But thou hast not called upon
me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the
small cattle of thy burnt offerings, neither hast thou honored me
with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve
with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast
bought me no sweet cane with money, Neither hast thou filled
me with the fat of thy sacrifices, but thou hast made me to serve
of thy sins. Thou hast wearied me with thine
iniquities. I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember
thy sins. Put me in remembrance, let us
plead together. declare thou that thou mayest
be justified. Thy first father hath sinned,
and thy teachers have transgressed against me. Therefore, I have
profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse,
and Israel to reproaches. Let's pray together. Gracious
Father, thank you for your word, Amidst these declarations of
our evil and sin and neglect of worship or complete lack of any desire to
honor you, yet you declare yourself to be the one who has blotted
out our sins. May we rejoice in unconditional
love. and choosing in grace. May we rejoice in our Lord Jesus
Christ tonight. Give us grace to remember him
in his precious name. Amen. The words of comfort from God
to his people in this whole chapter are quite simply the sinner's
hope. The disciples said, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. And these are the words of eternal
life in our text. Look at verses 1 through 7 again.
I want to just remind us of this. This is the tenor of this entire
chapter. But now, thus saith the Lord
that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy
name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee, Since thou wast precious in my sight,
thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee and people for thy life. Fear not,
for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north,
give up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from
far and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Even every
one that is called by my name, for I have created him for my
glory. I have formed him, yea, I have made him." And this whole
chapter is full of language like that. Words of comfort in the
midst of all of the prophecies of Isaiah of woe and doom and
wrath upon God's enemies, including the nation of Israel, the reprobate
of the nation, which was most of them. And then in verse 22, though,
we have a change in the language. Where we began to read while
ago, the language changes. It's not words of grace and comfort,
but it's a declaration of the evil and thoughtlessness and
indifference of man toward the things of God. man's refusal to worship Him. But it just makes, when we see
this language concerning us, it just makes what's written
in the beginning of the chapter that much more precious. The first two words in verse
22 signal this change now. God says, here's who I am, here's
what I've done. I'm the Holy One of Israel, I'm
your Savior, I'm the God of heaven and earth. And I've loved you. I've protected you. I've given
men for you. I've redeemed you. And now we see these two words,
but you. But you. The glory of God is that he has
mercy on sinners. Vile, wretched, undeserving sinners. And it's really impossible to
know what mercy is until you know what a sinner is. Paul in
Ephesians chapter 2, let's look at that together. Let's turn
over to Ephesians 2 together. In the first three verses, he begins by describing us. Ephesians 2.1 begins this chapter,
this thought, by describing us. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in
times past in the loss of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others." Just exactly. You see this wretched
world. You see Satan working in them.
Pretty plain language here. Might as well call it what it
is. You see that they truly are of
their father, the devil. And you see that by nature, we're
exactly, even as, equal to all of them. And now in verse 4,
we have just the opposite of our text. In our text it says,
but you. Paul says here, but God. who
is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. In our
text it's but you, here it's but God, but it's teaching exactly
the same truth. It's showing the contrast between
the two, how that we've had no thought for God, but he's always,
always had us on his heart from the beginning. We don't honor
Him, we don't offer sacrifice, we don't even have any interest
in pleasing Him. And yet, God's mercy is for the undeserving.
And the more we see of our evil, the greater His mercy appears.
