to the book of Exodus, chapter 34. I'll read a few verses here, beginning
at verse 5. of the 34th chapter of the book
of Exodus. I did say Exodus, didn't I? Exodus. I thought for a minute there
I might have said Genesis. The book of Exodus, chapter 34 and
verse 5 says, And the Lord descended in the clouds and stood with him there, stood
with Moses. Moses, they said about him, was
the meekest man on the face of the earth. Descended in the cloud and stood
with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed, The Lord, the
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And that will by no
means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children and upon the children's children unto the third and the
fourth generation. And Moses made haste and bowed
his head towards the earth and worshipped the God of heaven. I want to talk to you a little
bit here this morning about the pardon of sin, the forgiveness
of sin. Just the very thought of the
word forgiveness is a blessing of great worth and great value. Forgiveness, pardon. It's not only of great worth
and great value, without it, No one of Adam's race, no human
being can be happy without it. There may be a temporal
happiness, but not a real happiness, not a genuine happiness. A genuine happiness only comes through the forgiveness of God,
the forgiveness of our sins. And when the conscience of a
sinner is pierced, stabbed, wounded with guilt and oppressed with
fears of the divine wrath of God When that takes place, then
a man will seek for pardon and forgiveness as a thirsty man
seeks water and receives it with joy. Now, as great and as necessary
as the blessing of forgiveness is, Had it not been revealed by God in the Holy Bible, we
would, as men and women and boys and girls, have been left in
a miserable, uncertain state, wondering if there was such a
thing as the forgiveness of sin. If it were not for the revelation
of God here in the Bible that tells us about forgiveness, we
would, of all men, be miserable and live in a state of uncertainty
as to the future world. But God hath been pleased to
reveal in His that pardon and forgiveness of
sin is of him. Thanks be unto God that we have
this absolute certainty that there is forgiveness with God. It was known to the patriarchs
of old. It was known unto Moses. Moses knew about it. Moses experienced
it. Moses tasted that the Lord God
was a forgiving God. That part of his nature was that
he was a forgiving God. And that's what Moses said here.
He said that the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering,
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, the Lord forgives sin. It is his prerogative to forgive
sin. Only God can forgive sin. No one else can forgive sin,
only God. And it is a great mercy, a wonderful
blessing that you and I here this morning can experience the mercies and
the forgiveness of sin against God, though we have been out
and out enemies of God and have rebelled
against him, his nature, and his law. And let me tell you just a little
bit here. in regard to how we are described
in order that we may have some appreciation for His forgiveness. We deliberately have rebelled against Him, according to our nature. Now,
here in the Bible, the sinner is described as overall defiled
and loathsome with all manner of hateful impurities about him. His pardon or forgiveness is
described as a perfect cleansing of his person and the covering
of all of his filth. Over in the book of Psalms chapter
14 and verse 3 is this verse. The book of Psalms chapter 14
and verse 3. It says this, well, first it says, The fool
hath said in his heart, There is no God. That is, the fool said, There
is no God for me. There is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable things.
