Once again, seeking the help
of God, I'd like to draw your attention to the chapter that
we read together, the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 43, and the
text you'll find in verse 25. I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember
thy sins. I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and I will not remember
thy sins. As many of you are aware, the
children of Israel were the chosen people of God. brought out of
Egypt, led through the wilderness into the promised land, having
God's law with them, having God's presence symbolized with them
in the temple, in the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of
Holies that God dwelt with the people of Israel. They were God's
favorite people, called out from all of the other nations in the
world, and God chose them and he established them and built
them up and he cleared a way for them to grow and that their kingdom may be established
and multiplied. And he did everything possible
for them that they may benefit. If they worshipped him he would
continue to bless them with the material blessings, with multitudes
of cattle. He would provide them with good
seasons so that their crops would grow and he would bless them
physically. But as they were surrounded by
other nations drawn aside by the things that
they saw and they were drawn aside by the gods that they witnessed
and they left the true and living God to serve idols and to serve
false gods to satisfy the desires of their flesh. God always approached
them with a stretched out hand. He sent his prophets to them
to warn them of their sin and to turn back to the Lord. He
was constantly showing them mercy and grace and love and yet the
time came when he had to go through with a chastisement to discipline
them. But that discipline was not to
destruction. He took them into Babylon where
they were oppressed for 70 years. The prophet Jeremiah prophesied
that they would be in Babylon for those 70 years. And you'll
remember that Daniel, as he searched the scriptures, as he read from
the prophet of Jeremiah, he recognizes that this prophecy is true and
that it was just going to be a space of time. for 70 years
when the judgment would be over, then they were going to be brought
back. And as we read the scriptures,
we see how it all unfolded, how God raised up different ones,
Ezra and Nehemiah, to bring them out of Babylon, to build the
walls of Jerusalem again, and to build the temple again, and
to establish the worship of God again. And this portion of Isaiah
from chapter 40 to 44 is when they are in captivity. Remember
I spoke recently of, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith
the Lord. And he began during that time of captivity to speak
comfortably, reassuringly to the people of God that it wasn't
going to be forever. They were not going to be in
this trial, in this judgment forever but it was for an allotted
span of time. It was for a purpose and when
God's purposes had been fulfilled then they were going to be released. Once they had learned from their
mistakes, once they had learned from their sin and turned from
their sin, then they were going to be restored. But Israel was
never the same again after the Babylonian captivity. They never
had a king. They were under foreign rule.
And do we know after the end of Micah, there was that period
of 300 years of no, of quietness. Or 400 years, I can't quite remember.
there was that period while they waited for the Messiah to come. And so the Lord always stayed
with them, he always kept his word, it was them who constantly
went away from him. It was them who constantly sought
after other gods. It was them who turned away from
the true and the living God and they suffered the consequences
of their actions. And even when the Lord Jesus
Christ came, he came to them, the people of Israel, the Jews.
But the scripture tells us he came to his own. and his own
received him not. They treated him the same or
worse than. They did all of the other prophets
that the Lord sent to warn them of their sin and of the judgment
that was going to come. And so they were a people who
were presented and blessed with the true and living God. They
had witnessed his great miracles. They had the scriptures. They
had his presence, yet they turned away And they went to idolatry. They wanted a God that they could
see. A God that they could touch. A God after their own imagination. And they were rebellious. They
rebelled against the true and the living God. And they sinned. against him. It says, I, even I am he that
blots out thy transgression. In the scripture sin is spoken
about in different ways. There is sin, actual sin. There
is transgression. There is trespassing. And there
is iniquity. And transgression is willful
disobedience to the law of God. God has said, do this. It is very clear and transgression
is willful disobedience, is stepping over the line. Sin is falling
short. We read that falling short of
the glory of God. And so they transgressed. They
willfully disobeyed. They knew what was right. They
knew the way that God wanted them to go and to worship. That
they were to have no other gods. And yet they willfully disobeyed
him and they transgressed the commandments of God. And they
fell short. And they fell so short or they
fell so deeply into sin that they were so integrated into
the sins of the nations that were around about them that they
even began to sacrifice their own children to false gods. In Jeremiah in chapter 32 he
tells us there from verse 32 because of all the evil of the
children of Israel and of all the children of Judah which they
have done to provoke me to anger. They, their kings, their princes,
their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem. So this is the whole nation. This goes from those who are
in the temple, the priests, the Levites, the kings and the princes,
the prophets. Everybody has turned away from
the true and living God. Jeremiah stands alone proclaiming
the true word of God. And there are the false prophets.
