It is a joy, it's been a while,
and absence makes the heart grow fonder, don't it? I hope that's
true anyway. I want to read Psalms chapter
25, if you would turn there with me. As usual, it was a tremendous
blessing to be in the Sunday school class this morning to
hear Brother Lindsey teach such a good message. It's good to
see all of you. I appreciate the kind providence
of our God to let us together as we are. My text is found in verse 11,
but I want to read the Psalms for you. Psalms chapter 25. Unto
thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed. Let not
my enemies triumph over me. Yea, let none that wait on thee
be ashamed. Let them be ashamed, which transgress
without cause. Show me thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths. Lead me in
thy truth and teach me, for they are the God of my salvation.
On thee do I wait all the day. Remember, O Lord, thy tender
mercies and thy loving kindnesses. for they have been ever of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. According
to thy mercy, remember thou me for thy goodness sake, O Lord.
Good and upright is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners
in the way. The meek will he guide in judgment,
and the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the Lord
are mercy and truth, and to such as keep his covenant and his
testimony. For thy name's sake, O Lord,
pardon my iniquity, for it is great. What man is he that feareth
the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease,
and his seed shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord
is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.
Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet
out of the net. Turn thee unto me and have mercy
upon me, for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my
heart are enlarged. Oh, bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and
my pain and forgive all my sins. Consider mine enemies, for they
are many, and they that hate me with and they hate me with
cruel hatred, O keep my soul, and deliver me. Let me not be
ashamed, for I put my trust in thee. Let integrity and uprightness
preserve me, for I wait on thee. Redeem Israel, O God, out of
all his troubles. My text is verse 11 this morning
concerning forgiveness of sins, pardon of iniquity, for thy name's
sake Oh Lord, pardon my iniquity for it is great. And all of us
should be interested in this this morning. I'm interested
in it and I trust you are too. The pardon of iniquity, the forgiveness
of sin. And everybody should be interested
in this subject because all of us are in need of it. All of
us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If you're
here this morning and you don't need pardon of sins, it's because
you're already pardoned. And if you don't need it this
morning, you'll need it tomorrow. Because there's not a just man
upon this earth that doeth good and sinneth not. David was probably
one of the greatest kings that Israel had, and yet he was concerned
about this very thing. Lord, pardon my iniquity. I remember several years ago
reading a story about a young young mountain climber. He was
climbing one of the higher peaks in our nation. And they found
him. He died. He was caught in a blizzard
and they found him with a little note scribbled there by his dead
body. And this is all it said. My greatest
fear. Will God forgive my sins? And
that's the way he died. My greatest fear. Will God forgive
my sins? I wish that fellow was here this
morning. and still alive to hear this. There's four things that
I want you to consider with me this morning concerning this,
just four little simple things. First of all, that iniquity is
a great evil. Sin is a great evil. David said,
pardon my iniquity, for it is great. And the second thing I
want to consider with you is this, there is pardon for iniquity. Pardon my iniquity. And thirdly, I want us to consider
this, on what grounds can God pardon a person's sin? For thy
name's sake, for thy name's sake. And lastly, I want us to see
this, that what should our attitude be in hearing a message like
this? When we read this verse, what
should our intent be? As David was, pray to that end,
oh Lord, pardon by iniquity. If there's forgiveness of sins,
you and I should seek after it. So the first thing I want us
to look at then in this passage is this. That iniquity is a great
evil. Sin is a great evil. And I want
to give you some proofs of that if I can for just a few minutes.
That sin is a great evil. Iniquity is a great evil. And
all you and I would have to do, and I think if anybody would
be honest, If you and I would want to know what a great evil
sin is, just look at the world. Look at the world that you and
I live in, and I think this could be said about any generation.
If you and I want to consider how evil sin is, then look how
it reigns in society. Why is our society in the condition
that it's in today? And you can come back with this
one answer. It's because of sin. James says, Why is there so much
war and fighting in this world? And it goes on all the time.