There is none that do it good. The Lord looked down from heaven
upon the children of man to see if there were any that did understand
and seek God. Now, what I am saying here this
morning is that there is forgiveness. God is a forgiving God. He will pardon our iniquities
and our transgressions. And I'm saying and trying in
a way to describe who he forgives, the awfulness of those that he
forgives and pardons and puts their sins away, never to remember
them against them anymore. He describes them Like this,
he says, they are all gone aside. They are all together become
filthy. That word filthy means full of
filth. They are full of filth, they
are revoltingly They are foul, they are obscene,
they are lewd, and they are indecent. That describes to some measure
those that are in need of God's forgiveness. So just by thinking about that
a little bit, you can see the greatness and the glory of God,
that he would have anything at all to do with such filthy sinners
like you and I are, indecent and full of filth. Everything
about us is contaminated with pollution and corruption of sin
and there is not a sound spot to be found in us. We are all
together filthy before God. But yet God in his mercy, in
his kindness and his goodness, is going to forgive some of Adam's
fallen race of all of their filth and lewdness and indecencies and not charge them with sin
anymore. That's going to happen. He's
going to do that. His pardon is represented by
blotting out the debt. We are debtors to God by way
of sin. And His pardon and forgiveness
is represented in the Bible as blotting out the debt. It is likened unto a person who
labors under a heavy weight, a heavy load, a heavy burden
that galls his shoulders while he carries it, sinks his spirit,
and he falls into despair. Now, his forgiveness is represented
in the Bible by lifting up and removing this heavy burden and
load and weight from his shoulders in Isaiah chapter 44. Turn there with me, if you will. Isaiah chapter 44 and verse 22. This is what he
says. He says in verse 21, Remember
these, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant. I have formed
thee, thou art my servant. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten
of me. Listen to this now. I have blotted
out. as a thick cloud thy transgressions,
and as a cloud thy sins return unto me, for I have redeemed
thee." Here he describes them by blotting them out, blotting
the sinners' sins out, blotting them from the face of heaven,
putting them out of the sight of God. He has so blotted out
our sins that there is no trace of them to be found. The method and the way and the
means that God hath blotted out our sins, of course, is in Him
whom God hath sent, the Lord Jesus Christ. And our sins were
laid on Him, and He bore the punishment due to the sins that
were laid on Him, our sins, and God blotted them out so that
they will never be seen in the face of heaven, in the eyes of
God, and in the eyes of God's divine justice. He has so blotted
our transgressions and our sins out of his sight. And no mortal
shall be able to tell what's become of us. when God, this great and glorious
and wonderful God, who hath compassion and pity
upon us, when he blots them out, they are forever gone. And it's
no wonder that the apostle in the New Testament says, Those
that are in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, are not condemned. Why are they not condemned? Because their condemnation was
laid on Christ and their sins were blotted out. And it says
there also in the book of Romans, who can lay anything to the charge
of God's people? If our sins were blotted out
and no mortal can tell where they went, who then can charge
to God's people any sin? They're blotted out. They're nowhere to be found. This charge against us has been
reversed. We have no sin, no mortal, regardless
of how wise he might be, shall be able to tell where our sins
are. We're described in the Bible
by being disobedient, disobedient to God's divine law. And that's an out-and-out rebellion against
the holy, holy, holy, holy God. It's rebellion against His magnificent
majesty, out and out. And we are, because of our rebellion,
and our disobedience against God and his law, we are considered
in the scripture as a convict under the sentence of death, waiting only to be executed. The sentence of death has been
passed upon us when we were born. The sentence of death. And we are like a convict that
awaits in the holding cell, waiting for the day that judgment in
its finality falls upon us. We're like a convict. We're like
criminals. A convict, a felon, is one that
has broken the law. worse than felons. We have broken
not man's law, but we have broken God's law and we did it with
delight in our hearts. And so we are under the subject
of death and are in a holding pattern right now that hangs
over our Now, forgiveness and pardon,
according to the Bible, consists in reversing this sentence of
death and in remitting the penalty due, his crimes. Under this consideration, which
is the right notion of forgiveness and pardon, The language of God
is like this. Deliver him from going down into
the pit. I have found a ransom. Over in Isaiah, one more time,
chapter 1, it says this. Isaiah chapter 1. And I think I put the beginning
of the chapter there real close. Isaiah chapter 1, verse 18. You see how he describes Adam's fallen race? here in the
first chapter. He says, The ox knoweth his owner,
and the ass his master's crib. But Israel doth not know, my
people doth not consider, a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters They have
forsaken the Lord, and they have provoked the Holy One of Israel
unto anger, and they are gone away backward, or alienated,
or separated themselves from him. Why should ye be stricken
any more? Ye will revolt more and more,
increase your revolting attitude and ways more and more, The whole
head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the
foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire.
Your land's strangers devour it in your presence, and it is
desolate, desolate as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter
of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in
a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city, except the Lord of hosts
had left us a very small raiment We should have been as Sodom
and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word
of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of burnt
offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. I delight not
in the blood of bullocks or lambs or of he-goats. He describes
us as sinners. But here, listen to what he says
now in verse 18. He says, Come now, let us reason together. saith the Lord, Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. That is, He will
make the scarlet and the crimson offenses of his people, as white
as the lamb's wool, as white as snow, he'll blot out our sins. And he said, I'll make your sins,
your red, scarlet, crimson, offenses against me, I'll make them as
white as the driven snow." Now, in this forgiveness of God Almighty,
the Bible teaches that grace reigns and the riches of grace
is displayed in the reigning of The scriptures declare that
when our offended king, when our offended sovereign God, pardons
or forgives any member of Adam's fallen race, he forgives them
of all their sins. Let me read one more time from
the book of Psalms here, Psalm 51, and verse 9. He says, Make me to hear joy
and gladness, I said the only man that can
be really happy in this life, not talking about the life to
come, we know what's going to transpire there, man can only
be really happy in this life if the man whom God forgives
and reverses the sentence of death that hangs over his head,
he can experience joy and happiness of God. He said, Make me to hear joy
and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sin, blot out all mine iniquities." Then over in the book of Jeremiah,
chapter 33, and verse 8, this is the language of God.
