Turn with me please to Isaiah
chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43. In this blessed portion of scripture,
the Lord God opens the chapter by calling for us who believe
him, who worship his name, to cease from all fear. He said,
fear not. And the basis of this command
is his distinguishing free grace for us. He says, there's no need
for you to fear for I have done for you what I have done for
no other people. I have been to you what I have
been for no other people. And I have made you for purposes
for which I've made no other people. Look what it says, fear
not. For I have redeemed thee, I have
called thee by thy name, thou art mine. He says in verse two,
when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When
thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom.
Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou was precious in my
sight, thou has been honorable and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee and people for thy life. Fear not
for I am with thee. What a word. And notice what
he says. God says, I have redeemed you. I've called you. You're mine. I'm with you. I am your God,
the Lord your God. He said, I sacrificed Egypt to
ransom you. And I sacrificed Ethiopia to
save you. And that's not all. I'll sacrifice
anybody who gets in my way to save you. Anybody. I will give
men for you and people for your life because you were precious
in my sight. and I have loved you. I've loved
you. Down in verse seven, he is declared
now how that he will say to the north, to the south, to the east
and to the west, bring my people from far. That's what he does
in providence. He sends out his word and in
his providence and grace, he gathers his elect from the four
corners of the earth. That's the whole purpose of history
and that's the whole story of history. He says in verse seven,
even everyone that is called by my name, For I have created
him for my glory. What a word. God Almighty says
to Bobby Estes, I've created you. Unlike all your neighbors,
family and friends, I've created you specifically for my glory
to show forth my praise as the object of my grace. Is I've created
you for my glory. And then he says in verse 10,
you're my witnesses. You're my witnesses, saith the
Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen, that you may know and
believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was
no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Even I am
the Lord and beside me there is no Savior. You're my witnesses
to this. I have declared and I have saved
and I have showed I've declared what I would do. I have saved
my people, and I've shown you that I saved you. And when there
was no strange God among you, therefore, you are my witnesses,
saith the Lord, that I am God. Verse 13, yea, before the day
was, I am he, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. God set his hand on you before
the world was. And he said, I will be your God
and you shall be my sons and daughters. And nobody can deliver
out of my hand. None can deliver out of my hand.
Not only is it impossible that any should prevent him from saving
you, it's impossible that any should prevent him from keeping
you. He says, I will work. Who's going to hinder me? I will
work. Who shall let it? Now read on
verse 14. Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel, for your sake have I sent to Babylon. All things are yours, the apostle
said. All things are done for your
sake. The Lord said, for your sake,
you whom I have loved and chosen, I have sent to Babylon. He says
in verse 15, I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel,
your King. Look at verse 19. Behold, I will
do a new thing. Now shall it shall spring forth.
Shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the
wilderness and rivers in the desert. God says, now I'm not
only going to have mercy and grace upon the chosen out of
the nation of Israel and upon the house of David, but I've
got a people who I shall call out of the deserts of this world,
out of the Gentile nations, and I will cause springs to rise
up in the desert. He says in verse 20, the beast
of the field shall honor me, the dragons, the owls, because
I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give
drink to my people. my chosen. Why did God create
the streams in the desert? Well, he loves the little deer.
No, no, no. He gives streams in the desert
to give drink to my people. The deer just get in on it. You
understand that? Everything he's done, he's done
for us. The whole of creation is for his people. Verse 21,
this people, this people, These whom I have called, whom I have
redeemed, whom I have chosen, whom I have said, I will be their
God, they shall be my people, this people upon whom I have
set my hand, this people for whom I made all things and for
whom I do all things, this people, look at it, this people have
I formed for myself. They shall show forth my praise. I formed you for me, and I'm
going to fix it so that you do show forth my praise. But lest
we get too heady, too high-minded concerning ourselves, he describes
us now in verse 22 and following. Look at this. He chose us, Rex. He redeemed us. He called us.
