I want to talk to you a little
bit here this morning about forgiveness of sins. I want to talk to you about the
substitute. And I want to read part of this
fifty-third chapter of the book of Isaiah. which is all about the gospel. And the first verse, it says, Who hath believed our
report? Over in the tenth chapter of
the book of Romans, it says this. Chapter 10. At least I thought it was there. Anyhow, I thought I had just
read that particular verse. Who hath believed our report? I thought it was in Romans chapter
10, but anyhow, chapter 53 in the book of Isaiah. Who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? for he shall grow
up before him as a tender plant." That has reference to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the sent one, and as a root out of a dry ground. He'll appear that way in his
humanity, nor comeliness, and when we shall
see him, There is no beauty that we should desire in him. He is
despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with
grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. You remember there in the book
of John, In the third chapter, I believe, he says he came unto
his own, but his own received him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God. He cried, My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? He was smitten of God and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned every one to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter. And as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison
and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living, and for the transgression
of my people was he stripped. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. And he made
his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Because
he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. and put him to grief, when thou
shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his
and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. For he shall bear their iniquities,
therefore will I divide him a portion with the great. He shall divide
the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. And he
bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgression."
Now over there in the book of Romans, chapter 10, verse 16. Well, verse 15, I'll read it.
How shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written,
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of
peace and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have
not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath
believed our report?" Now, I want to talk to you just a little
while here this morning. about the greatest blessing that
ever can fall upon the ears of a human being, and that's the
blessing of the forgiveness of sins. If a man, a fallen man
of Adam's race, ever has the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ applied to his soul, he'll never get over it. The
pardon of sin is a blessing of invaluable worth. It is so great
that it cannot be described by mortal man. It's invaluable,
and it's an absolute necessity for present peace and future
salvation. Without it, no person, no man,
no woman, no boy, no girl who are members of Adam's race can
really be happy. all other happiness is suspicious
and a false pretense. True happiness and true peace
can only be enjoyed and had in the knowledge of the forgiveness
of one's sin. Now, when the conscience, when
the conscience of a sinner is wounded, is pricked and slain
and made to hurt because of his guilt and because of his shame. And when he is oppressed and
down and out and nowhere to look, And his heart and his soul and
his mind is overcome with the fears of the wrath of God at
judgment. That's the time when the forgiveness of sins
will be good news to a hungry and thirsty soul. It's only then
when he'll seek relief as a most desirable thing. He'll seek it with all of his
might, and he'll never be satisfied and never be happy until he has it, until it becomes
a certainty to his soul. that his sins have been washed
away, and God himself will remember them against him no more. It will be received, the news,
the good news of the gospel, with unspeakable joy. There'll be no joy like that
that'll ever come to a soul again. Now, we're taught, I believe,
from the Scriptures with absolute certainty that there is absolute
forgiveness of sins with our Maker, with our God. All of the fifty-five books of
the Bible is filled with types and antitypes of a substitute
that God will send and has sent to stand and answer the demands
of justice against the people that God hath covenanted to save."