He said, I will cleanse them from all their iniquity. I will cleanse them from all
their iniquity. You remember I said that the
Scriptures declare that when our offended sovereign king pardons
any member of Adam's fallen race, he forgives all their sins. I will cleanse them from all
their iniquity whereby they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities
whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed
against me. In another place it says, He
will have compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities
and thou wilt cast all thy sins into the depths of the sea. He did not say that he would
blot out a part of our sins and the greater of our sins he would leave intact. But he said, I
will blot them all out. And here he says he will cast
them into the depths of the sea. That is, he will not cast a few
of them into the depths of the sea, but he'll cast them all
into the depths of the sea. To whomsoever God pardons and
forgives, He forgives all of our sins. And if you and I can lay hold
of this God who pardons and forgives, we can be nothing but happy to
know all of our sins have been blotted out. And our Lord said
He made an end of it. And He declares here by the patriarchs
of old that He has cast them into the depths of sin. Not a few of them, but all of them. To whomsoever God pardons sin,
He so forgives us that as to the eye of his vindictive justice
that says the soul that sinned shall surely die, he so puts
our sins away, removes them so far from us and from him that
he himself seize it no more, they are gone and there is none
to be found, none to be charged against them. So well did the
writer say, them that are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation. That is the forgiveness of sins.
That is to be sought for. They're all gone. They're taken
away. Forgiveness certainly is worthy
of God and suitable to the chief of sinners. Paul said, I'm the
chief of sinners. And the forgiveness of God was
suitable to Paul. who was the chief of sinners. It reaches to the worst of crimes. There's no crime that can be
committed that God cannot forgive on the basis of the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The most abominable transgressions
that you can think By His gracious and wonderful forgiveness, He
makes these red, crimson, scarlet sins whiter than snow in His
sight. Though you see yourself maybe
this morning as a monster of sin and sin of the heart, sin
of the lips, sin of the life, sin of omission, sin of commission,
sin of ignorance, and sin against knowledge. Yet there is hope
for you. Come, all ye that labor under
heavy laden. make any difference how many
sins or how great your crimes are. Come to me and I'll forgive you. I'll put
them away. I'll forget that you ever had
them. I'll never bring them up again against you anymore. No more. can make any charge against you.
I have so completely put away your sins. No reason for a man to sink into
deep despair when there is full pardon, complete forgiveness
with the God of heaven, The Bible says he waits to be gracious
and to bestow this invaluable blessing of forgiveness upon
him who is in despair, who has this load and weight and guilt
upon his shoulders. He waits to lift it up and relieve
him and show mercy. This mercy of God is not conditional. It is not a narrow mercy or a
limited mercy. It's not like that which is exercised
by men where a limit or a condition is put upon it. Not so with the
mercy of God and the grace of God and the goodness of God.
