Month: June 2026

4.  The Editable Book

Traditionally, once a book is published, it is fixed.  If you wanted to make an amendment, it would be in a subsequent edition, which does not withdraw all previous copies with the old texts.  Similarly, some tapes are designed only to record.  Once done, the information they carry is sealed.  It cannot be edited or erased. The Book of Life is different.  It is constantly being updated, depending on the lifestyle of each one whose name is there, as they overcome or are overcome by abominations that defile garments.

5.  The Books and the Book

There are “books,” and there is “the Book.”  The books keep a record of everyone’s deeds, providing a basis for appraising them.  The Book has the list of names of overcomers.  The dead, after they have ceased to exist on the earth, step into in the next phase where the books are opened, and they are judged “according to their works, by the things which were written in the books” – not the Book.

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books (Revelation 20:12).

The books record works, the Book records names, specific names. Heaven keeps a record, because “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love” (Hebrews 6:10). Paul also referenced that Book in connection to his partners on Heaven’s assignment; “true yokefellow” who “laboured with me in the gospel …  whose names are in the book of life” (Philippians 4:3).

 

6.  The Testimony of Moses

Before Apostle John and Jesus in the New Testament, earlier prophets had referenced the heavenly Book many times. For example, Moses, while interceding for his guilty nation, pleaded thus with God:

31 … Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.

32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

 33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of MY book (Exodus 32:31-33).

Moses was aware that God in Heaven kept a book in which names were written, any of which names could be blotted “out” by the same Hand that wrote the name. God not only confirmed that but announced that the book was His property.  He called it “my book.”  Moses also acknowledged it as “THY BOOK which THOU hast WRITTEN.”

The blotting out of any name from that book is not an action of the divine Writer’s arbitrary discretion; it is determined by the daily lifestyle of each one on the list.  Essentially, sin is what threatens anyone’s name there, for “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of MY book.” God has blotters.

In Deuteronomy 9:14 and 29:20, it is shown that even earth takes note when Heaven blots out anyone’s name.  The blotting out is apparently published so universally that everywhere “under heaven” notes it and responds to that person accordingly.  That was one thing that even bloody Cain feared (Genesis 4:14).

God blots out sins (Psalm 51:9; Jeremiah 18:23), but He also blots out names from His book.  When a present state of persisting sinfulness contradicts the previous penitence that guaranteed a name in the Book, the blotters in Heaven may be activated (Ezekiel 3:20).

 

7.  Once Written, Always Written?

When Pilate wrote over the cross of Jesus, “KING OF THE JEWS,” the Jews protested, requesting him to edit what he had done, but Pilate replied that what had been written had been written (John 19:19-22), but not so about the Book of which we speak.  Its contents are constantly being updated, by the same Hand.  There are theologies that argue otherwise, insisting that once a name has entered that blessed Book, no matter what one does thereafter, that name cannot be erased.  For them, the names are written with indelible ink.

In the Old Testament, Moses not only showed awareness of that Book but also noted that names in it could be blotted out if the choices of a listed person should deviate from the values that qualified that name on that list in the first place.   In Luke 10:20, Jesus cautioned His disciples about their misplaced celebration and advised that they should rather rejoice that their names were in Heaven, suggesting that names could as well be removed.  If that were not the worry, then Jesus’ caution makes little sense.

In case that was not clear enough, the Author of the Book repeats in Revelation 3:5: “He that overcometh … I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.”  Clear language.  Blotting out is a possibility, otherwise Jesus was wasting words again.  Jesus was not there speaking to sinners in Babylon; He was speaking to a Church, to people already saved; people in a verifiable church at a verifiable location.

 

8.  A Lesson from Judas

Jesus called twelve disciples.  Judas was one of them.  Peter remarked, “For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry” (Acts 1:17).  In other words, Judas was whatever any of the other disciples was; no less called than any of them.  When Jesus sent out the Twelve and gave them power over devils, Judas was one of them (Matthew 10:1-4).  When they returned with the testimony of triumphs over devils, and Jesus said that their names were written in Heaven, Judas was one of them.  If that were not the case, and Judas’ name was not included on the list then, Jesus would clearly have stated that Judas was an exception in that declaration.  When Jesus washed their feet in later days when Judas had backslidden and Satan had entered him (Luke 22:3), Jesus clearly announced that although they had all been washed, they were not all clean, and Judas was the exception (John 13:10-11).

