#ABUNDANT PARDON
"He will abundantly Pardon."
- Isaiah 55:7
IN our childhood we learned from Dr. Watts’ Catechism that Isaiah was that Prophet who spoke more of Jesus Christ than all the rest. In the Chapter before us Isaiah had been declaring in the name of the Lord the coming and the Character of the Redeemer, speaking of Him thus, "Behold I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and a commander to the people." No sooner had he thus proclaimed the appearance of the Christ, than he beheld whole nations of the heathen rushing to Him, and inspired by that sight, he began at once to address himself to the sinners around him bidding them fly to Him, too. As there is a natural connection between the physician and the sick, so is there between the Savior and the sinner! The Prophet can hardly think of Christ as coming to be a leader, a witness and a commander without at once turning to the wicked and the unrighteous—bidding them forsake their ways, enlist beneath their Commander’s banner, and participate in the blessings which He brings. Jesus is a grand attraction for guilty men! Christ is always welcomed by those who know they need Him. The self-righteous Pharisees and Scribes murmur at Him, but those who are humble and contrite, because conscious of their guilt, approach Him, wishing, as it were, but to touch the hem of His garment that they may be made whole! As the sun is attended by his planets who borrow all their light from him, so is the Lord Jesus waited on by crowds of sinners who find in Him their hope, their all! As the thirsty harts resort to the water brooks, so do needy souls hasten to Jesus and it is according to the Divine Order that it should be so.
Notice what the Prophet has to say. He speaks to the unrighteous and the wicked, and invites them to immediate faith and repentance, for so I understand the passage to mean. "Seek you the Lord while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near," is an exhortation to prayer and faith. We cannot approach God in prayer without faith, for a prayer that has no faith in it must die on the road. To seek the Lord aright we must believe that "God is, and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." I take that 6th verse, coupled with the 3rd , to be a plain exhortation to faith. Faith comes by hearing, and for this reason it is written, "Incline your ears and come unto Me; hear and your soul shall live." As for repentance, that is clear in the 7th verse. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." The whole passage reads like a paraphrase of the Gospel message, "repent and believe the Gospel." It seems as if Isaiah were an Evangelist rather than a Prophet—as if he had lived before his time, and preached the Gospel like an Apostle who had seen the Lord! Like the morning star, which shines upon the earth before the sun has risen, Isaiah rejoiced the hearts of Believers with his clear radiance! The gladness of his soul in the thought of the coming Messenger of the Covenant, even Jesus Christ, kindled his spirit, and the Light of God shone forth from him!
He was so glad within his heart that his tongue was loosed, and straightway he addressed himself to those that "sat in darkness and the valley of the shadow of death." He bade them arise and quit the shades, and go unto their God, for there was no reason for despair. There was His Mercy, great Mercy, abounding Pardon to be had, and he bade them obtain it then and there! "Seek you the Lord while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near." The motive which he urged upon men was the certainty of their finding Pardon; this was the tempting bait with which this ancient fisher of souls endeavored to "catch men." May the Holy Spirit aid me while I use the same, and invite you to consider with me—the abundant Pardon which God bestows upon the guilty! Having discoursed upon that at length, we shall, in the second place, consider what fair inferences may be drawn from this encouraging Truth of God.
I.First then, according to the Text, God does ABUNDANTLY PARDON. We will turn that Truth over and over, and see it in many lights. The Pardon of God may well be abundant, for it wells up from an infinite fountain. "Mercy, which endures forever," is the attribute from which that Pardon springs. Pardon is the child of Mercy, not of Justice, and we may reckon that God will give abundant Pardon because He delights in Mercy! All the Attributes of God are well balanced—like He, they are infinite, and not one of them entrenches upon or dims the luster of another. He is infinitely Just, yet infinitely Good! He is infinitely Powerful, yet infinitely Tender! We are quite sure that whenever an Attribute of God comes into action it will be sufficiently revealed to make its Glory manifest. There could be no Mercy exercised by God until there was sin. Where all was blameless, Mercy had no sphere; as soon as the angels fell, the Lord might have exercised Mercy had He pleased; but He did not choose to provide Salvation for Satan and his rebellious hordes. As if to teach us that it is not necessary that God should forgive, He allowed the fallen angels to fall irretrievably, and gave them up to everlasting fire as their due desert. Deceived by the old serpent, man also fell, and again there was space for Mercy. Man was an inferior creature to the angels—should he be allowed to perish or should Divine Grace step in?