There's either war somewhere or rumor of war. And James says
it's for this reason, because of the sin that wars in our members. That's it. It's because of sin. From whence comes wars and fightings
among you? Comes they not hence of your
own lusts that wars in your members? And you know, I don't know how
many wars have been in my lifetime that affected humanity, and the
world has got together with their committees and their leagues
and tried to stop it, but they can't stop it. We'll see all
the devastation, all the bloodshed that goes on in the midst of
a war, and they say never again, but it's not long until here
it comes again. We can't stop it. I read not
long ago. They talked about after World
War I that we don't want to have this to happen again. So they
got the League of Nations. They came up with the League
of Nations. And it wasn't long until World War II came. And
they said, never again. That was the motto that ended
that war. Never again. Six million Jews,
they said, were killed in that war. Never again. So what did
they do? They came up with the United
Nations. Never again will it happen. But what happened? The
Korean conflict. then the Vietnam conflict, then
the Gulf War, and now we have NATO. But have they stopped it?
No, and they never will. And you know why? Because of
evil. Sin is in this world. That's
what caused such devastation, is sin. That's the society's
problem, is sin. And you can't stop it. There's
only one remedy for it. And you won't find it in society,
and all the leagues and all the committees cannot put away sin
from a person's heart. Paul told us, Paul and James,
especially told us about this, and John told us about everything
that was going on in society. John said there was only three
things in this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life. If you take us and put us in
a cave and not let us know what's going on in this world and feed
us with bread and water for a whole year, and you come to us and
say, do you know what's going on in the world? We'll say, yes,
we do. It's sinning. It's sinning. Sin is reigning
in society. Paul said this course, this world
has a course that it follows. And all it is is fulfilling the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
If you're here this morning and you think things are going to
get any better in this world, you're just going to be shocked.
It should not surprise us when we hear of all these conflicts
and all the rumors of these conflicts. Why is that? Sin, sin. But come closer home. I have
some, we have some of the ladies there in churches got little
children. And I've noticed this as, as seemingly things are getting
worse, that they won't hardly let them out of their sight anymore.
They go to the malls and, and they hold their hands. And if,
if a two year old gets out of his mother's sight, Oh, they
almost have a nervous breakdown. And you ladies, do you go out
in the parks even here and walk at night? They don't do it where
I'm from. And just before I go to bed,
at least once and maybe twice, I check all my doors to make
sure they're locked. What's going on in our society?
It's sin. It's sin. And it's reigning and
ruling in our society. And I tell you the only thing
that keeps society going is the grace of God. It's the providence
of God. We shouldn't be surprised at
all the evil in our society, but we should be thankful that
our God upholds society. That's the only thing. We may
change politicians next time. We may go back to the other side,
but I tell you, these things don't get any better. They're
not going to get any better. Why is that? Sin is a great evil. But let's get just a little bit
closer home. When we look inside ourselves,
what do you see inside yourself? There's something inside of every
child of God that makes them abhor themselves. It often embarrasses
them. It leads them to apologize. It often causes their cheek to
be filled with tears. And what is that? It's sin. It's
sin. When I look inside myself, the
trouble that I'm having is with myself. I left the pulpit not
many days ago, many weeks ago. I may well forget this. It happens
to me a lot. It's nothing unusual. And I was
glad I was by myself that morning as I was driving home because
I could not keep the tears back. I left the pulpit and I asked
the Lord, I said, would you please give me grace just one time that
I can do something for your glory? and get myself out of the way.
Have you ever done anything without seeing sin mixed with it? Paul
said, when I would do good, evil is present with me. And that's
what we're talking about this morning. David said, pardon my
iniquity, for it's great. It's such a great evil. I can't
get rid of it. And it breaks my heart. It burdens
me. It gets me so heavy sometimes
I can hardly breathe. Is that your experience? That's
every child of God's experience, more or less. David had problems
with it. I think this is what he was talking
about here in verse 17 and verse 18. He said, the troubles of
my heart are enlarged. And he said in verse 18, look
upon my affliction and my pain, and look what he associates that
with, and forgive all my sins. What causes us so much pain?