He said, I'm your God. He said, I'll keep you. I'll
protect you. I'm with you. But that's not because it's you
or anybody else. but thou hast not called upon
me. And never would if he hadn't
called us. Thou hast not called upon me,
O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me,
O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the
small cattle of thy burnt offering, Neither hast thou honored me
with thy sacrifices. I have not called thee to serve
with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast
brought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled
me with the fat of thy sacrifices, but thou hast made me to serve
with thy sins. Thou hast wearied me with thine
iniquities, but his purpose never changes. This is what he says. Look at
it. I, even I am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember
thy I have the blessed privilege this evening of endeavoring to
preach to you one more time about that which is my favorite of
all subjects. My favorite, I suppose, because
it is that which I most need. I want to talk to you, if God
will enable me, about the blessed forgiveness of sin. The Lord
our God, the one true and living God of heaven and earth. is God
who freely and abundantly forgives sin through the blood of his
dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is what God says in
our text here in verse 25. And I want you to just hold your
Bibles open there and keep looking back at this text of scriptures. I'll remind you of what it says.
In this text, the Lord God says, I, even I am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake. and will not remember
thy sins. Now let me try to answer some
questions that ought to be obvious as we look at this text. Who
are those people to whom the Lord God declares, I will blot
out your sins? Who are they? Who are these people
whose sins the Lord God declares, He blots out. Whose sins He declares
that He forgives. Now, in the text we read earlier,
the Lord has plainly and clearly described those people, and described
them as they are not as good, moral, upright, righteous men
and women, but rather as sinful, corrupt, vile, and loathsome
men and women. You see, so long as a person
thinks he's good, And I realize that I'm preaching tonight to
you who are looked upon by most as being more spiritual than
others and looked upon by me. I recognize that we, you know,
you folks come out here in the middle of the week. You come,
most of you here every Tuesday night and want to hear the word
of God and listen to me preach. But I dare not presume that because
you're sitting here tonight, you have automatically escaped
this terrible danger. until you come to understand
that you're not good, that there's no goodness in you. that you're
not righteous. There's nothing upright about
you. There is nothing about your nature, nothing about your character,
nothing about your being that in any way lifts you in the least
measure above any other human being in the eyes of God Almighty. As long as you presume you are
righteous, you'll never find mercy and forgiveness. God's
forgiveness is not for the righteous, but for the sinners. Here in
Romans chapter 10, I want you to hold your hands here and look
at Romans 10. Look at it one more time. I come to you tonight
in the name of Jesus Christ and preach the gospel of free grace,
forgiveness for sinners. I have no word at all for the
Pharisee who thinks himself to be righteous, except until you
see your supposed righteousnesses as filthy rags, you will never
seek the mercy and grace of God through the righteousness that's
in Christ. Look here in Romans 10 verse 1. Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel, for my brethren, is that
they might be saved. I wish we could somehow find
the harmony that Paul found here. The grace of God and the knowledge
of God's grace ought not make us indifferent toward the souls
of men. It ought not make us speak in such a manner and say,
well, if, if God's chosen them, they'll be saved and not to go
into hell, nothing I can do about it. See you later. Oh no. Oh
no. Paul, Paul speaks here concerning
those who endeavored to destroy him. Those who endeavored to
stone him to death. Those who finally at last turned
him over to the Jews and had him, or turned him over to the
Romans and had him executed. He says, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for these, my own natural brethren. is that they
might be saved. I bear them record. They have
a zeal of God. And he wasn't somehow saying
there's something good about them that distinguishes them
above others. He's saying this is just fact. They have a zeal
of God, but not according to knowledge. They don't understand.
They're as religious as they can be. They're as outwardly
upright as they can be, but they don't understand. They have no
knowledge of God, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness. They don't understand that God
is so thoroughly holy, righteous, just, and true that he cannot
and will not look upon iniquity. He demands the soul that sinneth
it shall die. He demands it must be perfect
to be accepted. They don't understand that. They
think God's some kind of just a better human being than they
are, a superior being to them, but certainly not holy and righteous. Therefore, they go about to establish
their own righteousness. They think they can, sure enough,
do good, so good that God will scratch them on the back and
pat them on the head and say, that's a pretty good job. And
God will look at them and smile and say, now that's okay. We
do, we do, every one of us, we look at someone and we just,
we see a person who is sincere and zealous and devoted and their
religion is less than questionable. Their religion is just, just
works religion and immediately we think to ourselves, it's just
our flesh, we think to ourselves, surely they're gonna be all right.
