Psalms. If you're from Kentucky, it's Psalms. If you're from Scotland, it's Psalms. We're going to look at Psalms today, chapter 32. Really one verse. I want to read to you one verse. Thank you for coming out to the Lord's house this morning. This is undoubtedly the high point of my week every week, getting to come here and to worship. with you and to study the Word of God with you. But I couldn't help but thinking of that song as he was playing, Sweet Hour of Prayer, that the high points of my life, the greatest moments of my life have been when I was alone with Christ in prayer. And He revealed to me the greatness of His love. And He overwhelmed me with His kindness to a sinner like me. And that's why We need so desperately to discipline ourselves to spend time alone with God so that we might hear the still, small voice that speaks to our inner man and transforms us into His likeness. I would get on my knees and beg You, if I thought it would help, to get you to spend time alone with the Lord in His Word. because I know how much it's benefited me and how much it's changed my life. I appreciate all you coming. Good to have the visitors. We've got some folks from Hart County. We're glad to have them. I appreciate them coming all the way down and being with us in service. And I pray that God will minister His Word to all of our hearts. Psalm 32, look at verse 1. That's the only verse we'll read out of the psalm this morning. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." What a wonderful truth. The word blessed there means happy, spiritually prosperous, to be envied. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. They say, and I don't know, I've not counted them all, but they say that now on planet Earth there are over 6 billion people. I think the other day I heard there were like 6.5 or 6.4 billion people upon this planet as we live today and as we move about our lives. And one of the things that's always amazed me about God's creation is the great variety in God's creation, especially the great variety in people. It amazes me, for instance, that out of over six billion people on this planet, it amazes me that God did not create any of them exactly like another one. That's amazing. For instance, if I was to set out to make people, five people into it, I'd be making them all alike because I'm not smart enough to have that kind of variety. But God was wise enough, and God being all-knowing and God being all-wise, when God began to make people, He was always able to make people different. Everybody in this room and everybody on this planet is different, and we're different in many different ways. Have you ever thought about the differences in the people that God has made, the racial differences, which are not a bad thing but a good thing? They're only a bad thing because man, in his arrogance, begins to feel like his race is superior to another race. But I'm glad that God didn't make us all white. I'm glad that God didn't make us all black. I'm glad that God didn't make us all from Kentucky and we all speak alike. I'm glad that God is a God of great variety and there are many differences. in the people that God has created. There are cultural differences. There are racial differences. There are social differences. Differences of status. Material differences. Some have more than others have. Some have less than others have. There are physical differences in appearance. Our hair colors are different. Our skin color is different. Differences in the way we view the world and differences in the way we look at things and the way we think. There are many different ways, and all the people that God has created, there are many different ways that we are different. But it is amazing when you begin to think about the things that really matter, how that with man, there are some ways in which we are all alike. For instance, when we talk about the different kinds of people, we're liable to talk about people from Asia, people from America, people from Europe. But really when you look at the Bible, God sees people in two classes, those who are His and those who are not. God simplifies it for us, doesn't He? He doesn't say there are 75 different types of people. He said there are two types of people. Those who have been born again by the grace of God, and those who are children of God by adoption, and those who are not children of God, even though they were created by God, they are alive on this earth because of God's creative activity, they are not a child of God because they've not been adopted by God's grace. So God really basically, when it gets down to the areas that really matter, God simplifies it for us and He makes it real, real simple. There's really basically just two types of people. So when you begin to look at the Scripture and you begin to see things from God's viewpoint, you begin to understand that really, even though there are many differences, in the men that God has created and placed upon this planet, there are some ways in which all men are alike. For instance, as we studied last Wednesday night, all men are alike, guilty before God. That's what the Bible said. For a few weeks, we've been