A Special Word for Sinners

Here in our text tonight, Isaiah
55, the Prophet says in verse 1, Ho! Ho! He's saying there, will you wait
a moment? Will you wait and listen to me?
Ho! Will you wait and listen if you're
not in too big a hurry to meet God in the judgment? If you're
not in too big a hurry to continue on your way to eternity unprepared,
If you're not in too big a hurry, will you wait and listen to me?
That's what he's trying to get their attention. The prophet
of God stands by the wayside and the multitude of the sons
of Adam passed by in their rags and he said, ho, would you like
to be clothed in something beautiful? They passed by in their chains
of sin and he said, ho, wait a minute, would you like to have
your fetters broken? They pass by in their gaudy religious
garments and in their ignorance, holding their idols comfortably
to their breasts, and he says, Ho! Wait a minute! Would you
not like to know the living God? Would you like to know the living
God? They pass by in their hunger and their thirst, and he says,
Ho! Wait and listen! Will you listen to me? He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear. It's hard to get somebody to
listen. Our Lord said that. I've come in my Father's name,
and you hear me not, you receive me not. Let another come in his
own name, and him you will receive." Men listen to the wrong voices. Men will listen to those whom
God did not send, but they won't listen to the one whom God did
send. Ezekiel had that problem. Turn
over here just a moment, about two or three books over here
to the book of Ezekiel. Listen, God says to him in chapter
3, verse 4, He says, Son of man, He said to me, Son of man, Ezekiel
3, 4, Go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my
words to them. Now that's how God feeds the
soul through the ear. Now the body is fed through the
mouth, but the soul is fed through the ear. Faith cometh by hearing. And he says, you go speak to
them, verse 5, now I'm not sending you to a people of a strange
speech, of another foreign tongue, of a foreign tongue or hard language,
I'm sending you to the house of Israel. People who claim to
be God's people, Christian Americans. Not too many people of a strange
speech and of a hard language whose words you can't understand,
if I'd sent you to them, they'd listen to you. But he says, I'm
sending you to the house of Israel and they won't listen. They will
not hearken unto me, for they are an impudent and hard-hearted
people." They're not going to listen. It's hard to get somebody
to listen. You can get them to do, but not
to listen. It's a whole lot easier to get
a man to start tithing than it is to get him to listen to the
gospel. Do you know that? It's a whole lot easier to get
a fellow to do something for God, to witness, It's a whole
lot easier to get him to do something, to give up this or give up that,
than to listen. He won't sit down and shut up,
close his mouth, open his ears, and listen. And that's what he's
saying here. Ho! Will you wait and will you
listen? Everyone that thirsteth, that's
who I'm talking to. Now that's not in a natural sense,
that's in a spiritual sense. Do you thirst? Blessed, blessed
are they that hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst. Do you thirst? I do. I think I'm one of these.
I thirst for the forgiveness of sin. I thirst for the blessings
of justification before God. I thirst for fellowship with
the living God. I thirst for knowledge of Christ. It is an unquenchable thirst,
as far as this natural world is concerned. It's never fully
satisfied. I thirst. I thirst, don't you? He says, wait and listen, everyone
that has this thirst, this hunger and thirst, he says, will you
come to the waters? Will you come to where your need
will be met? If you're thirsty, where should you go? Well, you
should go to the waters, to Christ, to the gospel. to the table of
the Lord. He says, He that hath no money,
come ye by and eat, come by wine, to make the heart really glad,
and milk that pure and sweet substance that gives life and
strength. You want those things, gladness
and strength, happiness and life? Then come. Come to the waters. This statement, He that hath
no money, We're talking about the treasure of heaven here,
you can't afford it. We were down, Dr. Moore and some
of us were down in Mexico, oh it's been several times ago,
this occurred to me while I was looking at this passage here,
he that hath no money. We were down there having a dental
clinic way out in one of the Pueblos and Had a lot of the
Mayan Indian people around us there, and Andy was working,
and I think Walter was working on one. This dear old stoot lady,
one of the natives, sat down in Andy's chair, and he gave
her the Novocaine, and then after a while he took out two or three
teats, and she was just a little old wrinkle, dried up, bent over
lady, and he let her out of the chair, and I was standing over
here by the table, And she walked over to me, and she had a handkerchief
or that thing they wear around the neck, something cloth, I
remember, in her hand, and she undid it like this. And she reached
in there, and she got three pesos out. And she handed them to me. She was going to pay for that
dental work. And I said, no, no, you know, and I put them
back in there and closed them up. But when she walked away,
I stood there thinking. I thought about this. I looked
over at Andrew and thought about the thousands of dollars it cost
to educate him in dentistry. Then I thought of the hundreds
of dollars worth of equipment around there. And then I looked
over there and saw that $7,000 truck you folks bought for Walter.
