Forever Erased! Can it Be?

Did you ever wish you could undo what you’ve done? Did you ever wish you could start all over with a clean slate? Well, you can. That’s precisely what God has done for everyone who comes to him, trusting Him that his word is true, His promises are true; And when He tells us, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

For the one who trusts Christ, all sins from their past are gone. They have a clean slate in much the same way as the heavens and the earth will one day be done away with and God will create a new heavens and earth. Listen to Revelation 21:1 as John writes: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.”

Listen also to Isaiah 65:17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.

And now 2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

In the new creation everything will be new – land masses, flora, forests, continents, the stars, the planets – even the air we will breathe. All new.  And in the same way, God sees everything new in the life of those who come to Christ by faith. Every sin in our past is gone, covered with the blood of Christ. A clean slate.

But even more than that, while it is true that every time we now sin we muddy that new slate . . . BUT (and this is critical to remember) when we confess and repent, the Holy Spirit of God immediately restores the slate to its original post-conversion pristine condition. This holds true even for the sins we commit in ignorance, not knowing we have sinned, which happens all the time. But God, who knows our hearts, who knows we want to live holy lives – even things we do in ignorance God wipes completely clean.

For example,  Referring to the Day of Atonement when the High Priest took the sacrificial blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat, the Book of Hebrews reminds us: “Into the second [part of the Tabernacle] only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance.” Hebrews 9:6-7

We find such assurances also in the fourth and fifth chapters of Leviticus. The psalmist likewise addresses sins committed in ignorance when he writes: “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.  Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression.” (Psalm 19:12-13)

Well, all of that is my introduction to today’s message – a rather long introduction, yes, but necessary because I want to set the proverbial stage for what now follows.

My text for today is from Romans 4:4ff “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: (And here, Paul quotes from Psalm 32): Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

I’ve spoken of this many times in the past decade that I’ve been your pastor, and I will speak of it many more times in the future as the Lord gives me opportunity because biblical truth simply cannot be overstated or overworn.

So, David wrote: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

Many of you remember the context of David’s two psalms – the 51st and the 32nd. After his adultery with Bathsheba and her subsequent pregnancy, David attempted to cover-up his sin by having her husband, Uriah, killed in battle. When the prophet Nathan accused him of doing what he did, David knew that according to God's law, there was no sacrifice he could have made that would have washed away his damnable sins. Death by stoning was the only possible option for God’s justice under the Mosaic Law.

But when David confessed his sins, Nathan told David: “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13) In other words, God said to David through the prophet, “I forgive you.”

David wrote those two psalms in the aftermath of his confession and God’s subsequent remission of his sins. Listen to this text from Psalm 51: “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.”

We don’t know how much longer it was after he wrote the 51st psalm that he wrote the 32nd, but the text Paul cited in his letter to the Christians at Rome is from that 32nd psalm: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

I wonder if we hear it often enough – God is a God who loves to forgive sinners. He loves to wipe clean our sins. Listen to this representative Old Testament text from the prophet Ezekiel:  “Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus you have spoken, saying, “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we are rotting away in them; how then can we survive?”’ Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezekiel 33:10-11)

Yes, God LOVES to forgive the truly penitent, and I think now of the

adulteress in John 8, waiting to be stoned for her sin. Many of you remember the story. After the religious leaders left one by one, Jesus said to her: “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” (John 8:11)

In other words, as Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome – and by extension, the Christians at Ashwood Meadows: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1-4)

No wonder Paul also wrote to the Christians at Galatia: It was for [such] freedom that Christ set you free; Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

I think it can also be said that we ought not place on ourselves the yoke of guilt for repented sins washed thoroughly by the blood of Jesus. Surely, “The sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10

Think for a moment about the penitent thief on the cross next to Jesus. When he asked the Lord to remember him when He came into His kingdom, the Lord Jesus promised him: “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43). In other words, Jesus told him, “I forgive you. It’s done. Your past will no longer be held against you. You have a clean slate.”

It’s the same thing He tells you who confess and repent of your sins. “I forgive you. It’s done. Your past will no longer be held against you. You have a clean slate.”

