Sermon # 188            Series: Isaiah

 

Title:  God Is A Great Forgiver!

Text:  Isaiah 55:7

Subject:  The Pardon of Sin

Date: Sunday Evening – August 21, 1994

 

Introduction:

 

Let me tell you a story, a true story that will serve as an introduction to my message tonight… Many years ago, a man was sentenced to death because numerous, horrible crimes he had committed.  He was a hardened criminal.  Sometime before he was executed a faithful friend began witnessing to him.  He told that hard man of God’s mercy, love and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, of how that Christ lived and died for sinners, and how that God could and would forgive all the sins of all who trust his Son, even a man like him!  In time, the Holy Spirit made the word of grace effectual and brought that hardened criminal, who was on death row to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ!  Normally, I would place little confidence in a profession of faith made under such circumstances.  But this man witnessed a good confession.  God gave him confidence and assurance of his pardoning mercy in Christ.  On the day of his death, when he was brought to the place of execution, this is what he said to the witnesses who watched him die… “God is a great forgiver.  Oh, he is a great forgiver!  Now hath perfect love cast out all fear.  I know that God hath nothing to say against me, for Jesus Christ hath paid all, and those are free whom the Son makes free!”

 

That is the message I want to preach to you tonight – God is a Great Forgiver!

 

Proposition:  I know of no stranger argument with which to persuade you, who yet are without Christ, to come to Christ than the promise of absolute pardon, the complete, absolute, irrevocable pardon of all sin.

 

This is the argument used in my text – Isaiah 55:7.  Why should the wicked forsake his way?  Why should the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts?  Why should sinners return unto the Lord?  Why should lost, justly condemned sinners come to our God? – “He will abundantly pardon!”  What a blessed promise of grace!

 

I am a man of much guilt.  My sins against God, my crimes against men, and my near complete destruction of my own life are evils about which I have no desire to speak at one time my guilt tormented me night and day.  It drove me into utter despair.  Had it not been for the sheer fear of hell, I would have committed suicide when I was just a teenage boy.  My sins should justly have driven me into the lowest hell.  But God came to me and graciously caused me to return to him from whom I had been straying all my life.  And he had mercy on me!  Yes, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ’s shed blood and righteousness, God freely, abundantly, completely pardoned me of all my sin!  What a glorious, sweet, comforting word that word “pardon” is to a person who has been condemned.  Pardon is a magnificent thing.  But our text says that the Lord our God will “abundantly pardon.”  Why?  Why is that world abundantly used in connection with Divine Pardon?  The prophet uses this kind of language because he wants us to know that God is a Great Forgiver!  So great a Forgiver that he abundantly pardons!

 

I.  The pardon of sin is abundant pardon because It Springs from an Abundant Source.

 

Pardon is an act of mercy, love, and grace; and these attributes are found in God in great abundance.

 

A.  The Multitude of God’s Tender mercies Makes Him a Pardoning, Forgiving God – (Ps. 51:1).

 

“Thy mercy is great above the heavens” (Ps. 108:4).  “The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy.”  (Ps. 119:64).  “His mercy endureth forever!” (26 times in Ps. 136).  Judgment is God’s strange work.  “But he delighteth in mercy” (Mic. 7:18).

 

B.  The pardon of sin is an Act of God’s Infinite Love.

 

It is as natural for God to forgive sin as it is for him to be holy, for “God is love” (I John 4:7-16).

 

I would not exalt one attribute of God’s Being above another.  All the Divine Attributes are infinite, harmonious, and vital to his Being.  Yet, it is nowhere written that God is Justice, or God is Wisdom, or God is Omnipotence, or even God is Holiness.  When John sought a word to describe God’s character, the Holy Spirit inspired him to write “God is Love.”  “God is Love”….

 

·         Without Beginning!

·         Without Cause!

·         Without Change!

·         Without End!

 

Look away yonder to the Son of God, hanging upon the cursed tree, bearing our sins, and bearing all the wrath of God for our sins and read these words written in his blood – “God is Love!”

 

·         Romans 5:8

·         I John 3:16

·         John 3:16

 

C.  The Pardon of Sin Springs from God’s Abundant Grace – (Eph. 1:7).

 

“Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”  (Rom. 5:21).

 

II.  God’s Pardon is Called an Abundant Pardon Because He Has Pardoned a Vast, Abundant Multitude of Sinners.

 

We quickly lose patience when we are offended by a few – Not God!  Moses said, “Thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.”  (Num. 14:19).  Since the days of Adam, even until now, God has pardoned multitudes of sinners among all nations, classes, and ages.

 

·         Revelation 1:5; 5:9

·         Psalms 78:36-39; 103:8-14

·         David (Ps. 32:1-5).

·         Daniel (Dan. 9:8-9).

·         The Woman Who Stood at Jesus’ Feet – (Luke 7:37, 47).

·         The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 8:1-12).

·         The Apostle Peter (I Pet. 3:9).

