If you would turn with me to
the Old Testament book of Isaiah chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43. When I hear men and women talk
about their beliefs, it's absolutely foreign to me how much emphasis
is put on what they must do in order to be saved. Religion has
made God to be a helpless beggar. He needs our choice. He needs
our vote. He needs our will. He needs our
cooperation to save us. We have to relinquish our decision. You've heard it all. These things
are totally contrary to the Word of God. Totally contrary to God's
Word and what it proclaims. Salvation is not a reformation
or an improvement of our righteousness. Our so-called works of righteousness
are nothing but filthy rags. That's what the scripture says.
And if I may be direct and blunt, filthy rags refers to an unclean
menstrual clock. That's what the original word
for filthy rags means, having a menstrual soiling as a covering. That's what our works of righteousness,
that's what our personal attempts to cover ourselves is to God. This great chapter of Isaiah
chapter 43 begins by reminding us that God is God. I said recently in a message,
it wasn't original with me, I heard someone else say it, don't remember
who, but that a good definition for sovereign is God. God is
God. God is sovereign. God is in the
heavens and He's done whatsoever He has pleased. That's the God
with whom you and I have to do. It's he that hath made us, created
us, not we ourselves, the psalmist said. And that not only applies
to our physical birth, but also to our spiritual birth. God created
us. Look at verse one. 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. God created us. God formed us. All of us belong to Him, whether
He calls us or not. It's not just believers that
belong to God. Yes, they belong to God in a
special way. But unbelievers also belong to
God because he created us all. And notice here that the Lord
is speaking to Jacob. Now, not the man Jacob. Jacob
was long dead. But Jacob is representative of
all the people whom God saves. Jacob was a supplanter. Jacob
was a deceiver. He was a liar. He was a cheat. And yet, God loved him. That's
a picture of you and I. He's a type and picture of you
and me. Jacob have I loved, God said. Jacob is the one whom God changed
his name to Israel. And Israel represents the true
people of God. True Israel. Paul said not all
that are of Israel are Israel. Those that believe God, those
of His elect are true Israel. And he tells us here that He
formed them. He created them. He called them
and they are His. Will men and women ever learn
God has a right to do what He will with His own? As our Creator,
all men and women alike belong to Him. And thank God that He
redeems some. He calls them by name. Some belong
to Him in a special way. He gave some to Christ to redeem
before time ever was. Look at verse 2. When they, those
that He loved and redeemed, when they passed through the waters,
the waters of trials, the waters of trouble and tribulation, He's
with them. Those troubles, trials, and tribulations
don't overflow them. When they walk through the fire,
the fiery afflictions which are grievous and troublesome to this
flesh of ours, they shall not be burned. The flame won't even
kindle upon them. Oh, I think about those three
Hebrew men who were pulled out of the furnace in the fire of
affliction. It says that the fire had no
power over them. Neither was a hair of their head
singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire
upon them. How can that be? Look at verse
3. For I am the Lord thy God. the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Saba for thee. And again, how can that be? Verse
four, since thou was precious in my sight, thou has been honorable
and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for
thee and people for thy life. Who's this speaking of? Look
at verse seven. even everyone that is called
by my name. For I have created him for my
glory, and I have formed him, yea, I have made him." God declares
the truth of himself in these verses, and truly we read them
and have to say that salvation is of the Lord. Look at verse
eight, bring forth the blind people that have eyes. God gave
them sight. And the deaf that have ears,
God gave them hearing. And let all the nations be gathered
together and let the people be assembled who among them can
declare this and show us former things. Let them bring forth
their witnesses that they may be justified or let them hear
and say, it is truth. Do you know what all God's people
say to these things? It is truth. It's truth. God is God and there is no other. Verse 10, ye are my witnesses,
saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen. I hear people talk about choosing
God. No, sir, you didn't choose God. If it was dependent upon your
choice of God, you'd have never been saved. The only difference
between the believer and the unbeliever is the difference
that God makes. God does the choosing, not us. We didn't choose God. Christ
said, you've not chosen me, but I have chosen you. That's pretty
simple, isn't it? It's pretty straightforward.
Again, verse 10, that you may know and believe me and understand
that I am He, that I am God. And before me, There was no God
formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord,
and beside me there is no Savior." No other way to be saved, except
God save you. Is that what that says? No Savior,
but me. I have declared, and I have saved,
and I have showed, that word means revealed. when there was
no strange God among you." Men's and women's strange gods can't
make us to know and to believe and understand anything. He says,
therefore, ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.
You know, that's what believers are. They're witnesses. Witnesses
to these things. We tell and we testify and we
witness and we report the things that we know to be so about God.
