Go with me if you would back
to Psalm 130. Psalm 130. Do you ever read a
verse of scripture? Or hear a verse quoted in a message? Or even just a line in a verse? Or even just a word? And it just grabs you? You just, you've had that happen to you.
Something, you read it, or you might have read that a hundred
times. And then all of a sudden, it
just grabs you. You find yourself captivated
by it. The Spirit takes the Word, and that's what's happening is,
the Spirit has taken the Word and allowed us to really get
a hold of it, really enter into it and feed on it. And you just
sit there dwelling on it for a minute. You're really amazed
by it. Listen to this line right here,
okay? Psalm 130, verse four says, but there is forgiveness with
thee. And just let that roll through
your mind for a minute. But there is forgiveness with
a. You know, rarely is forgiveness
really found with a sinful human being. A sinful human being will say. I forgive you. He or she will say that I forgive
you. But then he never really forgets
what was done to him. That's just the way it is with
us. It's always still there somewhere in the back of the mind. It never
leaves the memory. And it's always ready and waiting
for the memory to pull it back up. It's always sitting right
there. And as long as that's so, that memory will always taint
things. Isn't that right? You want it
to be better, but that memory's sitting right there just tainting
things. This is what it'll say. This
is what that memory will recall and say. You better keep your
distance. You better be careful. You better keep your guard up.
You remember what happened last time? Well, that's not forgiveness,
is it? That's not forgiveness. And that's
talking about a sinner who needs forgiveness himself. What struck
me about this is sinners who really ought to forgive. because of everything that all
sinners have done before God, done to each other and done to
God. If anybody ought to forgive against
an offense, it ought to be an offender. One who needs forgiveness himself.
But among an entire world of offenders, I said just a second
ago, rarely, the truth is never. Never. Has there ever been true,
actual, full, complete, total, I mean as though it never happened,
forgiveness? Never. But David said in verse
four, there is forgiveness with thee. I mean forgiveness. There is
true, actual, full, complete, total, it never happened forgiveness
with Him. Now does that strike anybody?
That just really, I mean there's forgiveness. True forgiveness. The only one who does not owe
forgiveness because he's never needed forgiveness.
The one who has never one time ever been an offense. Think about that. Not one time
has he ever been an offense. but has only by man been offended. That's all he has ever been by
mankind, offended. There is forgiveness with him.
There's forgiveness. An ocean of meditation and wonder
is owed to that thought. That fact, that thought, it deserves
a lifetime of just pondering, just ponder. That's what silah
means, just dwell on that. Here's the reason why. To forgive
is to forget. Really and truly. That's what
forgiveness really is. To forgive is to forget. And God's Word says there is
forgiveness with Him. With Him. There's forgiveness
with Him. How's that possible? How is that
even possible? Honestly, how is that possible?
Look with me at Psalm 14. Psalm 14, verse It says, the Lord looked down
from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
that did understand and seek God. He looked down on all the
children of men to see if there were any that did understand
and seek God. They are all gone aside. They are all together become
filthy. That means stinking. There is
none that doeth good No, not one. Romans 3 says, there is
none righteous. It says, all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. And this word says, he sees it
all. And he hears it all. And he knows
it all. He knows it all. Genesis 6 says,
He looked on the imagination of every man's heart. He stared
straight into the imagination. You ever go into your imagination?
Well, he has too. He's gone into your imagination.
Been into the imagination of every man's heart. Our imagination
is not good, usually. In Psalm 139, David said, you
know, every time I sit down, think about that. That's what
David said. You know, every time I sit down, you know, every time
I stand up, you know, everywhere I go, he said, you know, every
word in my mouth, you know, every thought in my mind. Not only does He know all of
that, Revelation 20 says, all of it is being written down in
a book. Not only does He just see it
all take place, all of it is being written down in a book.
Everything that every soul on this earth has ever done, thought,
felt, said, All of it is being written down and it's gonna be
brought back up. It's gonna be read out loud on
the day of judgment. So, how on this earth and how
in all of heaven can it be said that there is forgiveness with
him? And how can this verse of scripture
right here be so? Look with me at Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31, verse 33. He said, but this shall be the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those
days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts
and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they
shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor
and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall
all know me. From the least of them unto the
greatest of them, saith the Lord. He said, four, I will forgive
their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. I will forgive and I will forget. Is that not wonderful to hear?
I will forgive and I will forget. How is that possible with thee? How is that possible? The all-knowing, the all-knowing, all-seeing, thrice holy God who
must do what's right, how is that even possible with him? Here's how. Look with me at Luke
23. I wanted to read verses from
Matthew and Mark and John, but we'll suffice with just Luke.
