17, verse 16 and 17 of Nehemiah
9. But they and our fathers dealt
proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments,
and refused to obey. Neither were mindful of thy wonders,
that thou didst among them, but hardened their necks. and in
their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage, but
listen to these next few words, but thou art a God ready to pardon,
gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness,
and forsookest them not. Now here in this text this morning,
We have a group of Levites that have a burden on their souls
and they're mindful of the history of the Israelites and they're
mindful of the mercies and goodness and grace of God toward the people
of God. And then they're praying here
and they're revealing the thoughts Of their heart now there are
three prayers in the Old Testament that I think would be very very
edifying to our hearts if we would read them and One of them
is found in Ezra chapter 9. We're not going to turn to these
Right now but Ezra chapter 9 and then this one in Nehemiah chapter
9 and then there's another one in Daniel chapter 9 Now this
phrase is our text here this morning, and that is this phrase
that we found here in verse 17, but thou art a God ready to pardon. Thou art a God that is ready
to pardon. I trust the Lord will use this
message to do several things in our hearts and in our lives
this morning. First and foremost, let me point
out about five things here quickly that I hope the Lord will do
this morning through the preaching of this message on But Thou Art
a God, that is ready to pardon. Now, first of all, I want that
the Lord would magnify His great and His glorious name. You remember
David said, Not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for
thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake. Now, if you have your Bible
there in your hand, turn back with me to Psalm chapter 34.
I want to show you here. a couple of verses that will
help us to understand what we're here for this morning and what
we're hoping that the Lord will do as we preach this message
to you today. In Psalm 34 in verses 1 through
3, listen, the psalmist says, I will bless the Lord at all
times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast
in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof
and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and
let us exalt his name together. Can we, would we, would we together
this morning magnify the name of the Lord and would we exalt
his name together in this congregation. And so the purpose of bringing
this message, first of all and foremost, is that we might magnify
and exalt the great name of our glorious God. Now secondly, I
want to encourage and invite every guilty sinner to seek mercy
and pardon where it may be found. I want to invite, incite every
guilty sinner to find mercy, to seek mercy and pardon where
it may be found. Where is mercy to be found? Well, only in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is no mercy to be found
outside the Savior. The Apostle Paul said, I counted
all things but loss that I might win Christ and be found in Him,
not having a righteousness of my own after the law, but that
which is of the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. So then we
see that we're to seek mercy where it is to be found. There's
no need to look for mercy in a dry well. There's no need to
pump a well that's dry. We must find mercy where it is
to be found, where God has ordained and appointed that a sinner can
find it. In Isaiah chapter 55 and verse
7, it says, let the wicked forsake his way and let the unrighteous
man forsake his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and
the Lord will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will
abundantly pardon. Seek mercy where it will be found. Thirdly, I hope this morning
in the preaching of this message to discourage and distract every
arrogant and proud self-righteous Pharisee from seeking salvation
by his own deeds and doing, which is deadly before God. I hope this morning if you're
here, and you're one of those who's still trying to make a
contribution to your own salvation, that this will be a day. I hope
that your train is derailed this morning. If you're one of those
self-righteous Pharisees who the Lord Jesus spoke of in Luke
18, who were justifying themselves before men, God knew their hearts. You remember that one Pharisee
who went up to the temple to pray and the Bible says that
he came down He came down, but there was a tax collector, there
was this sinner, this repentant sinner that smote on his breast
and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And he came down
to the house justified instead of the Pharisee. And if you're
here this morning, self-righteous Pharisee who's thanking God that
you're not like other men and that you've got a little something
that God ought to take account of and that he ought to have
mercy on you because of what you're doing or what you haven't
done. I hope we just, I hope we just knock your train right
off of the track this morning and you'll seek mercy in the
Lord Jesus Christ. If you're trusting in yourself,
I hope this morning that the Lord will touch your heart. Fourthly,
we want to accomplish this. We want to warn every indifferent
soul, every unbeliever, to flee from the wrath to come. Now,
beloved, it's very difficult. There are some folks that you
can talk to until you're blue in the face, and you cannot upset
them. They will never get stirred up
to flee from the wrath to come. I believe that judgment is coming
on sinners. I believe that God must punish
sin. I believe that there's coming
a day when God is going to judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained, whereby he hath given assurance
unto all men in that he raised him from the dead. I believe
there's coming a time when God is going to judge you And the
standard is not going to be your mama and what your mama thinks
about you. The standard is not going to
be what one of your friends think about you. But the standard is
going to be the white righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
God-man. and all judgment's been turned
over to Him, and He's going to judge you. And if I can this
morning, I'd like to upset you, and I'd like to shake you, and
I'd like for you to see that you're like a spider hanging
on just a thread of its web over the flames of hell, and shortly
that little thread is going to break, and you're going to plunge
everlastingly into the fire that never dies. into that death that
is endless. And I hope this morning to be
able to stir you up, that you will flee from the wrath to come. And then there's one other thing.