Peace, peace, when there is no peace. They would rather believe
lies than they would want to listen to Jeremiah. And you see the whole nation
has spiralled into a cesspool of sin and iniquity. And they turned unto me the back
and not the face. Though I taught them, rising
up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive
my instruction. But they set their abominations
in the house, which is called by my name to defile it. And
they built the high places of Baal, which are on the valley
of the son of Himon, and caused their sons and their daughters
to pass through the fire unto Molech, which I commanded them
not. Neither came into my mind that
they should do this abomination and cause a Judah to sin. And
so you think of this nation that has been so favoured by God,
they had the light of the truth laid out before them, they had
visible visible signs of God's presence and they had the specific
ways in which they were to worship and offer sacrifice to the true
and living God. They had the history of all of
his dealings with their ancestors and now they have sold out to
gods of stone following the ways of the evil nations that were
around about them so much so that they would cause their own
children to pass through the fire and God says it's something
that I haven't even imagined I haven't even thought that anyone
would do such a thing to take their children which are a blessing
of the Lord and to pass them through the fire in the hope
that These dumb idols might be able to bring rain or bring sun
or bring a victory to those who do such a thing. And so God paints
a very dark picture of the sinful behaviour the depths of depravity
in which these children of Israel, the Jews, had fallen into. So he paints a dark, miserable
picture. Sometimes on a dark night the stars, if there's no clouds,
shine brighter. They seem to. And the Lord paints this miserable
picture of the darkness and the depravity of the people of Israel
so that His grace and His love may be magnified more and seen
more clearly. Not only had they gone astray
to other gods but they had completely neglected the service of the
true and living God. You see as we look outside and
as we see the way in which the world is and we maybe are drawn drawn after those things that
the world has to offer. There are certain things which
then will take place in our spiritual experience. And so the children
of Israel, they've gone after these visible gods. They've gone
to worship these visible gods and they're offering their children
to these visible gods. And so that has a spiritual effect upon them. They stop praying
to the true and living God. You see, as you are drawn after
the visible, you forget the invisible. This is what God says in the
chapter that we read together. But you have not called upon
me. You see, they had called upon these idols, these dumb
idols that can't see, hear or speak. And they have neglected
the true and living God, the creator and the sustainer of
heaven and earth. And they have not prayed. There
was a lack of prayer. There was a lack of communion
with him. And they became weary of serving
him. The ceremonies became burdensome
to the children of Israel. They couldn't be bothered to
walk all the way to Jerusalem. They couldn't be bothered to
follow the law of God. They wanted an uneasy option. And so they neglected prayer.
They neglected speaking to the true and living God, the one
that could help them. And they became weary of him,
tired of his ways, tired of his oppressive law. They said, we
will not have this man to reign over us, but O Jacob, thou hast
been weary of me, O Israel. You see God instituted for the
people of Israel feasts, days of remembrance and Sabbaths and
they became burdensome, wearied of serving the true and living
God. And they went for an easier option. And how it is today isn't it?
They see Christianity as burdensome. The true and living God as oppressive. We want freedom. We don't want
to be bound by any laws and ordinances. We just want freedom to do whatever
we want. But that is departing. from the
true and living God. They don't realise that they
are chained, they are slaves to sin and to Satan. Freedom
is in Christ. Christ sets his people free. He changes their hearts and he
gives them a true love to him and to his word and to the true
and living God. And they never become weary of
serving the Lord Jesus Christ. But this people of Israel, they
became weary of God. of his ways, of his ordinances
and they went after something easier. Something that they felt
would benefit them physically rather than this invisible God.
They wanted something they could see, something they could do
to get benefit from. Why? But that was wearied me.
That was wearied of me. In Malachi Chapter one we see the effect
that this attitude has to the people of God. You see when you begin on that
slippery slope that your foot slips, lack of prayer, then the
service of God becomes burdensome. You become weary of reading the
Word. You become weary of coming to church. You become weary of
mixing with the Lord's people. It has a spiral effect, a downward
effect. And you see with the people of
Israel had a downward effect. They were there with God walking
through the wilderness. He got them into the promised
land. There was great blessings but
then they neglected the service of God. They neglected prayer.
They were wearied and burdened by his seemingly oppressive law. And so it spirals downward. They take their eyes off God.
and they begin to look at the other gods. Then they start worshipping
them and then they're burning their children. It's a spiral
downward slope. In Malachi the prophet says in chapter 1 verse 13 or from verse
12 It says, But ye have profaned
it, the table of the Lord. The table of the Lord is polluted,
and the fruit thereof, even as meat, is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a
weariness is it And why have ye and ye have snuffed at it,
saith the Lord of hosts? And ye brought that which was
torn, and the lame and the sick. Thus ye brought an offering.
