Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
All right, so Leandro is asking if there are at least two people against someone going to Heaven, that person will go to hell. That’s true.
Speaker 2
All right, there’s short questions that actually take the most answer to impact, but I’ll try to go quickly, answer is, no, that’s not true. Let’s start off but I know this is a concept that a lot of people struggle with because our verses at this viewpoint can be thought of if we don’t have full contact, full understanding. So let’s see what Leander is referring to and unpack it. So start up at Matthew 16, verses 18 and 19. This is Jesus speaking. And I also say I’m to you, Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Haiti shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And then there’s a similar verse two chapters down, matthew 1818 to 20. Jesus says, Surely I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you lose on earth will also be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven where two or three are gathered in their name, I am in the midst of them.
Speaker 2
I believe these are two verses kind of that Leonardo is referring to. There’s others that are similar to it. So they just seem to be saying, right, if you agree on anything, we can sort of buy in God, right? If we agree someone should go to hell, god will respect it, send him to hell. Or we want someone to go to heaven, doesn’t matter if it’s the worst person on a human being on earth, we can agree Satan sorry, that oh, yeah, let’s say even Satan, we should agree Satan should go to heaven, have returned life. God will respect that. Honestly, when you look at these ludicrous extremes, you realize that can’t be what Jesus is saying. And that’s true, he’s not. So what Jesus is saying really is that if we’re praying and asking and doing these things in alignment with God’s will and he says when we’re gathering his name, we’re gathered in his character. So we have the mind of Christ. We’re thinking like God doing what God wants. That is when prayer becomes powerful and God starts doing what we asked for because we’re actually doing what he wants. And it’s more like we’re giving Him permission to act.
Speaker 2
And what is God’s will? It’s God’s will that we forgive. That is God’s will. God will respect our wishes if we ask Him to forgive. But we cannot bind God to withhold forgiveness to the Creator. God will eagerly override us if it means he can be reconciled with one of his sons or daughters. So let’s look at some verses here to back up what I just said. So two Corinthians five, starting in verse 18, this is Paul speaking powerful, right? He says now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. So God did the reconciling, nobody had to intervene, nobody was a mediator other than Christ and God bring us together back to God. So going back to verse 19, that is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their transgressions to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. He has given us the word of reconciliation, ie. The Gospel. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God we’re pleading through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf be reconciled to God, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Speaker 2
So what is this first saying? Right? God has accomplished amazing work of reconciliation. Those of us who are converted and brought into harmony and relationship with God. God now wants us to turn around and bring others back into harmony and relationship with God. And if we refuse to forgive sins, we refuse to help people break free from their past, move on, we refuse to heal riffs, refuse relationships. We are doing the contrary work of what the ministry of reconciliation is. And we’re not preaching in word or deed what is the word of reconciliation. And if you look in that verse right now, where does Paul say that salvation is dependent on our sins being forgiven by any other human being? Rather, God has by God alone carried out the plan of salvation to restore relationship to us. And once our relationship with God has been restored again, God wants us now to bring about reconciliation between him and others. And that also requires us to be reconciled with others amongst ourselves so that they can see and better understand God’s reconciliation. That key to heaven. Like Jesus said, I’m giving you guys the key to heaven.
Speaker 2
Well, what is that key? That key is the word of reconciliation Paul was talking about in the verse. We just read here’s some other verses to confirm that. John 832 you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. The truth is what unlooses people that are in bondage. Luke 1152 woo lawyers for you have taken away the key of knowledge, you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered. Yeah, those who were entering you hindered. So not only are you withholding the knowledge that can save people, but you are standing in the way of people maybe giving false knowledge, false doctrines that are getting in the way of people finding a relationship with God. Romans 119 I am not ashamed of the Gospel of God, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. Verses up the verses of the verses again, covering the keys to heaven is the gospel. And we open the door or help open the door for people by the words. And it’s important. I love this concept that love covers over a multitude of sins. God is love, god loves us.
Speaker 2
God wants us to love. So what does love do? Love covers over multitude of sins. You see this in Proverbs ten, verses eleven to twelve. The mouth of the righteous is a well of life. It opens the key to heaven. But violence covers the mouth of the wicked. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins. And we see this verse repeated by Peter in one eight. He says, above all things have fervent love for one another, we must love one another. It says, for love will cover over a multitude of sins. That’s what God wants to do. God wants us to love. And if we were to love, we must forgive. Love is the commandment. All the commandments boil down to love. Forgiveness is then a central component to all of this. To not forgive is basically a flavor of hating somebody. And this lack of love and forgiveness is ironically destructive to the person who refuses to forgive. What’s our friend who teaches about his poison.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I like what Dr. Dick Tibbets has to say on this subject. He says, failure to forgive is like drinking, taking a poison pill and hoping that the other person dies. So forgiveness is something that we do from ourselves, essentially for ourselves, it is a first step before a relationship can be reestablished, reconnected. If I’m angry at my husband for something, hopefully that doesn’t happen very often. But if I was angry at him about something, it would be very hard for me to have to enter into a relationship with him that he’s going to feel comfortable with because I’m angry at him. Right. So I have to go through the process of forgiveness before I can enter into that relationship because he’s going to experience that anger if I don’t. And who wants to be with anger.
