How can I ask forgiveness of someone I can’t find ?

BibleAsk Team

Automatic Transcript Generated:

Speaker 1

Leandra is asking, I offended some people and now it is no longer possible to ask forgiveness from these people. I no longer have contact with these people. And in the Bible it says that anyone who does not ask forgiveness from those who have offended will go to hell. What do I do? Well, God forgive me.

Speaker 2

And this is a really good question and actually a little bit of background. We’re actually going to have a few questions from Leandro and a couple other people, all different. Good breakdowns of issues that I think people struggle with when it comes to forgiveness and sins and salvation. They’re all kind of interrelated, right? So he says he’s given some people has not gotten forgiveness. Does that mean he’s going to basically not be saved? Because we could talk about whether there’s hell. What is hell? What does that look like? We’ll save that for another video which we’ve already made and check it out. So when it comes to forgiveness, do we have to have the forgiveness of other people in order to be saved? The answer is an absolute no. Our salvation is not dependent on the grace of others, only on the grace of God, on the grace of Jesus Christ accomplished for us on Passover, like in this season about 2000 years ago. So let’s see what the Bible actually says about it, though. They’ll just take my word for it. Let’s check out Luke five. The Luke chapter five, starting around verse 20.

Speaker 2

This is the story of the paralytic who was brought to Jesus to be healed. And Jesus didn’t just immediately go put his hand on the purse and say you are healed. No, the first thing he says is what he says in verse 20 when he Jesus saw their faith of the friends who brought him. So even it’s their faith, not even the paralytics, he said to the paralytic, man, your sins are forgiven you. So Jesus said your sins, let me go make sure all the people you’re wrong will forgive you. No, Jesus said going to forgive your sins. I can do that. I am the one who can do it. And the scripts and the Pharisees immediately picked up on this because we see in verse 21 says and the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies? So they picked up, wait, this is heresy what this guy is doing. And they say, who could forgive sins but God alone? They knew this. The Bible teaches only God can forgive sins. And by the way, you can’t believe everything the Pharisees are recorded saying, but in this case they’re like, yeah, we’re told only God can do it.

Speaker 2

They’re right. Verse 22. But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered and said to them, why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven to you or rise up and walk, but that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. So Jesus right here, he performs a miracle of healing the man to prove to us also that he has the power to forgive sin. And this was even before Christ paid for a death on the cross. He was forgiving even before that happened. And how much more so now that the debt has been paid that Christ can forgive our sins. And it’s important to keep in mind that at the heart of sin we are really harming God where we are really breaking his laws. So it’s really Him that’s in the position to do forgiving. It’s kind of this concept of like we are as parents. Let’s say we have kids and one kid hits the other kid, injuring this kid.

Speaker 2

You as a parent, number one, that’s hurting you because your kids and your painting your other kid hurt. You also have laws for your kids. These rules they say don’t hurt one another, so they’re breaking your rules. This is kind of how it is also with God. So when we send we’re sinning against God and there’s some amazing stories to look at, especially in this context of trying to self forgiveness works and sin works. My favorite one is about David. King david, the Bible looks at it as one of the best of the kings Israel ever had. I always talk about a man after God’s heart, but his record was stained like there’s just one little blemish on his record. Not one little one, this is a big blemish. And he made a couple of mistakes, but there’s this one that’s really recorded there for us to understand the forgiveness process. So David, he sees Bashiba, Uriah’s wife, and he thinks very lustfully, he desires to sleep with her. She’s brought to him, he sleeps with her, he sends her away. Eventually she realizes she got pregnant for sleeping with David. And it had to be David because her husband is away fighting wars, he’s not home there to be sleeping with her.

Speaker 2

And David now starts panicking because he realizes, oh, everybody knows I slept with her and he wasn’t around. So this is going to be my kid. Oh my, this could be a big scandal. Especially when you’re David, who’s supposed to be the Godly King, right? So he’s got to cover this up. He thinks he sets up this whole scandal where Uriah then is brought to the front lines and basically betrayed. Everybody abandons him, he gets killed. And David thinks he gets away with it and probably moves on, forgets about it. But God didn’t forget about it. And God sends the prophet Nathan to go speak to David and tells us a brilliant parable of this man that had many sheep and had the people come over and rather than sacrifice one of his sheep, he took the sheep from this poor man who all he had was that one little sheep. And he loved that sheep, took care of it, but the rich man took the poor man’s sheep. And David is like, that man should die. And Nathan says, David, that man is you because of what you did. So let’s start there, the story.

Speaker 2

Second Samuel twelve, verse seven. It says van. Nathan said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you over the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wise into your keeping and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have given you much more. Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? You have killed Ariah to hit tight with the sword. You have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword. The people of Ammon. So wow. I mean, just like could you wrong someone more than that to sleep with their wife and then kill them to cover it up? I mean, this is like about as bad as you get, right? So here, David never had a chance to be forgiven by urine. Urine. Never forgave Davidson. But what happens? Second. Samuel? Twelve. So, same chapter, verse 13 says so David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. David is not even so much worried about, oh my, I send it to you.

Speaker 2

Right? He’s like, oh wow. I have sinned against God. I have hurt God. And Nathan said to David, he works here. And Nathan said to David, the Lord also put away your sin, you shall not die. See that here we see immediately God forgave Satan, David. And David basically told you, you’re not going to die. You’re not going to suffer immediate punishment of death for what you did, even though you would deserve it. God by his grace will forgive you because it’s within God’s power to do that. It’s God’s law that requires death for sin. And it’s God who then has the power to decide whether or not to execute that against us. So perhaps coming out of this story, we have some amazing psalms that are attributed to David that further confirm it’s God that does the forgiving. So we have Psalm 32, verses one to eleven. It reads, Blessed it is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered and covered and toned, and have very similar imagery words. In the Hebrew, verse two, blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and whose spirit there is no deceit.

Speaker 2

Chapter verse five, I acknowledge my sin to you. And in the Bible it’s capital Y into you signifying to God and my equity I have not hidden I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you, forgave you God y there forgave the niquity of my sin. For this cause, everyone who is good shall pray to you, to God in a time when you may be found surely in a flood of great waters, they shall not come near him. You God, are my hiding place. You, God, shall preserve me from trouble. You, God, shall surround me with songs of deliverance. And if you have to, verse 510 says many sources shall be to the wicked, but he who trusts the Lord mercy shall surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous just again and again all attributing to God. God is the one who forgives. Just a couple more verses now jump into the New Testament. We’ve just been an Old Testament mostly, but New Testament Paul says in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, to redeem by Christ’s blood that he shed on the cross almost 2000 years ago.

Speaker 2

That’s the forgiveness we have. One Peter 318 for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for them just that he might bring us to God. He put the death in the flesh, but made a life in the Spirit. He himself first Peter 224 he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by whose stripes we are healed. Our salvation is in the hands of God. He worked it out. And as One John one Nine says he God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Praise God. We’re not dependent on the forgiveness of mercy of other humans. It’s all in his hands. And we’ll talk more though in the next time. But what does it mean when the Bible talks about we need to forgive others or finding others? So there’s still that question that will touch on next, but tina, are you back? Are we able to hear you?

Speaker 3

Oh, I think I’m back.

Speaker 2

Oh no.

Speaker 3

I’m so glad to be here and praise God. I think you give very thorough answer. I totally agree. I think the story of David is honestly probably one of the best stories when thinking about forgiveness. And I think that’s such a powerful message to remember that no matter what, God is always going to forgive us at all times because he loves us so much.

Speaker 2

And it’s I think that’s something that’s froze.

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