Because we, by nature, just like these Jews, we think that man
can, after all, approach God by his own worth. And those who
do not recognize the error and corruption of that thought will
never submit to Christ. That's what the Jews did. They
would not submit to the righteousness of Christ or the righteousness
of God. And then Paul says, for Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it.
Turn to Isaiah chapter one, back in the first chapter of Isaiah. I'll tell you what we would be
wise to do. We'd be wise to take the ground God gives us. Take the ground God gives us.
Now here's the ground He gives you. You can come to God on the
ground of your sinfulness. That's the only way you can come
to Him. Don't ever, don't ever, ever, ever presume to come to
God on the ground of anything good in you, thought, felt, or
done. but on the ground of your sinfulness. Every promise of
God in this book is promise to sinners in Christ the Lord. Look
here in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 4. This is how God describes
the nation of Israel, our sinful nation. A people laden with iniquity. A seed of evildoers. Bob Potts,
that's you and me. A seed of evildoers. Children
that are corruptors. Not only corrupt ourselves, but
corruptors of others. There's a sermon in that. We spend half as much time trying,
even trying, to bend people in the right direction as we do
in corrupting their thoughts. Corruptors and children that
are corruptors that have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked
the Holy One of Israel to anger. They are going away backward.
Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint, from the sole of
the feet, even to the crown of the head. There's no soundness
in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and they've
not been closed, neither bound up, neither mullified with ointment.
Well, wash your hands of them. Not God. Look at verse 18. Come
now. Come now. Mark, you and I, the soul of
our feet to the crown of our head, wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores. Rebels who will not be broken.
Sinners who will not repent. Provokers of the Holy One of
Israel who will not cease to provoke Him. And the Lord God
says, come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though
they be red like crimson. they shall be as war. Seek ye
the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous
man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he
will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. Now this is how God describes
those people in this text to whom he promises his mercy. He
says in verse 25, I, even I am he that blotteth out thy sins. Whose sins? Look back up in verse
22. Thou hast not called upon me. These folks to whom this promise
is made are people who didn't pray, a prayerless people. Most
likely, they were like us. They said a lot of prayers, but
never prayed. They probably learned to say
grace and say, now lay me down to sleep when they were just
little kids. Learned to memorize prayers and recite prayers. They
probably had prayer books from which they read, but they never
prayed. The Lord God never heard a cry
from their hearts to his heart in sincerity and truth. Their
lips never breathed the living word to the living God. I'm going
to tell you something. A prayerless heart is a Christless
heart. I'm not talking about rituals
and ceremonies and going through a calendar and making out your
prayer list. Please understand, I'm not saying
that you ought not make out a prayer list and ought not go by it.
That's not what I'm talking about. But that's all you got. It ain't
prayer. I'm not talking about setting
aside a time so I'm going to pray for five minutes or five
hours. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a heart
that cries out to God. I'm talking about a heart that
speaks to God, a heart that hears God speak and speaks to God,
where there is no prayer in the heart. I'm telling you, there
is no knowledge of the living God. That's what faith is, isn't
it? In its essence. In its essence,
prayer is just believing God and faith is just calling on
God. Prayer and faith is walking before
God, trusting Him, calling out to Him to direct your way and
guide your path. And yet the Lord God says of
these prayerless, graceless souls, I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions. These people were men and women
despised God in his worship. He says, Thou hast been weary
of me, O Israel. What a solemn charge. Weary, the assembly of my people. Weary, reading my word. Weary of calling on my name. Weary of the preaching of my
gospel. Not only are these rich favors
of heaven without attraction to men by nature, they are a
weariness to our souls by nature. Weariness, just tired of it. You see it a lot in the world,
and folks come, and you see it a lot in your household, your
sons and daughters. When they're little, you bring
them to the house of God, and after a little while, they've
got other things they want to do, and this is a weariness. This is a weariness. And you
see it in adults, and you even see it in folks who profess faith
in Christ. They come to the house of God
and they hear the gospel of God's grace and they get stirred up
and all excited for a little while and after a while it's
a weariness, a weariness. And yet, even to such people,
God says, I, even I am he that blotted out my transgressions.