In this case Mercy bowed the heavens and came down, and the Lord of All, as if to show that He "will have Mercy on whom He will have Mercy, and will have Compassion on whom He will have Compassion," though He had passed the angels by, took up the race of men, and determined that His Pardon should be bestowed upon them! Now, when He had resolved to let Mercy come to the front, and be seen, which I again say could not have been if there had been no sin; it was most amazing that He allowed that blessed Attribute to come forth in all the fullness of its might! In the Creation you see Power in its majesty and Wisdom in its grandeur. In Providence you see Goodness unbounded and Faithfulness unlimited. In the gulf to which the Lord has condemned the wicked, you see Justice in all its awful Glory; and therefore when He determined to let Mercy come forth from her ivory palaces, it seemed but natural that He should give ample room. It was not according to His mind that from the unfathomable depths of His Love there should trickle forth a stinted stream of Mercy which might wash out a little sin—and water a scanty patch of the desert of our nature! No, He poured floods upon the dry ground! When our sin abounded, His Grace did yet more abound! He opened the sluices of His Mercy! He let down the cataracts of His infinite Love from above, and drowned the mountains of our sin in a deluge of Divine Grace so that we sang rightly just now—
"See here an endless ocean flows
Of never-failing Grace!
Behold a dying Savior’s veins
The sacred flood increase!
It rises high and drowns the hills,
Has neither shore nor bound,
Now, if we search to find our sins,
Our sins can ne’er be found!"
"God is Love" implies that Love has predominance in His Character; not so as to mar other Attributes, much less to destroy them; but as the consequence and blending of the whole, and therefore, we may be sure that this most conspicuous of all the Attributes, this summing up of them all, will have full range and distribute abundantly its peculiar gifts.
But, secondly, as the Attribute from which the Pardon comes is abundant, so we know for sure that the objects to which this Pardon has been expended are abundant, too. Well is it said, "He will abundantly Pardon," for God has already pardoned sinners more numerous than can be estimated by human arithmetic! From the first sinner down to the last that has ever fled for refuge to the hope set before him in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, what incalculable numbers have looked to Him and have been lightened! Think, my Brothers and Sisters, of the myriads that have lived and died forgiven! Heaven is not scant of inhabitants! If you could now lift up your eyes, you would see that the old Covenant Promise has been in part fulfilled—"Your seed shall be as the sand, and the offspring of your bowels like the gravel thereof." The promised seed in Covenant with God, of which Covenant God spoke to Abraham, is already as many as the stars in Heaven, and as the sand upon the sea shore, innumerable! They have come from every land, yes, from the uttermost parts of the earth have they come! Of every hue has their skin been, and their raiment of many different colors. Their language has been varied, and their condition, also, but they have alike found Divine Grace in the sight of the Lord! Multitudes of the poor and needy, yes, of the outcasts have come—the women that ground at the mill, and the captives that fretted in the dungeon! God’s wondrous eye of Love has found out broken hearts by the millions, and He has abundantly pardoned them! Yes, and even on the face of the earth, now, what a multitude there are whom God has pardoned! Blessed be His name!
There may not be as many as latitudinarianism imagines, but there are certainly more than bigotry conceives. God has pardoned a great multitude of the sons of men, and He intends to Pardon yet more, for the Gospel will spread—and brighter days are coming! The halcyon period is on the wing when nations shall be converted at once, and like the flocks of doves that come to the dovecot, souls shall fly to Jesus for forgiveness! When the whole Earth shall be filled with His Glory in the multitude of repentant and forgiven sinners of the golden age, men shall see that God does "abundantly Pardon."