Murderers, adulterers, thieves, liars, blasphemers – the list goes on and on throughout the Bible and Church history right up to this day in 2026. To every penitent – EVERY penitent, the Savior promises: “I forgive you.” It’s done. Your past can no longer be held against you. You have a clean slate.”

And by the way, that clean slate is exactly what justification means: being declared righteous by God. It is what forgiveness—called remission in some translations—means: God treats those sins as though they had never been committed.

To me, that means whatever I’ve done in my life – and I’ve done so many horribly wicked things in my life – the Almighty Judge of all the earth will never hold any of those sins against me because Jesus atoned for my sins, and with that atonement brought me eternal justification, forgiveness, and remission of those sins.

And He has done the same thing for each of you here who have confessed your sins to Him – the big ones and the so-called little ones. Your faith in Christ’s atonement has resulted forever in eternal justification, forgiveness, remission of those sins.

To shout ‘hallelujah’ seems somehow too anemic a response from we who have been redeemed, cleansed, reborn by and through the blood of the Lamb.

Did you ever think how hurtful it is to God who tells you that you are forgiven and we respond in unbelief? Did you ever consider how it must grieve the Father when we say – out loud or in our hearts – I can’t be fully forgiven unless I suffer in some way for my sins – even when You say they’re forgiven.

It’s like when we had small children in the house, four or five-year-olds who did something wrong, stole a cookie from the cookie jar or some such thing, and then, feeling guilty, apologized. And so, we took them around and told them we forgive them, everything is okay now.

But how do you think you’d have felt if for days, weeks, even months the child lived under a shadow of guilt, not believing he’d been forgiven, that you really didn’t mean it when you told him all was okay now?

In an infinitesimally small way, isn’t that how it is with our Father in heaven? We’ve done wrong, we feel guilty about the wrong and we’ve confessed and repented before God who then tell us we are forgiven. He tells us the sins are forgotten. He tells us those sins are purged from His memory, as Scripture repeatedly assures us. And yet some of us live days and weeks and months and even years under the shadow of that guilt.

Let me remind us of the passage in Luke 18:16-17. Jesus told His disciples, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”

Why is that? One reason might be because little children trust what their parents tell them. And so to the adults in this sanctuary, including myself, God help us to become as a child and trust what the father says.

CS Lewis’ comment about this issue is right on the mark: “I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”

In 2005, David Phelps and Kyle Matthew wrote the song Gentle Savior. Listen to some of the lyrics: “Why can’t I walk away from my regrets/And why is forgiveness so hard to accept/My past surrounds me like a house I can’t afford/But You say, "Come with me, don’t live there anymore"/Gentle Savior, lead me on/Let Your Spirit light the way/Gentle Savior, lead me on/Hold me close and keep me safe/Lead me on, gentle Savior.”

You might remember what God said to Peter that day he was waiting for his companions to prepare lunch. Luke tells us that while he was praying on the rooftop of the home he fell into a trance “and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of [unclean according to the Law of Moses] four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.”  Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.” Acts 10:9-16

What did Peter do after the Lord told him, “What the Lord has cleansed, no longer call unholy, or unclean”? He brought the gospel message to Gentiles – a nation he formerly considered unclean – and they believed the gospel.

My brothers and sister, it does no violence to the whole of Scripture to extrapolate from the Lord’s comment about unclean food to say, “Whatever sin God has cleansed through your repentance and faith in Christ, no longer consider yourself unclean.”

Listen, please to this application: We cannot hope to effectively tell others that THEIR sins can be forever gone if we don’t believe it of our own confessed sins.

Let me close this message this way. As I prepared this message I had an imaginary conversation with the Lord about my past sins. It went something like this:

“Lord, do you remember when I did that terrible thing?

He said, “No, I don’t.”

I pressed the point: “But, Lord, you must remember that day and who I was with. The memory resurfaces time to time. It was a horrible thing I did.”

And God responded, “No, I don’t remember. You confessed that sin to me a long time ago and I promised to forget what you did. I promised to wipe that sin from your account. I promised to never again remember it. I promised to cast it as far as east is from the west, and I always keep my promises.”

God has promised you the same as He promised me – to forget your confessed sins. Listen to this last text for today, this one from Jeremiah:

“I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people . . . [and] I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Christian: Be at peace. Live for Christ with a conscience cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

Amen