The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2022 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 107

Forgiving Sin is not Approving Sin

“Seventy times seven…”

Many people have heard that phrase, from this passage.

Matt 18
21) Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?”
22) Yeshua said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.

Based on that, many people think Christ instructed His followers to accept and approve a sinner’s sins. A thief can continue to steal, an adulterer can continue to adulterize, a killer can continue to kill and a Christian must forgive all those sins without mentioning repentance. God loves the sinner so you’re supposed to forgive him while he keeps sinning. That’s how you show love to a sinner, it is thought.

This general approach of no repentance and change shapes the policies of the Democrats’ cities. When a cop shoots a criminal, it’s the cop’s fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it’s the gun’s fault. Their solution to crime is not to stop the criminal behavior but just to get rid of the police.

That thinking is similar to forgiving sinners while they continue to sin.

This is particularly relevant today, when society is full of the worst sins of humankind, yet the “liberals” demand that “alternative lifestyles” be accepted. This is the same as saying that if you get rid of the police, there are no crimes. This trend is seen in the nation and the world, and also in most churches.

Again people think that because Christ said to forgive seventy times seven, a Christian must accept and approve unrepentant sins. If Christ expected others to accept and approve sin, then surely He would also expect Himself to forgive, accept and approve unrepented sin.

Matt 11
20) Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they didn’t repent.
21) “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22) But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
23) You, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, you will go down to Hades. For if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in you, it would have remained until this day.
24) But I tell you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, on the day of judgment, than for you.”

Capernaum and Sodom did not repent. They didn’t stop sinning. They are not forgiven and will face judgment.

Christ sent His disciples out to preach that people should repent. Those who refused to repent were to receive worse judgment than Sodom.

Mark 6
7) He called to himself the twelve, and began to send them out two by two; and he gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
8) He commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a staff only: no bread, no wallet, no money in their purse,
9) but to wear sandals, and not put on two tunics.
10) He said to them, “Wherever you enter into a house, stay there until you depart from there.
11) Whoever will not receive you nor hear you, as you depart from there, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony against them. Assuredly, I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!”
12) They went out and preached that people should repent.

Christ’s whole message was based on repentance.

Matt 4
17) From that time, Yeshua began to preach, and to say, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Peter’s first message to the first flock was to repent.

Acts 2
38) Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Yeshua Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s message in Athens, the paragon of paganism, was to repent.

Acts 17
30) The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
31) because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”

God commands all people everywhere to repent. Those who do repent under the blood of Christ will be forgiven. Those who do not repent will be judged for that.

So when Yeshua told Peter to forgive seventy times seven times, He was not telling him to approve the practice of sinning. In Luke, Yeshua reaffirmed what He had said to Peter but with further instruction.

Luke 17
3) Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.
4) If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”

So instead of approving sin, Christ told His disciples to rebuke the sinner. Then if the sinner repents – that is, if he stops practicing sin – we are commanded to forgive him.

Yeshua also gave an example of repenting and then forgiving.

Matt 18
15) “If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother.
16) But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

A sinning brother without repentance is not to be forgiven but is to be treated like a lowly IRS agent.

Forgiving a sin does not mean approving sin. Forgiving a sin itself implies that the sin is wrong. Otherwise it wouldn’t need forgiving. The sin is forgiven when stopped.

That’s the way it was with the step-mother lover in Corinth. Paul and the assembly did not forgive, accept or approve the sinner while he continued sinning. Once he stopped the sin, then he was forgiven and accepted.

Forgiving sin without repentance of sin is approving the sin. To approve sin is to disapprove of God, who condemns sin.

Again the message of the world, the message of Satan’s mind, is to approve and accept all sins. They’re not even called sins by them.

As an example, let’s say we are close to someone who is practicing terrible sin, perhaps adultery as the Corinthian step-mother lover was. Fornication and adultery are so common today that it’s the rare person who does not encounter it among family, friends and churches. We have the choice of letting the person know that is wrong, or just going on like normal and act as if nothing is wrong. If that’s what you do, that’s approving adultery.

