Well, I'm going to kind of shift the gears this afternoon. I'm going to ask you to turn your Bible to the book of Psalms. In the book of Psalms, I want you to turn to just one verse. Psalm 25 and verse 11. I called Brother Troy and asked him, are you signing topics? He said, no. But the Lord leads you to preach. I actually like it that way, but it still leaves me with a lot of trepidation. What do I preach? Well, one day in my studies, I ran across Psalm 25 and verse 11. Amen. For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. Yesterday evening, I counted the times that Brother Troy used the word pardon. Used it twice. This morning, one of the songs we sang contained the word pardon. which gave me a level of confidence that I'm where the Lord would have me to be in this message this afternoon. Because I wanted to speak, I wanted to think about this pardon. And there are six questions I want to ask. And I'm not going to hurry, but I'm not going to drag. I want to be within the set time parameters. Because I don't want Troy to say once I'm gone, to get on the phone, call Brother Farmer, call Brother Pruitt. Do you know what he did? I do want to be Respectful. If we all got up here to be as long as we wanted to, we'd never go home. Good thing there's no windows we'd be able to fall out of and get killed. But six questions I want to ask. Number one. Now this is a song of David. So what was it that David was asking for? Plain and simply. For thy namesake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity. What is a pardon? What does it mean to be pardoned? Simply put, it means to be forgiven. David is asking the Lord, to forgive his iniquity. Not forgive my sins, forgive my very nature, my very person for every thought, imagination, and every deed that I've ever committed and will commit. Forgive me for all of them. Every single one. Most of us say that this is referring to his time with Bathsheba. And that's very likely true. But we all weren't dead with Bathsheba. We didn't all sin that way. But we have the same iniquity. I believe David, if I caught it correctly, I was conceived in sin and shaped in iniquity. That's a common trait for every single one of us in this room. We have that in common. We may be short, we may be tall, we may be skinny, we may be unskinny. But we're all, all, from the top of our head to the sole of our feet. Depraved, rotten, wretched, and for all rights and purposes, hell-bound sinners. But we'll talk about that in a few moments as well. David wanted a pardon. Look if you would in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter seven. Ecclesiastes seven and verse 20. If you get there before I do, just wait for me. I know I'm going. But Ecclesiastes 7, the 20th verse, for there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. I want to say from the beginning, or if you say when I was growing up, from the get-go, I want you to understand that what I'm trying to tell you, if you are just head in the sand, thinking something else of yourself than what you are, I want you to know that you are not good, and you are a sinner, and the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Guess what? That means every one of you. Every one of us. My brother talked about the good news and the bad news. Well, right now I'm talking about the bad news. You know, good news doesn't mean anything to you if all things are going well. Oh, but let the house catch fire. Or the car break down and you haven't got transportation. That's bad news. You get a report that you have cancer, or you look like Brother P. Horn. Your days are greatly numbered. Or you think about Brother Nathaniel. I'm sure two years ago, he never thought he'd be sitting at a conference in the shape he's in today. And I'm not saying it's a pick on Nathaniel to make him blush or make him embarrassed. But folks, there's bad news. It's a part of life. Well, there's some bad news about life and eternity. And the first one is, in the day you eat the earth, thou shalt surely die. If only we'd been dying ever since then. Psalm 53 and verse 1. The 53rd Psalm and the first verse. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity. There is none that doeth good. When Psalms go back to 14, the 14th Psalm, and there, the first three verses. Psalms 14, one through three. Again, the fool is dead in his heart. There is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable, deep works. There is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They all are gone aside. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Have I made it clear to you this afternoon? You're not good. You're not. You believer? You're not good? Paul says, in my flesh was no good thing. Our only goodness is Christ. Those first three verses speak of us. Except something happened. They worked on us. But ladies and gentlemen, young people, teens, children, sin is a real thing. And the ways of sin is a real thing. God's a God of love, but God's a God of wrath, and he will not set his justice aside. He will not change his standards. You know, we change our standards. At 68 years old, I've seen some changes in standards that are just phenomenal. Children say things about their parents that I would never have dreamed would come out of my mouth even 15 years ago. Now little kids say them. I'm not going to enumerate the junk that's going on in the medical field and this change things. Folks, sin is alive and well. And the consequences of it are serious. So why was he asking this? Why was David so desirous of his sin being forgiven? because his iniquity was great. It's a lot of it. Dave's iniquity wasn't minuscule. It wasn't large. It was great. David confessed his sin unto God. And he said, against thee, the alone, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Your parents don't see your sin. Your brothers don't see your sin. There's a set of twins sitting back there to talk. But you know, they don't know what each other do all the time. They don't. One thing is for sure, God does. God sees every sin we commit. He hears every thought that we don't even utter out of our mouth. I hope I don't offend any parents here. But I want to say something that was said to me not long after, I guess probably the day I was saved, actually. The young man that the Lord put me in touch with, I was scared to death of dying and going to hell. And I