Get started. So, if you'd like
to follow along, and if you would, please turn to Psalms 32. Psalms number 32. This is a Psalm of David. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered, blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. When I kept silence, my bones
wax old through my roaring all the day long, for day and night
thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the
drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin
unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgave us
the iniquity of my sin. Selah. And I'm gonna stop right
there. The title for this message, such
as it is, is Evil and Pardon. That's what I wanna talk about
today. Because here, in this psalm, David has listed, written,
for our learning and admonition, three distinctions, three types
of evil, And I'm using the word evil on purpose. I know some
people don't like it, but that's why I use it. They wanna say
three types of sin, or three types of offense. No, it's evil,
is what it is. We'll get to that. And three
types of pardon. And he uses them, the three types
of evil in verse one and two, and then he acknowledges it again
in verse five, the same exact terms. So, This is not, you can
tell from the words of David in verse five, well verses three
through five, you can tell from them explicitly, this is not
a cold steel educational lesson. This is something David felt
in himself. And what I want to tell you today
is that if you don't know, you may not know by name, but hopefully
by the description I'll be able to give. If you don't know these
three types of evil, and if you don't know these three types
of evil are in you, you don't know God. And I'm just trying
to be as blunt and as honest as I can be. Ignorance is one
thing. You may not know these terms
because they are religious terms. Why? They're in the scripture,
but that's why we use But I'll do my best to try to define them
and lay them out. Because these were written by
David under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And they are
for our admonition and our education. Our learning. They are sound
doctrine. And these words are reused throughout
all of the Old Testament scripture. You can find them everywhere.
and they mean basically the same thing as what I'm gonna go into
here. Because these words are from David's heart and from David's
own experience. There's a rumor thought that
this was penned by David after the death of Uriah, after his
interlude with Bathsheba. I don't know. Anytime you see
anything talking about David talking about sin, they think
that's when it was written. I've found that to be true, and
this was suspected. Well, maybe it was. I know that
affected David greatly, and it should have. I know he was supposed to stop
doing that, and he did, as far as we can tell. But yes, it affected
David. But here, I wanna start with
the three types of evil. The first one is transgression,
where he says, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven.
Okay, the word transgression literally means to transgress. What's that mean? Well, it means
to revolt. It means to rebel. Now, Yes,
it can be against man. But that's not what we're talking
about here. Although, it is what we're talking about here. That's
the beauty of it. But this is talking about rebellion
specifically against God. Trespass. To trespass God. This includes certainly breaking
the 10 commandments. That's where everybody likes
to run with it. And that's not a bad place to go. You understand? If you lie, you bear false witness,
you are trespassing God's law. Forget about the fact you're
sinning against a person. No, wait a minute. Don't forget
about the fact you're sinning against a person. But you are
trespassing God's law. Oh, it's all right. Everybody
yells when I preach, I'm sorry. It's okay. I'm just lucky, I feel lucky
when they don't just look at me right off and start screaming.
They at least wait until I get started, it's okay. This is not a pleasant subject
even for children because I'm talking about sin. Talking about
transgression and I wanna talk about iniquity. And what I'm
saying, and why I said it is, why I titled this Evil and Pardon,
is because these things are evil. We don't like to use that word. Why? Because these three things
are in us. They're in me. And I know they're
in you because they're in me, and you ain't no different than
me. You might be better, but you ain't no different. It's
okay. I can live with that. You know,
I've been around people who thought they were better than me all
my life. A lot of times they were right. Didn't make me like
them anymore though. But this is the thing, this transgression
is evil. It is a trespass, a revolt, a
rebellion against God. What a person says, what a transgression
is, is when you say, I will not obey. Doesn't matter what it
is. That's a rebellion. When you say, I will not submit, that's a trespass. That's a transgression. That's a rebellion against God
because God says you will. You understand? God never makes
requests in this book. You understand? Paul just read
that section of Jonah. Guess what? Jonah tried to refuse
going to Nineveh, but God said, you're going. He wasn't asking. God never asks us anything. God commands. I said it some
years ago. They are called the 10 commandments,
not the 10 requests. They're called the Ten Commandments,
not the 10 really good suggestions that you should look into. It's
not how you win friends and influence people. They're the Ten Commandments.
