and we're good.
And he has removed that. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Well, we believers ought to lose sight of that.
When speaking to someone who needs to be forgiven, when speaking with someone who trivializes the forgiveness that God offers, how do we tell the people that are tinkering with life and ignoring God that they're making a mistake, wrong choices with eternal consequence? Your iniquities, said Isaiah, have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. That was said to a people who had the Bible, not the New Testament, but they had a lot of the Old Testament, and yet they were romping off to worship idols and doing abominable things to each other. They didn't care about what God wanted. They just used his name as one of the other gods, has lumped him in. And so Isaiah thunders those words, your sin has separated you from your God.
This Jesus Christ, who we love and worship, he alone has the power to forgive sins. That irritates Satan and those under his sway. It irritates them too. They think there should be many ways to heaven, but there's not.
Just like you don't think there should be many ways to your bank account. Jesus alone has the power to forgive sins and the lost love to disagree. May we not hold them in contempt in our heart.
Oh, we hold that thought in contempt for sure, but not the person who is foolish enough to take the bait. Romans 5 again, much more than having now been justified by his blood. We shall be saved from wrath through him. Who else can do it?
Who do you have? Who else is good enough to die for you, rise again? So the world makes sport out of trampling the forgiveness of God. They love to be forgiven for things from other people, but being forgiven by God, that would hold them accountable, would it not?
Well, it does. Only a sinner can trample the forgiveness that God offers mankind. The worst fact you could reject. 1 John chapter 2, your sins are forgiven you. Your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. That is the worst fact that you can reject.
I don't believe it. I don't believe that my sins need to be forgiven by him. I don't believe my sins are all that bad.
And what about this and what about that? How about we just leave it with what about God and what he has said. The worst words you could ever hear, the worst words a human being can ever hear, I never knew you, depart from me. Matthew 7 verse 23. Can you imagine standing before God without forgiveness, a holy and righteous God with a flawless memory, with total recall? Matthew 25, 30. Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. They will be weeping because they are cast out and they will be gnashing their teeth because they are angry. How dare you be God?
How dare you treat me like this? Those are the words when I came to Christ, discovering Christ just amazed that this is the Lord and when I got to that section, oh man, the conviction mixed in at the same time with the sense of that's not going to happen to me or else he wouldn't be speaking to me right now. He's now my friend, he's now my savior. I will not be cast out with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
What an illustration. This is what Paul was preaching for them to avoid. So people could avoid that day that our text brings up through this man is preached to you, the forgiveness of sins.
Well what's the opposite of that? What's the other side of the forgiveness of sins? It's just sin rests upon you. 1 Timothy, and Paul writing later in his life, said this is a faithful saying and it is worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners because that's the only kind of people there are in the world, sinners.
That day changed the world whether they know it or not. So in the context of Jesus Christ and therefore reality, sin is the worst thing that has happened to me. Forgiveness is the greatest for it kills the wages of sin which is death. Forgiveness instills hope.
It invigorates the soul. That's the story of Zacchaeus. He was well hated by his countrymen in his neighborhood. He was rich and yet Jesus singled him out of the crowd. He said to Zacchaeus, it's time for me to eat at your house with you.
And that was a revolutionary moment for Zacchaeus. Salvation came to that house, said Jesus. He said the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Sin, the worst that has befallen us, forgiveness, the greatest response. God's forgiveness is the outflow of God's love and action. God is love. Forgiveness shows me that.
Victorious against all the odds. Where sin thrives, grace, and here, here in that verse from Romans 6, grace is another word for forgiveness. Because grace is not, has multiple applications and meanings, kindness, undeserved kindness, but that doesn't always go far enough. Sometimes grace means you know, you're well balanced and fluid. But then it can also mean forgiveness as it does there in Romans 6. Where sin abounded, where sin thrives, grace or forgiveness did much more.
But it is an exclusive membership. You've got to come through Christ. Revelation verse 5, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Question, are you the one who will report to Jesus before his great white throne?
The very place no one wants to be. Only the unforgiven will stand before the great white throne of judgment without forgiveness. Jesus will only condemn you by then.
There'll be no more opportunity. Revelation 20 verse 12, then I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them. No forgiveness. That great word, that large word, forgiven. Christ ever ready to give it, to extend it, to bestow forgiveness on a sinner who doesn't deserve it. And no sinner deserves the grace of God.
But again, Satan always ready also to steal these things. Jesus gave us parables. The sower went to sow and some of the sea fell by the wayside.
The beaten path where everybody goes, where all the traffic is. And the birds of the air, they came and they plucked up the seeds. And metaphorically, the birds of the air are Satan in that parable and the seeds, the word of God.
Satan is ever ready to sneer at the promises of God so that when someone goes to a church on a resurrection Sunday and they hear the word of God and their hearts are moved towards repentance, Satan will follow up with them and steal everything. Are you just emotional? You don't believe that, do you? What about this?
What about that? Until finally, the word has been plucked out of your heart. Forgiveness is not yours and you will stand before the great white throne of judgment and it will be too late. There's no more appeal at that point.
There's no more opportunity. God tells true stories in his word, particularly in what we call the gospels. Stories about him forgiving sinners. Not only by abstract reasoning but concrete illustration. There's a paradox. Concrete illustration. There's a man paralyzed that his friends wanted to bring to Jesus so that he could be healed.
But the crowds were too dense. They couldn't get into the house where Jesus was so they came up with an idea. We'll go up on the roof and in that culture and that time almost all the rooftops were flat. So they went up to the roof and they began to peel it open and lowered their friend down in the midst of Jesus. Luke chapter 5 picks up the outcome of this event. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him, man, your sins are forgiven. Well, there were those there that would sneer at this.
They belonged to the deep state of their culture. Who does this man think he is? That he can forgive sin. When Jesus said, well, anybody can say your sins are forgiven but not anybody can make you get up and walk if you've been paralyzed.
The purpose of the healing was not just to heal somebody to demonstrate that he was Messiah but to demonstrate that he has the power to not only take a paralyzed soul and have him walk but to take his sins away, to forgive his sins. Then there was a woman prostitute. She couldn't stop weeping at the feet of Christ. She never heard anybody preach like that before. She never saw that kind of love in another human being. She had never been in the presence of such greatness without even thinking about it. She just knew she was there. The religious leader whose house it was that she was in weeping at the feet of Christ, he had just as much dirt on him as she did on her.
Christ, being the gentleman that he is, bypassed that. And he said to her, Luke chapter 7, 48, your sins are forgiven. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reference Radio. This is the radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We trust that what you've heard today has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. To learn more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. You can also connect with us through YouTube. We hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue spending time reading God's word and learning together. Make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick again right here on Cross Reference Radio.