said, Dave, tell me something. How do I get the victory over Satan? How do I get over, how do I get saved? He showed me Christ. I think that day or the next that he asked me, if God was in your bedroom at night, would you make love to your wife? I guess I, I don't know. He said, you know what? It doesn't matter. He sees it anyway. The point I'm trying to make, people, there's no roof, there's no room. There's no shade. There's no shelter. They're gonna shield you from the eyes of God and your sin. You just as well confess it right now. Not to me. You're not going to some little pointer room with two doors, a wall between you and you confess, pour your heart out. No. That's what prayer is for. Confess your sin to God. Now, do we need to confess something to each other? Sure we do. We should be able to. And you know, I'm kind of disappointed in the fact that too often we hear someone's sin and they confess their sin and we shade them, we put a little mark about them next to their name. He did this. He told me that. We should be able to confess our sins one to another. And I love that change. Because what's the difference in us? We're shaping the same iniquity. We'll conceive the same sin. We're equally depraved. So why? But the decision to be made to God, not to me. He knows it already. He knows every single one of them. Go to Proverbs 28. Proverbs 28, and I'd like you to read verse 13. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. You see that pattern? Confession and forsake. Once you confess, you don't keep living in it. You don't keep practicing it. It may be something hanging over your neck for a long time to come, but you keep taking that matter before the Lord. Take this from me. Sit in the serious matter, folks. It is nothing to take lightly. There's mercy in confession. You can confess him to God, you can't confess to anybody else for that you don't feel comfortable doing. Because again, he knows it already. In fact, if I understand the book of Ephesians correctly, he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, under salvation. The children haven't done either good or evil. that the purpose of God according to election might stand. Nothing that would, nothing that wouldn't. But of God that shows mercy. You're not gonna tell God anything that's gonna surprise him. I might be surprised, I guarantee I could surprise you. And I don't brag about this, it's a fact of life. But God sees already. Everyone loves John 3, 16. I want to look at a verse that doesn't get quite the same attention. Turn to John chapter 3. There's a verse that just doesn't quite get the attention that 16 does. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Now let's skip 17 and go to verse 18. He that believeth not, who believeth on him, is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already. The condemnation is taking place. You don't believe. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Now, the Lord knows who it all is going to be. The Lord knows every single person is going to be in heaven for eternity. But understand something. Sin and the condemnation that comes along with it has come already. We need the remedy. We need relief. We need deliverance. We need salvation. We need to be delivered from the condemnation. The third question, who was David asking? Look at our text. For thy name's sake, O Lord, Oh Jehovah, the one true God, the one and only one that can pardon, that can forgive on the level that I am referring to here. A king, a president, a governor can pardon you a murder, armed robbery, They can forgive you for some things. But our God can pardon for everything. All of them. Do not say that I can't be forgiven because my sin is too great. It's not any greater than David's was. It wasn't. Look at the book of Isaiah, in Isaiah 50. You have no idea how many times I've rewritten these notes to hope I didn't transpose something. Isaiah 50 and verse 2. Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke, I dry up the sea. I make the rivers wilderness, where the rivers a wilderness, that fish stinketh, because there's no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. The might of God has been mentioned several times in the last two days. Our God is mighty. He is powerful. There's nothing that he cannot do. David knew no place else to go but to the pardon from the one being that could actually give him one. No one else could do that. The priest couldn't. David needed a pardon. Down it was very so. And God is the only one that can do that. The one and only one that can do that. But what means does God pardon? Go back to the book of Psalms again. This time, Psalm 51. Psalm 51. This is David, his confession of his sin. I don't wanna read all of it, I wanna read two verses. Verse one and verse nine. Have mercy upon me, O God. according to that loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Do you know what it means to blot out? Cover it over. Get out of the way. It can't be seen anymore. Look at verse nine. Hide thy face from my sins. Blot out all mine iniquity. Loving kindness, tender mercy. Right now on this plane, in this age, in this time, the loving kindness and the mercy of God will blot out the sin of every individual that comes to him seeking a pardon. There's another coming time, according to the book of Hebrews, where it says, the point of the man wants to die. But after that, the judgment. There's no second chance after death. Today is the day of salvation. Amen. Loving kindness, tender mercy. Why do you not call upon him unregenerate sinner? Why? Why would you chance not getting home from here and dying and going to hell? Stop and think for just a moment. You don't know what tomorrow holds for you. You don't know what the next five minutes holds for you. I'll be one of the songs we sang this morning or yesterday afternoon. Why are you delaying? Loving kindness, tender mercy, it's there. Why will you not take it? A part of all of your sin can be gone. And sinners say, maybe tomorrow. Paul preached to a man and said, I'll heal you again. What convenient time. You don't know what that convenient time is. I have two sons. And I'm scared to death that they won't come to know the Lord. I brought a good father. I preached to them all their life. But folks, I can't save them. Only God and his mercy and his loving kindness and his pardon can save them. In the book of