Of the fallen Judas, Jesus lamented in dreadful words, in view of the judgment that awaited him: “The Son of Man will die as the Scriptures say he will, but how terrible for that man who will betray the Son of Man! It would have been better for that man if he had never been born!” (Matthew 26:24, Good News Translation).  That is not the kind of statement anyone makes about someone whose name is still in the Book in Heaven; someone entering triumphantly into Paradise.  Judas had fallen into “perdition” (John 17:12).  A name previously in the Book had been blotted out by “transgression” (Acts 1:25), and Jesus was announcing a grief.  Judas got so blotted out that Heaven had to announce a vacancy: “Let another take his office” (Acts 1:20, NKJV), and there were not a few prepared to take his privileged place.

God is never short of replacements. Sometimes the replacements that He finds are despised and apparently inferior candidates, as if to shame their nobler fallen predecessors, like Esther the young orphaned immigrant girl who replaced Vashti the beautiful queen, David the shepherd boy of shameful motherhood who replaced Saul the tall and elegant king, Saul the persecutor and murderer whom God later found in replacement of Peter in the ministry to the gentiles, and a hitherto unheard-of Matthias that took the place of Judas who had cast out devils, whose name on Heaven’s list the Son Himself had announced on earth.

If “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20;15); if that Book is the only list that admits into Heaven; if to be missing from the Book means eternal damnation, then we may well connect the dots on the implications of Jesus’ lamentation over Judas.  In one of His recorded final reports to God, Jesus said this about Judas: “those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition” (John 17:12).  Nothing is “lost” if it was never had.  You do not lose a key you never had.  Nothing dies that was never alive.  Judas could not have been “lost” if he had always been lost even before Jesus had had him.  Lostness is only a secondary condition.

 

9.  The Blotters on Earth

Jesus strongly warned of the apocalyptic tragedy that would befall the person whose confession does not match his profession; who repeatedly says with his lips, “Lord, Lord” but his actions, what he “doeth,” is contrary to the will of the Father in Heaven (Matthew 7:21).  According to Jesus, in that group of people the ‘works’ of whose hands contradict the words of their mouth, will be three categories of frontline religious figures:  firstly, those that prophesy; then, those that cast out devils; and finally, those that do wonderful works.  And Jesus said they would be “many’ in that disastrous number.  Many is not few at all.

Jesus acknowledges that their works would have been done verily in His name rather than through some occult powers, yet their names having been erased by the blotters of their persisted works of “iniquity,” the Master will announce to them on the final Day, “I NEVER KNEW YOU: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23).  Such an awful pronouncement suggests a name so erased by the blotters of iniquity as if it never was written; so blotted out that there isn’t a recollection of them despite their mighty works and repeated loud proclamations of His name and His lordship.  Supposing that elaborate spiritual activity equalled divine approval, they had condoned and ‘worked’ iniquity, thereby activating the blotters on earth.

 

10.  Epilogue

Anyone may comment about an author’s book, but the right remains with the author to write or edit his book the way he wants.  Many would wish that names in the Book of Life were not erasable.  That wish has been built into elaborate theologies, but the Author insists that He not only can add to but can also blot out from His Book.  It is His book, after all.  We may argue about it but cannot edit it.  Heaven not only has ink that writes – it also has blotters that erase.

 

From The Preacher’s diary,

June 17, 2026.

1.  Of Blotters and Erasers

Blotters … in those days of the fountain pen, which you first dipped into the ink pot before writing, blotters were classic absorbent papers that every writer or school child had on their desk for soaking up excess ink so that it didn’t smear the page or blur the text.  Somebody reading this must have used them, because that was not a century ago. There were also erasers, and still are.  They wiped out the error.  It is reported by several sources that Heaven has blotters, not for mopping up ink but for wiping out texts that degenerate into stains on the holy page.  We shall return to this.