Fifthly, I want to comfort every believer with the assurance and
hope that there is mercy, that there is pardon, that there is
grace to be received and enjoyed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I would
encourage you that all of God's elect, all those that God has
put his favor upon, all those that God has ordained to have
everlastingly with Him in eternal glory, that there is mercy, there
is hope, there is pardon, there is grace to be received and enjoyed
by these souls. So God is ready to pardon. Well,
how do we know it? You say, Preacher, how do we
know that God is ready to pardon? Well, we know it, first of all,
by His Word. In Psalm 86 and verse 5, it says,
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and plenteous
mercy. Thou art a God that is good,
Thou art a God that is ready to forgive, and Thou art a God
that is plenteous in mercy. Now when we think also of the
Word of God, I remember in Isaiah 40 and verse 1 where it says,
Comfort ye, comfort my people, speak comfortably to Jerusalem,
because their warfare is past, and they've received double for
their sin. Meaning that God is well satisfied
on his people's behalf for their sin, therefore speak comfortably
to them. And I say to you this morning
that God, on the behalf of all those that are in His Son, has
been satisfied completely and entirely for their sin. And I have no, I have no hesitation
about speaking comfortably to you and encouraging you this
morning that the God of the Bible is ready to pardon, that He's
a gracious God, He's a merciful God, He's slow to anger and He's
of great kindness, and He will never forsake His own. God, it
pleased Him to make you His people, and He will not forsake. his
own, his people. Now his readiness to pardon is
seen in his dealings with Israel. It's seen in his dealings with
national Israel, and his dealing with national Israel is very
similar and typical of his dealings with spiritual Israel. And who
are the spiritual Israelites? It's all of those who were chosen
of God in old eternity and are given to Christ in the covenant
of grace. It's all of those who finally
get into Christ and the benefits of His death is applied to them,
to their soul before God, and they have a right standing before
God, having been accepted in the Beloved. But here in this
chapter, and I want you to look here with me in Nehemiah, there
are five times where God expressly, these Levites expressly reveals
to us the mercy and the goodness of God in pardoning and pardoning
these ancient Israelites' sin. We've read verse 16 and verse
17. That's the first instance. And
then look in verse 18 and verse 20. Yea, when they had made them
a molten calf. You're familiar with the history
of the Israelites as they came out of Egypt, as God delivered
them, as they were in their wilderness journey. And they made a molten
calf and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt,
and wrought great provocations. Yet thou in thy manifold mercies
forsookest them not in the wilderness, the pillar of the cloud departed
not from them by day to lead them in the way, neither the
pillar of fire by night to show them light and the way wherein
they should go. So we see that God did not forsake
his people even though they became idolaters after he himself had
revealed his mighty right arm in delivering them out of Egyptian
bondage. Then they became worshippers
of this molten calf. But God forsook them not because
of his manifold mercies. Well, I'm talking about a God
that is ready to pardon. I'm talking about a God that
is merciful and gracious, a God that will forgive sin. And then if you look in verse
26 and 27, you see it again. And nevertheless, they were disobedient. and rebelled against thee, and
cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets, which
testified against them, to turn them to thee, and they wrought
great provocations. Therefore thou deliveredst them
into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them, and in the time
of trouble, when they cried unto thee, O when God brought them
down, and they were in the hand of their enemies, God's rod was
upon their backs, And they cried unto God, and the Lord heard
them from heaven, and according to thy manifold mercies you gave
them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies."