And then I thought of the money it cost to fly us down there.
And I thought of the thousands of dollars each year it cost
to keep Walter on the field. And then I thought of Andrew's
closed office back here with six employees, and I thought,
This little lady was going to pay for that with 15 cents. That's about what it amounts
to, 15 cents. Would you try to pay God? You
talk about the infinite cost of redemption. What God, God
in healing your soul, God in giving you God in giving you
righteousness, the infinite. We talk about the thousands of
dollars that go into that dental clinic, and that little lady
is going to pay for it with 15 cents. And yet, do we not insult
God by seeking to offer these trivial, fleshly, material works
of our dirty hands to pay for the infinite blood of his Son?
It's the same thing. Would you insult God? Would you
pull out 15 cents? to pay for something that you
couldn't pay for if you got the whole Yucatan together and took
all they had. He says, listen, wait and listen,
everybody that's thirsty, come to the waters, but now don't
bring any money. You don't have anything to bring.
Don't bring your dirty pesos. Don't bring your little trifling
works of the flesh. Don't bring these things. Don't
insult God. You come empty-handed to the
waters, to the gospel, to Christ. You come just like you are. This
is free. Verse 2, he says, Why do you
spend money for that which is not bread? Why do you spend? What is your money? That's your
time and your strength and your labor and your effort in reading
and listening and studying that which is nothing but chaff. There's
no bread to it. Why do you spend money for that
which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfies
not, that which does not satisfy your soul or meet the need of
your heart? All this religion, you listen to it and you watch
it, and you read it. Not this Bible, but all the material
that comes across my desk, I read it. I spend my time reading it,
I spend my effort reading it, I spend my labor listening to
it and watching it, and there's no peace? You go to church on
Sunday, and I hear people say they go to church and sit there
and get up and leave, and there's no peace, and there's no satisfaction? Well, he asked here, why do you
keep doing it? Why do you keep doing it? Why
do you keep going back to the dry bones and gnawing on them?
I never could understand that. It's just, it's beyond me. I
hear people complaining about, I go to this church, or that
church, or the other church, and my soul's not fed, and my heart's
not blessed, and I'm not edified, and I'm not comforted, and I'm
not helped, and it's so lifeless and dry, and not spiritual, and
God's not there, it's just a playhouse, a social club. Why do you keep
going back? Why do you keep going back gnawing
on those dead, dry, bleached, parched bones? Oh, you thirsty? Come to where there's water.
I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd do what the prophet says
here. I'd look for a water hole. Yes, sure, if I was thirsty.
If I was hungry, I'd quit gnawing on those bones. And I'd go to
where the table is spread, at least where somebody talks about
my Lord and where they read his words. Listen to me, he said,
he said, listen to me, hearken diligently, verse 2, why, why
do you, why do you spend what you have? All you have is your
thoughts and your mind and you have a little time on Sunday,
you work six days a week, you work hard, Sunday morning you
get up, you got a little time, you got what you have, why do
you, why do you spend it for that which is not great? Why
do you invest it in that which satisfies not? Why do you do
it? He says, if you listen to me,
verse 2, the last line, you hearken to me. Will you listen to me,
sir? He says, and why don't you eat that which is good? Listen
to me and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight in
fatness. Quit gnawing on these dry, dead
bones and go to where the water is, where the refreshing, soul-refreshing,
renewing water is. And eat the fatness of the Lord.