Micah, Micah chapter 7, They tell you I don't cry every day. Don't get that idea, okay? I talked to him last night. And I marveled at how quickly he seemed to recover and is serving the Lord as he is. In the book of Micah, chapter 7, I want you to notice verse 18. Who is it, God, like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, passeth by transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighted in mercy. Tender mercy, delighted in mercy. What would you do if you had a drawer full of traffic tickets and there was a judge, you take all those tickets to, drop on his desk and he would just wash them away. You'd go, wouldn't you? You will go to that judge and get all your traffic tickets fixed. Get them all eliminated. But here's a God that delighted in mercy. And there's a very good chance that you won't go. Now, this verse we just looked at in Micah chapter 7 contains the word pardon. But this word pardon is a bit different than our text. Our text speaks of forgiveness. This pardon speaks more defined. In the meaning of this verb, this word, is to bear, to lift, to take away, to carry. This word brings forth my fifth question. How does God bear? How does God take away our sin? Okay, he can forgive it. Good, it's all done. But now if there's an element of bearing away, How does he accomplish it? Well, John the Baptist answered that question for us in the book of John chapter two and verse 29. And I'm gonna turn there just to make sure that I don't quote it incorrectly. because I want to be correct, because I want you, unbeliever, to understand what is at stake here, how God can take away your sin. In John chapter 1, look if you would at verse 29. The next day, John sees Jesus coming unto him and says, behold, the Lamb of God will taketh away the sin of the world. He taketh it away. The Lamb. The Lamb of God. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, Isaac said, Father, the fire's here. The wood is here. Where's the lamb? Abraham said, the Lord will provide a lamb. And over the thicket was a lamb. Abraham didn't have to sacrifice Isaac. But he was going to. Because he was on the mind that somehow God will raise Isaac up again. Right, that's right. He ready to do it. God had a lamb. And in that lamb, he purposed to take away the sin of the world. In the book of Romans, chapter 5, In verse 11, I want her to get through this, because I don't want to be anywhere near itchy about anything. Romans 5 and 11. And not only so, but we also enjoy in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. the reconciliation, the chainless receiving of a change of standing between me and God. I'm no longer an adversary. I'm no longer an enemy. I'm a child of God by the atonement of Christ. Amen. That's right. A few years ago, old screwy Louie Farrakhan declared a day of atonement. where all the men had to go and atone for all their sin. That was about as fruitless as trying to cook an ice cube on a hot stove. It ain't gonna work. We cannot atone. But Christ can. The sinless lamb. the lamb that taketh away the sin of the world. It's so simple. What must I do to be saved? Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Not from one sin, not from last year's sins, from all of them. Because a perfect lamb that one had to be inspected for a number of days to make sure it was perfect without spot, without blemish, was this one. Amen. Came from heaven, put himself in the form of a man, lived a perfect, sinless, holy life before God so much so he said, I knew always that which pleases my Father. Amen. will please the righteousness of God. Did everything that God required of us that we could not do. And all we need to do, it's simple. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe that he came to this earth. Live a perfect life. died a sinless death to carry the sins of those whose father had given him to the cross. Took him to the grave, left that tomb, and left those raggedy red clothes, dead red clothes in that tomb. He's not there. He's not dead. He's alive. He's seated at the right hand of God where he never lived to make intercession. Even when we sin tomorrow, there's someone there still pleading our case. Unbeliever, understand this. Sinner, there is a pardon. You do not have to die. But you know something? believe. You must come. You must ask. My last question. Why would God do this? Why would God make way to be able to pardon, to forgive, and to carry away the sins of simple man. Why? David, ask that question. Yes. For thy name's sake. Amen. For your glory. For your honor. Amen. For your praise. Amen. God doesn't need to save you. That's right. and loving kindness and mercy, he's been a way to save you. But it's for his name's sake. If you do something for your name's sake, for you to get glory, to get attention, to get praise, that's a bad thing. If I got in this pulpit and preach just so when I got down, I get by all and say, well, I did a good job getting it. I did a good job. But folks, God is worthy and deserving of all the praise and admiration that can be bestowed upon him because he gave us a gift by his own benefit for his own need, no, forgive me, for his own desire, for his praise, for his glory. Don't count it cheap. Salvation. is free to you, but it was not cheap. It cost the very Son of God. I don't know where you are. I don't know where you are in your life. But backslidden believer, there's pardon for you too. The Lord make an intercession for you as well. But unbeliever, there's a pardon. There is a ransom. There is a redemption. There's an atonement. There's a justification. All of those things are wrapped up in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have everything that you need to live in eternity in the presence of God that would make this meeting look like a picnic on a junk heap. As joyous as time has been, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what eternity has got to be like. But you stay stiff-necked, hard-hearted, and unrepentant. You never come to Christ in faith that you'll soon be taken away. They won't be. But when you stand before God, You cannot say. On December the 8th, or is it the 9th? December the 9th, 2023, you weren't told. There's a part. You can't be saved. Be it for the Lord Jesus Christ, and I most assuredly shall be. God in his word said that. In this book, he said that. Is it going to mean anything to you?