preaching and teaching through the book of Romans. And you know, if you go through Romans chapter 1, Paul says, by the way, all the pagan Gentiles, in their idolatry, they are lost and guilty before God. But then he goes to chapter 2 and he says, Oh, by the way, you religious Jews with your Old Testament scriptures and your ceremonies and your rituals, you are lost before God too. And he's building up to Romans chapter 3 where he says, We have charged that I'll, The Jew and the Gentile are under the dominion and the control of sin. And then he begins to say those verses that we all know. There is none good, no, not one. There is none righteous. There is none that understands. There is none that seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way and become unprofitable. And he's proving the point that even though there are many different types of people, they are all alike in this sense that they are all alike They are rebels against God and they are all guilty before the throne of heaven. God is the Creator. And because God created man, man stepped out from under His authority and man became a rebel and all men are guilty before God. That brings me to my point today. But because all men are guilty before God, me and I, every man, has one great and basic need before God. And that's the need to be forgiven. The need to be forgiven springs from our guilt before God. The need to come to God and receive from Him by grace His forgiveness is rooted in the fact that we are rebels against the authority of God and that we have sinned against the God of heaven who is so holy that even the angelic beings in His presence cover their face and cry, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. And because God is holy and man is sinful, one of man's greatest needs is the need to be forgiven. And that's why the Scripture said, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin has been covered. You've heard me talk about, and I think I read it here one Sunday morning not long ago, about the beginning of Pilgrim's Progress and how that pilgrim, the Christian, he's got this great burden of sin upon his back and he's pointed toward a gate that leads to life. And when he gets to the gate, he's led through the gate. And not long on his journey, he comes to a hill, and on the hill there's a man on a cross. And when he comes up to the cross, the great burden that's on its back, the things that bound it to its back, they crack. And the burden of sin rolls off of his back and rolls down a hill into a sepulcher, never to be seen again. And he begins to leap for joy and to praise God because the burden of sin has been lifted. And he knows that in the eyes of God, he's no longer guilty. He's been forgiven. Can I tell you? That was much like my experience when I realized that God, by His grace, had forgiven me of my sins. See, we live in a world full of people that need to be forgiven, but the sad thing is a lot of them don't realize they need to be forgiven. We have built a whole system in our culture where we try to tell people that their problem is not that they're guilty. Their problem is rooted in their upraising, their family, their attitudes. And really, if they just loved themselves more, then they would be happier. But they're really not guilty, so they really don't need to be forgiven. Can I tell you? I believe that many of man's problems are rooted in his guilt. And if he could ever realize and know that in Christ he could be forgiven and set free and liberated, many of his miseries would disappear and many would leave. A lot of people, they live their life under a great burden of guilt, a great burden of shame. And who in this room could stand up and say, there are no skeletons in the closet of your past? that you wouldn't want everybody to know about, and that there's nothing in your past that you're not ashamed of. We all know what it is to know that there are things in our past that we want to be covered by the blood, never to be remembered again, never to be brought against us again. One of man's most elemental needs is the need to be forgiven. The need to know that he can come to God and God has justified him and God views him in Christ as not guilty because there is nothing more terrible than the crushing load of guilt that is placed upon us when the Spirit of God convicts us. Now a lot of people, they don't sense that guilt. A lot of people, their conscience is so dead, they don't feel guilty about anything. A lot of people are like the Jews in the book of Jeremiah. When the Bible said they had got so hardened to God, they couldn't even blush. They could sin and live in iniquity, but they weren't even ashamed of their sin. They wouldn't even blush before God at their sin. And we've got a culture full of people like that now, where evil is now good, and good is now evil. And we've turned things around backwards, and we've so deadened our conscience that we don't care what we do, not only do we do evil, we rejoice in the evil that we do, and we boast about it before the eyes of other men. That's the MTV generation that we're raising of young people. Young people who think sexual sin is just a game to be played