The thinking is that God loves everyone, so I just need to love him, too, and accept whatever he does. So the adultery is accepted, the adulterer is approved, and everything is hunky dory. Nobody gets bent out of shape.

This happens in church congregations all the time. In any one small congregation it may only happen once every so many years, but in all congregations as a whole, it happens continuously. As in the Corinth congregation, this whole process is viewed as good. Forgiving and approving the adultery is seen as an expression of God’s love. Therefore the sin, the adultery, leads to goodness – the goodness of God forgiving the adultery.

In Protestant theology, this is called grace.

Paul called it baloney.

Rom 3
5) But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what will we say? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath? I speak like men do.
6) May it never be! For then how will God judge the world?
7) For if the truth of God through my lie abounded to his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
8) Why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil, that good may come?” Those who say so are justly condemned.

Let’s examine that verse by verse.

5) But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what will we say? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath?
That is, if our sin leads to God’s goodness when He forgives our sin, is God then wrong to punish us for sin, because after all, our sin did lead to goodness?

5) I speak like men do.

In other words, that’s the way people think.

6) May it never be! For then how will God judge the world?

7) For if the truth of God through my lie abounded to his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?

If sin leads to good, then God can’t judge people for being sinners. So sin doesn’t really lead to good. Sin leads to suffering and death.

8) Why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil, that good may come?” Those who say so are justly condemned.

Some said that Paul taught that sinning is good, because sin leads to God’s grace. Anyone who says that is justly condemned, either then or now.

What Paul discussed there is the same general principle as people today accepting and approving sin, thinking they’re showing God’s love for the sinner, by accepting his sins.

Forgiving sin is not approving and accepting sin. Forgiving sin is to forget a sin that has been repented and replaced with upright conduct. That’s what Paul and the Corinth assembly ultimately did with the step-mother lover. His sin was not approved, he was not accepted, but was turned out. When he stopped sinning, they all forgave him and accepted him. But not until then.

As happened in Corinth at first, the sin of adultery is often condoned and forgiven while still going on. On the other hand –

Repented adultery, adultery that is stopped, is one of the hardest sins to forgive. From personal observations through the decades, I have seen this among acquaintances a number of times. When a spouse goes off the rails of sanity and sanctity and plunges into adultery, the shafted spouse is devastated.

Cut to the quick.

Once I drove to a local riverside spot to sit and read. Usually no one would be at that spot, but that day another man was there. I did not approach him because I wanted to read. It was summer, though, my van window was down so he came over to me. He had been divorced, I don’t know how long ago, and proceeded to tell me, a perfect stranger or even worse, an imperfect stranger, all about the woman who had wronged him by leaving him.

And he couldn’t stop telling me.

Over and over he kept telling me how the woman had wronged him, and that told me he was really, really hurt. He couldn’t let it go.

I personally have known four people who, after being shafted by their mates, soon came down with cancer. They were not old people at all, just hurt people. Three of them died young.

Here is an ignored truth: often people who make a huge mistake come to realize it.

For example, a survey showed that most people who get a divorce regret it five years later.

“Rats! Wish I hadn’t done that!”

I have repeatedly seen people who badly jumped the tracks, later, want to get back on. Then, as Christ said – seventy times seven! – the shafted spouse must forgive the repentant mate, who stopped adulterizing and wants to come back home.

That’s what Christ was talking about when He said to forgive seventy times seven. “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”

In my personal experience, however, it is the rare spouse who can do that with a repented, adulterous mate. Those who have not forgiven are supported by their church theology, which seldom allows forgiveness for a repentant fallen mate.

So we have the situation in today’s twisted world where repentant adulterous mates are not forgiven, and unrepentant adulterers are. Neither of these shows God’s love.

Christ came to call sinners to repentance. “…I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” He said, (Mark 2:17). Most sinners in Christ’s time did not like being told to repent, any more than they like it today. Repentant people are glad they were told to repent. Unrepentant sinners hate it.

And they hate those who tell them to repent.

Matt 10
21) “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death.
22) You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

34) “Don’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword.
35) For I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
36) A man’s foes will be those of his own household.
37) He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.
38) He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me, isn’t worthy of me.
39) He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

How is a Christianos at odds with his father or a daughter against her mother? How does that happen?

It only happens because of somebody standing against sin, among people closest to us – unrepentant, destructive sinning, that the Christianos will never accept and approve.

“This is the way I am and you have to accept it,” the Democrats scream over and over. “I’ll do whatever I want and you have to approve it.”

And a New York Times editorial preached that Christians have to change their beliefs, to accept homosexuality. You have to accept and approve sin, the liberal illegalists preach.

This view will prevail, because that’s the easy way out. Sins will be “forgiven,” accepted and approved. Almost all churches will be full of this, accepting and approving the worst sins named in the Bible. And the religious liberals say this is “loving the sinner.”

And those who dissent from the consensus are called haters, but they are actually the hated.

John 15
18) If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19) If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20) Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you….

The world hated Yeshua because He told them to repent. The world hates anyone who tells them to repent. The very last thing an unrepentant person wants is to be told to repent. Yet, the one thing an unrepentant person needs most is to be told to repent.

And perhaps the one thing that Christians hate to do most is to tell sinners to repent. A well-known country singer lost the other half of his duet. His young wife died. They were Christians, of whatever variety. Then his daughter became a lesbian. He knew that was wrong, but he would not stand against her sin because, he said, “She’s my daughter.”

The message of repentance is hard to give.

Compare the two approaches.

1. Christians give their message of fake love, which is “You don’t need to repent – God loves you and forgives all sins. I love you and I accept and approve all your sins, no matter what you do.”

This will bring praise and warmth to the sin acceptor.

2. The Christian lets the sinner know that his sin puts him in danger of eternal judgment by Christ Himself. God does not forgive unrepented sin. Repent and be renewed.

Then what happens? Most of the time the Christian who gave the warning will be despised.

But look what happened to Paul –

or rather, Saul the slaughterer.

Acts 7
58) They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Acts 8
1) Saul was consenting to his death. A great persecution arose against the assembly which was in Jerusalem in that day. They were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except for the apostles.
2) Devout men buried Stephen, and lamented greatly over him.
3) But Saul ravaged the assembly, entering into every house, and dragged both men and women off to prison.

Acts 9
1) But Saul, still breathing threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest,
2) and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
3) As he traveled, it happened that he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him.
4) He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5) He said, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord said, “I am Yeshua, whom you are persecuting.
6) But rise up, and enter into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Acts 9
11) The Lord said to him, “Arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judah for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus. For behold, he is praying,
12) and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in, and laying his hands on him, that he might receive his sight.”
13) But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he did to your saints at Jerusalem.
14) Here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.”
15) But the Lord said to him, “Go your way, for he is my chosen vessel to bear my name before the nations and kings, and the children of Israel.
16) For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
17) Ananias departed, and entered into the house. Laying his hands on him, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me, that you may receive your sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
18) Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he received his sight. He arose and was baptized.
19) He took food and was strengthened. Saul stayed several days with the disciples who were at Damascus. [Those are the ones he came to slaughter!]
20) Immediately in the synagogues he proclaimed the Christ, that he is the Son of God.

Paul was rebuked by Christ Himself. Saul the slaughterer repented and became Paul the preacher.

And when you see sin in someone close to you, you must give him the chance to repent, to be like Paul, the slaughterer turned preacher.

All around us we hear the message that love approves and accepts sin and the sinner. In reality, to refuse to point to repentance is to deny the sinner the chance to repent, the chance to change his life, and the chance for life. The Christianos duty is to follow their Master’s example as He did with Paul, and as Paul did with the step-mother lover. Point to repentance and renewal, no matter how hard it may seem.