I believe that's why, one reason why, the gospel and just the truth
of God and his church and knowing him is more and more precious
as we grow older because at the same time we see more and more
of what this world is and what we are. And we realize what he
saved us from. We realize more and more what
he's done for us. In the first two and a half chapters
of the book of Romans, let's look at chapter 3. In the first two and a half chapters,
chapters 1 and 2 and part of 3, Paul describes our natural
condition before God. And he uses language like this,
you know in chapter 1 he talks about how by nature we're all
unthankful and godless and Even when we knew God, even when God
made it clear that His eternal power and Godhead are seen even
in just nature itself. And we have no excuse whatsoever,
but we refuse to glorify Him as God. And then in chapter 2,
He deals with the Jews and talks about how, though they presume
to be teachers, they don't do what they teach. They preach
the law and they're guilty of the law. and think there's somebody. And then in chapter 3, listen
to the language here, verse 10. As it is written, there is none
righteous. No, not one. Not one. There is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. They are all going out of
the way. Now this, you can hear the language
of our text in this, but you, you didn't offer me sacrifice,
you didn't We have no desire. We're not seeking God. We don't have any desire to honor
Him or please Him or be righteous in His sight. They are all together,
middle of verse 12, become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher,
grave. Our throats are vile and dead and corrupt. With their tongues, they've used
deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. Have you witnessed this? It's
easy to see it in others. To see it in our own mouth is
another story, isn't it? By God's grace, we do. We do
a little bit. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways. The way of peace have they not
known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know
that what things whoever the law saith, it saith to them who
are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all
the world become guilty before God. And then in verse 20, but
now, verse 21, look at verse 21. Let's read verse 20. Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. The law just reveals our wretchedness,
but it can't. We're never going to live up
to the law. We're never going to meet God's standard of holiness. So the law can't save us. There's
no forgiveness in the law, but now. The language changes suddenly,
doesn't it? But now the righteousness of
God without the law. That's our hope. There's got
to be a way for us to be righteous before God without keeping His
law. We're goners. And that righteousness is manifested
being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. God's been talking
about it, has had it written from the very beginning. Even
the righteousness of God. There's just one righteousness.
God's righteousness. Which is by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ. unto all and upon all them that
believe. For there is no difference. And
this is the teaching of our text. He did all this for us. He loved
us. He called us. He declares that
in the beginning of chapter 43 of Isaiah. He destroys our enemies
for us. He protects us. He keeps us.
But we haven't called on Him. We haven't called on Him. You
might say, but wait a minute, Chris, I called on the Lord,
not until He did all this for you. The order is right, isn't
it? Not before He loved us and called
us and revealed Himself to us. Us calling on Him is not why
He loved us and saved us and did all the things He said in
the beginning of our text. Him loving and saving and keeping
and redeeming us is why we called on Him. And that's why our text says
what it does. You weren't calling on him when he did all this for
you. You didn't even know he had done
anything for you. You didn't care. When you were
not calling on him, when you were weary of God, he said, when
you were weary of me. How do you get tired of being
taken care of and having blessings bestowed upon you every day? When his word was boring and
uninteresting to you, you had better things to spend your time on. Verses 22, let's get back
to Isaiah 43. Verses 22 and 23. But thou hast not called upon
me, O Jacob, thou hast been weary of me, O Israel, Thou hast not
brought me the small cattle of Thy burnt offerings, neither
hast Thou honored me with Thy sacrifices." We didn't obey Him in bringing
Him. He taught us that from the beginning. Able by the direction
of God, by the grace of God. The revelation of God brought
an excellent sacrifice by faith to God. And the Lord's been teaching
that from the beginning. We had no interest in that by
nature. We didn't bring an offering for
our sin. We had no interest in satisfying God for our sin or
how that could happen. We had no interest in being acceptable
in His sight. In other words, it's just saying
when our sin was blatant and unrepentant and open rebellion
before God, Verse 24, No sweet king with money, neither hath
thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices. No interest whatsoever,
no love for God, no desire to please Him. Had no thought for Him, and all
we did was sin, and sin, and sin. That's what those verses
are saying. Sin after sin, after sin, after sin, up on top of
sin. And yet in verse 25, He said, I am He. You, now, we see what we are. But I am He that brought us out
of our transgressions anyway, in spite of, without any cooperation,
without you even giving a thought for God or even wanting His grace,
desiring it, you didn't know anything about it or even want
to. And listen to this, God says
He's burdened with our sin, too. Burdened with them in verse 20
at the end of verse 24 there, but listen to this God's not
gonna Not gonna be Indefinitely burdened with our sin he's gonna
be satisfied for sin So there's there's just a couple of ways.
