A Pardoning God
“This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing” —
“2rfjou forgaijcst tfje iniquitg of mg sin,” — Ps. xxxii. 5.
S Parl30ntng What an oasis in the bleakest of moral ffioti. deserts is this! God the Forgiver — Yes, the
Forgiver oi great sins!
The psalm from which our motto-verse is taken, and the fifty-first, are the two liturgies of a penitent backslider, the loud and agonising cries of a disinherited son longing for a father’s forgiveness. The Father heard them; and made good in his experience, as in the experience cf all wanderers, His own promise, “Return unto Me, and I will return unto you.” If David had been influenced by a consideration of the enormity of his sin, before coming in broken-hearted penitence and conviction to make confession, he might well have seen in it a wall of separation — an unbridged chasm, proclaiming eternal severance from his God. Listen to his plea. Listen to the backslider’s suit. It is a strange and remarkable one, “Pardon mine iniquity, FOR IT IS GREAT.” Most transgressors would deem the greatness of their iniquity the very reason for the Divine
Being withholding pardon. We might have expected to hear this presumptuous transgressor wailing out, through tears of despair, ‘Lord, if my sin had been less heinous and aggravated, then I might have dreamt of forgiveness. If I had been untaught from my youth — untutored and undisciplined in Thy ways, there might have been excuse or palliation for my offences, and room to hope on Thy part for compassion. But I, guilty abuser of privileges, quencher of heavenly light, faithless requiter of abounding mercy, cannot expect, cannot ask Thee, to forgive these crimson iniquities. I must be content to be an outcast from Thy presence and love for ever.’ No! He makes the very greatness of his sin his plea for the extension of God’s mercy. With man it would have been different. The turpitude of the crime would have closed the door of human sympathy and human hope. But God’s ways are not our ways, nor God’s thoughts our thoughts. “Let me fall into the hands of God, for great are His mercies, but let me not fall into the hands of man.” “After Thy loving-kindness, have mercy upon me. According to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.” “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” “For Thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for // is great!” “From that hour,” in the words of an old writer, “God kept David in the hollow of His hand, the very hand that was once so heavy upon him.”
Reader, are you conscious that your iniquities have thus separated between you and your Heavenly Father. Are you conscious that you are not now as once you were? that you enjoy no longer, as once you did, sensible nearness to the mercy-seat? that you are restraining prayer before God? that the fine edge of conscience is blunted? that, in one word, you have lost ground in the Christian life? Arise, confess your sin, mourn your backsliding, and cry for pardon. Making a full and unreserved confession, He will not spurn you away. He is waiting to be gracious. In the words of the woman of Tekoah, “Yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him.” The Father devises means for the reclamation of His erring prodigal. He pities the backslider; just as the general on the field of battle pities the wounded who are carried bleeding by their comrades to the rear. “Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause Mine anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever.”
How many lapsed and fallen ones — driven by some sudden hurricane — some sudden assault of temptation well-nigh to despair, have experienced the blessedness of this true repentance! Yes, strange as the expression may seem, the “blessedness of repentance.” You have seen, when the rain and the storm had spent their fury on some landscape; when the thunder-cloud had passed, and blue vistas had again opened in the sky, and the sun had shone forth, silvering the dripping branches — how the woodland grove rang with the song of birds; — all the sweeter and more gladsome seemed the notes of music, succeeding the gloom which had so long repressed them. Such is the image of the happiness and joy of the soul in the hour of its restoration; on being brought up from the miry clay, and again set on the Rock of Ages. “O Lord, open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise!”
“Oh, when Angel trump is pealing,
Can the record be effaced?
How evade the dread revealing
Which the pen of Heaven has traced?
2 So
” Go, in penitence bewailing,
Go, and now bemoan thy guilt.
Trust the promise, never failing,
*I will save thee, if thou wilt.’
“Hasten, every soul despairing,
At the cross of Jesus fall;
Though with legion sins repairing,
He will freely pardon all.”
“THOU HAST TURNED FOR ME MY MOURNING INTO DANCING
THOU HAST PUT OFF MY SACKCLOTH, AND GIRDED WE
WITH GLADNESS; TO THE END THAT MY GLORY
MAY SING PRAISE TO THEE, AND NOT BE SILENT.
O LORD MY GOD, I WILL GIVE THANKS
UNTO THEE FOR EVER.”