Overcoming Guilt: The Power of Forgiveness in Christ

Accusation is that situation by which Satan torments the conscience of the believer. Now, we’re living in a culture now that is virtually obsessed with self-help pop psychology remedies to make us happy. You go into any bookstore, and you will see a large section of the bookstore devoted to how to achieve a good self-image. [00:01:39]

It’s because we are a guilt-ridden people, and I often will say to people who are not Christians, I’ll say, “You’re not a Christian, but let me ask you this: What do you do with your guilt?” That’s really kind of a complex question. I don’t say to them, “Do you have guilt?” I assume that they have guilt. [00:02:51]

So what I want to look at here is why, at the heart of the biblical message, very practically speaking, is an announcement of forgiveness because at the heart of our struggle for sanctification is what we’ve already seen, is that as I’m trying to be obedient, as I’m trying to please God, as I’m trying to grow in my Christian experience, I am being burdened and loaded down with all that baggage of guilt that I have brought into my experience. [00:03:58]

Now we know from psychiatry and psychology that guilt is one of the most powerfully paralyzing forces there is to the human spirit. Fear can paralyze. People would say, “I’m frozen with fear,” but also guilt can cause a person to be virtually locked in immobility. [00:04:48]

And in the midst of the accusation God opens His holy mouth and speaks and says, “Satan, you shut your mouth! Is this not one of My brands that I have plucked from the fire?” Oh, I love that passage. I love that statement from God, don’t you? I mean think about it. [00:11:16]

God doesn’t wait for a person to be pure and unblemished before He redeems him. That’s the gospel, isn’t it – that while we are still filthy we are given the cloak of the righteousness of Christ, to be received in the fellowship with God so that every Christian is a brand snatched from the fire; and what that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that every one of us has filthy garments. [00:13:28]

There is some filth in your life. There’s filth in my life, and we don’t want to go around and parade that garbage in front of everybody else in the world. In fact, we do everything in our power to conceal it. But there are two people who know about every skeleton in our closet. There’s God, and there’s Satan, and Satan is a skeleton rattler. [00:14:00]

Now, I know that Christians debate over the question of whether or not it is possible to know for sure whether you are redeemed. There are some people who take the position that we can really never be sure if we are in a state of redemption. In fact I remember when I was in seminary we did a poll of the seniors in the seminary class, and 50% of the seniors in our seminary class not only said that they didn’t think a person could know if they were in the state of redemption but that to assume that you were in the state of redemption was an act of unspeakable arrogance. [00:16:11]

Now I take the position that not only you can know if you are in the state of redemption, but it is your duty to know because God commands us to make certain what our status is before Him, and I personally believe, ladies and gentlemen, that one of the most important doctrines that a Christian can learn, and learn early, in his walk is the doctrine of the assurance of salvation. [00:17:00]

But what’s the difference between conviction of the Holy Spirit and the accusation of Satan? Suppose I commit a sin, and I try not to deal with it, and Satan comes along and says, “You did it. We know you did it. What kind of a person are you who would do something like that?” The Holy Spirit comes along and troubles me about the same thing. How do you tell the difference? [00:21:24]

Somehow that when the Holy Spirit confronts us with our sin, at the same time that He tells us we are guilty, He assures us that we are forgiven as we turn to Him – that He comes to us not as somebody trying to destroy us. But Satan’s accusation is designed not to redeem us but to destroy us, and there’s a total difference. [00:22:55]

In other words, this: Satan will hit us where we really are guilty, and there – and we have to acknowledge that there is such a thing as real guilt, and the only remedy to real guilt that I know of is real forgiveness. [00:23:18]