in our hearts, in our conscience. Troubles without in our family,
troubles within our own heart by sin. It's this awful sin,
this burden of sin. It's an evil thing. Lord, pardon
my iniquity for it is great. So there's the first thing that
shows us that evil, iniquity is a great evil. Look around
us, look in the world. Any period that you go back in
history, look at it. Look in our neighborhoods and
look inside your own self. Sin is a great evil. But secondly,
I thought of this when I thought of what a great evil sin was,
and God has made a hell to punish it. This is the most horrible doctrine,
I think, in all the scriptures. And I've often thought, I wish
that I had somebody that knew the scriptures and could come
to me and say, Bruce, you've been preaching this? ever since
I've been listening to you, about this hell. And I want to set
you down and show you from the scriptures that you've just misunderstood
the whole concept of what the Bible says about hell. There
really is no hell. And I tell you, I'd be one of
the happiest fellows you've ever seen if he could show me in the
Bible that that was indeed true. That somehow or another when
a man died, he was just annihilated. You either went to heaven or
you just, that was it for you. Your existence ceased. And I
say, I'd sit down, I'd be a happy man. Because when I think of
men and women living in this world for 30 or 40 or 80 or 100
years and dying and are tormented for all eternity, that breaks
my heart. That breaks my heart. But when
we look into this book, hell is a reality. It's a truth that
God has created a hell to punish the wicked. What else does those
scriptures mean? When he talks about a bottomless
pit and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, being punished
from the presence of the Lord with everlasting destruction,
a lake of fire where the worm does not die and there's no rest. What does those scriptures mean?
It means there's a hell. I tell you, there's something
in God that hates sin so desperately. And He sees such evil in it that
He's going to punish sin. And He's going to punish those
who commit it and live unpardoned because of it. Hell. But I tell you what you and I
see in the evil of sin more than anything else is this. When we
consider the cross, of Calvary. If a man wants to see how evil
sin is, then go outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem almost
2,000 years ago, and go up there to that place they call the place
of the skull, and see the Son of God hanging there in His blood. And hear Him groaning, see the
place become dark, and you wonder what is going on here. And you
know what it is, and I know what it is. It's God punishing sin. It's God meting out sin just
what it deserves in the person of His blessed Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. I was talking to my brother.
My sister's really sick, and I went to visit him down in Georgia
a few weeks ago. And as we sometimes do, to our
own shame, we start talking about our childhood days and our teenage
years. He was talking about some of
the things that he had did and I did. And I told him, I said,
you know, I used to think that was fun. And I said, you know, you know,
you know, James, what makes me think now that that was foolish
and dangerous. When I look at my teenage years
and the sins of my youth in the light of the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ. When I saw finally what it took
to put away sin, sin wasn't a joke anymore. Fools make a mock at
sin. And when the Lord Jesus, you
go there to the garden of Gethsemane, and He was just anticipating
sin being laid upon Him. And it got to Him. Here's God
incarnate. And look at Him on His face in
the garden. And he's weeping, and he's fearing,
and he's trembling, and he's begging. If you be willing, let
this cup pass from me. Oh, how he hated sin. How he
hated knowing that it was going to hide his father's face from
him. Sin must be a great evil if God
spared not his own son. If it took the blood of God incarnate
to put sin away, to atone for sin. Oh, what a great evil it
must be. What a great evil it must be.
Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. If you and I want
to estimate sin, go to the cross. Go to the cross. Learn of Christ. Learn of Calvary. There we'll
see it. There we'll see it. And we'll
see it, not only the guilt of it, but the corruption of it.
Before the Lord saves His people, they feel the guilt of it. But
after He saves them, they feel the corruption of it, the corruption
of sin. And my second point is this,
and thank God for this, there is pardon for iniquity. Lord, pardon my iniquity. Oh, when you realize what a great
evil it is, aren't you thankful that there's forgiveness for
sin? I tell you, when you start searching the Scriptures, And
I'm so thankful that God put these scriptures in here, of
some of those old ancients of old, Lindsay, that fell into
sin and had sin, and yet they were pardoned. Look what David
did. That man committed murder, murdered
a friend, a faithful friend, and took his wife, committed
adultery, then tried to lie and deceive his way out of it. That
was awful, and yet he was pardoned. King Manasseh took his children,
his precious little children, and burned them in the fire.