So you see that God, the history of this thing, I mean, whenever
men who are enlightened by God's Spirit and who have the knowledge
of truth, when they examine the history of the Lord's people,
they see the mercy and they see the goodness and the grace of
God is what they see. Now in verse 28, but after they
had rest, They did evil again before thee, therefore lettest
thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion
over them. Yet when they returned and cried
unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven, and many times didst
thou deliver them. According to what? According
to their performance? No, according to thy mercies. All right, and then in verse
30, 31 and 32, look at this. Yet many years didst thou forbear
them. Oh, how true that is with us.
And testified against them by thy spirit and thy prophets,
yet would they not give ear. Therefore gavest thou them into
the hand of the people of the lands. Nevertheless, For thy
great mercy's sake, in verse 31, thou didst not utterly consume
them, nor forsake them, for thou art a what? A gracious and merciful
God. Now therefore, our God, the great,
the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and
mercy, let not all the troubles seem little before thee, that
thou hast come upon us, or our kings, our princes, nor our priests,
nor our prophets, And on our fathers and all thy people, since
the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day, howbeit thou art
just in all that is brought upon us, for thou hast done right,
but we have done wickedly. And so I say to you this morning,
I want you to see that in the history of the ancient Israelites,
we see clearly that the God of the Bible is not a God who is
of short patience, not a God who is ready to judge his people
and to destroy them, but a God who is ready to pardon, a God
who is ready to be gracious unto them. And our history, as we
said, really is no better than theirs. You deal with your own
history. You see, now you're one of God's
elect. You know it now. You didn't know it a few years
ago, maybe. I mean, God has laid His hands
upon you, and He's done something in you, and He's changed your
life. But as you look back, you know that in old time God set
His love upon you, and you've been healed from old eternity.
But how did you live? You didn't live like one of God's
children. You lived like a rebel against
God. And you rebelled against Him
and lived in the ways of the flesh and walked in the ways
of the flesh. And yet God, there came a day
when He showed you His mercy and His grace. Now, we are no
more deserving of mercy and pardon and grace than they were, amen? We're no more deserving of it.
We have no claim on God. We've all been sinners. The Bible
says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yet God, here we were in
sin, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and
we were in sin. But in Jesus Christ, God was
pleased to choose us, and through pure grace, God set His love
upon us, and affected us, and touched us, and gave us pardon,
cleansing through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. And this
is the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in my sight. I don't
know how you see it, but it's marvelous in my sight. that God
has had mercy on this sinner and extended his life and continued
to bear with all the infirmities that we have in the flesh and
all the weaknesses and frailties that every one of us possess.
God is a God ready to pardon, and every day His mercies are
new, every morning when you get up. And it's of the Lord's mercies
that we're not consumed. Is that right? It's of the Lord's
mercies that we're not consumed. Well, it's the Lord's doing. It's the Lord's doing. Well,
how can we be sure, somebody says, that God, this God that
forgave and pardoned and was gracious for His own name's sake
to the children of Israel, How can we be sure that he still
is a God that is ready to pardon his people? Well, let me give
you about five things, and I'll try to hurry, but I want you
to listen carefully to the things that I give you this morning.
How can we be sure if you're here this morning and you're
under the sound of my voice, you don't know where you stand
exactly. You'd like to be saved, you'd
like to be a child of God, you'd like to be one of those that
experience the Lord's mercy, but you just don't know whether
God will have anything to do with you or not. You listen carefully
to what we have to say. First of all, I know that God
is a God that is ready to pardon because of his eternal purpose,
which he purposed in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, God had
a purpose. And he purposed in the Lord Jesus
Christ to have a people that would be holy and without blame
before him and love, that would not have spot or blemish or any
such thing. He purposed that Christ would
have a bride, Holy Spirit would have a temple, that he himself
would have a family. He purposed it in old times. And we must never think that
Christ died to make God merciful. That is not true. Beloved, listen,
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is the result of God's eternal
love and grace and purpose. Christ was a lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. We've often told you that God
had a cross in his heart from before the foundation of the
world was ever laid, that there was a cross in the heart of God. And upon that cross there was
a lamb slain. and that lamb was slain in the
mind of God from before the foundation of the world. That shows us that
God means to be merciful and that He means to pardon. He means
to put away sin without the shedding of blood. There is no remission,
but there is remission through the shed blood of Jesus Christ,
our Redeemer, God so loved and so God has given. Before Adam ever fell and plunged
all the human race into spiritual death, Christ in the eternal
purpose of God stood as our surety, our representative, our mediator,
our advocate before God. Before Adam ever fell, Jesus
stood already as our representative. Before rebellion ever took place,
The remedy and redemption of God's elect was absolute and
certain. Did you get it? I tell you before
Adam ever fell in the garden. Remedy! Redemption! And salvation
was absolute and certain in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm talking
about the eternal purpose of God, who has saved us and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our own works, but according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Mercy was purchased before, or
purposed before mercy was ever imparted. Get it! Mercy was purposed
before mercy was ever imparted to a soul. Now that is to be
understood. Now God eternally loved His people.