Notice the character again. These people to whom God promises
mercy and forgiveness are a thankless people. Pastor, you're digging
a deep hole burying everybody. No, God dug the deep hole. I'm just telling you what he
says. Those folks who are candidates for mercy, those folks who are
the objects of mercy, those folks to whom God will be gracious,
are those men and women who are made to understand this is exactly
their character. They are a prayerless people,
a people who despise God and His worship, a people who are
altogether without gratitude, thankless people before Him. I can't think of anything more
aggravating, more rude, more uncivilized than ingratitude. I can't imagine moms and dads
letting kids grow up without learning to say thank you. You know, I didn't have much
reason in my soul. Somebody had given me something. If they'd
have just given me anything and I didn't say thank you, my mama's
ranch, she'd have knocked the fool out of me. I mean, she'd
have just knocked the fool out of me. I can't understand anybody
letting kids grow up without learning some manner somewhere
along the way. Except they reflect what's in
us. We are a thankless people. That's
our nature. These folks to whom this passage
is addressed had their herds and flocks multiplied many times
over. They had been slaves in Egypt
with nothing. God brought them out, brought
them into the land of promise and multiplied their gold and
silver and their flocks and their herds. But they paid no tribute
of thanks to God. They didn't recognize and acknowledge
that their bounty was his blessing. They didn't even offer one of
their sickly animals to him. I can't imagine, I can't imagine
what hardness, base, beastliness overwhelms our hearts that we
should receive any bounty from God's hand without thanksgiving.
Someone said even a little chicken When he takes a drink of water
and lifts his head to swallow as if he's giving God thanks.
Surely we to whom God has been so gracious ought to be a thankful
people. In the Old Testament, the tithe
was a tribute. a tribute required under law,
by which men took 10% of everything they possessed, and they brought
it to God, acknowledging, Lord, everything we have belongs to
you, came from you, and with this, we give you thanks. It was a tribute money paid.
It was that by which God demanded that men show thanks to Him.
And those who show no true thanks to God are worse than brute beasts. All that we have, we owe to his
bountiful care. God forgive me for my ingratitude. Mark and I were talking the other
night, we take everything for granted so much. I mean everything. The only thing we don't take
for granted is what God takes from us. That's the only thing,
the only thing. Every relationship, God gives you a good wife and
our tendency is to abuse her and neglect. Gives you a good
husband, your tendency is to abuse him by nagging and never
showing any gratitude. God gives you a peaceful, blessed
home. Your tendency is to just presume it's always going to
be there. Just presume everything's all right. Every daily mercy,
every daily mercy is God's bounty. Everyone. All redeeming mercy
is God's goodness. All providential mercy is God's
work. Will we dare rob God of his lawful
and just tribute? These folks did. They didn't
even lift their hearts and say, thank you. They were a totally
thankless people. And yet the Lord was gracious
still. He said, I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions. Again, these people were utterly
useless. Look at what it says. Neither
hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices, but thou
hast made me to serve with thy sins. You've not only not brought
any gift to me, you've not only not brought any praise to me,
you've not brought any tribute to me, but you've made me to
serve and wearied me with your sins. It is well said that when God
created man, he created him in his chief end to glorify God. He made the sun, the moon, the
stars, the beast of the field, and the fish of the sea to honor
His name. But He made man, only man, to
glorify His name. And yet there are multitudes
who give Him much less thought than they give to the most common,
mundane things of everyday life. Most people, Most people in this
world live for themselves. That's just fact. Live for themselves,
just for themselves. Some of you here are still single. Don't even think about marrying
a wife or a husband. Don't even think about it unless
you can give yourself to them. Don't even think about it unless
you can give yourself to the raising of children. I'm so sick
and tired of this self-centered, perverse generation where men
and women just walk off from family, walk off from husband,
wife, children, because they don't love you anymore. I'm sick
of it. Sick of it. And there ain't any
excuse for it. Don't even come talking to me
about an excuse. Not any. There's not any excuse for it. Men and
women live totally to themselves. That's all. Just to themselves. For their own pleasure. They
have no service to mankind and no service to God. And yet there
is hope for such useless sinners. I know because I live totally
to myself. For 16 years, totally to myself,
without regard to any human being or to God himself except fear,
nothing else. And yet the Lord God says to
such useless sinners, I, even I am he that blotteth out thy
transgressions. The point I'm making is this.
