Forgiveness on Four Legs

(Isa. 43:25)

“I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25) “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31) “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” (Hebrews 8:12).  “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” (Hebrews 10:17).

All these verses are the same in their declaration…the truth that we see in these verses is the identical: the Lord will not remember His people’s sins. This morning, we see four verses that make up the legs that this sermon is going to stand on.  This truth isn’t just found in one or two verses….this truth is firm and adamantly stated by the inspired word of God in FOUR places.  Under the Old Law, “in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.” (Dt. 19:15).  So, that  being the case….here we have Isaiah and Jeremiah, two Old Testament saints, testifying to the fact that this  is truth (that’s two witnesses giving the same testimony that God doesn’t remember the sins of His people).  BUT, added to these two Old Testament prophets…we have the author of the book of Hebrews saying the same thing. Their united testimony…is that the Lord God will forgive the sins of His people….and not only forgive, but will do so in SUCH A COMPLETE WAY that He will remember their iniquities no more.

Now, I could close the lesson right here, and this be enough evidence for you to see this truth (and some of you would be very happy to have a 4 minute lesson), but we have four texts to consider this morning, and hopefully all of us who need comfort…all of us who need assurance that no matter what we’ve done or what sin we’ve committed…God gives forgiveness.  God gives a forgiveness that promises that our sins are not remembered.

I hope that we all can say: “I believe in the forgiveness of sin.” But it’s hard to say that when our sins are exposed.  It’s hard to look back at our lives and say, “I’m forgiven.” When our sins become known, and those sins are set before the perfect and holy light of God’s Countenance…our first instinct is to fear that what we’ve done is altogether unpardonable. And this is the dark secret of our soul…this is the dreadful conviction that takes a hold of all of us at some time or another.   We look to the perfect and just Law of God, and while we look at that perfect Law, we come to the overwhelming conclusion that there is no pardon… for the Law of God knows nothing about forgiveness. The Law states, “Do this and live. Disobey and die.” The Law is set up to condemn….that was what the Law was set up to do…the Law shows us our imperfections and our faults and our sins. It’s by the Law that we come to a knowledge of our sin…sins which only the Lord Jesus can deliver us from.

And when we begin to realize that God MUST punish wickedness and sin…we begin to look at what we’ve done and come to the conclusion that He must punish me.  The thunders that they heard at Mt. Sinai, then come crashing into our own souls, and those thunders of judgment and punishment echo in our conscience. We all know within ourselves (as the result of observation and experience) that sin must bring about some kind of punishment. Sin is a knife that cuts our own wrist when we use it…it’s a sword that kills the man who battles with it.  And when we sin…we feel and conclude sometimes that the Lord is not willing to forgive us for what we’ve done…we feel that we deserve to be punished. And then the devil comes in with all the horrors and fears of a fiery and eternal hell…and all we see is certain destruction!  We don’t see forgiveness…we don’t see pardon…it’s been clouded by our own doubts and fears.

And then Satan goes further with our fears, and he actually makes us believe that pardon for our sins….pardon for the transgressions we have committed is entirely impossible. Satan actually convinces us to believe that mercy is shown to others, but that mercy cannot be shown to us.  And when we come to the point where we stop believing that Christ can forgive our sins…we sign our own death warrant spiritually.  We begin to be wrongly persuaded that the acts mercy and forgiveness can never be ours for the claiming.  Brethren, there are no chains so hard to get out of than the chains of our own guilty fears!  Our fears and beliefs about our past sins can keep us from coming to the cross, where all sins can be forgiven.  So, first we will discuss that…

I. THERE IS FORGIVENESS

There are four texts (COUNT THEM PEOPLE) four texts that teach us of God’s unwavering and steadfast forgiveness which HE GIVES His people.  Four verses that tell us that our sins, our iniquities which we have been guilty of in the past are GONE!  Isn’t this the best of all verses…isn’t this the greatest of all assurances to a blood-bought believer, “I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and will not remember your sins”? The words of the Hebrew writer give us sweet truths from the mouth of God HIMSELF: “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” David, in Psalm 130 takes time to give a note of thanksgiving to God by saying: “Praise be to God…there is forgiveness with You…” There is forgiveness to be found for all things that you and I have done….there is forgiveness with God that is waiting for you!

For a minute or two let me try to prove this fact to you.  Let me try to comfort those who don’t think they can be forgiven, or those who can’t seem to come to the cross because of their past.  THERE…IS…FORGIVENESS for everything that you have done.

And this seen, first, in how God treats sinners.  God spares sinner’s lives.  God spares our lives!  Right now…we deserve DEATH.  Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth DEATH!  We are all deserving of death the MOMENT that we transgress any law of God.   When Adam and Eve transgressed…they deserved to be punished everlastingly!  The angels that sinned before that time were cast away into darkness and reserved in chains until they would be thrown into the lake of fire (II Pet. 2:4)!  The angels had no second chances…they were immediately and swiftly cast away!