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SUSTAINING FORGIVENSS (FORGIVENESS Series 20)

 

Retribution for wrongdoing must be swiftly and surely applied if greater problems are to be prevented. – I Ching.

 

Conditional Forgiveness

Any gift abused can be forfeited, even forGIVEness.  We find a case in the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:30-35.  That servant was granted forgiveness, but he lost it entirely when he failed certain inherent conditions in the gift that he had received; he lost it when he failed to dispense to another the same forgiveness that he had been given generously.  He got sent back into jail “until…”; he got sent back again for the same charges that he had previously received forgiveness for; he got sent back to the same jail by the same king who had freely forgiven him only a while before.

The implication is that forgiveness could be conditional.  Despite having been forgiven, when the inherent forgiveness-conditions were broken by the unforgiving servant, the pardon was promptly revoked.  The way to maintain forgiveness, therefore, is by maintaining the conditions in the ‘forgiveness package,’ even where those conditions might not have been expressly itemised.  Even with God, forgiveness is not absolute, not perpetual, not irreversible.  One who was forgiven today, if they should turn back to their evil ways tomorrow, would still be lost in hell for their later sins, in spite of the past forgiveness for previous sins (Ezekiel 18:24; Acts 1:17-20).

Jesus said to a mob-condemned woman purported to have been caught in the act of adultery, “go and sin no more” (John 8:11; 5:14).  That was not a congratulatory message.  Jesus was implicitly attaching a commandment (or a condition) to the new status of forgiveness that she had received.  That statement could also have read, “Go free, but sin no more as you go.”  Forgiveness does not give license to the trespasser to go and repeat their offence; it merely grants them another chance to go and not continue in the old ways.  To relapse into ‘the sin’ after receiving forgiveness is to forfeit the forgiveness.  Even where a slip might repeat, the heart of the fallen should be penitent enough to show seven times that the fresh trespass was not intended (Luke 17:4), and that it is an ongoing battle with the self to overcome the inherent weakness that results in the offence.  Many an offended good person will not only forgive this repeating trespasser but join hands with them in the sincere battle to fight the weakness.  What the heart says or shows is important in such recurrent relational conflicts.

Post-Forgiveness Precautions

Some are of the very pious opinion that if forgiveness be really true, it should be ‘total’ and ‘without conditions.’  No.  Even Jesus gave conditions, as in John 8:11 above: “Go and sin no more.”  Forgiveness that is so naïvely holy as to fail to pay attention to those factors that often provoke the offence, will sooner be vexed back to the negotiation table to retake the failed exam.  If both confessor and forgiver would agree to take note of how the offences have often come, they will more easily prevent reoccurrence.  Any intermediating priest or feuding party who says to cover up ‘old wounds’ with the holy plaster of ‘forgiveness’ without dressing the smarting sores, is a fake physician in unconscious league with Satan to ulcerate the sores so badly until that part of the body will have to be amputated to save the threatened life of the wounded who had been ‘treated’ sadly ineptly in the past.  King David might have exploited the principle of conditions in forgiveness in his dealings with the trespassers whose files he passed on to his son and successor, but he showed nonetheless an awareness of the fact of conditions to forgiveness, some forgiveness (1 Kings 2:5-9, 36-46).

The woman of whom we read in John 8:11 was not the only one to whom Jesus gave forgiveness with conditions.  In John 5:1-14, He had healed a man that He later found in the temple.  Promptly, Jesus sounded the warning that even though he had been “made whole,” a “worse” crisis could still come upon him if he thought that he had been forgiven so thoroughly and lavishly that he could afford thereafter to live as he pleased.  “Sin no more” was an assurance that the past records had been cleared, but “sin no more” was also a warning to not put new sins into the clean file.

Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee (John 5:14).