Incline your ear. Incline your ear now, let me
tell you this and let me say this again and let me say it
with all my heart The body is fed through the mouth And some
of you dear ladies here are so diligent in in putting the right
thing on the table for your children and caring for their Nutrition
the nutritional needs you have the right thing and you should
they should drink milk and orange juice and eat the proper things
the greens the the orange and the meat and all these things,
but our soul's important too. And the way my soul is fed is
not from a table like this, and it's not at a ball game that's
sponsored by the church, and it's not even at a social function
or a dinner or a potluck supper or where good fellows meet. It's
where I can hear this Word. That's where my soul's fed. Faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Now, if you
want to go on receiving the tap of this religious world which
will poison your soul, you go ahead. But the prophet here says,
incline your ear and listen to me, and your soul shall be fed. And your soul can hear that precious
word of God that can give you life. Eat that which is good. Delight thy soul in fatness,
and here's the thing, verse 3 there, why wouldn't a man be interested
in this? Listen, three things he says,
incline your ear, come in here, here, and three things, and your
soul will live. It's the word of God that gives
life to the soul. Now we better memorize this.
Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, he
hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the word of God, which
liveth and abideth forever. We are born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. This is the source of life, God's
word. Your soul will live, but you've
got to hear his word. And secondly, he said, I'll make
an everlasting covenant with you. I will receive you, yes. I will forgive you, yes. I will
make a covenant with you, yes. But more than that, I will bind
myself to you and never forsake you. An everlasting covenant. David found joy in that. He said,
the Lord hath made with me an everlasting covenant. Ordered
in all things, and sure, and this is my salvation, and this
is my joy, and this is my delight. He has sealed with me an everlasting
covenant." That's good news. Look at the third thing. Even
the sure mercies of David. I'm not talking to the man in
the moon. I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you. I'm talking
to Mr. Ordinary Person. I'm talking
to to Mr. Ordinary, citizen of Ashland,
that God says, you listen to me, you come. Don't you bring
anything now. Don't you bring anything. You
hungry, you thirsty. You want mercy, you want forgiveness,
you want sanctification, you want acceptance, you hungry,
you thirsty for knowledge of the Living God, a real relationship
with the Living God. You've been playing You threw
dragging your idols and your chains and fetters, you threw
walking in your rags, you threw having an empty soul, an empty
heart, you tired of all that, you come, you listen to me, you
hearken to me, you say. And your soul will live. Your
soul will live. And more than that, I'll make
a covenant with you, I'll never forsake you, I'll never leave
you, I'll bind myself to you. And I'll give you the sure mercies
of David. Not maybe, not perhaps. There's
sure mercies. There's certain that God's on
his throne. There's certain that Christ died on the cross. There's
certain that this book is his word. I'll give you, personally,
the sure mercies of David. But you're going to have to listen
to me, Sam. You're going to have to listen to me.
Verse 4, and the way God can do this is he has a Messiah. He said, I've given him, Christ,
for a witness to the people. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to
declare the gospel. He said, if it were not so, I
would have told you. Christ is the Messiah. God has appointed
him. Christ is the Redeemer. God has ordained him. Christ
Jesus is the Justifier. God has accepted him. And God
has given him a sure witness. He said, I speak that which I
do know. I speak that which I do know. verse 6, seek the Lord while
he may be found, call on him while he is near. Let the wicked
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him
return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our
God, for he will abundantly pardon." Yes, he will. Abundantly pardon. On the basis of his son's sacrifice. On the basis of what I read a
moment ago, Isaiah 53, verse 4-6. On the basis of the fact that
Christ was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the
chastisement of our peace was upon him, by his stripes we are
healed, he was numbered with the transgressors, he bore the
sin of many, he makes intercession for the transgressors, on that
basis God said I will abundantly, thoroughly, completely, absolutely