He's gonna do that He's gonna be relieved of that burden that
weariness of our sin by punishing us for it and But that's not
what he says here in this text because you see he's talking
to his remnant. He's talking to the Israel among Israel. His precious elect. And so we
are introduced to the other way that God is satisfied. The only
way he's ever fully satisfied for sin. He blots them out. He relieves himself of that weariness,
that burden, that injustice against him. by burying them himself. Now that's what happened. He
bore them himself. Put them away by the sacrifice
of himself. Paul said it this way. The message
of all of our text really is this. God commended his love
toward us. He said, I loved you now in the
beginning of the chapter. How much? In that while we were
yet sinners, in that while we yet despised and rejected him
and murdered him, he loved us anyway and wanted
out our sins. How did he do that? Christ died
for us. While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Think of all that God had done
for the nation of Israel from the very beginning of their history.
All of the blessings of God, they saw him miraculously save
them time after time, fought their enemies for them, and spoke to them of his redeeming
love in Christ, gave them pictures and types and ceremonies that
would reveal to them how much he loved them in Christ, his
people. how much he loved sinners, and
yet they had no use for God. That's what Paul deals with in
the early chapters there. Also in chapter 3 of Romans,
how the Jews had every advantage, every outward advantage. And thought, you know, that they
were the people of God in the sense that just being a Jew,
you know, that's all that needed to happen. Paul said, no, there's
no difference. It's going to take God's redeeming
grace, Jew or Gentile. No difference. We're all sold
under sin. There must be righteousness without
the law. He said to the Jews in chapter 2, the law that you
preach and impose upon others, you haven't kept it. No, it's the righteousness of
God by the faithfulness of His Son. Through the redemption that's
in His Son. And so in spite of all the Lord's blessings upon the nation, the
nation as a whole, and even even his elect before he came and
made a difference. And of course we see ourselves
in this. Think of where we were when God found us. And think
of all the sin we've committed since he found us. Since he saved us. And if we
ever have a true sense of that, if we're ever able to see ourselves,
and we're not going to do it except as He reveals it in His
Word, and really at Calvary. And if we ever see what we are,
and that He saved us anyway, we'll learn what grace is. Free, unconditional, distinguishing
grace upon all of His sheep. And here's the thing, if you're
not described in Romans 3, 10 through 19, where we read, wow,
and murderous, and disgusting, wretched, corrupt, all of the
terrible ways that were described there, then there's no mercy
for you. That's who God has mercy on,
sinners. He said, I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. And I guarantee you, you describe
the worst things that's revealed about man in this book, and most
people would say, well, I know I've done some bad things, but
I've never done that. I wouldn't describe myself that way. Yeah,
but God does. God does, though. There are not sinners, righteous
people, and sort of sinners. There are sinners, and then there's
Christ. That's why Paul said, I renounce everything that I
am and ever have been or done. And I strive and I pray and I
press that I might be found in Him. That I might be found in
Him. Why does God blot out our sins?
He says in our text, it's for His sake. You see that in the
text? for his own sake. I, even I,
am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake. It's a good
thing he does it for his sake because you don't see anything
in us there that would give him any reason to do it. He hasn't dealt with us according
to our sins. Praise his name. Because that's
all we've got are sins. Why does He do that? The reason
is not found in us. It's found in Him. He does it
for His own glory. He does it to satisfy His own
justice. He must. He's God. The soul that
sinneth, it shall die. And our Savior became for us
the soul that sinned in our place. Never sinned. He who knew no
sin was made sin. He bore our sins in his own body
and bore the penalty for our sin on Calvary. He bore an eternity in hell in just
a couple of hours. The equivalent of an eternity
in hell and more. He did it to satisfy his own
justice. I'll tell you why he He blotted
out our transgressions, too. He did it to satisfy His love.