What did Jesus mean by “lest” in that statement?  Why didn’t He simply say, “Go,” or merely, “Go and sin no more…”?  What was the implication of the ‘lest’ clause?  Jesus was highlighting post-forgiveness precautions and conditions.  Jesus was revealing that, dramatic and historic as the man’s healing and forgiveness had been, there were ‘conditions’ attached, and there would be serious consequences if those conditions should be breached.

Anyone seeking forgiveness for the past but unwilling to commit to future harmony is not sincere about peacemaking.  To audaciously continue the offensive lifestyle after having been forgiven is to forfeit the forgiveness and relapse into a previous or worse state of sickness; to so take forgiveness for granted is to abort the recovery process and cause a fresh degeneration in the relationship between the parties (Matthew 12:43-45).  Taking people for granted because they will forgive after all, sometimes shapes those good people into shockingly ruthless personalities that they had never been known to be (Judges 10:10-14).

 

Steal no More

Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth (Ephesians 4:28).

According to Ephesians 4:28 above, forgiveness frees the trespasser from past deeds, not from future sins, therefore “him that stole” (in the past) is admonished to not fall back into the former ways; he is admonished to “steal no more” in the future.   Note: If the past forgiveness covered also for future sins, that caution would have been unnecessary.  If future trespasses counted nothing at all because of a past forgiveness, then the Apostle had been wasting words by admonishing the forgiven thief to not continue in the old ways.  For those who will hear, Apostle Paul was making the point that grace may forgive the past, but it does not also cover for future faults.

Also note the word “labour” in that exhortation.  Maintaining the state of forgiveness could sometimes be conscious hard labour.  If I used to be a drunk before grace saved me from the alcohol joint, I must not take ‘grace’ for granted but work on myself to not visit such places carelessly, thus opening up to temptation.  If I used to have a weakness with sexual promiscuity, it behoves me to ‘labour’ on myself to not put myself in those tempting paths.  If I have a weakness with temper, which I have often blamed on everybody else, I should acknowledge that weakness and put deliberate deterrents in my way.  In all cases, maintaining the new boundaries could truly be labour.  In summary, sustaining or maintaining forgiveness could involve:

• giving to others the same forgiveness that one has received,
• working on oneself (or labouring) to not repeat the lifestyle that brings or brought about the initial offence(s) and repercussions,
• respecting the mutual ‘terms’ of the forgiveness, even where those ‘terms’ might not have been explicitly read out like a riot act.

 

Culled from the book, Forgiveness, by The Preacher, chapter 11, pp. 169-175

A Pardon Refused…

A pardon refused does not benefit a trespasser.  The crisis of some prodigal sons is not from forgiveness denied, it is from pride that puts them too high to stoop for forgiveness in a father’s house.  Such proud prodigals often seek to exploit the tenderness and common goodliness of their father, requiring him to meet them on their own terms, in their far Far-Country, ‘settle’ with them there, then ride them home in heroic procession with worshippers lining the streets and applauding them with triumphal ‘hosannas’ over a conquered father.  Their incorrigible pride would rather have them wander and waste away in their distant land than meekly return.  Meanwhile, they might be blaming their woes on the other to whom nobody has given the chance to tell his side of the pains.

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RECEIVING FORGIVENESS (Forgiveness series 18)

 

The habit of judging and condemning others is usually a great deal more serious blemish than are the things we so glibly point out as flaws or faults. – Anonymous

  

Lessons from American Legal History

Forgiveness is a gift, which can be received or refused.  American legal history has clear illustrations of this position.  Very recently, Michael Cohen, an American attorney and former lawyer to President Donald Trump, was granted presidential pardon for charges of electoral fraud to which he had pleaded guilty.  Cohen’s lawyer however insisted that the pardon would be rejected.  This sometimes happens because someone feels that accepting pardon means admitting to the guilt for which the pardon has been offered.

On May 27, 1830, George Wilson and co-conspirator James Porter were sentenced to death on charges of robbery.  One month after, the sentence was carried out on James Porter.  In response to public appeals, however, President Andrew Jackson decided

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