pardon. Actually, the Amplified version,
that last line of verse 7, the Amplified version says it this
way, He will multiply to you, He will multiply to you His abundant
pardon. You know, men, at first, this
is a terrible thing to say, but you think about it before you
reserve your comment and your judgment and think about this
a little while. You know the average preacher, I read a sermon
by a nationally famous preacher yesterday, he puts out a paper,
and I got the paper in the mail, and I sat down and read it. And
I read it carefully and thoroughly, and I threw it over to Doris,
and I said, this man does not know, not only the gospel, but
he doesn't know what sin is. This man is 70 years old, and
he's been preaching 50 years, and he doesn't know what sin
is. The average person, at first, has a dim view. I know everybody
talks about sin. I know everybody thinks they
know what sin is. And to a degree, they do know
something about sin. But I'm talking about what sin
really is. Men have a dim view and a dim
idea about sin. Oh, sin is a mistake. And it
is. But it's more. Sin is a failure. You're right about that, but
it's more. Well, sin is doing something wrong. Yeah, it's that,
but it's a whole lot more. Sin is an act, sin is a deed,
sin is a wrongdoing, sin is this, that, and the other, but it's
a whole lot more. And when men have these dim views
of sin, and when sin is restricted to a deed or to an act or to
an open transgression, or a mistake or a fault, men usually talk
flippantly about it and carelessly about it. They look upon pardon
as really an easy thing. This dim view of sin leads men
to a dim view of God's grace. This dim view of sin, you restrict
sin to gambling or drunkenness or violation of a church rule,
and you restrict sin to these outward deeds and outward failures
and outward mistakes, you don't have a dim view of God's grace
and what it took to put away sin. If sin is a trifle, grace
is a trifle. But when the Holy Spirit of God
begins to deal with the heart of a sinner, like he did Saul
of Tarsus about sin, when he shows us what sin really is,
that sin is an attitude. Sin is a nature. Sin is a power. Sin is a force. Sin is opposition
to God. Sin is treason. Sin is satanic. Sin is evil, sin is of the world,
sin is the flesh. And when the Holy Spirit really
reveals to us what sin is, it grows to be such a burden, it
grows to be such an inward evil, it grows to be such an offense
and transgression against God that when a man begins to get
some conception of what sin is, he has two He has two responses. Number one, he feels himself
to be the greatest one on earth. And secondly, he doubts seriously
that even God would pardon him. I really believe. I believe that
we think our sin, when we get our eyes off the outward and
start putting our eyes on the inward and see what sin really
is, Then we feel that we're, that's the reason Paul said,
I'm the chief of sinners. He couldn't see another's heart.
He couldn't see another's motive. He couldn't see another's imagination.
Oh, he could see the outward, he could see the drunk staggering
down the street. Anybody could see that. He could
see the thief slip quietly at night and steal something that
didn't belong to him. He could see that. He could hear
the man open his mouth and use God's name. He could see that.
He could see the idolater come to the temple and put his money
in the box and rub the toe of the statue. He could see that.
But sin, these were the fruits of sin. These were the products
of sin. These were the outward results
of sin. Where sin really started was in the heart. And Paul couldn't
see that man's heart, but he could see his. He did not live
with that man's imagination, but he did live with his. He
could not see that man's attitude, but he could see his. And that's
when he cried, I am less than the least of all the saints.
That's when he cried, Christ came into the world to save sinners
of whom I am the chief. And oh, when we see that we are
wicked and evil and sinful and enemies of God and ungodly, ungodly,
then this statement here that we come down Oh, will you wait
and listen? I've got good news. Will you
incline your ear? I'm here to tell you, you that are thirsty,
chained with sin, struggling on the road of life, I'm here
to tell you, God will abundantly pardon. God will abundantly pardon. His glory is His mercy. His glory
is His grace. His glory is His pardon. He will
abundantly pardon. Why does pardon seem impossible
to us? I think there's several reasons.
I'll give you four or five and then I'll close. There's several
reasons. Number one, to some people pardon
seems impossible because of some special, grievous, secret sin. We think on our lives. Now you
think about your own life. You don't really need to do this
right now because you do it most of the time. I do and you do.