We talk about God satisfying His justice. That's an attribute
of God. Unmistakably, He reveals Himself
as just and holy, no question. But His love had to be satisfied,
too. He loves you. How's that love going to be satisfied?
He's got to have you. How's He going to have you? He's
got to put your sin away. He's got to deal with your transgressions
Himself. We could never do it. Because
He loves us, and He so loves us, that He sent His Son. That's why He blotted out our
transgressions. Christ Himself is the definition
of love. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us. And you could ask, John, what
do you mean He loved us? He sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. The definition of love, I started
to say the best definition, really the only definition, is Christ
crucified. Herein is love. God sent His
Son to be our sin offering. That's what love is. And that's why, how does he blot
out our sins? How can he do that? Well, his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ, came and honored the law of God as
our representative. God's law must be honored. He must be obeyed. Christ came and did that as our
representative. That's why he's called the last
Adam. Adam was our representative in the garden. In Him we fell. When He died, we all died. All
were dead. But all those who are in Christ
are made alive in Him because He's our last Adam. I'm glad
that Adam is not my only Adam, the first Adam. But Christ is
my Adam, my representative. And He lived for me. He honored
the Lord. He didn't fall. He succeeded. He always did those things that
pleased His Father. And also, as the Holy Lamb, He
gave His soul a sacrifice for my sins. He came and paid the
debt for all of our sins. All the sins of His people. Notice
it doesn't say anything about trying or wanting to or making
anything available or contingent upon something else. He blotted
them out. He blotted them out. He erased them. That's our Savior now. What He
accomplished on Calvary was the blotting out of my sin. He obtained
eternal redemption for us. Christ came and satisfied the
justice of God that was justly against us because of the description
of us. Godless and God-hating. without
a thought for God. But Christ satisfied the justice
of God against us by bearing our sins and the punishment of
our sins in our place. And the inevitable accomplished
result of that is our sins are gone. They are blotted out. And
notice the emphasis in verse 25. I want to be brief tonight
because I want us to remember our Lord as we do on the last
Sunday evening of the month. He said, as oft as you do it.
He didn't tell us how often to do it, but I like to do it oft.
Don't you? We do it every month. And he
said, do it in remembrance of me. And this is a good text now. from which to do that. He blotted
out my sins. And he did it by his body, by
the coming bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, by taking
upon himself the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of
sinful flesh. And as a man, having humbled
himself, he became obedient unto death, that's the wine, even
the death of his cross. But notice in verse 25, now the
emphasis, why didn't he just say, I've blotted out thy transgressions? The emphasis on who it is that
did it is unmistakable. It's unmistakable. It's the same
as Romans 8, 34, the Apostle Paul, he said, who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died. He didn't just say, who
is he that condemned us? Christ died. It's Christ that
died. The fact that somebody died on
a cross a couple thousand years ago is not the gospel. You can't see God's glory. You
can't see how God can be just and justify sinners. Until you
see who it is. God's got to reveal to us who
it is that died. And why he did that. We just
talked about why. And now we see that emphasis.
Who it is. It is I. Even I. That's Christ. He's the word. He's the everlasting
word. He hadn't taken upon him human flesh yet. When Isaiah
was written. In time at least. From our perspective
of time. He had not. Who do you think spoke to Moses
from the burning bush? Who do you think walked in the
fiery furnace with the three Hebrew children and he was like
the son of man? The Lord Jesus Christ said, it is I. Remember when
they were, when the disciples were in that ship and there was
a storm and they They were afraid for their lives and then they
saw the Lord walking on the water and they thought he was a ghost
and that just made it worse. They were afraid, it says they
were very afraid and the Lord said, don't be afraid, it is
I. It is I. Really all we need to know is
who he is. Everything else flows from that.
If you ever know him, you know what sin is. It's everything that's not Him.