The blessing of forgiveness of sin is described in the Bible
as a blotting them out from the face of God. This forgiveness
of sin is so thorough. so full and so complete that
they're described as blotting them out from the face of God, so that
no trace of them shall ever be found. That's the way the Bible describes
it. And when you and I can lay hold
of it, through the revelation of the
Spirit, applying it to our wounded conscience. And when we are brought to that
place of guilt and shame, we'll rejoice and be full of
this peace that passes all understanding, that our sins on the account
of our substitutes have been blotted out, pardoned, and forgiven to the extent that no mortal
man will be able to tell what's become of us. The sinner is considered as a
convict, one who has committed a terrible crime, so terrible
that the crime that he commits deserves The poor sinner that
God will save will come to that place that he'll identify himself
as a criminal charged with rebellion against his maker. His sins will
be so great and so terrible to his conscience that he cannot
find any relief, and he'll go groping with sadness
in darkness until a light shines and reveals to him that there
is forgiveness. This forgiveness, which is not in our day spoken, well, it's not talked about very much. And the reason why
is because there is no sinner. When you find someone talking
about sin, bothered about sin, troubled about sin, you'll find
an individual that will seek relief from his sins. His sins become so great to him that this forgiveness consists
in reversing the sentence of death. This criminal, as he's
looked upon by God, finds out how bad off he is. And when he hears that there
is forgiveness with God, And in that forgiveness, it's a reversing
of the penalty. Instead of death, it becomes
life. You see, remitting the penalty,
do is crimes, and our crimes are against God. He is holy law. from the start to the finish
of the Bible pronounces it as an out-and-out rebellion against
God. It's called disobedience to God's
holy law. Our Lord says in one place, he says, deliver him from going
down into the pit For I have found a ransom." There is one who will do for us what we cannot
do for ourselves. It's God's remedy, the Lord Jesus Christ. so loved his people. And why he loved his people,
I don't know. He did because he would. There's
no reason under the sun that can be found why God would love
a criminal like those of Adam's fallen race. There's no reason
under the sun why God would find a reason to reverse the penalty
that's due the criminal and forgive him of all of his crimes against
his holy law. No reason whatsoever. You can
search the innards and the outwards of every man that's ever walked
upon the face of the earth, and you can't find a reason in that
individual for God to reverse those charges against him. No reason in us. be unto God, the reason is in
Him. It's because, and only eternity
will reveal it, and maybe eternity won't reveal it. I don't know
the reason why. It was out of love for the sinner. God has made up His mind that
He's going to save a number of men and women and boys and girls
out of Adam's fallen race, and he's going to save them because
he loves them. And there's no reason other than
that that is ever given. The reason certainly cannot be
found in your eyes. Well, he removes these sins. by casting them behind His back,
by casting them, the Scriptures say, into the depths of the sea. He removes them as far as the
east is from the west, and He remembers them no more. that which bars us from relationship
with God, that which denies us of eternal life. He will take
them and remove them. And if a man was sent to look
for them, he couldn't find them. Now, that's the only thing. that'll
bring you a absolute lasting peace as long as you are in this
body of flesh. That's the only thing will help
you. And he'll remember them no more. He says that they are so bad, they are like scarlet and crimson
sins, and he'll make them scarlet and crimson sins as white as
wool. And he adds this to it, yea,
whiter than the snow. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
Our black, vile sins against a pure immaculate God, black
as hell, as I say, but He'll take them and cleanse them and
do away with them that are crimson and make them as white as wool,
yea, whiter than snow. You see, this forgiveness or
pardon, if you will, is an absolute, full, free, perfect pardon. For it to be so, it must be a
full pardon. It must be a free pardon. It must be an irreversible pardon. free, irreversible, unchangeable. God will never go back on His
word. Once our sins have been dealt
with, by and through God Himself will become a man. They're forever put away, and
God won't even recollect them anymore. They're gone. It's a
full, complete, absolute pardon. It extends to all sinners. It includes all sinners without
any condition to be performed by he who receives. There's no
condition. This generation is preaching
a salvation that's conditioned upon something you do or conditioned
on something of your character. But the full, free, irreversible
forgiveness of sin is not conditioned upon anything in you. No conditions to be performed
in order to receive it. This forgiveness is equal to
the need or to the want of a sinner. It's, how bad are you? We're all bad. Some are worse than others. But