His Pardon is, in the third place, abundant, when we consider the abundance of the sins which the Love of God blots out. Oh, what a subject I have now before me! Here is a river for depth, unfathomable, and for breadth, a river which cannot be passed over—it is a river to swim in! I must correct myself and call it an ocean! Indeed, what shall I say of this sea of sin? There are innumerable creeping things in it, both small and great beasts! There is that leviathan who does mightily disport himself, and there are fierce tempests and horrible storms which well may sink the ships which tempt them. I am overwhelmed with the thought of the abundance of transgression! Sin! From your fruitful womb what myriads of ills proceed! What countless hosts of evils are the fruits of sin! How many are the sins, themselves! Sins of _thought—_rebellious thoughts, proud thoughts, blasphemous thoughts, atheistical thoughts, covetous thoughts, lustful thoughts, impatient thoughts, cruel thoughts, false thoughts—thoughts of ill memory; and dreams of an unholy future; what swarms are there! However, the omission of thoughts which should have been, such as thoughts of repentance, gratitude, reverence, faith and the like—these are equally numerous! With the double list, my roll is written within and without with a hideous catalog; as the gnats which swarm the air at eventide, so numerous is the transgression of the mind!
Then there are sins of word. I should have to repeat the list again; what words have vexed the pure and holy ear of God! Words against Himself, against His Son, against His Law and Gospel, against our neighbor, against everything that is good and true! There are words proud and hectoring; words defiant and obstinate; words untruthful, words lascivious, words of vanity, and words of willful unbelief. Oh God! How many are our sinful words! The sins of our tongue—what man is there who is able to reckon them up? Then there are the sins of deed, which in very truth are but the fruits which grow out of sins of thought! Can any man here estimate the number of his own sins from the first transgression of his childhood until gray old age, or to his present period of life? "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults." Perhaps the sins we do not know are more numerous than the sins we are conscious of! Conscience may not be properly enlightened, and hence many a thing may not seem to be sinful which really is! But God’s clear eyes perceive everything that is obnoxious to His Holy Law, and all our errors are written down against us until the whole is wiped away by an abundant Pardon through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Our sins are as the countless hordes of locusts which descend upon the fertile land and devour everything, leaving nothing for man but famine and despair.
But as it was in Egypt so it is at this day—the Lord commands the wind of Mercy to blow every locust from off the face of the land, and as they all depart at once, our hearts rejoice and are glad. Our sins are countless as the drops of dew in these autumn mornings when every leaf is wet, for every tree is weeping tears of sorrow over the dying year. And yet when the sun has risen, with a little of his heat, the moisture is gone, the dews are all exhaled—they are as if they had never been! Our sins are countless— but the removal of our transgressions is complete when the infinite Love of Jesus shines upon us, and God in His Son has reconciled us by His atoning blood! Innumerable sins are forgiven by one word from the life of Divine Love! In the fourth place, we can see the truth of this in the abundant sin of those sins which are pardoned. Just think of the abundant sinfulness of any one transgression, for every sin has a myriad of sins in its heart. Did you ever find a spider’s nest just when the young spiders have all come to life? It is a city of spiders! Now, such is any one sin—it is a colony of iniquities, a living mass of offenses! You have but to stir it, and you will see countless sins running out of it; it is an aggregation of evil! I remember once studying, with much care, various works upon the sin of Adam. I was convinced by each writer that it was a different sin, and came, at last, to the conclusion that the sin of Adam, simple as it was, had all sorts of sins hidden within it. Sin is not only a double flower, but it blooms sevenfold! It is a complicated mischief, in a thousand ways abhorrent to the Holy God, and yet He pardons it! Abundantly pardons it! Some sins are plotted and planned, and performed with presumptuous deliberation so that when the act, itself, is perpetrated; it is only one part of a whole mass of transgression! The man has first to consider how to do it—there is sin in the consideration. If it were a sin of revenge, for instance, the anger which first suggested it was a sin; then the malice which preyed upon the supposed injury and turned it over was sin; and then the prostitution of wit and wisdom to the scheming of some cunning mode of vengeance—all this was sin!