Made them walk through the fire. What kind of a man would do that?
That's repulsive to us. And yet he was forgiven. Look
at Solomon. Loved many strange women. And
I think one of the saddest indictments against any saint of old is against
Solomon in his old age. He forsook the Lord. and loved
many strange women, and yet he was forgiven." Look at Lot. Look at Lot. One of the most
repulsive sins you and I can think of. The sin of incest with
both his daughters. Can the sin of incest be forgiven? Would the Lord pardon that? Yes,
He did. And you come over to the New
Testament, and you look at Peter. who cursed and swore, I do not
know the Lord Jesus Christ. And did it three times. And yet
he was pardoned. Saul of Tarsus persecuted the
Lord's people and killed them. And when those dear women came
up to court, he was there to bear witness against them. To
put them in prison or kill them, those precious saints of God.
And yet he was pardoned. Pardoned. Lord, pardoned. My
iniquity for it is great. You know what a Christian man
and woman is? That's not one that has never sinned. If I had
to come to you this morning, I would tell you that I've got
a great message if you've never sinned. I've got a great message
if you're not guilty. I might as well stay at the house.
There's nobody in your life that this morning. All of us have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. But this is the
good news. There is pardon for him whom
we've sinned against. Lord, pardon my iniquity. Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are covered. God sent His Son into this world. And here's the message. Here's
what He told us. when he came, he said, I've come
out from my father and here's what he told me to be careful
to tell you, that all manner of sin and blasphemy would be
forgiven the sons of man. And I tell you, he practiced
that too. He practiced that. That's what made those Pharisees
so mad. That sinful woman came to him, got down at his feet
and was washing his feet with her tears, drying his feet with
the hairs of her head. And he looked at that woman.
And he said, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. All of them, every one of them.
Did you hear what Jesus said to me? They're all taken away. All the multitude that he said
that to in this world. You know heaven's going to be
populated with humanity. There's going to be more people
there that you can number. And everybody that goes there
were sinners in this world. They committed sins against God
and all of them were forgiven. And now they're there in heaven
talking about how white their robes are. There's forgiveness
of sins. Aren't you thankful for that?
The Lord pardoned my iniquity for it is great. And thirdly is this. On what
grounds, on what grounds can God forgive sins? There's got
to be a grounds. There's got to be a cause. God
is holy and God is just. And He's good and He's mercy. But He can't forgive sins until
they're first punished. All through my teenage years,
I was so miserable. I knew God could forgive sins,
and I believed He would forgive them, but half of the life of
me couldn't figure out how. I first thought, well, I just
ain't being good enough. If I would just, I'd quit lying,
and I'd quit stealing, and I'd start doing things better than
I'm doing, then I could earn God's favor. Then when I went
to Him and said, forgive me, oh God, then He had forgiven
me. I had no idea on what grounds God could forgive sin. And I
bet you didn't either until he made it real to your heart. Because
there's something within our natures, our poor fallen natures,
we think that we've got to bring something, a price, in our hand
of some kind before God can put away our sins from our conscience,
our guilt. You know how God forgives sins?
David said here, for thy name's sake. You might as well go ahead
and read in there for Christ's sake. When you see that, oh God,
oh Lord, for Christ's sake, forgive all my sins. Pardon all my iniquities. If I come here this evening and
told you, and this is what this society is being told in our
day. If I come here and I told you that God was so good, and
God was love, and God was merciful. All of that is true. But if I
went ahead to tell you that He'd just count your sins as trifling
things, or sweep them under the rug, or He'd just automatically
forgive you. You just ask God to forgive you,
and He would automatically forgive you, because that's the kind
of God He is. If your conscience was really afflicted with guilt,
and you knew anything about the justice and holiness of God,
you know what you would ask me? Bruce, what about the justice
of God? How can God do that? If some criminal here in Danville
committed some awful crime against society here in this city, and
he went up to face the judge uptown, and the judge said, I
know that you've committed this crime, and it's an awful, detestable
crime, but I'm a very merciful person, and I'm going to just
let you go. Well, they'd run him off the
bench with it. They'd vote him out and run him out of the county.