Unbeliever, you belong to God. I don't know who you are, but
God does. He owns you lock, stock, and
barrel, as we say. And He can do with you whatever
He pleases. But know this, it will either
be to your salvation or to your condemnation. He will have mercy
on whom He will have mercy and on whom He will He hardeneth. Before you declare that He's
unfair, let me tell you that all He has to do to harden you
is just leave you to yourself. God cannot be charged with unrighteousness
or unfairness if He simply lets you have your own way. The gospel
news. Now that's why we're here. We
want to hear some good news. I want to hear good news, don't
you? God will not let some have their own way. Was there something
that they did that would cause God to intervene in their lives
and be gracious and merciful to them? Well, we see the answer
to that question in verse 21. He says, the people have I formed
for myself. They shall show forth my praise. Well, surely they did something
that would cause God to save them. After all, God helps those
who help themselves. Who told you that? Who told you
that? That's not what God says. You
and I did nothing, mainly because you and I were dead in trespasses
and sin, and we could do nothing. That's the problem today. Men
and women really don't believe that they're dead in sin. Verse
22, but thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, but thou hast
been weary of me, O Israel. We have not called upon God out
of our desperate need. Actually, we've done just the
opposite. We've been weary of God. Men
and women by nature are weary of God. Isn't that something?
That gives us an idea of just how far we've fallen. By nature
we're weary of His Word, we're weary of His worship. These folks'
weariness of God was obvious by the sacrifices that they brought
to Him. Malachi the prophet declared
this, he said, Ye said also, behold what a weariness is it
and you have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts, and you have
brought that which is torn and lame and the sick, and thus you
have brought an offering that I accept this of your hand. Look
at verse 23, thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt
offering, neither hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices, and I've
not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee
with incense. Thou hast brought me no sweet
cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of
thy sacrifices, but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins. Thou hast wearied me with thine
iniquities. God deserves our best. Our best worship. Our best praise. People today work God and His
worship around their lives when they should be working their
lives around the worship of Him. Everything we have, friends,
is a gift from God. Everything. Everything we do
is a gift from Him. It's in Him that we live and
we move and we have our being. God gives us the health to work,
the intelligence to work. God is behind all of it. It's
all a gift from Him. Everything. Men and women give
time to their idols, but not to God. Men give hour upon hour
to hobbies and entertainment, but we can't give three or four
hours a week to the worship of God. Men will watch television,
show about nothing for an hour, but they don't want to sit in
church much longer than that. I'm talking about me too. I'm
not preaching at you. That's just how we are by nature.
We've wearied God with our iniquities. All the while we are wearied
with Him. Isn't that something? Here's
the amazing thing though. Here's the wonder of all wonders. God says in verse 25, I, even
I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake,
and will not remember thy sins. Have you ever heard anything
so glorious? God in His infinite mercy has
redeemed and justified those whom He chose. And He's done
so by the substitution of His blessed and amazing Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason it was accomplished
was for His own sake. We didn't ask for it. We didn't
look for it. And we certainly didn't deserve
it. For no reason outside of Himself,
simply for His own sake, for His own glory, for His own honor,
God blotted out the sins and the transgressions of His people
and He will remember their sin no more. No more. That word blotted means abolished,
annihilated, wiped out. Not only has God put our sin
away, but He's put an end to them. To put an end to sin means
that sin is to never be again. All our sin, past, present, future,
God put an end to it. To be remembered no more. That
makes me smile. Somebody said that makes my teeth
white. Even our conscience has no grounds to accuse us. I can't
tell you how for so long I would hear the Gospel and rejoice in
the message, and I'd hear that little voice coming from somewhere. Do you really believe that? I
can see how God saves others, but I don't know how He can save
you. Now my conscience can't accuse
me. You know why? Because a perfect
sacrifice has been made. All legal guilt has been removed. God's law has been perfectly
kept. God's justice has been perfectly
satisfied. And the redeemed sinner is perfectly
justified. That which is perfect is accepted
by God. That's all He'll accept. It must
be perfect to be accepted. And in what Ezekiel calls the
time of love, by a sovereign act of omnipotent grace, the
Lord God came to His lect by His Spirit through the preaching
of the gospel and He reveals to them, not that something can
happen for them, not that something might happen for them, not that
there's a possibility that they might be saved, But the Spirit
of God comes to them and tells them and reveals to them that
their sins have been blotted out. The sins of God's elect
have been abolished, put an end to, never, ever, ever to be considered
by God again. And in the matter of salvation,
we learn that something has been done for some and that they are
the recipients of God's love, mercy, and grace in Christ. And
there's no better news than that. Because it leaves you and I and
our sinful selves out of the picture of our salvation except
as a recipient of His sovereign grace. And I love to think about
that. I love to say it. I love to preach
it. If I had a hand in my salvation,
then I could have a hand in losing it. But we don't. Someone once said, God bought
us, God sought us, God brought us, God taught us, and God wrought
in us every single thing that He required. And that's why we
say salvation is of the Lord. It's all of Him. And this passage
of Scripture is a declaration of that amazing truth. God says,
I, even I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for my
own sake, for my own glory, and will not, will not remember thy
sin. Has God shown you that you cannot
save yourself? There's a lot of folks here.