Everything about us that's not Him. Everything against Him is
anti-Christ. When you see Him crucified, you
understand what sin is. The depravity that would merit
such wrath from God Himself, from the Father. It is Christ that died, yea rather
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. It is I, even I. He said in the last part of verse
25, for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. will not remember. Because of
Christ, God does not remember. It doesn't
mean that God is not aware of the fact that we are sinners
by nature. He wrote this book and calls
us sinners, so He knows what we are. But He'll never recall
them. He'll never bring them up. He'll
never deal with us according to our sins. Because of our Savior. Now here's the thing about it,
we remember our sins all the time, don't we? David said in
Psalm 51.3, I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is
ever before me. But God said, not me. It's not
before me. When God says, I will, you can count on it. When that leper said, Lord, if
you will, you can make me clean. And the Lord said, I will. It's
done. It's done. But also when he says,
I will not, like in our text, you can count on it. I will not
remember my sins. Jeremiah 50 in verse 18. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will punish the king
of Babylon and his land as I have punished the king of Assyria,
and I will bring Israel again to his habitation. And he shall
feed on caramel and bation, and his soul shall be satisfied upon
Mount Ephraim and Gilead. In those days and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none. and the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found. For I will pardon them whom I
reserve." That's what he said to Elijah, I've reserved 7,000,
I believe it was. I have not bowed the knee to
Baal, because I've reserved them. And Paul from that very text
said, even now, There's a remnant according to the election of
His grace. Hebrews 18, seems like we refer
often to this. Our Lord says, I will remember
your sins no more. This is His eternal covenant
of grace with His elect. This is what David spoke of when
he said, Although it be not so with my house, yet God hath made
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, ensured.
And he said of that covenant, this is all my salvation and
all my desire. And here is that covenant, here
is the promise of God to his people. He said in verse 10 of
Hebrews 8, this is the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws
into their mind and write them in their hearts. We're not ever going to keep
God's law. But we're going to want to. Because
he is written upon my heart. And so I'm going to cry with
Paul. Oh, the things that I would. I can't do them, but I sure would
if I could. He's worthy of it, isn't he? He's worthy of all
honor and glory and obedience and service. We're not ever going
to keep it, but we're going to want to. It's going to be written
in our hearts. And I will be to them a God,
and they shall be to me a people. Solomon wrote that beautiful
song and said, I am his and he is mine. And they shall not teach every
man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the
Lord, for all shall know me. We've talked about this before.
It doesn't mean we're not going to teach our children or each
other or talk about, you know, learn of him together. We do
that. He's taught us to do that. But what he's saying here is
this. That's not going to be all. Your knowledge of him is
not going to depend on somebody else telling you about him. I'm
going to reveal myself to you. And by whatever means, by the
preaching of the gospel is the means whereby he does that. But
I'm saying whatever means in the sense of Doesn't matter who
it is, whoever he's called to do it. The Ethiopian eunuch said,
how can I understand except some man? That's who I am, just some
man. Just some man. They all shall know me from the
least to the greatest. I'm glad he said that too, don't
you? The least. Paul said, I'm less than the
least of all the saints. But he also said this, I know
whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he's able.
Even the less than the least of all the saints, he said, they'll
know me. And sure enough, we did. And that's his mercy. Now that's
his eternal covenant. You see why David said this is
all my salvation? What God did for me, what he
promised and then performed for me. It's all my salvation and
it's all my desire. And then finally, some have divided
this up different ways. I usually talk about it in four,
those four promises. And this is the fourth one. For
I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember. And the reason when God thinks
about us, and I know this, if his word teaches us anything,
it's that he thinks about us. I don't know why. We never know why. David said, who am I that you
would even think upon me? That you would even think upon
me? But He does. We don't think about Him all
the time. He thinks about us all the time. And when He does,
He's proud of us. Imagine that. Well done. He loves us. He shows off the
trophies of His grace in His work. There's no sin. There's no black
spot. There's no mark. No condemnation. to us who are in Christ Jesus. And the reason for that is before
us in simple, simple