But instead of pronouncing eternal doom on Adam and Eve…instead of casting them away from His presence forever, He spoke to them of a certain Seed of woman that would bruise the serpent’s head. The curse of sin…the punishment for sin, which until that point had been instant and eternal separation from God, was only a curse that would lead man to labor in the fields,  and the women would have pain in child-birth.  And how mild these sentences were compared with what they should have been!

God let His sparing and merciful hand be known that day.  And not only did spare us, but He gave a GREAT and GLORIOUS promise of ultimate deliverance through Jesus Christ! Let me ask you this:  Would the Lord have spared them…if He had not meant to show mercy? Would He have not been perfectly justified in blotting out of existence the sinful race of Adam and Eve?  But the Lord wanted to show pardon and mercy and forgiveness to man..to us!  The Lord’s long-suffering was affectionately displayed in the Garden, and it is displayed in you and in me as well!

If God wasn’t a God of forgiveness and pardon, we would all be dead and rotting in punishment right now?  We all have sinned!  Early in life we were guilty of sin…we all sinned in our youthful days when we rebelled and refused to heed the Lord. And the merciful thing about our youthful days, is that God knew exactly what we were going to do.  He knew exactly what you were going to do…He knows exactly what you’re doing right now…but He still holds out this promise to all who will come to Him:  “I will remember thy transgressions no more.”  For everything we have done…God promises to take our sins away…IF WE WILL COME!

Even people that sit there and blaspheme the name and nature of God are not struck down for their sinful tongues!  Those who refuse to come and meet together with the Lord’s family, and those who reduce the Lord’s day to a day of recreation for themselves…God doesn’t look at them and cut them down like then wicked trees that they are.  What about when God made a dreadful example of judgment out of Ananias and Sapphira when they lied about how much they gave to the Lord in Acts 5, and yet here we stand…still living and breathing! Those in the Old Testament that stood up and opposed God were swallowed up quickly like Korah, Dathan and Abiram!  But all those who oppose Him today are left with breath in their lungs and strength in their voice!  You look at the world as it stands right now, and tell me that God isn’t merciful and forgiving and long-suffering.

And we ask why….why does the Lord tarry…why does the Lord wait to come?  This world is so wicked…this nation is full of sin.  Why are the wicked spared…even spared to this day? Surely, the long-suffering of God is repentance…and repentance is mercy! God waits so long because He does NOT want to see the death and destruction of any soul!  He wants all to come to repentance!  He wants all turn to Him and live!  He gives all souls a chance even now!  Our breath testifies of the fact of God’s forgiveness and abundant mercy! 

In the second place, why did God institute the Ceremonial Laws of old…why did God demand sacrifices FOR SIN if there was no pardon to be found FOR transgressions? Why did He demand the blood of bulls and lambs in sacrifice? Why was there the shedding of so much blood, if God didn’t intend to blot out sins?  Why were these offerings accepted by God, if man was too guilty of sin? God gave forgiveness!

Why was there a Tabernacle in which God REVEALED Himself to His people, if He didn’t cleanse them and forgive them of their iniquities? God cannot be in the presence of unforgiven SIN!  His people of Old were forgiven of their sins…they were pushed forward to a time when they would be covered by that perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Why was there the releasing of the scapegoat, which symbolized the taking away of the sins of Israel, if sin cannot be taken away in reality? The design of the whole Mosaic system was to reveal to man the existence of mercy and forgiveness in the heart of God! 

And here, in this church, there are two ordinances and commands that God has given through His word that tell us of the remission of our sins…that tell us of the forgiveness of sin.  One is baptism! It signifies our death to sin...it is a burial of our sins out of sight.  It is the washing away of all that transgresses.  But to what end and purpose is this command given if there is no washing away of sin?

What does the Lord’s Supper mean…the eating of bread with God and drinking of the

cup in fellowship with Him? Doesn’t this show the death of Christ until He comes?  Don’t these emblems take our minds back to the cross where our Savior’s blood was shed, and that blood can cover infinite multitudes of sins!  All these things remind us that there is such a thing as the forgiveness of sins! 

We don’t need anymore arguments to know that there is such a thing as the forgiveness of sins…and that this is something that the Lord has given to US as His people.  God has forgiven multitudes of sinners in the past, and there are many sitting among you, right now, that enjoy a clear sense of forgiven sin. The remission of sin is a real experience—and is known among God’s people even at this very moment. Sin can still be put away! The spot which seemed unremoveable can be washed out through the precious blood of Christ! Our texts… all of them, declare this truth, “I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.” May God convict you of this truth, and may you assuredly see that your sins are forgiven if you have come to the blood of Christ.