Many a sin is a development from a long succession of sins, and may have a genealogy far longer than the pedigree of the man himself—and be intensely full of sin all along. Some sins have in them strange contradictory mixtures; we have known men sin from pride and covetousness, and yet fall into that which was at once mean and ruinous to their hope of gain; we have seen self-righteousness and dust riding on the same saddle. What are you, O Sin! A monster of forms uncouth and contrary! I see you one moment as an angel of light, and the next you are a fiend, black as the midnight of Gehenna! You grovel like a serpent, and soon you shine like a seraph! You are "all things to all men," if by any means you may deceive some, and cast them down into the Pit! Yet this vile thing the Lord forgives of men for Jesus’ sake! Does He not abundantly Pardon? In addition to there being many sins in one sin, I want you to remember how much virus of sin we sometimes manage to stow away in a sin. A man has done wrong and smarted for it, yet he does the very same thing again willfully, against his own conscience, and against the warning he has received! A man will sometimes acknowledge what a fool he has been, and yet play the fool again! Some men sin for no motive whatever—for mere wantonness of sin; it is very astonishing to read in the newspapers of crimes that persons will sometimes fall into who appear to have had no inducement to do so at all—persons in good circumstances who might have purchased readily enough the very things they steal! This increases guilt, and makes sin the more heinous, if we do it in sheer willfulness.
If any of us have been blessed with a tender conscience, and with pious training have heard the sound preaching of the Gospel, and have had light and knowledge—if we go deliberately into sin, there is in that sin a degree of obnoxiousness to God which is not to be found in the transgressions of the poor and the ignorant who have lived in darkness and scarcely know what they do. Yet, sins against light and knowledge, God pardons! Deliberate and presumptuous sins He forgives! Blasphemous, impudent, and provoking sins; sins that would otherwise sink us low as the lowest Hell, His mighty Mercy sweeps away in one single moment when we believe in Jesus Christ! At the foot of the Cross not merely sins vanish that are a little stain upon us, but the deep and double crimson of deliberate guilt, and the staring scarlet of gross iniquity—all disappear when we are washed in the "fountain filled with blood" which is open for sin and for uncleanness! Abundance of sinners are forgiven the abundance of sins, and the abundance of the sin which lies in each one of the sins is removed! "He will abundantly Pardon." Our Text grows, does it not?
Let us notice, next, that the Lord "abundantly Pardons," when we consider the abundant means of Pardon which He has been pleased to provide for sinners. It was not possible that God should so Pardon sin as to leave a slur upon His moral government! If a judge sitting on the bench should pass over great crimes without any kind of retribution, it would be a great misfortune to a country, for very soon crime would be regarded as a mere trifle; leniency to the wicked would turn out to be cruelty to the just. When a man who commits violence in the streets has the lash used upon him, we may pity him if we like, but if that lash were not used, we should have a greater need to pity those good and honest citizens who are half killed when they are seeking their homes at nightfall! A judge must never so pass by offenses as to increase them. God will not show Pardon in such a way that men shall think of sin, or question the vigor of His justice. What, then, was He to do? Why, He must provide a way by which He could be "Just and yet the Justifier of the ungodly." And He did provide it! His own Son became the Substitute for the guilty, and in their place He suffered the Wrath of God for man—so that now the severity of God is upheld in the death of Jesus, and the Mercy of God in the forgiveness of those for whom He died! That there is abundant Pardon may be clearly seen from the fact that the Substitute was not an _angel—_was no creature of bounded power and merit—but He who came to save us was none other than God Himself— "very God of very God"!
The Fountain filled for us to wash in is not a fountain which can only cleanse a little, and then will be exhausted of its virtues! The Son of God has filled it from His pierced heart, and the merit of the atoning blood is without limit! There was a limit to the Purpose for which it was shed, for He loved His Church and gave Himself for it. But it is blasphemous to imagine that there is any boundary to the merit of the Atonement itself. There is in the Sacrifice of the Son of God a degree of Power which seraphim cannot conceive! Were all the stars, worlds, and were they all filled with myriads of inhabitants who had revolted against God; if Atonement had been minted for them all—it is not within my power to conceive that a greater Atonement could be required for the whole host of creatures than that which Christ presented upon the Cross! The boundless merit of it, therefore, makes us rejoice—for our God "will abundantly Pardon." Sinner, if there had been a little Savior, you might have despaired! Sinner, if the Savior had offered a small Sacrifice; if there had been but a narrow degree of merit in His agonies and cries, I might have spoken to you with bated breath. But I know He is "able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him" and, therefore, I am warranted to declare to you that God, even our God, in Christ Jesus—"will abundantly Pardon." May God send these things home to the hearts of those who are laboring under a sense of guilt!