when you come down to the bottom, we're all the same. Did not that saintly man David,
who said that when he was born, he went as a newly born child,
speaking lies, in iniquity when he came forth from his mother's
womb. We are liars to start with. We're liars in the beginning,
and we'll always be pretended saints. But down deep, we're
liars and criminals. But blessed be unto God. He hath provided a ransom and
a substitute to take care of our sins. Well, I said that this
forgiveness is equal to the wants of a sinner, and I'm saying that
it extends to all sins. Can sin be described as little
sins and big sins? Sin is sin, irregardless of whether
it's little or big. It's all a crime against the
Holy God. And so it extends to all of our
sins. You see, every sin, big or little,
is a transgression of the law of God. And if the guilt and
the penalty of our big and little sins be not removed, the curse
of God must fall on us forever." And that's hell. It's got to
be removed. And he said, I'll cast it behind
my back. I'll cast it into the depths
of the ocean. and I'll not remember it against
you anymore. Could there be anything plainer
than that? That's the only thing, listen
to me, that's the only thing that can bring about a peace
and happiness and unspeakable joy, is when that's brought home
to your poor, hopeless, helpless soul, that Christ died in your
stead. and bore your shame, and God
on his account will forgive you of your sins." Well, full forgiveness. If we don't have it, then the
wrath of God will be our portion, not for a week or a month or
a year. But the angry wrath of God against
sin will fall upon us forever and forever in the regions of
the dam. So full forgiveness is a necessity
of a full pardon. Full pardon, no strings attached
to it. Not like a pardon you receive
here. from our earthly judges and courts. You get a pardon here, but it's
got strings attached to it. There are certain conditions
then, but there's no conditions here. The only conditions I know
of is that which God works in you, and that's to love him and
honor and glorify him. Well, it's a full pardon, and
in the book of Micah, chapter 7 and 15, he declares he will
do it, God does, that he will not only forgive some sins, or
a few sins, but all sins entirely. This great salvation extends
to all things, covers them all. And he does this, not only as
a friend, but he does it as a father, as a father forgives his wayward
son. We have that picture in that
what is referred to in the parable of the prodigal son. The father freely
forgave that boy. Not only did he rush out to meet
him and kiss him, and hugged his neck. But he said to the
servants and his elder brother, he said, go into the house and get the best coat in that
house and put it on him. This is my son. He's went astray. But I found
him, and he's come home clothed with the best garments. He does this as a friend and
as a father. He beholds our miserable, ungodly
condition, and he'll have compassion upon us and forgive us, give
us an absolute Our sins are, as seen by God,
they are seen as a burden to us, too heavy for us to bear. So he'll remove them off of us
with a complete Absolute, full, free, irreversible forgiveness. Bless the Lord, David said. Oh, my soul, and all that is
within me, bless His holy name, who forgiveth all my iniquities,
all of them. So you see that this forgiveness
is equal to the wants and the needs of the sinner. And to be
equal to it, it must be full, including all sins, be they ever
so numerous. We can't hardly open our mouth
without sinning. God not only looks on the outward,
but He judges the intents of our heart and sin after sin in
the intents of our black heart and mind. But this forgiveness
includes all things. Oh, God. Oh, God. It's full. You see, if the guilt
of every sin be not removed, if the penalty for every sin
is not remitted, then it would not be a full pardon. So it's
all things. I freely forgive you of all sins, not because you deserve it, but
because He deserves it, because He whom God has sent answers
for you. He's my representative. When
my name is called up yonder, He'll answer. He's mine. I bought him. I found the ransom. It's free. Full pardon, full
forgiveness. Past sins, present sins, and
sins yet to come. Full pardon for all those sins. Sins of tomorrow. that we commit
walking out of this building. They're all included. God looked from the beginning
to the end, and all these that were accumulated as feed guys, as a mountain,
they was rolled up from you and from me. if we be his children,
and laid on him who knew no sin." He took all of them and paid
what justice demanded. Oh, listen, let this be your
rest, let this be your peace, and let this be the joy. I am he that blotteth out all
your iniquities." Now, how did he do that? By and through the
surety of the covenant. God made a covenant with the
Father, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit made a covenant. They struck hands, they shook
hands, this I'll do. Man was not, he was not considered. It was God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That covenant they made was that
they'd save a people. that God had chosen before the
world ever was. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I'll answer for it. I'll become a man. It was a man
that sinned. It'll be a man that recovers.