God said do it. If you don't do it, you're breaking
his law. And that, here's the thing. Part
of breaking that law, I wanna put this out, just for the fun
of it, is religious work. You understand when he talks
about you brought me your burnt offerings, and they were stenchin'
my nostril. You know why? Because they were
bringing them in the wrong spirit. They were to offer those offerings.
But the thing is, you were supposed to come with a burnt offering,
with a sin offering, and be sorry for your sin. And how many bulls
and goats and lambs and sheep and doves were killed by people
who didn't even acknowledge their own sin? didn't acknowledge their
transgression, didn't acknowledge their revolt or rebellion against
God. Because sometimes, this is the
way people are, I know this because I are one. Sometimes we just
disobey because it's what somebody else told us to do. Have you
ever noticed that about kids? I used to be one of those too. My mom, Bless her heart, used
to try to use reverse psychology on me. And sometimes it worked. She said, don't go in that room,
because you wanted me in that room. Whatever you do, don't
do this. And guess what? Well, I was ornery. And of course, I could sucker
my brother into it all the time. But that's OK. He was a little
brother. That's what they're for. We are so evil. that we don't want to obey just
because we don't want to obey. What is it? They told him, Christ
read those words, he said, we will not have this man to reign
over us. That is a transgression. Interesting. We'll get in, I'll do it just
a little bit. This includes the works of men.
Because what did Paul tell us? Obey those that have the rule
over you. Guess what? If you don't and
if you rebel against that, that's a transgression. And that's a
transgression against God. And it's also, we'll get to it
now, it's also a sin. Disobedience, rebellion, and
revolt are transgressions against the Lord. Now it says, come to
the word sin. This one literally is an offense. Specifically, again, an offense
against God. And there are offenses against
men. Mason used to, tell me you used
to hear this every now and then. That's man's law, not God's law. Now usually it was used by people
who wanted to trespass on somebody's property to hunt. That's what
happens around here. But you understand what Christ
told us about offenses? They're gonna come. But here's
the thing, Christ boiled the whole law of God down to two
statements. One is love the Lord thy God
with all thy strength, all thy mind, all thy heart, everything. And the second is like unto it,
love your neighbor as yourself. You understand, if you trespass,
if you sin, if you commit an offense against your neighbor,
that's a sin against God. Understand, thou shalt not commit
adultery. Honor thy father and mother.
Those are things that we trespass, but guess what? Every trespass
there is is also a sin. Every offense there is is a sin. And it also can be a really good
religious work. I'm not gonna go too far into
it, but there are people, this is Easter Sunday, I'm gonna tell
you something. There are people that will pack
other churches. to where you can't get in. And they don't
darken the door for the rest of the year. Except for maybe
Christmas. They come Christmas and they
come Easter. And I'm gonna tell you this, if that's all you're
coming to church for, and if that's the only time you come
to church, that's a sin. Guess what? It's evil. It's evil. Why? Because you're
not coming to worship God as he is. And that's the long and
the short of it. God says, don't trespass against
your neighbor, period. Lying, stealing, murder, entering
posted property. You understand, there's no difference
to God between any of those. A sin is a sin. and sins are offenses against
God, and that's what it's talking about. It's talking about actually
what you do. Sometimes a transgression is
just an attitude, but it usually results in sins. Now the third
thing he's got listed here in verse two, this is one of my
favorite verses. Paul quotes this in Romans four.
Blessed is the man unto Unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. So iniquity, I looked this up, I looked all
of these up. Iniquity literally means what? Perverseness. Perversity. Being perverse. Or, here's the word, evil. That's what iniquity is. Iniquity
is evil. But you understand, what David
has come to here, this is not necessarily an act. This is a
state of being. What? David is saying, right
here, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not himself. himself, his own iniquity. We, one man fell, and many were
made what? Sinners. That's what this iniquity
is talking about. This is talking about being a
sinner. This is the source of transgressions
and sins. That's the third type. What is
this talking about? I'll use myself as an example.