And now I must notice, in the sixth place, the abundant ease of the terms of Pardon. When a man says he will forgive another, and does not mean it, he puts hard conditions and says, "I will forgive him under certain circumstances; if he does this, and if he does that." This is not abundant Pardon! It is a little spirit of forgiveness—ill fact—it is no forgiveness at all! But look how God puts it. Does He say to a man, "I will forgive you if you weep for seven years, or do penance for a lifetime"? Or, "I will forgive you if you bring so much gold or silver, or promise this, or promise that"? No, no, no! It is a hearty forgiveness, and therefore the terms are simple and easy! When I say, "terms," I merely use the word from lack of a better, for, indeed, the terms are not terms at all! "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for He will have Mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly Pardon." That is all! No man can expect to be forgiven if he goes on with his sin! You cannot expect God to Pardon that which you continue to provoke Him with! That would be absurd! The sin must be given up! The Gospel says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." You cannot expect a medicine to cure you if you will not take it! Neither can you expect God to Pardon you if you will not accept Pardon from His Son, Jesus Christ; so all that He asks is that you ask, and are willing to receive. And even that He gives you—for the power to pray, to repent and to believe all come from Him! And though He bids men believe, and so makes it a duty, yet He gives them faith, and so makes it a privilege. What a God He is! He gives to His enemies—to the rebellious, to revolters that go aside more and more, He gives the Divine Grace which makes them repent of their sin, and believe in His Son! And this puts their sin forever behind His back, and casts it into the depths of the sea. "He will abundantly Pardon."
Observe, again, the abundance of this Pardon may be seen in the fullness of it. God’s Pardons are no shams, no superficialities. "He will abundantly Pardon"—that is to say, He will really Pardon! Have you that are pardoned ever asked yourselves this question, "Is it really true? Can it be so? Am I really forgiven?" Yes, it is true! God does not pretend to forgive; He does not play at pardoning! When once He says, "I absolve you," He does, indeed, absolve! The forgiveness is valid! It is valid on Earth, in the court of conscience, and above, in the court of Heaven! The pardoned sinner is truly pardoned, and no one shall ever condemn him! His sin is not merely supposed to be gone, it is gone; it is not put a little way off from him, but as far as the east is from the west—so far has He removed our transgressions from us. "I will cast their iniquities into the depths of the sea," He says. "I will cast them behind My back," is another of His strong expressions. Ah, Soul, if you believe in Jesus, your sins do not exist, for it is written, "He has finished transgression, and made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness." And here is the consequence of it, that when God puts away sin, He so abundantly Pardons that He even imputes Righteousness to those who were unrighteous! He does not impute sin, but He gives to us the Righteousness of Christ—with which we are rendered acceptable in His sight—and Christ Jesus is made unto us "Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption."
Our Lord does nothing by halves. He found us black in sin; He washes us white; we are naked and He clothes us.—
"And lest even shadow of a spot
Should on our souls be found,
He took the robe the Savior worked,
And cast it all around."
For filth there is washing, for nakedness dress, for deformity adornment, for uncomeliness beauty, for all our possible needs a boundless supply! Is not this Pardon plenteous, when we see what is bound up with it? I am sure I do not know how to speak well enough of this glorious Pardon which our God gives, but one point is always full of joy to me—that it is irreversible! Those whom the Lord forgives He never condemns! "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." He does not play fast and loose with His creatures—forgive today, and condemn tomorrow! Once let Him blot out the sin, the sin is gone forever. "If they search for it, it shall not be found; yes, it shall not be, says the Lord." How I delight to preach about everlasting Salvation and irreversible Pardon! My God and King changes not—therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed, and the Covenant blessings are yes and amen in Christ Jesus! "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." There is so much to say that I am obliged to multiply particulars.
The eighth point is, He does "abundantly Pardon," because of the abundant blessings which attend that Pardon. See how He takes the poor imprisoned soul out of bondage and delivers it; takes off every chain from its hands and feet, and makes it rejoice in Christ Jesus! Oh, you who have once been set in the stocks of conviction on account of sin, and made to cry out in your sore bondage, you now know, since you are forgiven, what the glorious liberty of the children of God is! You are not now in "durance vile," but being Justified by faith, you have peace with God through Jesus Christ your Lord! The Lord gives us freedom from the power as well as from the guilt of sin; those dear lips of Christ are put to the wounds of our sin to suck the poison out lest the virus of our old transgressions should breed a fresh disease! The blessed dove descends with a healing branch from the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and our soul is made to seek after Holiness till it perfects it in the fear of God. This is abundant Pardon, indeed!
If a king were to forgive rebels, it would certainly be a great mercy; but to take those rebels and make them his _friends_—that is more abundant mercy! Then to adopt them and make them his children— yes, to put coronets on their heads, and make them kings and priests in his empire—this were abundant pardon, indeed! To take the rebels and provide them royal sustenance; to place them at his table; to educate and train them; to admit them to his palace; to grant their requests, commune with them, and take them into his palace with him—that would be an abundant pardon! And yet God does all this for sinners! He makes them His children! He hears their prayers! He gives them fellowship with Himself and His dear Son! He employs them in offices of trust! He sets them about bringing their fellow sinners to Himself, and by-and-by, He takes them home to Heaven where they shall dwell forever at His right hand in all the bliss and Glory of His Only-Begotten Son! Oh, is not this abundantly to Pardon? I would to God some seraph could descend with burning tongue to take my place and speak to you, this morning, on such a theme as this! But no, perhaps I am a better speaker to you in such a case, for—
"Never did angels taste above
Redeeming Grace and dying Love."
But I have tasted it! This forgiveness is mine, today, and I rejoice in it! And, as I preach it to you, I preach that which I know, and set before you that which I have enjoyed! Oh, that others may come and participate in this amazing Pardon—this boundless forgiveness of boundless sin!
II.We shall consider next, very briefly, what are THE INFERENCES WHICH FLOW OUT OF ABUNDANT PARDON. The first inference is this: There is no room for anybody to despair. If there is here, this morning, one who has been a drunk, a man of filthy and unclean life, a thief or worse, if worse can be—there is no reason why he should despair! Suppose I were only able to say this morning, "God does sometimes Pardon some few sinners; there are a few people who have been guilty of great sin who have been forgiven, and are in Heaven"? Why, if men were in their senses they would find hope even in this and would exclaim, "Who can tell? Who can tell? Perhaps He will Pardon me?" Even on such a slender thread as that, they would have hope; and if they were wise, they would go and seek His Mercy.
Jonah could only go through Nineveh and say, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" Nothing about _Mercy_—not a word of it! But the people of Nineveh said, "Who can tell? He may turn from His fierce anger that we perish not." And on the strength of, "Who can tell?" they tried it, and the God of Mercy spared the guilty city! Oh, poor Sinner! If you had only a, "Who can tell?" it were worth while to go and try it! But look at my Text—there is no, "Who can tell?" in it! "He will abundantly Pardon." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts," for it must be heartwork—"and let him turn unto the Lord"—let him seek His face by repentance and faith, that is the meaning—"and He will abundantly Pardon." The Lord has great Mercy for great sinners! I will set the big bell ringing, and I will let it ring and ring again, "Come and welcome! Come and welcome! Come and welcome, for the great gates are set wide open! The tables are long, and the oxen and fatlings upon them are plentiful, and myriads are coming! Come along with you!" The great bell rings out again, "Come and welcome! Come and welcome! Come and welcome, for He will abundantly Pardon!" Would God some soul would hear the proclamation of this best of news, and fly to Christ for Pardon this very day!
Another inference from my subject is this—that there is a loud call to everyone who has not repented to do so, for who would be so base as to offend so good, so kind a Lord? I think that ought to touch each man’s heart. Here is one whom you have offended; you think he is very angry, and you feel very angry, too—and therefore you offend again! You count him an enemy, and you keep up the quarrel; you do more mischief to him. You damage his estate, and speak against his reputation. You suppose that all this while he is preparing to deal a very heavy blow at you, and avenge the injuries he has sustained. So you grow angrier, still, and hate him more and more! You chew the cud of malice, and you get such bitterness out of it that you become worse and worse until you find, one day, that you have been mistaken all along. A friend meets you and says, "Why do you speak so ill of your neighbor?" "I hate him and abhor him." "What for?" asks the other. "Do you know that when he hears of all that you do, he only says, ‘I am very sorry for him; I never did him any hurt, and I never will.’ Do you know he has often done you great service? You were in debt, and you would have been in prison, only he called and paid your debts for you! When you were very ill, he sent the physician to you! Although you never knew that he sent him, it was so, and you were restored. Do you know that he has been buying an estate for you against the time of your trouble which is creeping upon you? He has settled it in your name, and entailed it on you—and he means that you shall live in a mansion forever?"