II. THIS FORGIVENESS=FORGETTING

 This is a wonder to me, a wonder of all wonders—that God should say that He will do what, in some sense, He cannot do—that He would describe how he treats our sins in a way that seems impossible with God.  God’s pardon of sin is so complete that He, Himself, describes it as not remembering our iniquity and transgression.

The Lord doesn’t exercise memory as you and I do. We recall the past, but He has no past—all things are present with Him. God sees everything at once—the past, the present, the future are before Him like I stand before you right now.  And yet how much of a blessing it is that He should use such an expression as this, and say, “Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more forever.” He wants us to know how true and deep this pardon is…He wants us to see that there is a total forgetting of all the wrong-doing of a pardoned soul!

We know what we do when we use our memory. We store up whatever happens in our minds, so that we can recall that—but when sin is forgiven, it is not stored in God’s mind to be recalled against us.  Something that we have done in our lives happens, and we remember it—storing it away in our memory. We make a kind of folder or file of our memory…and in there things are preserved, stored up to be used later. It amazes me talking to men like Orvil who have this awesome memory of things that they did 50, 60, or 70 years ago to the date, and they can recall what they did and where they did them. 

But the Lord will not do this with our sins! He doesn’t store them in archives to be revealed at the day of Judgment. The record of our sin isn’t kept.  Now, if you aren’t a child of God,  then your sins are written with an eternal pen, and your sins keep filling up a cup of wrath daily, till it is poured out on your head! Those who have not come to Christ…their sins have gone before them to the Judgment Seat and are crying out for vengeance.

But for God’s people… our Lord does not remember our sins.  There is no cup of wrath that is overflowing with punishment, and by no means am I saying that the Lord doesn’t literally remember the evils that we have done, but He doesn’t remember them as the Judge.  God forgets the transgressions of His children.  They are never to be brought against them! “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”  If we have fled to Christ for refuge, the Lord remembers our sin no more! The record of our iniquity is taken away and the Judge has no memory of it.  “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Psa. 103:12)

“Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” “No more!” Let those words go echoing through your heart:  “NO MORE!” These two words are music to the ears of God’s children!  No more will He see what I was in the past!  No more will He remember those rebellions against my record!  The transgressions that I have committed are dead and buried with Christ! “I will not remember their sins.”

He has altogether blotted out our sins and has determined to treat us as if we were perfectly innocent. The saints of Christ are without fault before the Throne of God, for they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! Our sins no longer exist!  I hope that God comforts you with His words of mercy! There were years of my life that I struggled with this subject, and if I had only known of these verses…I could have been a much happier soul.  God is ready to forgive you, and your sins will never be brought up again.  But to finish this great topic we see that this…

III. FORGIVENESS CAN BE YOURS NOW

How? How can forgiveness be mine? Forgiveness can be yours through the atoning blood of Christ. Why does God forget our sin? Have you ever asked that question? How can He look at us as imperfect and sinful souls and say, “I remember your transgressions no more?”  It’s because He looks on His Son, Jesus, bearing our sin. Did you ever think of what God the Father sees in Jesus on the Cross? You and I have seen enough (in the pictures of the crucifixion in the gospels) to make our hearts break….but when the Father saw His only-begotten Son suffering… and dying…it made such an infinite impression upon Him that He remembered not the sins for which His Son gave His life!

The death of the Only-Begotten Son of God erased the memory of all the transgressions committed by those in Christ. For all of you here this morning, I hope you are found under the shadow of the Redeemer’s Cross! I hope you trust and obey Christ, and that blood will be applied to you, and your sins shall be remembered no more.  As a Christian, as a son or daughter of God…God remembers His Son’s suffering in your place and stead.

I hope that you desire to have pardon for your sins…I hope that you desire it so much that you would come this morning, in God’s appointed way. “Repent!” Change your life and heart… be sorry for your sins. Change your mind about them and hate them.  “Acknowledge your iniquity.” Mourn your transgressions before your offended Lord with deep regret.  Then, come to the watery grave of baptism, and cast those sins into a place where the Lord will never remember them.  He that confesses and forsakes his sins shall find mercy. This is His way.  

Have you done this…if you have believed on the Lord, confessed your sins, changed your life, and contacted Christ precious and perfect robe through baptism…then you are, even now, forgiven! Your sin is gone, it is cast into the depths of the sea! Go away from this place relieved and happy knowing that your sins are not remembered by God.   But never forget the ins that you have committed, or the mercy which has forgiven it.  There is forgiveness that can be your even now…and this truth stands on four legs: “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” Won’t you come and have your sins forgiven and forgotten…