The Bible says He loves His people everlastingly. He says that you
love Him because He first loved you. He loved you first. God
eternally loved His people. Before Adam fell, Christ stood
as guarantor. surety of the covenant of grace,
and in due time that covenant was ratified by the blood of
the great shepherd of the sheep. God then raised him from the
dead. He went into that dark tomb,
and he was in that dark tomb, and then God raised him up and
proclaimed salvation accomplished. Salvation accomplished. Turn
quickly with me to the book of Hebrews chapter 10. There are
two verses there that I wish to read to you at this time.
Hebrews chapter 10. Listen to these verses. It's
verse 11 and 12. And every priest, that's talking
about the priest in the Old Testament, not talking about a Catholic
priest. He's talking about the priest under the old economy
in the Old Testament, standeth daily ministering and offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin.
But this man, who is this man? The great shepherd of the sheep.
Who is this man? The Lord from heaven. That's
who he is. Who is this man? He's the God-man. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is that one who remained what he was, but became what I am. in order that I might be saved,
in order that I might be delivered from my sin. But this man, after
he offered one sacrifice for Sid, forever sat down, forever
sat down on the right hand of God. He sat down. After he offered
this one sacrifice, the Old Testament priests, they could never sit
down because their work was never finished. But the Lord Jesus
Christ, he sat down. And it was because the offering,
the one offering which he made, sanctified eternally all of those
for whom it was offered. The Lord Jesus Christ, by his
death, has made a provision. We'll talk about that in just
a minute. He had some what to offer, and
he offered himself. Now then, sit down, sinner. Sit down, sinner. The Lord Jesus
is said down. I say, sit down, sinner, and
leave it to Christ. He's salvation. He's the one
that delivers sinners from sin. I'll tell you he's a God ready
to pardon He's a God in his eternal purpose. He purpose to deliver
sinners from sin And oh might you be one of those that the
Lord Jesus would deliver sinner nothing do neither great nor
small Jesus did it did it all long long ago and And so trust
Him and believe on Him. So that's the first thing. I
know that God is a God that is ready to pardon and gracious.
I know that He is because of His eternal purpose which He
purposed in Christ. Secondly, how do we know that
God is ready to pardon? Well, because of the provision
which He has given. the provision which He has given.
Galatians 4 tells us that He was born under the law, that
in due time He came forth, He was born under the law. The Lord
Jesus Christ came into this world. God was incarnate in a human
body. And the Lord Jesus came in here
in order that He might deliver His people, that by the will
of God He might save His people. Now, I want to say in Luke 14,
I'd like for you to turn there with me. This is the verse of
scripture that I want you to see. Luke chapter 14. And this is a scripture that
I believe will help us to see somewhat of the provision which
God has made known, or God has revealed, and what God has actually
done in order that he might have mercy on you and pardon you. I begin here with verse 16, where
it says, Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper,
and bathed many. And sent his servant at suppertime
to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now
ready." Come, for all things are now ready. What is the main
truth here that we're taught? Well, what we read here and what
we learn here from this portion of the Word of God is that God
has made great provision for the salvation of men's souls.