Has God taught you that you can't save anyone else? Oh, if I could
save my children, I'd save them in a heart. I'd save yours too.
But I can't save them. And you can't save them. Have
you seen that you cannot change your heart? Oh, I wish I could. I wish I could change my heart. We don't even want to know what's
in our heart most of the time. I've learned that I can't change
my heart or yours. And I've learned that we don't
want to know what's in each other's heart the majority of the time. I've learned that I can't grant
absolution for anyone. Why do folks think that a priest,
who's a mere man, can forgive sin? Why, even the religious
Pharisees knew better. They said, who can forgive sins
but God alone? And I've learned, friends, that
we can do nothing for one another, but pray for one another. Pray
for me. I can preach the Gospel. I can
encourage you to seek the Lord, knowing that if He doesn't do
a work in a sinner's heart, that they'll never seek Him or come
to Him. The Lord God, the God with whom we have to do freely
and forever forgive sin for one reason. One reason. And that's the shed blood of
His beloved Son in our place which satisfied forever His holy
justice. There's no salvation apart from
that. Absolutely none. And these are the words of God
Himself. I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions.
And friends, He does it for His own name's sake, for His own
pleasure, and His own glory, and He chooses not to remember
our sins. That's a God that's worthy of
our worship. Now I want to quickly ask you
some questions from this text. I want us to consider them together.
I've already given you the answers. May God be pleased to make these
things effectual to our hearts. You know, He's the only one that
can. We plant, we water, God has to give the increase. The
first thing that we've already answered is, who blots out sin? The Lord says, I am He. I am
He. That's the language of exclusivity. Sins are not nor can be blotted
out by anyone but God. In order for our sins to be put
away, you're going to have to deal with God. Men and women
today have really made that no big deal. Well, that's no big
deal. God loves everybody. God wants to save everybody.
God wants everybody to love Him back. Well, we've made God out
to be the need for one, not us. God wants everybody to be successful. God wants everybody to be happy. If that's so, then everybody's
going to be loved, and everybody's going to be saved, and everybody's
going to be successful, and everybody's going to be happy, because God
always gets what He wants. I know a lot of unhappy people.
I know a lot of unsuccessful people. I know a lot of lost
people. So that can't be so. That can't
be so. The Scriptures say very plainly,
This is what God says. Hold your place here. Turn back
just a few pages to Isaiah 14. I want you to see this. One verse. Verse 24. Isaiah 14, verse 24. Notice this language. The Lord of hosts has sworn God
can swear by no name greater than His own. The Lord of hosts
has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come
to pass. And as I have purposed, so shall
it stand. Do you believe God? Do you believe
God? That's what God says about Himself.
And He says, I, even I am He. They plotted out our transgressions. God says, I mean, you and I can't
do it. We can't do it by confession.
We can't do it by repentance. We can't do it by walking down
an aisle. We can't do it by raising our
hand and saying a prayer. We can't undo what we are. We can't undo what we've done. Though I surely wish we could."
Oh my, I wish we could. God says, I am He that blots
out your transgressions. Why would anyone seek elsewhere?
Why would we try something else? I had a man tell me not long
ago, I'm going to make a go of it on my own. You can't do it. Second question,
what kind of people are the recipients of this great salvation? In this
passage, the Lord describes the kind of people to whom He's been
merciful. And let me let you in on something about these who
are recipients of God's mercy and grace. They're not good people. They're not good people. They're
chosen people. They're preserved people, they're
kept people, they're protected people, they're God's people,
but they're not good people. They're not righteous people.
And I'm telling you, believe me when I tell you, as long as
men and women are under the delusion that they possess some degree
of goodness, having any possession of personal righteousness, that
person will never ever receive the mercy and the grace of God.
It's just a fact. They are sinners. And that's
the good news that this book declares. Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners. Christ said, I'm not come to
call the righteous. but sinners to repentance. Are you a good person? There
are men and women today that have a zeal of God, but the Scripture
said it's not according to knowledge. It's not according to the truth
of Scripture. And I say this with great humility
because I once had a zeal. I'm telling you I did. I had
a zeal for God, but it wasn't according to knowledge. The God
that I served was not the God of the Scripture. And I was ignorant. I was ignorant of God's righteousness.