The man says, "I never thought that; I could not have believed it, and I do not believe it now." "Yet it is true," replies the other. "Does he know of all that I have done against him?" "Oh yes! He has been behind the door often, and heard you call him all sorts of bad names." "What did he say, then?" "All he said, was, "Poor soul! He will be sorry for what he did one of these days, when he knows me better." "Do you mean to say that is all he said?" "Yes." "But did he not grow red in the face, and threaten a lawsuit, or anything of that kind?" "No—he said he would win you one of these days, when you came to know him." Now, I am sure if you had thus treated any one of your fellow creatures, you would be ashamed of yourself, and want to hide your face! Would you not? If you then received an invitation from the person whom you had so badly treated, and he said, "You need not have any fear to come; I shall never say a word of upbraiding to you as long as you live." "Well," you would say, "bad as my nature is, I will go and make up with him." So I pray God that He may plead with you ungodly ones, and turn you to Himself! What hurt has God ever done you? His Laws—is there anything wrong in them? Are they hard, harsh, and severe? They are only meant for your good; they are nothing but danger signals, telling us not to hurt ourselves! Would God we would not persist in going where we should not! God has prepared for some of you full, unqualified forgiveness—and He means to bring you to Himself, and bless you, and carry you safely to Heaven! Oh, hold not out against Him, but yield by mighty Grace subdued! Can you resist its charms? Come, now, and reason with God while He thus reasons with you. Let your conscience say, "Lord, You are full of Mercy; we come to You; we would be reconciled to You through the death of Your Son." God grant that the words of the Text may have power with many of you!
Another inference is this. If there is anybody in this house the Text especially calls this morning, it is the biggest sinner here because there cannot be abundant Pardon where there is not abundant sin! If anyone here feels that he or she is an abundant sinner, you are the person this Text is meant for! Where are you, dear Soul? Are you way back there in the fog? My Master calls you! "He will abundantly Pardon." Mary! You who have been a Magdalene, you are the woman! John, there! You who have been a persecutor, and oppose the Gospel; you are the man! There is room for abundant Pardon in you! You that have never cared for God or devil; you who feel your hearts so hard and stubborn that you think you can never be saved—you are the very people the Text is for—for there is room for abundant Mercy in you! While my Text invites each sinner, it has a special finger with which to beckon, this morning, to those who have abundant sin—"Come here, come here, come here! For the Lord will abundantly Pardon." Now, _for such a forgiving God as this we ought, in return, to have great lov_e. If He "abundantly pardons," we ought to be abundantly grateful—
"Love I must, I’ve more forgiven—
I’m a miracle of Grace!"
You believe God has done much for you—never think you can do too much for Him! Evil sinners, when they get saved, make the fairest saints! In proportion as they earnestly rebelled, they often throw the same vigor into the service of God, and become desperately in earnest for that dear Lord who loved them, and gave Himself for them!
But I must close, dear Friends. What if that Mercy should be slighted? What if there should be such abundant Mercy, and it should be rejected? What if we reject the Mercy of God, and the blood of His dear Son? Those that are unwilling to be forgiven doubly deserve to be left to their own deserts! If God speaks to you with Mercy, and you will not have Him, you must not wonder if, by-and-by, He changes His tune. The lamp holds out to burn, and while it burns you may have Mercy; but remember it will soon burn out! The longest life is short, and after that there will be no further Mercy, no terms of Divine Grace. The Mercy Seat will be gone, and the Judgment Throne will fill its place! Oh, if God only gave us five minutes in which to find Mercy, surely, if we were not fools, we would avail ourselves of it! But while He has lingered with some of you for 50 years, and still lingers, do not provoke Him! But, "Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts," but turn unto Him! Oh, may the Spirit of God turn you, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON—ISAIAH 1:10-20; 43:22-28; 48:1-11.