This is the meaning of the words, a certain man made a great supper
and bade many. This is the gospel, beloved,
is what it is. The gospel contains a full supply
of everything that sinners need in order to be saved. We're all
naturally starving. We're all naturally empty. We're
all naturally helpless and ready to perish. Forgiveness of all
sin and peace with God, justification of the person and sanctification
of the heart, grace by the way and glory in the end are the
gracious provisions which God has prepared for the wants of
our souls. There is nothing that sin-laden
hearts can wish or weary consciences require which Jesus Christ has
not spread before men in rich abundance, which we find in rich
abundance in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, in one word, is the sum
and substance of the Great Supper. The provision is made. That's
the point. The provision is made. And I
want to remind you, this is no potluck dinner. This is no pitch-in
dinner that we're talking about here. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
I mean, the Great Supper has been made. It has been made. He don't invite you to bring
anything. Bring your covered dish. He don't invite you to
bring a thing. He says the provision has been
made. Now my friend, if you're here
this morning, I want you to understand this, that God says you buy milk
and wine without money and without price. You buy the benefits and
blessing of the gospel without money. You come in faith to the
Lord Jesus Christ. You believe on Him and all the
provisions of God. You sit down at this abundant
feast that God has set before His people and you partake. of
that glorious and wonderful feast. Jesus said, I'm the bread of
life. He declares, he that cometh unto me shall never hunger, and
he that believeth on me shall never thirst. He said, my flesh
is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. Jesus is the
feast. Come to Him, partake of Him,
believe on Him. Well, then it's because of the
provision which God has made. And I want to point out one other
thing. Would you turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 1? 1 Timothy
chapter 1. And I want you to look with me
here at something that is very, very interesting to me. And in verse 15, The Apostle
Paul has been speaking here about how that he obtained mercy. In verse 13, who was before a
blasphemer, this is 1 Timothy 1, verse 13, and a persecutor
and injurious, but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly
in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant
with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful
saying worthy of all acceptation, worthy for all to receive, that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Now I want you
to listen to the rest of this. Of whom I am chief. Now I do not know what you think
that the Apostle Paul meant for men and women and boys and girls
to understand about that statement that he has made here, whether
he was just trying to be just super religious by laying claim
to be the chief of sinners. Now I don't know what you believe
about this, but I want to tell you what I know to be the truth
about this verse of scripture. What this verse of scripture
is actually teaching and what it's saying is this, that here
is indeed the chief of sinners. Here is the worst sinner that
ever walked on the face of this earth. Here is a rebellious God
that Manasseh would have to hang his head and said, this fellow
is a greater sinner than myself. I can't get involved in all that's
involved in that this morning, but I want you to see something
here. But the point is this, Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. He came into the world to make
provision for and to save the worst sinner that ever lived
on the face of the earth. And it was his provision that
saved this black sinner out of hell and transformed him into
a believing apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ. God did it all
through Christ our Lord. Provision was made. Don't let
anybody say, oh, there's no provision for a sinner like me. I'll tell
you the chief of sinners, the Lord saved him. Christ saved
him without any contribution on his part. Christ did it all. Saved the chief of sinners. That's what he did. God made
provision in Christ, and the chief of sinners was saved. He became a child of grace, an
inheritor of eternal glory. He was going to be with the Lord
forever. He went out of this world. His head was cut off his
shoulders, and he went to be with the Lord, but it was all
by the grace of God. He said, I am what I am by the
grace of God. That's what I am. And it was
God's provision. So I'm telling you, I know that
God is a God ready to pardon because of the provision that
He's made for every sinner that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Every sinner given to Christ,
every sinner, Jesus said, all that the Father giveth me shall
come to me and they that come to me, all of those, there's
provision made for everyone who can get to Christ. Can you get
to it? Goliath says he is able to save
to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, seeing that
he ever liveth, to make intercession for them provision. It was sufficient. Would you agree with me? Will
all they let be in glory? I mean the blackest one of us. God's already saved him. He's
already there. Don't come telling me you think
you're too bad to be saved. Ain't an ounce of truth in it.
Not announce the truth. Well, thirdly, God's readiness
to forgive is revealed in the sending of his servants to preach
the gospel. Well, let me remind you of this.