Should I accept this of your hand, saith the Lord? But cursed be the deceiver, which
hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrifice unto the
Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, saith
the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. And so you see the effect of
their weariness and their feeling burdened by the Lord. What a weariness is it? That's what they said. I'm not going to give God my
best. but I'm going to find in my flock
some animal that is half dead with a broken leg or deformed
and I'm going to take this. Why should God have the best
of what I've got? He's just an oppressive God. He wearies me. And so they sniffed
at his ordinances and gave him the worst. You've brought the
lame, the sick as an offering. He says, would you take that
to your king? Would you take that to your prince?
Would you take that to your father? Why are you offering to me, the
true and living God, the king of all the earth? Why are you
offering to me the worst and giving everybody else the best? And so when this mindset sets
in that God is burdensome, it affects everything. The way that
you think, The way that you pray, the way that you read, the way
that you worship. Everything is contaminated by
these thoughts that God is oppressive. God is wearying me with his rules
and regulations. So it made them thankless. They lost their love. Defected
everything about them. And to God first paints a miserable
picture of the extent by which the people of Israel had fallen.
As I was thinking of this, you know sometimes you see those
adverts where they're advertising a cleaning product. Maybe it's
something to do with the washing machine and they show children
playing out in the in the fields playing football and coming covered
in mud and the mother looks and she wonders well how I'm going
to clean all of this and so the picture is painted that these
filthy clothes are almost impossible to clean But if you have this
cleaning product, you put this into your washing machine, this
is what it comes out like. And so they give you the before
and the after. And it magnifies the greatness
of the cleaning product. The same with our dishwashers. They come and they say, look
how Look how much this food is stuck onto this plate. It's impossible
to get off. No other cleaning product is
able to get this off. But if you use ours, if you put
this tablet into your dishwasher, look at what it comes out. Squeaky
clean, they say. And so they first paint, show
you the extent of the contamination. Then they show you. what their
product is able to do and this is what the Lord has done. By
showing us the extent by which the people of Israel fell into
sin, even sacrificing their own children to foreign gods, false
gods, he then steps in and he magnifies himself And he says,
I, I am he that blots out thy transgression and remembers thy
sin no more. God is the only one that can
forgive sin. All sin is against God. God is the law maker. We are
the law breakers when we sin, when we transgress, when we trespass,
when we commit iniquity. It is all against God and it's
only God who can forgive sin that is against him. We've broken
his law. Those of you who may have watched
the news and the events that took place in America last week
will see that, will remember that Donald Trump pardoned about
1,600 people. Those people had broken the law. They had stood before a judge.
They had been found guilty. They had been passed sentences
upon them. Many of them were sent to jail.
Others had different punishments but they were all at one point
guilty before the law and they'd broken the law of America. Donald Trump comes and he pardons
them. They're able to be released from
jail. But the law still remains broken. You see, if someone is put in
jail for 24 years because the law says, if they are pardoned
halfway through, it doesn't stop the fact that they have committed
a crime. They were originally guilty.
but they've been pardoned halfway through and so their sentence
has not been carried out. If you smash a window and your mum or dad, they forgive
you, the window still remains broken. Donald Trump, those people they
broke the law. Though he has pardoned them and
in the sight of a law they are free, yet the law that they broke
hasn't been satisfied. They're still guilty as by the
law stands. But God fixes both things. God is the
righteous judge. He is a just judge. He cannot
just pardon people because his law would remain broken. His law would have no effect,
would have no consequences. If you knew that every time you
broke the speed limit A policeman would just say, you're pardoned. You would never bother sticking
to the speed limit because you know that you would never get
in trouble. The law would have no effect.