And we don't look upon our very existence as being sin. We don't
look upon our very flesh as being sin. We don't look upon our very
nature as being sin. We pick out certain times and
certain acts, and we focus our attention on that act, on that
grievous, special, particular time when we did this or that,
and we say, That lets me out. But now turn to 1 Corinthians
6, verse 11. Will you turn over there just
a moment? 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11. Let me say, I'm happy to
announce to you tonight that that certainly does not let you
out. That particular sin of which
you're guilty, look at 1 Corinthians 6. Let's read verse 9 through
verse 11. First Corinthians 6, and listen
to this line up here. Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither
fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves
with mankind, thieves, covetous drunkards, revilers, extortioners
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you,
such were some of you, but you are wise. You are sanctified. You are justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. Isn't that
good news? Forget it. Put it in the past. Cast it behind
your back. Remember it no more. That's what
God said. Don't go back anymore and pick up that spot or that
time or that place or that act and say, now that's too great
for God to forgive. He is able to save to the uttermost
them that come to God by him. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanses us from every sin but that one, all sin. He said, I will abundantly pardon.
I'll multiply unto you my abundant pardon. That's the good news. Will you wait, he said, and listen
to him? And then some of us think it's impossible because of the
number of our sins and the long continuance in sin. You say,
I've failed so many times. Yes, and you'll fail some more. But I've failed for so long.
You know what the Scripture says? God is longsuffering to us and
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
every one of his people, he's long-suffering to them, merciful. The Apostle Paul was a blasphemer,
injurious for almost 40 years, 40 years of rebellion, 40 years
of treason, and yet God in his mercy put away all his transgressions. I've heard people misuse this
scripture. Turn to Hebrews 10. The Psalms
pardon this is impossible because they talk about, but my sin was
willful, I did it willingly. Let me ask you a question. Isn't most sin willful? Can you ever hide behind ignorance? Willfulness is the evil of sin.
That's what makes sin, sin is the will. I doubt that we commit
very many sins in which the will is not involved. You say, but doesn't it say in
Hebrews 10, 26, if we sin willfully, after that we've received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for
sin. Now, take that as the average preacher does, and you'll destroy
all redemption in Christ Jesus, all security in the blood, all
assurance of salvation. Because everybody in this building
will sin willfully tomorrow. Don't tell me your sins are not
willful. I know that 99% of our sins are
willful. 99% of them. I'm not going to hide
behind ignorance. That would make me dishonest.
And I'm not going to deal dishonestly with God. Well, what does that
mean? If you take the 10th chapter
of Hebrews, And read the whole thing. You'll see verse 9 is
the key. The Apostle Paul says, Then said
he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first,
that he may establish the second. He's talking about the Old Testament
priesthood, sacrifices, and ceremonies. That's what Hebrews 10 is talking
about. He's talking about all this priesthood, this tabernacle,
this day of atonement, these washings, these sacrifices, all
types of Christ, all pictures of Christ. When Christ came,
they were all fulfilled. They were all completely fulfilled.
They were all put away. He takes away that first covenant,
that Levitical covenant, that Levitical priesthood. He takes
it away and establishes His grace, His covenant of grace, His mercy,
His atonement, His sacrifice, His sin offering. Now, if you
revert back to that, if you move Christ out of the way, and revert
back to those sacrifices, back to those ceremonies, back to
that priesthood, you're sinning willfully. And there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sin, because if Christ's blood can't save
you, it's the sins that can. If Christ's atonement does not
put away your sin, if Christ's sacrifice cannot make you whole,
those sacrifices certainly cannot, because Hebrews 10.4 says it's
not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away
sin. And that's what he's talking
about in Hebrews 10, verse 26. Scripture is interpreted by Scripture. And you cannot take this verse
any more than you can take Acts 2.38 and prove, it sounds like,
repent and be baptized for the remission of sin. But that does
not fit the rest of God's Word. And this one here, if we sin
willfully after we come to a knowledge of the truth, well, you'll sin
willfully many times, but this you won't do. You won't turn
from Christ to the beggarly elements. You won't turn from the blood
of Christ to the blood of a ram. You won't turn from the priesthood
of Christ to the priesthood of Avon, will you? If you do, there
remaineth no more sacrifice. You don't have a prayer. You
don't have a hope. You don't have a refuge. You don't have
a sacrifice at all, because this has been done away with. And
when you put Christ aside, you have no hope. That's what he's
talking about there. I thank God that he has mercy
for willful sinners. Now you turn to 1 John 1, and
it says here in verse 8, 1 John 1, verse 8, if we say we have
no sin, and the Apostle John is writing to believers, if we
say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. But if we confess whose sins? And if they're ours, they're
willful. He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If
we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his words
not in us. So don't talk about the impossibility
of God's pardon because of some special act you committed back
yonder. Don't talk about the impossibility
of God's pardon because of of the long continuance in sin.