The grace and mercy of God is for sinners. For sinners, only
for sinners. If God has taught you Enough
to see yourself so that you can take your place before Him as
a sinner. Christ died for sinners. The Holy Spirit calls sinners.
Grace is for sinners. Forgiveness is for sinners. I
rejoice to tell you that our God is a God of mercy. Bob read
it in Psalm 103. I won't ask you to turn there
again, but listen to this. He says, as the heaven is high above
the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As
far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions
from us. Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For a father never gets over
pitying his children, does he? Never. When they're little, you
hurt for them because they're so helpless, they can't even
express themselves. And when they're older, you hurt
for them because they don't have enough sense to express themselves. You pity them. So the Lord God
pities us. He remembers our faith. He knows
we're just dust and that ain't much, just dust. Now these are the people to whom
God says he will be merciful. Well, what is mercy's deed? Look
at this. He says, I, even I am he that
blotteth out thy sins. When Moses said, Lord, I beseech
you, show me your glory. I can imagine a lot of things
God might have showed him. I would have had I been Moses. And I suspect maybe I know what
Moses expected. Had I been Moses, I believe I
would have expected to see some some bright, brilliant, dazzling,
shining lights. Brilliant, brilliant, white light
no man could see. He's that. I expect, I would
have expected to hear God speak in the earthquake and the storms
gather around, the clouds gather around that mountain where God
was. I would have expected some great display of divine power.
God said, all right, here's my glory. I will be merciful to
whom I will be merciful. I will forgive iniquity, transgression,
and sin. That's the glory of God. Our
text speaks of a divine forgiveness. The only one who can forgive
our sin, Bobby's God. He's the only one whose forgiveness
we really need. I want forgiveness from you and
I need forgiveness from you in a lot of ways, but even my transgressions
and sins against you are sins against God. And he's the only
one who can forgive my sin. And he is that one of whom the
psalmist says, he forgiveth all thine iniquities. Healeth all
thy diseases, redeemeth thy soul from destruction and crowneth
thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. And yet this
forgiveness is a surprising forgiveness. He says, I, even I. Surprising, but because we're
so different from God. If I'd done some horribly evil thing
to you, your wife and daughter, and I just behaved terribly,
terribly. And you could somehow find a
reason to forgive me. That's altogether different from
being forgiven me. Altogether different. Because you're not the one personally
offended, personally affronted, personally assaulted. Oh, but
we have personally affronted, personally offended, personally
assaulted God Almighty from our youth up. And he's the one who
says, I forgive. I forgive. Not a secondary, not
a go between, but I forgive. I forgive. And it's a present
forgiveness. I like the way he puts it. who
blotteth out, blotteth out. It was done from eternity in
his purpose. It was done at Calvary when Christ
died, but blessed be his name. It's continual, perpetual forgiveness. I am he that blotteth out thy
transgressions. People like to say, well, you
know, those sins are under the blood that were committed before
we were saved, but now we got to deal with these other ones.
Oh no, they're all under the blood. And he continually blots
them out. Continually blots them out. And this forgiveness is complete.
Complete. He uses an illustration like
a thick cloud. blot out your transgressions.
He uses the word here like an eraser on a board, just blots
out. are like an ink that just so
covers something that is blotted out, obliterated completely out
of you, like the blood covering the mercy seat, blotting out
your transgressions. What he says is, I am he that
now continually, perpetually, forever, completely has put away
your sin so that they're never seen by me. Never seen. We come up Every day. Every hour. Every minute. And fresh would
fill the ledges of heaven with transgression, iniquity, and
sin. So that fresh would be condemned. Fresh we would be damned every
minute. Except for one thing. Thy head
blood continually blots out. and it's permanent. God charged
our sins on his son before we were ever born. He took our sins
off us and laid them on his son before we ever came into the
world, before ever they were committed. And he will never
take our sins off his son and charge them to us again because
when he charged them to his son, his son put them away. I'll just pass over this hurriedly,
but it still has to be answered again. We deal with it all the
time here. Mark paid me the highest compliment
anybody could ever pay their pastor. Sitting over the house
the other night, he said, the years I've known you, you've
never deviated once from preaching the gospel. Oh, I like that. I thank God for grace to do that.