No conditions whatsoever. The only condition is that I
know of that it's for sinners who can't save themselves. If
you think this morning that you have got some small part in your
justification before God, it's not for you. It's for him that
can't help himself. Jesus did not come except to save sinners. He didn't come to save the righteous. He came to save sinners. And He's provided a robe of righteousness
for sinners. believing sinners who, like David,
said, I trust in him. For those that trust in him,
he has a robe of righteousness, a clothing wrought with pure
gold, a garment of fancy needlework, It's an everlasting salvation,
an everlasting righteousness. It's a robe of righteousness
that he puts on us and makes us acceptable with God. It's a robe that cannot be tarnished. It has a beauty. with unfaded glory and unfaded
splendor. It is a robe that entitles us to all the blessings
of God's salvation. It is a garment which will never
decay or never rotten. It is a a claw, robe of righteousness
that will never wear out. It will see us through. After a million years has been
spent, the righteousness and the brightness and the value
of that garment will continue the same as it was the first
day that God put it on us. It's there
for whoever needs it. If you don't need it,
that's something else. But if you need it, it's available
to whoever believes. in the Lord Jesus. It is a righteousness already
performed by the Lamb of God himself. It is not something
wrought in us by the operation of the Spirit. It doesn't have anything to do
with us. It is a righteousness that has
already been performed. It's a work that's been finished
by the Lord Jesus. He came to work out or bring
in an everlasting righteousness for his people. It was completed when he cried,
Lord God, he said, it's finished. The work that you've given me
to do, it's finished. All that the law of God and the
justice of God required of us was laid to his charge. All of our sins, big and little,
sins that you don't even remember. I've forgotten. I've forgotten
a million of my sins. I've forgotten. sins of my youth,
sins of my manhood, I've forgotten them. I couldn't do anything
about them. Because I've forgotten them,
they're gone. Oh, the greatness and the glory of Almighty God
was that in His infinite wisdom He gathered up all of my and
all the sins of his people. Forgiveness of God to be full
and to be complete. God must forgive all sins. All
of them. Sins you don't know about. Sins
you've forgotten. Sins you do know about. the greatness of God, He gathered
them all up. He looked upon us, seeing where
we'd come from, when we were born, where we'd be and what
we'd do, what we'd say. When we were born and when we
died, all the sins that we'd ever committed, He gathered them
up. Only God could do that. God gathered
them up, laid them on the impeccable Lord Jesus Christ, laid them
on the sinless Son of God, and He bore the penalty due. He made an end of them, and God
cast them into the depths of the sea. And He said, I'll make
you whiter than the driven. I'll remember them against you
no more. No mortal can bring any charge
against you because in my pardon and in my forgiveness, I've forgiven
all your sins. I don't even understand why the
natural man is not concerned about what I'm saying this morning. All that law and justice required
was charged to him. Sins of the believer. I don't
know about you, but me, as I've already said, I've forgotten
about a lot of them. But the justice of God demanded
full satisfaction for every sin. that I committed against his
justice and his honor and his love and his glory. And he hung
the Lord Jesus Christ on the tree. And the law that demands
full satisfaction wouldn't let him go. He hung there and the law would
not let him go until full satisfaction was made for all my sins that
laid on me. And He paid all I owed, sixteen ounces to the pound.
No more! No less. He paid it all. Jesus paid it all. all to him
of my soul. He paid it all. The last penny
must be paid, and he paid the last. To be without this great
and glorious blessing is to be without God. To be without forgiveness
is to be without God. And to be without God is such an awful thing. I couldn't
describe what it is to be without God. You have no God to go to
when trouble comes. When the storms come upon you,
when the tempest begins to happen, you've got no God to go to. Oh,
you say a few prayers, but you just, well, say them to yourself.
You just as well say them to a stump because you've got no
God to go to. If you've got no Christ, you've
got no God. If you've got no sacrifice, you're
a heathen and you're still a rebel against God. Peace has not been
made with God in your soul. You've got no God to carry your
fears and your needs to you. You may have ten thousand times
ten thousand dollars. You may have that stored up in
your treasure. And you may have all kinds of knowledge about
various things. But if you know not God, you
have nothing, absolutely. And one day, listen to me, one
day, you and I shall be laid out on our dying bed, ready to
drop off into an unseen, unnavigated eternity. what will become of
you and I at that time. This is the state we are all
in by nature, dead in trespasses and in sins. Without God and
without Christ in this world, without forgiveness, without
his righteousness, without his mercy, without sanctification,
without justification. We're without God. Now, you've
got to have a righteousness in which God himself cannot find
a flaw in you. It's got to be a perfect righteousness, one without flaw and one without
blemish. or you cannot be saved. Where is this righteousness to
be found? It can only be found in him whom
God has sent, who will become a man, and as a man paid all
we owe, suffered all we'll ever suffer if we be believers. in His perfect righteousness
and makes us accepted in all of His acceptability. I'm telling
you today the truth. As of God, there is forgiveness. God will forgive the poor, helpless,
hopeless, doomed, damned sinner that can't save himself but cries
out to God for mercy.