Here's the way God can forgive sins. He takes the sin. He puts it on his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then he smites him for it.
He bruises him. He wounds his son for iniquity. He punishes him there upon the
cross. and then he turns to you and
he turns to me and he says believe on my son and I'll pardon all
your iniquity. Trust my son and I'll forgive
all your sins. We know this is so because those
apostles went out everywhere and here's what they preached.
They said through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness
of sin and by him all that believe are justified. I'm concerned
about the justice of God, aren't you? And here's the way God can
be just and forgive a man's sins. Put him on his son. Punish his
son to death. Put the sin away. And then turn
to you and turn to me and say, now, my name's in him. My redeeming
name's in him. I've named him. His name is Jesus. That means he's a savior from
sin. Don't you wish that young man
dying up in those mountains, don't you wish he'd heard that?
I bet he wish he'd heard that. And my fourth point is this. What should our reaction be?
What should my reaction be in yours and everybody's? Oh Lord, pardon my iniquity. Seek the Lord. to that end. Seek Him for that end. You know
one of the things that's so disappointing about our time? Not many people
talking about seeking the Lord. It's just easy beliefism anymore. David talked about seeking the
Lord. Lord unto you do I lift up my soul. I pray unto Him. I call on Him. Why? Pardon my
iniquity. public and went up to the temple
to pray. And boy, he must have saw something of the evil of
sin against God. And he stood there smiting himself
on the chest, like he's trying to beat it out of him or something.
Oh, God, he said. Oh, God, I've sinned against
you. And can't nobody else forgive
my sins but you. My sins are against you. Be perpetuous. Forgive, pardon my iniquity. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
What do you think this Pharisee thinks about you? Everybody knows
what kind of person you are. You defraud people. You've been
cheating people out of their taxes. Aren't you ashamed of
yourself? Don't you know people are going
to make fun of you and mock you? He didn't care, did he? He didn't
care. The one that he had sinned against
was the only one that was able to forgive him. So there he stands. Right out in public, oh God,
oh God, forgive me. Wash my sins away, forgive me. I tell you, I'm not ashamed of
the Lord Jesus Christ or you. And if it takes standing up in
public somewhere, if I can't find me a closet to get in, I
don't care what my peers think. What does it matter what students
think? We got all this peer pressure. What does it matter? Everybody's
just like us. Everybody's in need of forgiveness.
Their breath's in their nostrils just like mine is. I gotta face
God and they gotta face God. I can't face Him in my sins and
you can't either. Why does it matter what man thinks?
I gotta be forgiven. Oh God, forgive my sins. What
would it mean for you this morning to leave this building knowing
that all your sins have been pardoned. Wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't that be amazing? You
leave here rejoicing before the Lord because He'll never hold
your sins against you again. They're washed away. They're
purged away. They're forgiven as though you
never committed them. They're cast behind God's back
in the depths of the sea. When you come down to die, you
won't be confronted When you stand before Him there at the
judgment, He'll never mention them. They're forgiven. They're
purged. They're pardoned. What would that mean this morning?
Oh, that'd mean everything, wouldn't it? That'd mean everything. Well,
isn't it worth seeking Him for that? When I first went to the Lord,
He didn't hear me the first time I saw Him. I knew He meant it.
He deals with us so differently. I had some things standing in
my way and one of them was self-righteousness, legality. I'll do this if you'll
do that. I just kept on seeking Him. I
had to. I had to. And finally, He made me to know
it. He made me to know it. I've forgiven you. I've received
you. That's worth seeking the Lord
for Him. Until He speaks to your conscience. And you know in your
heart of hearts that the one whom you've sinned against has
now forgiven you for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, his
Son. Just as I am without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come
to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am in waiting
not, to rid my soul of one dark blot, to thee whose blood can
cleanse each spot. I'm still praying that. Somebody
said that's for a lost man. That's for everybody that's concerned
about forgiveness of sin. Just as I am poor, wretched,
and blind, I come for sight, for riches, for healing of the
mind. Yea, all I need in thee to find. O Lamb of God, I come, I come. God bless you.