·         The Apostle Paul (I Tim. 1:13-15).

 

III.  You who have been forgiven will bear me witness that God abundantly pardons when you think of all the sins for which you have been pardoned.

 

Who can count the thoughts, words, and deeds which God has pardoned?

 

·         Isaiah 43:24-26; 44:22

·         I Corinthians 6:9-11

 

God has pardoned all my sins, all of them (I John 1:9).

 

1.       Against The Law!

2.       Against The Gospel!

3.       Against Light!

4.       Against Love!

5.       Of Faith!

6.       Of Adulthood!

7.       Of Self-Righteousness!

8.       Of Gross Iniquity!

9.       Before Conversion!

10.   Since Conversion!

 

Who can number his transgressions?  Yet, God, who alone knows the multitude of our sins, has freely forgiven them all through the blood of Christ!  That is abundant pardon!

 

IV.  Remember too the Abundant Evil of Our Sins, and Give Thanks To God For Abundant Pardon.

 

A.  Our sins are attacks upon God.

 

“Sin is an attempt by man to rape God and rob him of his character.” -  Scott Richardson.

 

B.  Very often our sins are planned, calculated, deliberate acts of iniquity.

 

C.  Our sins are usually often repeated acts of evil.

 

D.  Our sin, our evil nature, is even more base than our deeds.

 

E.  We who are believers have the most hideous sins of all.

 

We sin against:

·         Electing Love!

·         Redeeming Blood!

·         Saving Grace!

·         Pardoning Mercy!

 

Yet, with all the intensified evil of our sins, God freely forgives all!  That is abundant pardon!

 

V.  I see the abundance of God’s Pardon, more than anywhere else, in The Abundant Price of Pardon.

 

·         Ephesians 1:7

·         Colossians 1:14

 

God pardons us freely; but the pardon is not free.  It cost the eternal God dearly.  Because he is just God cannot pardon without satisfaction.  Yet, he so loved us that he willingly gave his Son, his own dear Son, to die in our place, to make satisfaction for our sins.  (Rom. 3:24-26).

 

Listen to me now – Our pardon is written of the Almighty, signed in tears and sealed with blood.  The black ink of the indictments of God’s law against his people has been completely obliterated by the red ink of Christ’s blood.  “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s sin, cleanseth us from all sin.”  (I John 1:7).

 

A.  Our Pardon was Earned by Righteousness.

B.  Our Pardon was Purchased by Blood.

C.  Our Pardon was Secured by Intercession.

D.  Our Pardon is A Matter of Strict Justice.

 

The only way God in his holiness, justice, and truth can pardon sin is if…

 

1.       The Law is honored – Christ’s obedience.

2.       The Justice is satisfied – Christ’s death.

3.       The Sinner is slain – Christ’s Substitution.

4.       The Sin is removed – Blotted Out – God’s Pardon!

 

VI.  The pardon of sin is called “abundant pardon” because God Gives It Upon Abundantly Easy Terms.

 

Repentance and faith are the terms of pardon; and these are themselves the gift of God.

 

“Let not conscience make you linger,

Nor of fitness fondly dream.

All the fitness He requireth

Is to feel your need of Him.

This He gives you, this He gives you.

‘Tis the Spirit’s rising beam.”

 

VII.  God’s Pardon is An Abundant Pardon because It Is Abundantly Full and Complete.

 

         Illus:  Mr. Garner at Rescue.

 

A.  All Sin is Forgiven – Past, Present, and Future.

 

B.  The Pardon is Sure and Effectual.

 

C.  God’s pardon of our sin is perpetual and irreversible!

 

·         I John 2:1-2

·         Romans 4:8

 

VII.  This pardon of sin, which God promises to every believing sinner, is abundant pardon because It Is Attended With Abundant Blessings of Grace.

 

A.  Deliverance from the Curse of the Law – Not Guilty!

 

      Romans 8:1

      Galatians 3:13

 

B.  Freedom from the Reigning Power of Inbred Sin.

 

      Romans 6:14-18

 

C.   Adoption into the Family of God.

 

       I John 3:1

 

D.  Communion with the thrice Holy God.

 

      Ephesians 2:18

 

E.  Security in Grace.

 

      John 10:27-29

      Romans 8:32-39

 

F.  An Inheritance, Incorruptible, Undefiled, That Fadeth Not Away.

    

     I Peter 1:4

     Romans 8:17

 

IX.  The pardon of sin in Christ is abundant pardon because It Will Stand In The Day of Judgment (Jer. 50:20).

 

        Illus:  Rowland Hill’s Dream

 

Application:

 

1.       The Strongest Motive for Repentance – Abundant Pardon!

2.       The Strongest Motive for Godliness – Abundant Pardon!

 

            “Nothing will make you want to give up sinning more than knowing that Christ has actually taken, and remitted all your sin, past, present, and future.”  John Metcalfe

 

3.       Truly, God is a Great Forgiver!