And I went about to establish my own righteousness and I did
not submit to the righteousness of God. Friends, Jesus Christ
is the righteousness of God. We're going to have to submit
to Him. And that word submit means to quit, give up, stop
trying. When a wrestler gets an opponent
in a submission hold, they submit. They give up. They surrender. You know, you don't have to strain
to give up. It doesn't take any effort to
surrender. Oh, it takes grace. But it doesn't
take any effort. So by the grace of God, my encouragement
to you is just give up. Quit trying to establish your
own righteousness. It will never, ever be good enough. Never. Tap out. I think that's the terminology.
Submit. Submit to Jesus Christ and His
perfect righteousness. It's the only righteousness that
God will accept because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. Do you believe that? Men and
women, by nature, will not come to Christ that they might have
life. Why? Because they want to do something
to earn, deserve, and merit their salvation. And in doing so, they
attempt to rob God. You know, to rob someone is different
from stealing. Stealing, you do when no one's
looking. Robbing, you do it at gunpoint,
face to face. That's what we try to do to God.
right to His face. To endeavor to establish your
own righteousness is to rob God of His glory, not to submit to
Christ. God's righteousness is an attempt
to rob Him of His mercy. God said, you made me to serve
with your sin. And yet God says to the likeness
of these people, I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions. for my own sake, and will not
remember thy sins. Third question, what is mercy's
great accomplishment? Four word answer, the forgiveness
of sin. That's mercy's great accomplishment,
the forgiveness of sin. Divine forgiveness, because only
God can forgive sin. It's His forgiveness that we
must have. It's His forgiveness that only
He can give. He's the one that we've offended.
Sinner, if you are without Christ, you are offensive to God. The God with whom we've sinned
against says, I, even I, am He that blots out, puts away, abolishes,
puts an end to your sin and remembers them no more. And this is complete
forgiveness. And this is perpetual forgiveness. You say, well, I don't know if God could
do that for me. He can do anything. He can do everything. Oh, I tell
you, it's easy for God to forget something that is no longer there. Our sin is gone, put an end to. We've blasphemed His name, we've
despised His law, we've hated His Son without a cause, but
mercy's great accomplishment says, I, even I am He that blots
out your transgressions. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. How does God blot out sin? Fourth
thing. Let me tell you how He can't
forgive sin. Start out that way. God cannot
blot out, forgive sin at the expense of His own justice. He
must honor His law. He must satisfy His justice. And He must do so according to
His character. He's too holy to simply forgive
sin. His justice requires payment
in full. The wages of sin is death. The
soul that sinneth, it must die. And in order for God to forgive
sin, these four things must be done. The law must be honored
and perfectly fulfilled. The justice of God must be satisfied
with a perfect death, because that's what sin's wages require
for breaking God's law. The sinner must be punished,
either in himself or in a substitute, and the sin must be removed. It's the only way God can blot
out, forgive, forever abolish my and your sin. And it's in
a perfect substitute and a sacrifice and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why we preach Christ
and Him crucified. In Him and only in Him can our
sins be blotted out. Jesus Christ is the propitiation
for our sin. John said, herein is love. Not
that we love God. No, sir. But that He loved us
and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sin. Not just covered. Our sins are not just covered.
They're put away. God is satisfied. God's appeased. And our sin is forever gone. And only in Christ is there forgiveness
with God. Gone is our sin. I think I'll
say that again. Gone is our sin. That's why we
preach the substitution of the Lord Jesus. It's the only message
that gives any sinner any hope. Fifth thing, why does God blot
out sin? I can answer that in four words
too. For His own sake. That's simple. For the Lord will
not forsake His people for His great name's sake, because it
pleased the Lord to make you His people. That's it. It pleased the Lord to make you
His people. That's why God blots out our
sin. Why, He gave some to Christ before
the foundation of the world. And the Lord Jesus said, all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and I'll in no wise
cast them out. Why? Because He's done for them
everything that God requires. And that brings me to the sixth
and last thing. What is the promise that God
makes to these poor sinners? I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember
thy sins. Our sins don't exist if we're
in Christ. Isn't that an amazing thought?
Well, yeah, but the things that I think, the things that I do,
the things that go through my mind, forgiven. Put away. No longer
exist. That's why God cannot and will
not remember them. They're gone. Come to Christ. Come to Christ. Rest in Him. For in Him, and only in Him,
your sins will be forever blotted out to be remembered no more.
May God enable you, dear sinner, to trust in Him and in Him alone. Amen. Amen.