and there's no real consequence. Young people who think that morality is a joke and that God is a joke and that there's no heaven, no hell, no judgment, and I can live as I please and do as I please because I'm going to die like a dog anyway because basically I'm just an animal, a little farther up the evolutionary scale. The reality of the Bible is that there is a Creator. He created man in His own image. And the first man Adam sinned against God. And because of his sin, you and I were born with a sinful nature in rebellion against God. And the only way we can ever, ever, ever come to God and be right is if somehow our sins are dealt with and done away with. That's the only way. They must be forgiven. Something must be done about our sin. And it does no good to bow your head in the dirt and say, well, that's an old-fashioned notion. And we don't need to worry about sin anymore. The preachers are wrong. The Bible is wrong. The church is wrong. We're an enlightened generation. Who cares about what they said? Who cares about the object or the subject of sin? Can I tell you, God cares. Whether you like it or not, one day you're going to stand before the God of heaven. You're not going to stand before me, and I'm not going to stand before you. You will stand before the God of heaven and give an account of your life. And that's why sin is such a solemn and serious subject. And that's why all men, black and white, rich and poor, American, Russian, European, Asian, all men have the same common denominator. They're guilty before God, and they need to be forgiven. That's what makes the great truth of the Bible so wonderful. And I want us to look at this for a little while this morning, and then we'll be done. And you know, the truth that man is guilty makes this truth that's revealed in the Bible so wonderful, and that's the truth that God is a God of forgiveness. Have you ever thought about that? What an amazing thing it is that God, of all the things that God could be, that the Bible reveals that God is a God who forgives, God is a God who is merciful, and it's in His very nature to be merciful, to be kind, to be gracious, to be long-suffering, and to be patient. By the way, if God wasn't long-suffering, none of us would be here today. If God wasn't patient, none of us would be alive today. We would all have been in hell. But God is patient. God is long-suffering. God is merciful. God is kind. And you know as well as I do that you did not respond to the grace of God the first time God called you, that God in His patience kept calling and drawing and working to bring you to Himself. And if you're here and you're saved by the grace of God, you know that God is merciful and God is patient and God is long-suffering and God is kind. But the Bible makes it so plain that one of the great aspects about the character of God is that God is a merciful God. God is a God who forgives. Now, go with me to Exodus chapter 34. And this is the message that Moses needed to hear. Now, we're going to look at some Scriptures and just see what the Word of God says. You don't need my opinions. You need what God's Word says. Let's consider some of the things the Bible says about the subject of God and the God who forgives. Now you remember what happened in Exodus chapter 32? Remember God had just come down in power and through the hand of Moses, God had led His people out of the land of Egypt. They're going out into the wilderness and God calls Moses up on Mount Sinai and God begins to speak to Moses, reveal Himself to Moses. Where Moses is up on Mount Sinai, spending time with God, receiving the law from God, guess what's going on down at the bottom of the mountain? They've already begun to turn their back on God and they've already made a golden calf. And they're dancing around that golden calf saying, these are the gods that brought us out of the land of Egypt. And God tells Moses, go down. The people that you brought out of the land of Egypt, they've already corrupted themselves, and they've made a golden calf. And Moses carries the tablets of the Law down, and he stands before the people, and when he sees that they've broken the Law of God, he throws the tablets down, and they're shattered at his feet a picture of the Law of God that they had broken before he even gave it to them. No doubt Moses was devastated. I would have been. And no doubt he was just devastated by what had taken place. You know what God does? He intercedes for the people. God is going to be merciful to the people. But now Moses has got to lead this people. He's got to lead this people to the land of Canaan. This people that are so stiff-necked and so stubborn and so wicked and so depraved, that the minute He turned His back, they make a golden calf. And now He's got to lead these people to the land of Canaan. Somehow, He's got to lead this wicked, stubborn, hard-hearted people to the land of Canaan. Can you imagine the overwhelming burden that was on the heart of Moses as he thought about leading people that stubborn, that stiff-necked, that hard-hearted? And you know what? I can almost imagine what he was thinking. How in the world can I lead these people? They are