And it's by His perfect obedience. that He answers for me. His obedience becomes my obedience,
and I become one with Him in vital union. So I'm in Him. I was chosen in Him before time
ever was. I'm preserved in Him. I fell in myself, but I never
fell in Christ. Where God put me, God preserved
me. God put me in, but of God are
ye in Christ Jesus." When did that happen? Before the world
ever was. Here in time, I was brought to
see my awful state, that I was a sinner, that I had transgressed
God's law and did it on purpose, found out who I was. The terms
and the conditions of the substitute were certainly His incarnation. and his perfect obedience to
God's holy law. As to Christ, our substitute,
and I should say our suffering substitute, blood was the only
required condition. He must shed his blood, the blood
of a man. The blood of God and the blood
of man. The Lord Jesus Christ, who was
God, is God, always will be God, become a man. He never gave up
His deity. He never gave up being God. When He came here, He clothed
His humanity, or He clothed His deity with his humanity, and
as a man, he's answerable for all these people that God gave
him. And if you're one of them, if
you're a sinner, if you're a sinner and know that you're a sinner,
certain that you're a sinner, then you've got a substitute
that I can point you to. You were disobedient, but he
was obedient. He suffered the penalty that
was due you. The curse of God that was on
you fell on him. He's your Lord. He's your Savior. All your sins are forgiven. It
says that his blood was the domain. As a matter of fact, it says,
without the shedding of blood, His blood, there is no remission
of sin. Even the Prince of Life and the
Lord of Glory must shed His blood, and He did. His blood and righteousness
is only that which can satisfy the infallible justice of Almighty
God. And it's absolutely free, it's
absolutely full, and it's absolutely irreversible. The sinner is not
required to perform and meet any condition to be entitled
to this blessing. You must do this, you must do
that. No, you must do nothing. And I told you here several times,
the hardest thing that the natural man can do is
come to God. Come to God like he is. with
nothing, meeting no condition or no demand, just coming like
he is, a poor sinner, carrying a heavy load, burdened down with
guilt and shame. He hadn't anything to bring.
He has nothing that God wants. He comes with nothing. And God
wants him to know that he knows that you're nothing. No condition. You must be baptized. What's
that got to do with it? It hasn't got a single solitary
thing to do with it. Being baptized is sin. I'm a sinner. And I died in Christ,
I was buried in Christ, and I rose again in Christ. That's what
baptism doesn't save you. It's just putting on the uniform
of Him who does save you. But it doesn't save you. Nothing
saves you but the sovereign grace of God. Nothing saves you but
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's free. absolutely free. No course of
duties before his believing in Christ is assigned to him. Now, I know that there's not
many people believe that, because everyone has got something to
say about that. You've got to be this, or you've
got to be that, or you've got to do this, or you've got to
meet some demand or qualification or condition or something. No course of duties before his
believing in Christ is assigned to him, but coming to him like
you are a sinner. And when you come to him like
you are, God is honored and Christ is glorified. No qualification
as predisposing for forgiveness or pardon is ever mentioned in
the Bible. This day, right now, without
any previous preparation, If salvation comes to a man's soul,
if he wants it. Zacchaeus was up there in a tree. He heard that the Lord was going
to pass by, so he found this particular tree. He was a short
man, by the way, and he climbed up into that tree so he could
see the Savior. No preparation whatsoever. Our Lord come by and said, Zacchaeus,
come down, for salvation has come to your house. No preparation,
Karl. No do this, no do that. Come down in that little twisted
center. come down to that tree, and God
gave him life and everlasting salvation. And when we all get
to heaven, if we all get there, we'll see that little dried-up
Jew. It's full of forgiveness. That's
the only thing that will help me. If I labored under the fact that
there was some condition that I got to meet after I believe
in Christ, that my soul depended upon meeting this condition,
I'd never make it, and neither would you. But it's free! It's free, it's full, it's unchanging. When I first started preaching
this, I met a fellow up in Farmington. He'd heard what I was talking
about. And I went into it. He had a
store. And I went into his store, and he told me this. He asked
me who it was, and I told him. Oh, he said, You're the one that's
preaching the New Deal, aren't you? I said, well, you can call
it that if you want to. It's not a new deal, it's an
old deal. Well, the Lord bless us.