I am perverse toward God, toward goodness, toward righteousness. I am perverse in myself, in myself,
in my own nature. I say, don't be shocked because
it's you too. You know? No man is exempt. Not one. Well, there was one. There was one. We'll get to him
in a little bit here. Iniquity is what we are naturally
in and of ourselves. Transgressions and sins are what
we do. I rebel against God and I commit
offenses against God because I am perverse. I am, I'm gonna
say it, I am evil. I am evil. Now I have been called
evil in my past. And I didn't like being called
that. Well you don't like it when it's true. You don't like
it when it's correct. Because what, it offends your
dignity. It may offend your pride. But guess what? That's what God's
here to do. Because if you don't understand
that you are a sinner and that you transgress the Lord and that
you offend the Lord, you don't know God. You got no claim on
it right now. Because this is what we are.
Jesus Christ said we had a heart. as desperately wicked. Who can see it? Who can see their
own heart? I can see a bit of it now. Never
used to care a thing about it. Thought I had a good one at one
time. Found out I didn't have anything at all but a black hole
there. Why, because out of the heart cometh what? First thing,
I still like evil thoughts. Evil thoughts, that's the first
thing. Because there's a lot of things
I think, but thank God I don't do them. I'd feel better if I
didn't think them. They're there, but that's the
first thing. And guess what comes from evil
thoughts and from that evil heart? Murders, fornications, adultery,
transgressions and sins. That's what comes from your heart.
Why? because of iniquity, evil. We murder our neighbors with
our tongue. Sometimes we try to commit murder
on our brothers, and we need to stop that. The tongue is an
unruly member, but bless God, mortify it if you can. You understand,
if you ain't got nothing good to say, shut up. I know I'm really not the best
person to give that as an example because I don't shut up a whole
lot. But there have been a lot of
times I wish I had. Understand for every time that I, Walter,
I wish I'd have said something. I wish I'd have said something.
There's probably about 10 times I wish I hadn't said something. Because you understand, with
this member, you can say the right things, but if you say
it in the wrong spirit, or in a spirit of anger, or God bless
it, save me from hatred. Intense dislike. Out of evil. Men as they are born are sinners. We are perverse. And dare I say
it. We are evil in and of ourselves. Now, God restrains us, thankfully. He restrains those around us
who don't believe. Thank God for it. But that does
not absolve anyone of the evil that's within them, including
us. So those are the three types
of sin, transgression, Sin and iniquity. But David also gave
us the three aspects, I guess is a good word as any, aspects,
and I want to use the word pardon. And there's a reason why I picked
that word pardon. Three types of forgiveness, three
types of whatever, I don't know, but I wanted to use the word
pardon because I do want to be very, very clear, which I should
have been here in the first three parts, I wanna be sure and emphasize
that I'm not saying. God makes your transgressions,
sins, and iniquity to never have existed. You understand? Pardon means this. You were guilty
and now you're set free. That's why I wanted to use that
word, because that's what this is. We are guilty of transgressions,
of sins, and of iniquity. And God has pardoned us. God has pardoned his people. Because your transgressions,
your sins and iniquity did exist because you and I are both guilty
of them. And also this, we still are. We still are. In ourselves. And we're the source
of our own sins. There's no sense in blaming your
sin on anybody else. Well they made me do that. They
got me so riled up I couldn't help it. Maybe you could, maybe
you couldn't. But you still did it. It's just a sin on both of your
parts now. I don't know. It doesn't matter because we
still have our fleshly nature and that wars. battles with the
Spirit. And you understand what Paul
was writing there in Romans 7? That battle is in you. You understand? You fight, I fight against God's
Holy Spirit in my own flesh. How perverse is that? How evil is that? That's what we are. Don't ever
forget that. We need to be pardoned because
we were guilty. And we are guilty, and here's
the thing. Only God can pardon. I can't
pardon you, you can't pardon me. Because if he must pardon,
or there is no pardon. Why? I don't have the authority,
and even more important, I don't have the power. But guess what? God does. God does. So the first word he says when
he talks about blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. Real quick. Lift up. That's what it means,
to lift up. Your transgressions are lifted
up, lifted away, carried away. I love this word. You know why? Because it reminds me of this.
Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. Behold, there were transgressions. Oh, there's transgressions. There's
rebellion, there's abject revolt against God. But blessed is the
man whose transgressions are lifted away. Carried away. They are as far as the Lord is
concerned, they're gone away. Because he took them away. He
has lifted them, he bore them in his own body on the tree. And he has taken them away. That's
one description of pardon. Secondly, we have the word covered.
Literally it means, Covered, I looked it up, that's what it
means. But here's the thing, I forget the word now. The feeling
of the word, to cover, is to cover in order to conceal. And actually, it's not a cover
to protect, it's a cover to conceal what's there. And what's covered? Blessed is he whose sin is covered. The offenses of the child of
God are covered and concealed. Now, not from each other. This is talking about God. You understand? God covered our
sins. Or they're not covered. God has
concealed our sins. Who from? Matter of fact, from
himself. You understand, I still know
I'm a sinner. But in Christ, this is a glorious
thing. If I could lay hold on it, I
don't know what would happen. And I wish I could and just stay
there. But when God looks at me and when he looks at any child
of God, he doesn't see our sins. They're there. We did them. We're doing them. but he doesn't
see them, they're concealed, they're covered. They are covered
by the precious blood of his son who shed his blood for us. Bore our sins on the tree and
covered them with his blood. God, this is an amazing thought
to me, God who sees all, knows all, does not see your sins or
your offenses. That's a description of pardon
right there. And this last one I do dearly
like, I did not quite understand this one, where it says in the
Hebrew, it talk about whom the Lord blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. You know what that word means
in the Hebrew? Where he imputes not your iniquity to you? It
means he doesn't think your iniquity. He doesn't regard you as having
iniquity. Now is that something or what? I'm standing here, a fleshly
man. I'm as corrupt as I've ever been.
This flesh has never got, the flesh is the flesh. It had never
changed. Now I have changed, but my flesh
never has. But you understand, the Lord
does not regard my iniquity. The Lord doesn't think about
my iniquity. My evil heart, from which all
transgressions and all sins spew. It's a good word. The Lord does
not think about my iniquity. I do wish I could really understand
this, but God's thoughts are not my thoughts. But here's the
point. The Lord God of hosts. the creator of heaven and earth,
he does not regard his people as sinners. Now isn't that a glorious thing?
Isn't that a wonderfully pardoning thing? God thinks of us, yes. God sees us, yes. But he sees
us as his children. He sees us only in the light
of his dear son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He will not think of
our iniquity even though we are perverse and evil and prove it
sometimes. And there's only one reason why.
It's because we are accepted in the beloved. That's the only
reason why. That's the only reason why. That's
the only difference between myself and the worst reprobate you ever
met in your life. That's the only difference between you and
the worst reprobate you met in your life. The only difference
is the Son of God. Or, there's no difference at
all. Who maketh thee to differ? If it ain't God, it don't matter.
It don't matter, because you ain't different. That's one description of pardon.