Paul said, I came not, or God sent me not to baptize, but to
preach the gospel. That's what he said. And in the
sixth chapter of Corinthians, second Corinthians, or fifth
chapter of second Corinthians, Paul said that we've been reconciled
to God by the death of his son, and we've been given the ministry
of reconciliation to go out and to witness to men that God was
in Christ, reconciling the world of the elect unto himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them, and we beseech you, in
God's stead, be you reconciled to God. That's what we're about. God has sent his servants. The
Bible says that the world is like a great harvest field. It's
widened to harvest. Pray ye that the Lord will thrust
forth laborers into the field. Now that word thrust there is
the same word that's used when God was pleased to thrust out
demons out of people. Power of God. Take a man and
thrust him out. I know that God's still raising
up preachers. I know that God's still calling
men to preach the gospel. I know He's still giving them
a word. Now in the parable that we read about in Luke 14, you
remember there was a great supper made. And after the supper was
made, then God sent His servant out with this invitation, come
to the feast, come to the feast, come to the feast. And you know
the story there. And I tell you this, that God
in the sending of his servants, the Bible says that how are men
going to believe on him of whom they've not heard? How are they
going to hear without a preacher? And how are they going to preach
except they be sent? God will send his preachers,
and he is, and he has. And so therefore, my friend,
believe that God is ready to pardon because he's got his preachers
out here in the world. God's got his preachers, and
we need to be aware of that. Now, I want to say this in the
book of Acts. God sent Peter to Cornelius,
didn't he? Acts chapter 10. Did he not send Philip to preach
to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8? And did he not send
Paul to preach to Lydia? Did he not? And God opened her
heart all through the book of Acts. That's what's going on.
God's sending out men to preach the gospel, and because he means
he's a God ready to pardon, and he's a God ready to have mercy
on sinners. Therefore, he's sending preachers
out to preach the message. Don't stay back and say, ah,
I can't be saved. Oh, yes, you can. Yes, you can. God has mercy on his people. Well, Fourthly, let me get, I
have to hurry here, his readiness to forgive is revealed in this,
that he puts no impossible conditions on the sinner. No impossible
conditions on the sinner. You're here this morning, you
say, I'd like to be saved preacher, I don't want to go to hell. I
would like to know the Lord, preacher. God has put no impossible
conditions on you. I'd like for you, you remember
how Peter and I won't have you turn there in Acts 15 verse 10
and 11 where where he said Peter said that we're not going to
put a yoke on you which neither we nor our fathers were able
to bear. That was the yoke of the law.
He said, we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
that you'll be saved the same as we. In other words, the Gentiles
be saved by grace, just like the Jewish brethren were saved
by grace. And we're not going to put a
yoke on you that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear.
We're not going to do it. Now listen to me. The poet said,
run, run, the law demands, but gives me neither feet nor hand.
The gospel gives a sweeter song. It bids me fly and gives me wings. Isn't that something? Run, run,
the law demands, but neither gives me feet nor hands, but
a sweeter song the gospel gives, bids me fly and gives me wings.
Praise his name, the gospel of our Lord Jesus. No impossible
burdens on the sinner. With God all things are possible,
my friend. God does not say to the sinner,
I'll save you if you perform. In Jeremiah 15 verse 20 he says,
I will pardon them that I reserve. I'll pardon them that I will
pardon. I'll pardon them that I purpose
to pardon. I'll pardon them. Our salvation
is guaranteed, fixed upon the performance, not of us, but the
performance of the Lord Jesus Christ, our representative. And
I tell you here this morning, if any of you plan to get to
heaven any other way besides trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ,
you're going to be lost and lost forever. Christ only can save
the sinner. And he does. Praise his name. Psalm 57, verse 2 and 3. I can prove that God has performed
on our behalf. The psalmist said, I'll cry unto
God most high, unto God that performeth all things for me. He shall send from heaven, and
he has. and save me, the psalmist said. He's going to send from heaven,
and he sent Christ from heaven in order to save us. Salvation
is of the Lord. Somebody said, well, don't I
have to believe, preacher? Well, even faith Even faith,
the Bible says we believe according to the working of His mighty
power, which He, when He rose Christ from the dead, which He
revealed in the resurrection of Christ, God's mighty power. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
is exceeding, abundant, with what? Faith. Faith. I'm telling you, listen, the
religious world has got it all backwards. They say that a man
believes, but faith, beloved, is the gift of God. They say
that a man believes and then he's born again. I'll tell you
here this morning, you can't muster up faith. I'll tell you
that faith must be given. Faith is a gift of God. The gift
of faith to me is simply the fulfilling of God's ordination
to give me eternal life. Faith is the fruit of the new
birth and not the cause of the new birth. Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. The readiness of God
to pardon is seen in the gift of justifying faith, and there
are still people receiving it. Do you know that God raised Jesus
from the dead and set him at his right hand to give repentance
and faith unto men and women? He does. He gives it, and he's
still doing it. Praise his name, and unless he
gives it to you, you'll never have it. You'll never have it.
