A Message to Men on the Grace of God
“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Isaiah 25.
A part of this chapter I owe to another. In looking over an old volume of sermons preached by H. Grattan Guinness, forty-five years ago, I came across the message which he delivered with this text as a basis. So deep was the impression made upon me by my first reading of the sermon that 1 have taken Mx. Guinness’ outline and many of his suggestions and call your attention to a great message to men.
He said: “If one should enter a jewelry store and ask to see a diamond or any other precious stone the jeweler would first spread upon his show case a black cloth and then place the diamonds upon it, not only for protection, but also in order that the black background might bring out distinctly the brilliancy and worth of the gems.” So God gives his best of all His promises with the dark picture of sin clearly and thoughtfully portrayed. In verses 22nd to the 24th we read, “But 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 my burnt offerings; neither hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast broujiiht 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.”
And in these verses God says that His people have not called upon Him in prayer, they have not presented their offerings, neither have they presented unto Him themselves. He also afiirms that they have wearied of Him and that they have also wearied Him with their iniquities, and then He exclaims, “I have not served you with offerings, neither have I wearied you with incense’’; and with these clear statements He gives us the gracious statement of the text, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”
Notice the division of the text.
First: They are blotted out from God’s Book.
Second: They are blotted out with God’s hand.
Third: They are blotted out for His sake.
Fourth: They are blotted from His memory.
A more admirable outline of a text of scripture I do not know, a more cheering message for a child of God I have never found.
I.
Not long ago in Chicago a young man was induced to confess to one whom he thought was his friend the killing of his father and mother. As the confession was being made, as he supposed to but one person, it was all being taken down by those who were near enough to hear him speak, and when he appeared before the court his own confession was used against him and sent him to a life imprisonment in the penitentiary. What was true of this young man is true of us. Every sermon the minister preaches is recorded, every word an individual speaks is put down. It is a solemn thought to realize that we shall give account at the judgment even for our idle words.
Science has proven that our acts, our words and even our thoughts make their indelible record.
Not long ago in our home we came across a long unused phonograph. We started it going, placing upon it one of the cylinders which had been packed away with the phonograph, and were startled to hear the voice of one who had been dead for years. We heard the message he dictated, the song in which he joined and the laugh with which he closed it, and yet his voice has long been silent in death. There is not a sin of your youth which has not made its record, not a passion of your mature years that does not stand somewhere against you. Not an act, a feeling or an imagination that has not been indelibly written, not all the changes of time, not all the efforts of man can wipe these things out.
In the British Museum there is a piece of stone, not larger than the average Bible, at least four thousand years old, and in the center of the stone there is a mark of a bird’s foot; four thousand years ae:o the track was made and for four thousand years the record has stood. If these things are true of us and they are according to the Word of God, then what prospect is there for us but that of eternal punishment, for when we stand at the judgment there shall appear before us the sins of omission and the sins of commission, the sins we had forgotten and the sins we have but recently committed against ourselves, against our fellow men and against God. It is indeed a black picture, and with whitened faces and rapidly beating hearts we ask, is there any hope? I bring you God’s gracious answer to this important question, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Notice it is the voice of God speaking. “I, even I,” he exclaims, “will blot out your transgressions.” It is first of all a commercial term. We were in debt with God, hopelessly in debt and our obligation was cancelled; over against my sin is placed the righteousness of the Son of God, and I am free.
“Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe,
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.”
It is second a chemical expression, for it is a picture of God applying the blood of Jesus Christ to every page of the record written. The sins of our youth long ago passed out of mind, the sins of our manhood which have taken up every part of our being, the sins of to-day all have gone, for He Himself has blotted them out. When we realize that we are forgiven of God it means more than if we were forgiven of men, for in the might of His forgiveness our past sins are gone, they shall not even be mentioned against us, the fear of judgment is taken away, for Jesus Himself says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.” John 5: 24. It is the Passover story over again, “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” Thus are our sins blotted out.
It is with God’s hand that the work is done, and for very many reasons this is a great comfort to us.
First. Because it was God’s hand that made the record, He it was who put down all your sins. He never rested in His work; week after week, month after month, year after year, the recording work was being done until your record became blacker than the blackest midnight, and behold the hand that made the record blots it out.
Second. It was His hand against which you offended. Your sin was against yourself. It is true it hurt your character, lowered your self respect, but more especially was it against God, for you despised His authority, forsook His service, broke His laws, defied His justice, you grieved His spirit and you crucified His Son; and behold it is the hand against which you committed all these offenses which blotted out your transgressions.
Third. It is the offended hand which blots them out. It was the hand that opened the fountains of the deep, and behold the floods came, the waters above and the waters below clasped their hands and destruction was everywhere save in the Ark. It was His hand that brought destruction upon the cities and the plain, consuming them with a mighty flame, and it was His hand that opened the sea for the children of Israel and then closed the sea over the pursuing Egyptians. The very thought of the offended hand makes us tremble, but behold it is this hand that blots out all our transgressions.