Speaker 2
Or what it gets back to the forgiveness is part of the ministry of reconciliation and God wants us to be carrying out.
Speaker 1
But I want to add to this, forgiveness does not mean reconciliation.
Speaker 2
No, it’s a part of the first.
Speaker 1
Step before reconciliation can occur. But to get to reconciliation, there’s more than forgiveness involved.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And we’ll talk about should you forgive everybody or be reconciled to everybody. Now let’s look at some things where actually not only we called so yeah, there’s Bible verses say we are called to forgive by we’re getting feedback now. There we go. It says, let’s look at the Lord’s Prayer where we’re called to actually forgive and we’re going to have problems if we don’t forgive. Mark eleven, verses 25 to 26 and whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses. The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 612 and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. In Jesus exposition on this couple verses down, Matthew 614 15, he says, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Or if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Again and again and again. And we see this parable in Matthew 18 where Jesus talked about this man who owed a ton of money, like an unfathomable amount of money, and the king of this land forgives him the debt.
Speaker 2
But then this guy that was forgiven turns around and it starts beating up and trying to collect on this guy that owes him just a small amount of money. And then how does it end? Well, the king is furious and locks up the man who had been forgiven much but didn’t realize it. This is how God is. God very much will hold us to the same law and standard by which we treat others, and so we refuse to forgive. God will not forgive if we’re merciful and loving and forgiving to people. That’s the same way God will come to us. So Luke seven, like three to four, take heed of yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. This is when we’re supposed to forgive, when someone repents. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day, return to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. So keep this in mind. This is important. John 20 versus 22 to 23. And when he has said, he breathed on them, sorry about Jesus before he sent it, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2
If you forgive the sins of any, they will be forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they will be retained. So I’m not sure that some of the other verses we talked about, what does it mean they’ll be retained? Again, I think all these verses here, in the context of where someone has not repented, we have the ability to pray for God to forgive someone even if that person has not repented. Where we are the person, let’s say, who has been wronged, that person has not repented, we could still pray for God to forgive them. We see this Luke 23 34 Jesus on the cross, he says, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. So here Jesus is saying, please forgive them, Lord. They don’t even know their sins, so they haven’t even thought yet to ask for forgiveness. But please I’m asking you, God forgive them if I could forgive them truly, God, you can, right. This is sort of the idea. Here you see the stoning of Stephen in act seven, sorry, verse verse 59. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God, saying, lord, Jesus received my spirit.
Speaker 2
Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, lord, do not charge them with this sin. So Stevens last thought is, god, I don’t want to see these people pay the penalty price for this stupid sin they’re communing against me. And sure I think God will respect that. And they will not have to pay the price for that particular sin because James forgave them. So just to get the ramification of this now, on the day of judgment, when God is going to hand down the punishments to people, there will be times where God will say, you committed this sin, but you know what? This person forgave you. And because I’m going to forgive you of this one. And there’s this other sin over here, this wonderful Christian person also forgave you of it. This could be, I think, a powerful witness of just the difference between the wicked and the righteous. Again, I can’t fully back this up, but I think this is where it’s going to play out. This is what the Bible is saying when you can bind and loose it’s situations like this. And just keep in mind again that forgiveness is a part of spiritual warfare.
Speaker 2
And our forgiveness might be an opportunity to help someone get reconnected to God and to not let Satan have the victory. As we see in two Corinthians two verses five to eleven says but if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved it to me, but all of you, to some extent, not to be too severe, this punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man. So that on the contrary, you ought to rather forgive and comfort him less perhaps such a woman be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him, for to this. And I also wrote that I might put you to the test whether you are obedient in all things. Now, whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sake and the presence of Christ. Lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. Satan is hoping to have a sin against one another, have us not forgive each other to drive our relationships apart. He has anti relationships because love is relationships.
Speaker 2
Love is about connections and just people coming together and enjoying each other and supporting one another. All these things that love. That’s the experience God wanted us to have. Satan wants to destroy all of that. And so if we step back and realize when there’s a sin and something goes on and we are mad and we want to not have anything to do with people. This is very much the moment when Satan is at work and we need to pause, step back and reflect and say, is there a way where we can make sure Satan won’t have the victory here and we can accomplish God’s ministry of reconciliation?
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