Fully and Freely Forgiven

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. – Isaiah 55:7

Pardon once given continues to be given. When through doubt and anxiety I was not sure of my pardon, yet it was still true; for he that believeth on Him is not condemned, even though he may write bitter things against himself. Beloved friend, catch hold of that, and do not let it go. Divine pardon is a continuous act.

And this forgiveness on God’s part was most free. We did nothing to obtain it by merit, and we brought nothing wherewith to purchase it. He forgave us for Christ’s sake, not for aught that we had done. True, we did repent, and did believe, but repentance and faith He gave us, so that He did not forgive us for the sake of them, but purely of His own dear love, because He delighteth in mercy, and is never more like Himself than when He passeth by transgression, iniquity, and sin.

Remember, also, that He forgave us fully. It was not here and there a sin that He blotted out, but the whole horrible list and catalogue of our offences He destroyed at once. The substitution of our Lord has finished that matter even to perfection:

“Because the sinless Saviour died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm

The Whole-heartedness of God in Blessing His People 

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

Sermon Text

Thou Art Clean Every Whit

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake. – 1 John 2:12

Are you in the number of the forgiven, my dear hearer? Hast thou believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Then, as sure as you have believed, God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Have you put your trust in the atoning sacrifice? Then God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. You have not begun to be a Christian, I hope, with the idea that one day, at some future period, you may obtain forgiveness. No. “God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Pardon is not a prize to be run for, but a blessing received at the first step of the race. If you have believed in Jesus your sin has all gone-all gone; all your sin has been erased from the records of the past, never to be mentioned against you for ever. The moment a sinner looks to Christ, the burden of his sin rolls from off his shoulders never to return. If Christ hath washed thee, (and He has if thou hast believed in Him) then thou art clean every whit, and before the Lord thou standest delivered from every trace of guilt. Pardon is not a matter of hope, but a matter of fact. Expectation looks for many a blessing, but pardon is a realized favour which faith holds in her hand even now. If Christ took thy load, thy load cannot remain on thine own back: if Christ paid thy debts, then they do not stand in God’s books against thee. How can they? It stands to reason that if thy Substitute has taken thy sin and put it away, thy sin lies no more on thee. God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven thee. Get hold of that grand truth, and hold it, though all the devils in hell roar at thee. Grasp it as with a hand of steel; grip it as for life: “God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven me,”-may each one of us be able to say that. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm

It Will Bring Glory to Him

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace… – Ephesians 1:7

Christ took the shame that He might magnify His Father, and now His Father delights to magnify Him by blotting out the sin. If there is anything under heaven. that would make Christ more illustrious the Father would not spare it for a moment. If thou seest that for thee to have thy sin forgiven would raise the fame of the Saviour, go and plead that argument with God, and thou shalt surely prevail. Will it not make Christ glad if He saves such a sinner as thou art? Then go with this argument in thy mouth, “Father, glorify Thy Son by exalting Him as a glorious Saviour in saving me.” I find this often a great lever at a dead lift,-to say unto the Lord, “Lord, Thou knowest the straits I am in; Thou knowest how undeserving I am; Thou knowest what a poor, undone creature I am before Thee; but if Thy dear Son shall help and save me the very angels will stand and wonder at His mighty grace, and so it will bring glory to Him, therefore I entreat Thee be gracious unto me.” Be sure thou art certain to prevail if thou canst plead that it will glorify Christ, and surely thou wouldest not wish to have a thing that would not glorify him. Thy prayer shall always be prevalent, if thy heart be in such a state that thou art willing to have or not to have, according as it will honour thy Lord: if it will not glorify Christ, be thou more than content to do without the choicest earthly good; but be thou doubly grateful when the boon that is granted tends to bring honour to the ever dear and worshipful name of Jesus. “For Christ’s sake.” It is a precious word; dwell upon it, and lay up this sentence in the archives of thy memory-the Father will do anything for the sake of Jesus Christ His Son. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm

The Father Loveth His Son

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand. – John 3:35

My brethren, can you guess a little of the love which the Father hath toward the Only-begotten? We cannot pry into the wondrous mystery of the eternal filiation of the Son of God lest we be blinded by excess of light; but this we know, that they are one God,-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and the union which exists between them is intense beyond conception. “The Father loveth the Son,” was always true, and is true now; but how deeply, how intensely He loves the Son no mind can conceive. Now, brethren, the Lord will do great things for the sake of His son whom He loves as He loveth Jesus, for in addition to the fact of His eternally loving Him, as being one with Him by nature and essence, there is now the superadded cause of love arising out of what the Lord Jesus hath done as the servant of the Father. Remember that our Lord Jesus has been obedient to His Father’s will-obedient to death, even to the death of the cross, wherefore God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name…It is the joy of the Father to express His love to His Son. Throughout all ages they have had fellowship one with another: they have always been one in all their designs; they have never differed upon any points and cannot differ; and you notice when our Lord says, “Father, glorify Thy Son,” He is so knit with the Father that He adds, “that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” Their mutual love is inconceivably great, and, therefore, brethren, God will do anything for Jesus. God will forgive us for Christ’s sake.

And thou, big black sinner, if thou wilt go to God at this moment and say, “Lord, I cannot ask Thee to forgive me for my own sake but do it out of love for Thy dear Son,” He will do it, for He will do anything for the sake of Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm

All Our Blessings Come to Us In, and Through, Christ Jesus

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. – Ephesians 1:6

It should never be forgotten that we originally fell by a representative. Adam stood for us, and he was our federal head. We did not fall personally at the first, but in our representative. Had he kept the conditions of the covenant we had stood through him, but, inasmuch as he fell, we fell in him. I pray you cavil not at the arrangement, because there lay the hope of our lace. The angels probably fell individually, one by one, and hence they fell irretrievably, -there was no restoring them: but as we fell in one Adam, there remained the possibility of our rising in another Adam; and therefore, in the fulness of time God sent forth His Son Jesus Christ, born of a woman, made under the law to become the second Adam. He undertook to remove our burdens and to fulfil the conditions of our restoration. According to covenant He must appear in our nature, and that nature in the fulness of time He assumed. He must bear the penalty: that He hath done in His personal suffering and death. He must obey the law: that He has done to the utmost. And now Christ Jesus, having borne penalty and fulfilled law, is Himself justified before God, and stands forth before God as the representative of all that are in Him. God for Christ’s sake has accepted us in Him, has forgiven us in Him, and looks upon us with love infinite and changeless in Him. This is how all our blessings come to us-in and through Christ Jesus; and if we are indeed in Him, the Lord doth not only forgive us our sin, but He bestows upon us the boundless riches of His grace in Him: in fact, He treats us as He would treat His Son; He deals with us as He would deal with Jesus. Oh, how pleasant to think that when the just God looks upon us it is through the reconciling medium- He views us through the Mediator. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm

Till We See the Cross

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 2 Comments

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

Sin is an attack upon the moral government of God; it undermines the foundations of society, and were it permitted to have its way it would reduce everything to anarchy, and even destroy the governing power and the Ruler Himself…If sin were left unpunished it would soon be known through myriads of worlds, and in fact by ten thousand times ten thousand races of creatures, that they might sin with impunity; if one race had done so, why not all the rest? This would be a proclamation of universal license to rebel. 

The blotting out of sin seems hard till we see the cross, and then it appears easy enough. I have looked at sin till it seemed to blind me with its horror, and I said in myself, “This damned spot can never be washed out…0 sin, thou deep, eternal evil, what can remove thee?” And then I have seen the Son of God dying on the cross, and read the anguish of His soul, and heard the cries which showed the torment of His spirit when God His Father had forsaken Him, and it has seemed to me as if the blotting out of sin were the easiest thing under heaven. When I have seen Jesus die, I have not been able to understand how any sin could be difficult to remove. Let a man stand on Calvary and look on Him whom he hath pierced, and believe and accept the atonement made, and it becomes the simplest thing possible that his debt should be discharged now that it is paid, that his freedom should be given now that the ransom is found, and that he should be no longer under condemnation, since the guilt that condemned him has been carried away by his great Substitute and Lord. It is then because of what Jesus Christ has suffered in our stead that God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm