forgiveness Archives - Make No Provision

“Forgiveness cost the agony at Calvary.” || Oswald Chambers

by Alan Sharpe October 6, 2022

We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.

by Alan Sharpe October 6, 2022

man of the top of the mountain in the fog

Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive— He would contradict

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Consequences

Quit Porn in Three Words | John 5:14

by Alan Sharpe August 17, 2022

Jesus doesn’t expect you to continue looking at porn any more than He expected the healed man from the Pool of Bethesda to continue in his sin.

by Alan Sharpe August 17, 2022

Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”
John 5:14

One of the reasons I left Celebrate Recovery is that I never faced consequences for my sexual sin. Brothers like me, caught up in the sin of habitual porn use, would attend the meetings week after week, being pure one week, falling into sin the next, but nothing ever happened. Actually, something happened. We received a “First Time Attender” blue chip each time we reset our sobriety clock to one day of sobriety. This was not the biblical model for dealing with a brother who was living in sexual sin, so I left.

What I never heard at Celebrate Recovery meetings were those simple words of Jesus: “Sin no more.” Jesus said them to the woman caught in adultery (John 8:11), and he said them to the ma

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Judgment

Escape for Your Life | Genesis 19:17

by Alan Sharpe May 5, 2022

If you want to escape God’s judgment, escape your sexual immorality. Lot escaped the sexually immoral city of Sodom while he had the chance. You should, too.

by Alan Sharpe May 5, 2022

“Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”
Genesis 19:17

God’s advice for the Christian man who watches pornography can be summed up in one word—escape! God will have mercy on you just as He had mercy on Lot, but only if you obey God, escape the wicked city, don’t look back, and go to live somewhere safe.

Lot was a righteous man who lived with his wife and family in Sodom, a city so wicked that the Bible uses the name of the city as a symbol of wickedness. Its destruction at the hands of the Lord is held up as a warning to sinners of coming judgment (Jude 7). God had mercy on Lot and his family by giving them a chance to leave the city before it was consumed from heaven with fire and brimstone.

Today, if your life

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Judgment

Watch Porn Habitually, Die Spiritually | Romans 8:13

by Alan Sharpe April 14, 2022

A man who looks at pornography habitually is, by definition, living according to the flesh. Unless he forsakes his sin, He will die and be separated from God for all eternity.

by Alan Sharpe April 14, 2022

Watch Porn Habitually, Die Spiritually | Romans 8:13

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Romans 8:13

Do you treat forgiveness as a pre-paid credit card? Do you sin sexually, repeatedly and habitually because you believe your sins—past, present, future—are all forgiven, no matter what, guaranteed? Do you look at pornography and masturbate, week in, week out, knowing that on every occasion you can always rely on God for His forgiveness because God is obligated to forgive you?

If you look at pornography and masturbate but want to stop, your inability to conquer your sin might just be tied to your misunderstanding of eternal security. If you believe you are “once saved, always saved” and that you can never fall away, you need to read your New Testament. Every writer in the New Testament warns believers about falling away. When commissioning the 12 disciples, Christ warns them five times about falling away.

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Obedience

No Condemnation. But No More Sexual Sin, Either. | John 8:1-11

by Alan Sharpe January 12, 2022

Jesus demands that you confess your sexual sin and then forsake it. “No condemnation” is always followed by “sin no more.”

by Alan Sharpe January 12, 2022

If you listen to enough sermons about the woman caught in adultery and her encounter with Jesus, you might think that the only lesson to be learned is that Jesus doesn’t condemn sinners. But you would be only partly right. Which means, of course, that you would also be partly mistaken.

You read about the encounter in John’s gospel, chapter eight. The scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman taken in adultery, caught in the very act. They say the woman should be stoned to death. Jesus stoops down and writes something on the ground. He then stands, and says to her accusers, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). Those that hear His words are convicted by their conscience, and file out. They leave the woman alone with Jesus. Jesus then stands up and asks the woman, “Where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” She replies, “No one, Lord.” And then Jesus replies with those immortal lines, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more” (John 8:11).

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