In 1986, in a large city in the far west, rumors spread that
a certain Roman Catholic woman was having visions of Jesus. The reports reached the archbishop and he
decided to check her out, for there’s always a fine line between a true
encounter with God and the lunatic fringe.
“Is this true, Madam?” the archbishop asked. “Do you have visions of Jesus?” The woman replied, “Yes.” “Well, the next time you have one,” the
archbishop said, “I want you to do me a favor.
I want you to ask Jesus to reveal to you the sins I confessed in my last
confession.”
The woman was stunned.
“Did I hear you right, Archbishop?
You actually want me to ask Jesus to tell me your sins of the
past?” “That’s right,” said the
cleric. “Please call me if anything
happens on this.” With that, the archbishop turned and walked away with a
knowing smile.
Ten days later the woman notified her priest that she had
another apparition and that he should call for the archbishop to come. Within an hour the archbishop arrived and was
sitting face-to-face with the woman.
“You have just asked your priest to contact me and I’ve come as quickly
as I could.” The archbishop said, “Now
tell me, did you have another vision of Jesus?”
The woman nodded and said, “Yes, Father.” And the cleric asked, “Did you ask Him what I
had told you to ask Him?” “Yes Father, I
asked Jesus to tell me all of the sins you confessed in your last confession.”
The archbishop leaned forward, his eyes narrowing slightly,
and he asked quietly, “What did He say?”
With that she took his hand and gazed into his eyes and said, “O Father,
these are His exact words: ‘I CAN’T
REMEMBER.’”
Someone has said, “A sad Christian is a phony Christian, and
a guilty Christian is no Christian at all.”
And yet, every one of us is sad and guilty at times. But our countenance and conscience are no
barometers of our true standing with God.
Indeed, His “forgetfulness” is an objective reality that requires no joy
or freedom on our part. It is what it
is. It’s independent of our own feelings
or actions. And this is critical in our
understanding and practice of forgiveness.
As we noted last week, the heart of the matter – forgiveness
– is inexorably linked to our heart. The
reason we need forgiveness is because our hearts are corrupt, and yet, it is
out of our heart that true, to-the-bone forgiveness comes. That’s what Jesus is saying in Mark 7 to the
religionists who believe (what every natural man or woman believes) that what
defiles us comes from the outside, rather than the inside. But Jesus disagrees. His words are a radical message to us. “It’s not what goes into a man that defiles
him, but what comes out of the heart.” Think
of that. According to Jesus, our hearts
are so corrupt that they not only need forgiveness through the death of Christ,
they need replacement through the work of Christ. And that’s exactly what Christ does at the
cross. He fulfills the prophetic word of
God in Ezekiel 36 at the cross: “I will give you a new heart and put a new
spirit in you…”
But much more happens at the cross than all of that. What the cross reveals is not only the depths
of our heart, but the depths of God’s heart.
Indeed, it is this other revelation, the nature of God’s heart, that is
so critical to our ability to forgive.
And this week we will examine God’s heart in, inarguably, the greatest
portrait of God’s heart that we find in the entire Bible – Genesis 15. Here, in Abram’s encounter with God, we find
the bedrock of true forgiveness – the unparalleled majesty of the heart of God.
In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the
following:
- After what things – verse 1?
- What is the nature of Abram’s fear?
- The end of verse 1 can be translated several ways, but what does God mean when He talks about being Abram’s shield and reward?
- How does God prove that He is Abram’s shield and reward in verse 17?
- How long has it been since God first made the promise of a descendent to Abram?
- What is the nature of Abram’s belief in verse 6?
- How do dust and stars pale in comparison to a smoking pot and a fiery torch?
- How does God exhibit His heart to Abram in His words and deeds in Chapter 15?
- What correlation can you draw between Genesis 15 and Mark 15?
- Why would R.C. Sproul, Tim Keller, and others say that this chapter is the most significant chapter in the Old Testament and the single chapter they would pick if given only one chapter of the Bible on which to live and to die?
See you Sunday. It
promises to be a GREAT ONE!