And we never want to. Never tire of telling you how
it is that God forgives sin. He declares, the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. And the only way on this earth
God can ever forgive our sins is for us to die under the penalty
of His law to the full satisfaction of divine justice. And there
ain't but one way that can be done. That's in a substitute.
Jesus Christ, the Lord, who bear our sin in his own body on the
tree and bear them away, satisfying the wrath and justice of God
for us. Well, why does he do it? Why
does he do it? Turn to Ezekiel 16. I could turn to a lot of text.
Let's turn to Ezekiel 16. Let me show you why it does it. Our text says, for mine own sake. I, even I am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake. Now look here in Ezekiel
16. You're familiar with the story.
Ezekiel's deserted infant. The Lord said, that's you, that's
me. He passed by. Behold, our time was the time
of love and he spread his skirt over us and he said to us, leave. He called us, robed us with his
own righteousness, decked us with his own beauty, put his
own ornaments of grace on us. And then he says in verse 62,
after he's described our ups and downs, our falls and our
rising again, he says, I will establish my covenant with thee. And thou shalt know that I am
the Lord, that thou mayest remember. and be confounded, and never
open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee. For all that thou hast done,
saith the Lord God. He says, I'll do this so that
you will know but I am the Lord. Nevertheless, he saved them for
his own namesake. Well, what does God promise to
those whom he forgives? Look at this one more time in
our text. I, even I am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake. and will not remember
thy sins. I hope we are learning to forgive. But this is an aspect of forgiveness
about which I presume no human being is capable. Forget it. Just can't forget. Just can't
forget. Wish I could. I put it out of
mind, but I just can't forget. Just can't forget. I told you many times when I
was growing up, I expect things were with me like they were with
most of you. Mother would get the belt out and she'd go to
work on my back side and front side and side side. She thought
I was mean all over, so she'd whip me all over. And it was
bad enough to get whipped for what I was doing. But I just
wished one time she'd whip me for what I did then. I mean,
she'd beat me and she'd start talking about what I did yesterday
and the day before and the year before and the year before that
and the year before that and go back for a long way back.
She had a tremendous memory, a tremendous memory. God says,
I will not remember your sin. Lindsay, that's just beyond me.
He will never remember our sins so as to treat us any the less
graciously because of our sins. He will never deal with me any differently, with any less
love, with any less grace, with any less compassion, with any
less mercy, with any less fullness of acceptance than with Josiah,
who served God from his youth up. or with David, the man after
God's own heart, or with Jesus Christ, his own dear son. He will never remember our sins
so as to bring them up and require payment for them while we live
on this earth. We need desperately to understand
this. When God deals with us over the issue of sin, it is
never to punish us. He punished our sins and our
substitute. It is rather to correct us like
any loving father does his sons and daughters. And he will not
remember our sins when we stand before him in the day of judgment. He looks at us. Neighbor may say, don't you remember
what Don Fortner did? Satan said, yeah, look at this,
this is what he did. And God's got his books open.
And he said, no, that's not in my book. I don't remember that. For he says, in those days, and
at that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, and there shall be none. Imagine that, Bob. When we stand
before him and he searches and looks, looks, Bob Ponsor. Wait a minute. No, there's no sin there. No
sin there. You understand that? The sins
of Jacob and there shall be none. God will not remember our sin. in the distribution of his heavenly
crowns and gifts. He says, I, even I am he that
blotteth out thy transgressions and will not remember thy sins. Well, how can I obtain this forgiveness? God gives us instruction. Look
at the next line. Put me in remembrance. In remembrance of what? My covenant,
my promise, my son, my grace, my character, my glory. When
you come before me, you put me in remembrance of what I have
swore to hear. Put me in remembrance Let us
plead together. How can God and man plead together? How can Bobby Estes and God Almighty
plead together? Now, that's astounding. We plead together the merit and
the blood and the righteousness of God's dear Son. God, I plead
Christ for mercy, and God pleads Christ for justice. Let us plead
together that thou mayest be just. It is written, if we confess
our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God give you grace then to confess
your sin. Plead with him his covenant,
his promise, his mercy. Plead with him his darling son.
Plead with him so that you may plead together with him. and
be justified before him, and you will go your way free from
condemnation, forgiven of all sin, forever, forever, forever. Amen. Let's stand together and
pray. Larry, you come up here and pray
for us, please.