Now, as we said, the religious world has it all backwards. They
said, you believe, and then God will born you again. But you've got to be brought
to life, my friend. The spiritual life must be given
to you. And then when it's given, and
God is giving it, then, my friend, then You will believe God. You can't help but to. You will
believe on Him. You will trust Him. You'll rely
on Him. You'll just trust the Lord. Now
lastly, we must hurry. The readiness of God to pardon
is seen in this. He has pardoned others. Why not
me? Why not me? He's pardoned other
sinners. Why not me? Just why, why not
you this morning? Why don't, why can't you go out
of here trusting in the Lord Jesus? Your sin cast behind his
back as far as the east is from the west, never to be remembered
against you anymore. Why can't you go out here with
peace in your heart this morning, knowing that you're right with
God, knowing that you've been accepted of God and you have
a right standing before God? You say, Preacher, you don't
know me. You don't know me. I may not know a lot about you,
but yet I think I know you. You say, preacher, you know,
you say he pardoned others. Well, but I'm a little bit more
ungodly than you think I am. Well, the Bible says in Romans
5 and 6, for when we were yet without strength, Christ died
for the ungodly. That's who he died for. You say,
well, I'm an ungodly person. Well, then you're the one. I mean, he didn't come to save
the righteous. He didn't come to call the righteous.
He came to call sinners to repentance. Now then, Spurgeon said one time,
he said, if God just gave me a vocabulary that just had five
words in it, and that's all the words that I ever could speak. Just five words I would just
keep on repeating over and over and over again. These five words,
Christ died for the ungodly. That's what I'd do if that's
the only five words I had. The only vocabulary. I didn't
have any more words. Christ died for the ungodly. And I'll tell you what, when
you say I fit in that camp, you look up, friend. The Lord Jesus
died for you. When you can find yourself in
that camp, Christ will have mercy upon you. Christ will spare your
soul. Now I want you to turn back with
me to 1 Timothy 1 again, and I want us to look here at verse
16. We talked about verse 13 through
15 a while ago, but I want you to see. I'm saying that we know
that God is a God ready to pardon because He pardoned others. And
why not you? And this I want you to see. Howbeit,
in verse 16, Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners. Howbeit for
this cause I obtain mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might
get it out of the way forever. Get it out of the way. Show forth
all longsuffering. Take all of the longsuffering
that he has in grace. and bestow it upon me, the worst
sinner out of hell, bestow it upon me, this black sinner, for a pattern, for a pattern
so that everybody can see that there's nobody that God in Christ
cannot save. He can pardon you this morning.
That's exactly what that means. For a pattern to them which should
hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting. So then, I think
you can see exactly the point. And that is that there isn't anybody that's beyond
the scope of hope and salvation. God is a God ready to pardon. ready to be gracious, ready to
be merciful. God is long-suffering to usward,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Talking about His people, His people, not, oh listen to me,
God is long-suffering to usward, His people. Peter's talking about,
you know what I'm talking about, every rebel sinner, He's talking
about those whom God had chosen to give to His Son in Jesus Christ
in the love covenant before the foundation of the world. But
that all should come to repentance. God means to have His own. God
means to save His people. He's made these provisions. Now,
in Isaiah 27 and 12, last verses
that we're going to use, and it shall come to pass in that
day, let me read it to you, listen. It shall come to pass in that
day that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river
unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one,
O ye children of Israel. God's gonna gather you one by
one. And it shall come to pass in that day that the great trumpet
shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish. Which were ready to perish. Those
are the ones God saves. And the Lord in the land of Assyria,
and the outcast in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the
Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem. Those that are outcast, those
that are ready to perish, shall be gathered one by one. And when the Lord comes among
congregation like this, lays whole, of a soul. That's what
he's doing. He's calling out his people.
He has a people reserved for his name. He's calling them out,
one by one. The Lord's going to have every
one of his people. The Lord's going to deliver. The Lord's
going to save. I like to read a poem by Joseph Hart, and we're
finished. Why so offensive in men's eyes
does God's election seem Is it because they think they're wise
and they have chosen him? Why is Christ's righteousness
a point so little known? Is it because men think they
all possess a righteousness of their own? Effectual atonement,
why so angry are some to hear or speak? Do they think it takes
works they do to make his work complete? Not so. the needy, helpless soul. He
cries to God in prayer and looks to Christ, who works the whole,
and finds his salvation there. His language is, let me, my God,
whom by sovereign grace rely.