We'd have no strength. And so people would just continue
to break the speed limit every single day because there's no
consequences to their actions. And so it becomes lawless. If
everybody knew that if I committed a crime Donald Trump could pardon
me and you're his friend you could just continue committing
crimes knowing that your friend Donald Trump was going to let
you out. The law would have no effect. Would have no consequences. But
God does not work like Donald Trump. He does not just pardon
people. For his law must be satisfied. He cannot just blot out sin without
dealing with his own law that has been broken. The word blotted
out, it can also be translated as done away with, abolished,
or even wiped away. But sin is not just wiped away. but it is also dealt with. In London if you park there are
great fines that are given, parking fines. And sometimes you may
go past a Bentley or a very nice car and you would find on that
car there's loads of parking tickets. And the reason is is
that person that they don't care. They don't care that they're
parking in a bad way and they've got enough money just to pay
all of those parking fines. And so the law to them doesn't
matter. They've got enough money to pay
their way. They've got enough money that
they have no love to the government. They have no love to fellow citizens. They just park where they want
knowing that they'll get a fine and they will just pay. But with God, when God's law
is broken there is a consequence and that
consequence is death. The scripture says the wages
of sin is death and we know that because we are sinners in the
sight of God our our disposition, our bodies are
contaminated by sin we must die. But also there is the second
death which is a spiritual death under the wrath of God in hell
for all eternity. And that is the consequences
of sin and it cannot just be wiped away as though it doesn't
exist. And so the consequences are seen
in God sending his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to deal with the
law. God's law must be satisfied. The punishment of that law must
be dealt with. We are not just pardoned. The
window is fixed. and we are forgiven. The law
is satisfied and we are forgiven and we see it in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He says not a line or dot of
the law will be broken it will be fulfilled. And so Christ came
to fulfill the law of God so that it could be satisfied though
he could be the perfect sacrifice for sinners. And we see him on
the cross as he experiences the full justice of the broken law
of God, as the wrath of God is poured out upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? There was the blackness, the
abandonment of Christ upon the cross as God poured out his anger
for the sins of his people where he dealt with the law that they
had broken. The debt that we owe to God must
be paid. He doesn't just blot out but
he deals with the very law itself and therefore his people can
be called justified, they are counted as just before the law
because Christ has fulfilled every line and every dot of the
law itself and bore the punishment for those who broke the law and
so if Donald Trump wanted to be like God, wanted to satisfy
the law of America, he could pardon those people but then
he must go to prison himself. He must fulfill the time that
has been set, the punishment that has been set, which have
been accumulated for all of those who have been in there, all the
fines that had to be paid, all the time locked up in prison. He could say, you go free and
I'll go to jail. I will pay all of your fine. I will deal with all of your
debt. I will deal with all of your
prison sentences. that is exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. My people are going to be pardoned
but I am going to be the means by which they are able to be
fully pardoned before the law. I am going to be the one that
satisfies the law of God, creates a righteousness for my people
and I am going to be the one who bears the punishment for
my people. I am going to die, suffer the
wrath of God for my people and then I will rise again on the
third day to show that my work is complete, that God is well
satisfied with my work and that my people are able to have their
sins and their iniquities blotted out forever. and remembered no
more. And maybe that's what you're
worried about. How can my sin be forgiven? How
can my sin be blotted out? Well, only in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The scripture tells us, believe
upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. It is by
faith in Christ, in his work that he came to do that you and
I may have our sins forgiven. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin and God casts our sin behind his
back and he remembers it no more. It is dealt with upon the cross. Our slate is wiped clean. You may remember your sin, and
you sure will do, but God doesn't remember because it's been dealt
with in Christ, justified. There is no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus. They've been made, they've been
set free, their sins have been dealt with, past, present, and
future, and they are ready to stand before holy God, no matter
what sin you have committed. Think of these Israelites, they
burnt their own children. There are women today who have
had abortions, they've killed their children and Christ has
forgiven them. They have found forgiveness in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes they bear the consequences
of their actions but They are able to be justified in the sight
of a holy God. Why? Because Christ fulfilled
the law. Christ bore the punishment and
their sin and their iniquity has been blotted out and God
remembers it no more. Their name is written in the
Lamb's Book of Life and when they die they will enter into
glory because of the grace of God, the love of God in Christ
Jesus. I, even I, am he that blots out
thy transgressions for my own name's sake, for my own sake,
I will not remember thy sin, so that Christ may be magnified,
so that Christ may be glorified. God chose to save a people for
himself and those people, they will show forth his praise. And may we be found amongst those
whose sin is blotted out and our iniquities, they will be
remembered no more. Amen. Our final hymn is 274 from Gadsby's
to the June 49, 274. The Lord in Zion reigns, and
will his people keep. Tis he the universe sustains,
and well secures his sheep. 274. For a time Dear Lord and Heavenly Father,
we thank thee for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, for his
satisfying the law of God and for his death upon the cross
where he absorbed the wrath of God for the sins of his people. We thank thee that he rose again
the third day and ever lives to intercede for us and we pray,
Lord, that we may receive him as our saviour, enable us to
lay hold of him as our only hope, as our redeemer, that our sins
may be blotted out, that they may be remembered no more. Do
dismiss us, we pray, with thy blessing. And now may the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, with
the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit, to be with
us each now and for evermore. Amen.