Don't talk about the impossibility of God's pardon because of the
willfulness of sin, and don't talk about the impossibility
of God's pardon because you feel that your sins have dishonored
God. You know, I can't think of two
more dishonoring acts committed by man than the one committed
by Peter and the one committed by Paul. When Peter sat by that
fire And those people said, you are a disciple. And he said,
I am not. They said, well, you were with
this Jesus of Nazareth. He said, I don't even know him. And one of them said, well, your
speech betrays you. You talk like them. And he began
to curse and to swear. And he said, I don't know him.
I don't know him. And then the apostle Paul who
throughout his religious life did all within his power to utterly
destroy the name of Jesus Christ. Why, he got permission from the
chief priests and from the leaders of Israel that if he found anybody
anywhere, he had papers to prove, if he could find anybody anywhere
who was a Christian who believed on Jesus Christ, who believed
that Christ was the Messiah, he could right on the spot put
them in prison. He had that authority, he carried
that around with him. And one day this man Stephen
preached the gospel of Christ, one of the most beautiful sermons,
and Paul, with all these other Pharisees, stirred up the wrath
of the people, and they were going to stone him. And Paul
walked over to a fellow, and he said, Let me hold your coat
while you stone the life out of him. That's too undignified
for me. That's beneath my station. I
can't take part in that because I'm a Pharisee and I don't want
to get blood splashed on me. But I'll hold your coat while
you stone the life out of that fella that believes on Jesus
Christ." Can you think of any sin more blasphemous than that? And yet my Lord gave Paul a clear pardon. He
will abundantly pardon. I don't know why we won't take
this good news. Why? Why we won't take this good
news? Why we live in our state of doubt
and fear when God says, ho, you thirsty? Come to the water. Don't bring anything. Come without
money or price. Buy wine. Make your heart glad. Pure and sweet milk. Give refreshing
strength to your soul. Now you forsake your way and
you come my way. And you forsake your thoughts
and you bow to my thoughts. Because I will multiply to you
my abundant pardon." Come on. Come on. All you that labor in
the heavenly... You know what I think we try
to make God like ourselves? We're slow to forgive. God's
not. He forgives readily. We're so
slow to forgive. We've got to think it over. And
in and out we find some things, this goes back to that where
we pick out certain sins, we find some things a little harder
to forgive than others, don't we? And we think God's that way.
That's the reason we pick out these special points or events
in our lives that seem to us to be greater transgressions
than others, and we think because some things are hard for us to
forgive, harder than others, then it's harder for God. You're
wrong. That's your thoughts, you see.
We're all messed up. We don't know anything about
God, not much. And our thoughts, he said, my ways aren't your
ways, and my thoughts aren't your thoughts. And because you
find some things harder to forgive than others, it doesn't mean
I do, God said. Though your sins be as scarlet,
I'll make them white as snow. Though they be red like crimson.
Here's another problem we have. A lot of times we reach an end
of our forgiveness. We're forgiven just so long,
and then we cut her off. That's enough! Now that's enough. And that's the reason we have
problems with this continuance. A fella can do something and
we forgive him once, and he'll do it again and we forgive him
again, and he'll do it a third time. But now, come on, fella, that's
too much. And I've reached the end of my
path. Have you ever said that? I've said it. This is the end
of the line. Ain't no more forgiveness. But
not God. Not God. He said, I'll never
leave you. I'll never forsake you. cast
your burden on him, he cares for you. He never reached you.