We gotta have all three. We gotta have all three. Micah wrote this in Micah 7 and
verse 18. Who is a God like unto thee that
pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever. Why? because he delighteth in
mercy. Who is a God like unto thee that
pardoneth, what? Iniquity. Same word. And passeth
by the transgression of the remnant. Then in verse 19 he says he will
turn again, he will have compassion upon us. I love this. He will
subdue our iniquities. and thou will cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea. Guess what? The sea's gonna cover
our sins. Thou will perform the truth to
Jacob. Not to Israel, to Jacob. Thou will perform thy truth to
the usurper. That's me, that's me. And The
mercy to Abraham. Guess what? That's me too. That's you too. If you're in
Christ, you're part of the seed of Abraham because Christ is
the seed of Abraham. Mercy to Abraham which thou hast
sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. Oh, he pardons iniquity. Now, real quickly, since it is
Easter, I'm running behind, sorry. Since it is Easter, I wanna tell you something. I
wanna tell you how it's possible for a holy, righteous God to
be the savior of sinners. How's it possible that he who
cannot even look upon sin forgive transgressions? How can the one
true God, who sees all, not see my sins. How can the holy, thrice
holy God, Lord of hosts, not regard or even think about our
iniquity? Because how can a God be just
and justify who? The ungodly. See, that's the
question. Well, I got a little bit of an
answer for you. It's not the whole thing, of course, And I had this in my head, because
I got an answer for you in nine words. Nine terrible words. Nine just and holy words, nine
righteous words, that I believe no believer will ever have to
say. Because our Lord Jesus Christ
said these nine words. And these nine words are this.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You will never have to say those
words. Why? Because he said them. He
said them on the cross. Now why go here? Why not go to
where he gave up the ghost and he died? Well listen, in the
book of Mark, This is the only saying from Christ on the cross
in the book of Mark. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? That's the only one. And I think
it's about the only one in Matthew. There are others in Luke and
John, there's seven of them all total. I'm not going into them
all, but I like this because I'm gonna tell you this, right
now, I don't know of many places, even on Easter Sunday, they're
gonna use these words. Because that's where, the actual
death of our Lord Jesus Christ starts on the cross. He said
some things before this, but this is when he said this. My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The unbeliever's death is to
be totally forsaken of God. And our Lord Jesus Christ died
the death of a sinner. He died the death I needed to
die. He died the death I deserve to
die. He died the death we all earned. You know, the wages of sin, that's
what we earned. And the wages of sin is death,
and this is where it starts at being totally forsaken by. Now,
God forsaking God, I can't explain it. But I believe it. And you understand, This is written down for us. How does one, Christ said it,
I and my father are one. How does God forsake God? I don't
know. But all I know is this, that
is substitution. He was forsaken, so I and every
one of his children, none of his children will ever be forsaken. And that is the beginning of
pardon. Pardon. And that's what it took. That's
the start of what it took to be pardoned by God. God manifest
in the flesh, being forsaken by the Father. He voluntarily came to this place. You understand, they'll talk
about, on Good Friday, or Holy Thursday, or whatever, they'll
talk about, oh, he was beaten, you know, and he was. He was
hammered. But I'm gonna tell you something,
and I believe this with all my heart, even though I don't have
any conception of it. This right here was the hardest
thing that ever happened to him. Because this one, he was God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God, and everything that was made was made by him.
His voice spoke the light into being. And he is the light. And men love darkness. So we
killed him. But this is the thing. Even while
he was on this earth, I and my father are one. This is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. This one who had always had a
fellowship with the father, which we could never understand, was
forsaken by that same father. in our place. Our just punishment, what we
deserve, was laid on Him. Without that, there is no pardon.
There is no forgiveness. There's no pardon. There's no
covering. There's nothing. without him
being forsaken. Hebrews 8 and 12 says, I will
be merciful, to what? To their unrighteousness. And
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Why? Because my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Yes, he died, and yes, it was
necessary And yes, he was resurrected on this day, supposedly, I don't
know. Doesn't matter, we try to celebrate
his resurrection every Sunday. But this I do know. By his stripes, we are healed. And by his being forsaken for
us, None of his people will ever be forsaken. They will be forgiven,
they will be covered, and he'll never think of them as having
iniquity. He'll never regard them as sinners
anymore, because when he looks at his people, he sees his son.
And his son paid everything that we owed. Our Heavenly Father, thankful
again for this time and this place. Oh, thank you, Lord, for
all you've done for us. Be with Walter as he comes to
preach. Give him the words we need to hear, the gospel to be
proclaimed, the good news of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
in whose name we pray.