Fourth. It is the hand of justice that does the work. The same hand wrote, “Your sin shall not be unpunished,” and wrote again, “The soul that sinneth it shall die,” and wrote again, “The wages of sin is death.” This hand is stretched forth in our behalf. I doubt not the question has often come to us, “How can God be just and the justifier of them that believe?” In the light of such statements as these just quoted I am sure it is for this reason. It is for the offering of the just for the unjust. He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. A man was needed for such an offering and Christ became man. The man required must be born under the law, so Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh. The man born under the law must be without sin, so He was born pure. The man born under the law and without sin must be willing to die and so He came saying, “I delight to loo do thy will, O God.” And the man born under the law, without sin and wilHng to die must be able to provide an atonement which would make the wandering sinner and the loving God one, and so Christ was offered to God and thus furnished a joint sacrifice of sufficient power and magnitude to save the whole world. It is this hand of God that blots out our transgressions.
Fifth. It is the hand of the Supreme Being that does the work. What a word of encouragement this is! It was this hand that made the worlds and hurled them off into space. It was this hand that created man and made him in the likeness of the image of God. It was this hand that formed the countless number of angels and has ever directed their Heavenly movements. It was this hand that wrote the word upon Sinai. And it was this hand that holds the kingdoms of Heaven and Hell, He blots out our transgressions. From His position there can be no appeal; with such a work as this who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Would God that justifieth do it, or Christ that died consent to it? In the light of such a thought the Apostle Paul says, “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor death, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8: 38-39.
lOI
III.
Our sins are blotted out for His sake. God saves the sinner not alone because of pity for the sinner, and certainly not alone because he is in danger of Hell, but in order that He may glorify Himself; and this is no selfish glorification but rather in order that He may show to us now and throughout all the ages what He really is. God has made different revelations of Himself. We have beheld His wisdom in creation, in His providences and in His word. We have seen His justice in that He gave His only begotten Son to die for poor lost men; we have seen His power in the working of miracles and the transforming effect of His grace. It remains for us to see His love in the story of salvation, for until you behold Him as a Savior of the sinner you do not know Him. It is this that shall make us not only rejoice here in time but rejoice with joy unspeakable in eternity. The Apostle Paul whites in Ephesians 2 7-8, “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
IV.
Our sins are blotted out from God’s memory. The last of this wonderful text is to me the best. When we detect a failure of memory here in this world among our friends it is an evidence of weakness, but it is no weakness in God to forget. I was listening not long ago to a distinguished lecturer, one of America’s old heroes, when suddenly he paused, became greatly confused and turned helplessly to his audience. The name of one of his great characters had passed from his memory and he could not recall it. I heard a gentleman sitting near me say, “This is the beginning of the end with the old general”; and it was so, for in a few months he was dead. This is but another one of those expressions descriptive of God in which human language is used to describe a great thought and in which human language is too poor an agency to convey all the depth of the meaning. It is just another picture of God stooping down to meet our weakness and it is God assuring us that our sins are gone completely. It is as if they never had existed, for they shall never stand against us, and in the day of judgment they shall not even be mentioned. Our sins must have been a grief to Him just as the sin of a child here is the cause of sorrow to an earthly parent, but they are so no longer for He has forgotten. The Bible represents God as being angry because of our transgressions but if ever there was anger with Him it is so no longer, for you cannot be angry with a person whose injury against you you have entirely forgotten. We do not in this world speak of what we have forgotten, nor will God speak of our sins. We do not punish what we have forgotten, nor will God permit us to be punished, for He has blotted out our transgressions and will remember them no more. There is no awaiting penalty for your sin, there is no judgment to meet at the great white throne, there is no Hell for you at the last, for your sins for Christ’s sake have been forgotten.
If you cast a stone into the water and it sinks away there is for a time a ripple where the stone has gone down, but in a moment it has gone forever, you can see it no more. So God has cast our sins into the sea and the place where they have gone cannot even be found.
V.
But what must I do to take advantage of all this gracious offer of God? 1 answer according to the scripture, there must be true repentance. Repentance is a change of mind, it is having a new mind for God. There must be regeneration; regeneration is a change of nature, it is a new heart for God. There must be conversion; conversion is a change of living and a new life for God. If we would be born from above we must accept God’s word.
Two friends were conversing one evening. One of them with a skeptical mind had rejected the Bible, because it did not tell him the things that he would know. He insisted on knowing how the worlds were made, and demanded that he should be told concerning the origin of Heaven and why God permitted it, and because the Bible failed here he would have none of it. Just as his friend was leaving the skeptic said to him, “Here is my lantern. I want you to lake it and it will light you home.” But the lantern was refused by the Christian man, for, said he, “This lantern will not light up the mountains in the distance, nor the valley stretching away at my feet.” His friend was amazed. “Man,” said he, “take the lantern; it will make a road for you across the moor step by step and light your pathway home.” “Oh,” said the man, “if that is true I will take it.” “But listen to me,” said his friend. “So is the Bible, not so much for distant paths of investigation, it is not so much to tell us concerning creation and existence, although it docs shed light there, however we shall know these things by and by perfectly. It is for the path at your feet and it will light you home a step at a time.” The skeptical man saw it in an instant, he took God’s word and came back again to the faith of his childhood.
So I offer it to you, with its promises as a sure foundation; with its commands carefully received and followed out you too may pass from darkness to light and you may claim from God this text of mine which says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” /