You cannot exhaust the pardon, pardoning mercy of God Almighty. There ain't no way. No way. And here's another problem we
have. The reason we keep bringing up the past is we forgive, but
we don't forget. Isn't that right? We can remember
ever, ever sharp word ever said, ever fight we ever had, ever
conflict we ever had. I remember what you said back
December 31st, 1921. I remember it just plain as day. That's our whole problem. God
says I'll remember them no more. I don't know whether you understand
this or not, but this is what the Bible says. God Almighty,
the blood of Christ is so effectual, And it's so sufficient that the
Bible tells me, God said, I'll remember your sins no more. Now
somehow, I don't know how that is, but I just know that my sins
don't even exist where God the Father is concerned. I can't
explain that, but I know it's so, and I'm happy about it. God's
not going to bring it up. God's not going to bring it up
again. He's not going to bring it up. We bring it up, don't
we? If we especially, I found this, this is the dirtiest thing
I can think of. This is what folks do, those
folks up there in Washington, they'll be in a conspiracy together,
and they're old buddies, but something happens 3 or 4 years
later, and if they get mad at a fellow, they'll use what happened,
this back here is ammunition to get him in. They harbor that
thing, they keep it on file. And they always go back and pick
up something that happened 5 or 10 years ago and use it for ammunition. God doesn't do that. He forgets
it. He forgets. And then here's another
thing that we don't understand about the Lord. We don't plot
and plan to forgive. We have to be coerced into forgiveness. But God actually sat down in
eternity past, Cecil, and figured out how he could forgive us.
He actually sat down and figured out in his eternal wisdom, in
his infinite wisdom, how he could be just and justify that old
man. We don't do that. But God actually
sat down and in his eternal counsel he devised a covenant and made
a way whereby he could pardon my sin. And I'll tell you something
else that will shock you. We may forgive a fellow or a
lady or a person If it's free, but if it cost us something to
forgive them, would we forgive? If it cost us, if we really had
to pay a severe price to forgive, it really cost us something to
pardon and forgive that, but would we do it? It cost God the
blood of his Son to forgive my sins. He not only planned it,
he not only purposed it, he not only pleased But he, in his grace
and mercy, actually smote his son so I could be forgiven. Oh, I wish I could learn how
to love, how to forgive, how to be merciful. But our fleshly
conception of forgiveness and mercy limits our praise and our
assurance and our comfort. We think God is like ourselves,
and he's not. He said, you've got to forsake
your way. My way's not your way, and my
thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my abundant mercies, and my ways and my thoughts
so much higher than yours. Turn loose of this old earth
that binds you and holds you, and come on up here and look
around at the freeness of mercy, and the freeness of pardon, and
the freeness of grace, because Christ paid the debt. Put it
away. What a price! What a price! The little lady gets out of the
chair and hands three dirty pesos. And that's where we've got God
down here. Come on up there where it's free. Rejoice. Listen to this. Happy, happy
the man to whom his God no more imputes his sin, but washed in
the Redeemer's blood, hath made his garment clean. While I, my
inward guilt suppressed, and that's what we do, we hold it
in here, we remember it, no mercy could I find. Wrath
lay burning in my breast and wracked my tortured mind. Then
I confessed my troubled thoughts, my secret sins revealed. And
God's pardoning grace forgave my sins, and his grace my pardon
sealed. I'm happy. Oh, happy day when
Jesus washed my sins away. He taught me how to watch and
pray and live for Christ every day. Happy day when Jesus washed
my sins away. I will abundantly pardon. I'll
multiply my abundant pardon. There it is right there. I read this chapter a different
way from the way I used to read it. My thoughts are not your
thoughts. My heavens are higher, brother,
as the rain comes down from heaven and the snow from heaven and
waters the earth and makes it bring forth the soul, so shall
my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It will go forth
in power and not return to me void. It's the promise of pardon,
grace, mercy. I'm going to receive it. I'm
going to receive it. I'm going to believe it. I'm
going to walk in his grace.

A Special Word for Sinners

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

Joshua

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

A Special Word for Sinners

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

More from Henry Mahan

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Articles by Henry Mahan

Books by Henry Mahan

Joshua

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book