But it says in Luke 23 verse 1, And the whole multitude of
them arose and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him,
saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation. Can you
imagine saying that about him? we found this fellow perverting
the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar saying
that he himself is Christ a king. Verse 18, and they cried out
all at once saying, away with this man and release unto us
Barabbas. Verse 20, Pilate, therefore willing
to release Jesus, spake again to them, but they cried, saying,
crucify him, crucify him. That's what they all said. Verse
34, then said Jesus, Father, forgive them. And you go read those other Gospels,
everything they said to him, everything they said to him,
everything they said to him. And he replied with, Father,
forgive them. Forgive them. How could the father
do that? How could the father truly forgive
them when to forgive is to forget? How could He ever forget what
they did to His Son? And the correct wording is, how
could He forget what we did to His Son? Here's how. Verse 44, it says, And it was
about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth
until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and
the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus
had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit. Into thy hands of judgment. Into thy hands of wrath. Into thy hands of punishment. I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost. The father forgave us in Christ
his own son. He forgave us by Christ his own
son. And I circled and I put arrows
all the way around this word away. He took our sins away from
us. He took them away from us. He
removed them from us as far as the east is from the west. And this is just glorious to
me. This is amazing. He removed us from our sin as
far as the east is from the west. And He did that by laying them
on His Son. He took them away from us. Removed
them from us. He removed everything that was
in the mind and everything that was in the
mouth. Think about some of the things
that have come out of this mouth. He removed everything that was
in the mind and everything that was in the mouth, everything
that was in the heart, every sinful deed that was in the flesh
of his people, he removed all of it. He removed every word
that was recorded in the book concerning His people, and He
did that by laying it all on His precious Son. Christ our
Lord took upon Himself the mind of us, the mouth of us, The heart
of us, the deeds of us, the record of us. You think about it says
in Acts chapter eight, he stood there in his humiliation. He took every single sin away
from us. And when he took it from us,
we had it no more. I mean we had it no more. And
God looked at him in everything that we were and everything we'd
done and God did not forget. And God did not forgive. And
darkness came over all the earth. And the veil of the temple was
rent. And Jesus Christ, our Lord and
Savior, cried with a loud voice in a payment of justice, a payment
of judgment for everything that we deserved. And then he commended
his own spirit to his father. That was his appeasement. That
was his offering of sacrifice. You give everything that's owed.
Lash out on my own soul. Lash out on my own spirit. He did that for everything He
had taken from us and laid on Himself. And then He bowed His
head and He died. Now God the Father knows and
He sees all of the reality of our sin on Christ and not us. And He dealt with it in Christ
and not us. And now when He looks at us concerning
sin, there's nothing there to remember. It's not there. Christ took it away. They're
all taken away. He didn't deal with them right
here. He dealt with them over there. Without the camp. He removed them. There's nothing
there to remember. When it comes to the records
that are kept in heaven, it is recorded. It is written down and recorded
that all of the sin of his people was found to be on Christ. That's what the record says. And it was dealt with in Christ
and it was put away forever in Christ. When it comes to our
sin with God, when it comes to our sin, our name is never even
brought up. There's no record of it on our
name. There's no record of it on our account. And the reason
is because it's not there. It's not there. There's no remembrance
of it because it wasn't found on us. Don't go back, but David
said in the verse before our text, verse three, he said, if
you should mark iniquities, oh Lord, who shall stand? What he
was saying was, Lord, if you found one sin on me, I'd never
stand. But thank God not one sin will
be found because not one sin is still there. Christ took them
all. He took all of them. Look with
me at Psalm 85. Psalm 85 verse 2, it says, thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. All of it, all their sin. Psalm
86 verse 5 says, for thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. That means quick to forgive. Because there's nothing to remember. I don't remember that. Look with me at Psalm 32. Psalm 32 verse 2 says, blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth, and that means acknowledges
the reality of the condition. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord acknowledged the reality of what he sees to be not iniquity. And in whose spirit there is
no guile. It doesn't exist. Doesn't exist,
never happened. It never happened. Do y'all remember
about a year ago, 12 or 13 months ago, when Brother Henry Mahan
got up that Sunday morning, got in his car, and he came down
here to Kingsport, and he preached for us that Sunday morning, and
then he took us all to lunch. He bought everybody's lunch afterwards.
Y'all remember that? If you can only see your faces
right now. Not one soul in this room remembers
that, and do you know why? It never happened. The look on all your faces is
the look on the faces of glory. Every time the adversary, the
accuser of the brethren, tries to bring up one sin against a
child of God, don't you remember that? Don't you remember that? No? I don't remember that. Never happened. Everybody here knows what I just
said. That never happened. Couldn't happen. Didn't happen. That's our sin. Didn't happen. Jeremiah 50 verse 20, it says,
in that day the iniquity of Israel is going to be sought for and
is not going to be found because there's not any. It doesn't exist. Christ put
it away. It's not there. It never happened. That's amazing. That's amazing. Go back to Psalm 130. Verse one says, out of the depths
have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But
there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I
wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord
more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than
they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption,
and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. All of them. Now, let me leave
us with this. I want to leave us with something
that is very important. Because of that, Let me leave
us with this. Look with me if you would at
Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians 4 verse 31 it says, Let all bitterness and wrath,
and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you
with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven
you." That's precious, isn't it? Let's be forgivers. Let's be forgivers, knowing what
God has done for us for Christ's sake. Can you imagine? You don't even have to go deep
into your mind. Just go into what you are and
what you've done. And for God to make it just and
right to be able to say, that never happened. We can do that, can't we? That
never happened. Somebody comes, I'm sorry, never even happened. There's no other motivation you
need than that right there. Think about the joy of forgiveness. Does that, knowing God's forgiveness
in Christ, does that not bring joy to you? The joy of forgiveness,
the blessing of forgiveness, the sweetness of forgiveness. That's the perfume of heaven. The sweet savor of heaven, that's
what it is, that mercy seed of forgiveness. All the forgiveness we've received
for Christ's sake. That's the sweet savor of heaven. Let's be forgivers for Christ's
sake. If I can honestly say from the
depths of my soul that there is forgiveness with thee. Oh,
may I be able to say there's forgiveness with me? Lord, help
me make it so. Just like it is for us in salvation,
it's the same for us in our life here. There's peace there. There's
joy there. There's rest there. There's contentment
there. There's happiness there. There's
love there. There's unity there. There's
goodness there. There's fellowship there. So may God make us to be forgivers.
As He's given it to us, may He create it in us. With all the
ability He'll give us, this flesh still is weak. But with all the
ability that he'll give us, let's, verse 32, be kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's
sake, has forgiven you. There's forgiveness. Wonderful
news. All right, let's all stand together.