so wicked. God is going to judge them. God is going to destroy them. God is going to come upon them in His anger and His wrath. And God is going to obliterate them from the face of the earth because they are so stiff-necked and hard-hearted. And you know what Moses needed? He needed a revelation from God. So God in Exodus 34 is going to give Moses a revelation of Himself. He cuts two new tablets of stone and he goes up and God once again gives him the law. And look what happens in verse 5. Now, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. God comes down in a sense before Moses and He begins to reveal to Moses what He's like. Moses, here's what I'm like. I want you to know, before you try to leave this people, this is what I'm like. And look what God reveals about Himself in verse 6. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God. And look at the very first thing God says about Himself. Merciful. Merciful. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children of the third and fourth generation. Moses, you think you can't lead these people? You think you'll never get into the land of Canaan because of their stiff-hearted, wicked ways? Well, Moses, first of all, you need to understand that I'm merciful, and I'm gracious, and I'm compassionate, and I'm long-suffering. And Moses, you will be able to lead the people with the knowledge that I am a God of great mercy. A God of great mercy. I'll tell you what, if I didn't know God was a God of mercy, I wouldn't even bother getting out of bed in the morning. I sure wouldn't bother trying to serve Him. I wouldn't bother trying to follow Him. I wouldn't bother trying to obey Him. Go to Psalms 86. And look what the Lord reveals about Himself in Psalms 86. Psalms 86.5. For you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you." You know the Lord is good, ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy. Go over to Psalm 130. Remember what it says in Psalm 130 about the Lord. Psalm 130 verse 3, If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Now think about that. If the Lord really wanted to write down everything and really mark down our sin and hold it against us, could any of us stand? But look what it said, But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. So there are many other references, but those are three I wanted to give you that teaches that the Bible said that God is merciful. Not only does the Bible teach that God is a God of mercy, the Bible teaches that God is a God of great mercy. It's not just that God is a God who forgives, but God is a God who forgives great transgression, great sin. Now the reality is that we are all guilty before God, but we have all not sinned alike. We have all sinned. We talked about that Wednesday night. Every man, every woman, every boy, every girl has sinned in the eyes of God. But we have not all sinned alike. There is no doubt in my mind that we would have to deal with the fact that there are some in this world who have sinned to a degree that other people have not sinned. Think of Adolf Hitler. Think of Joseph Stalin. Think of some of the world leaders and some of the terrible crimes. They've committed upon multitudes of people. For instance, Adolf Hitler killing 6 million Jews and being responsible for the deaths of millions more during World War II. Joseph Stalin killed about 20 million of his own people. Now, to a lesser degree or a greater degree, probably all of us in this room, we have all sinned. We know we've all sinned, but we've not all sinned alike. I know very little about your past. You probably know very little about my past. But the reality is that there's some of us that sunk to depths that maybe the other ones in the room did not sink to. And you can't always go by what you see. Don't think because someone's living in fornication that they've sunk to a depth that maybe someone over here has not sunk to, because you can't see in the other person's mind And some of the most depraved and gauntless and wicked acts take place in the privacy of our own mind, or in the privacy of our own home. So you can't look at one and say, well, he's more guilty than the other. But the reality is that even when I was sinned, it is true that I have not sinned alike. But aren't you glad that God doesn't say, I can forgive up to a point, But after that, my mercy is expended, and I have mercy, but I don't have great mercy. No, God is a God of great mercy. And if you're like me, you're never the God of great mercy because you're a man of great sin. Great mercy. Let me just give you some biblical examples. We always talk about the unpardonable sin. Did you also notice what Jesus said when He talked about the unpardonable sin? And if you were here in Sunday school a couple of months ago, you discovered some things, we learned some things about the unpardonable sin. That they were accusing their Messiah of doing His miraculous works in the power and influence of Satan instead of under the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. But do you know that before Jesus said that the unpardonable sin would not be forgiven to them in this age or in any other age, you know what He said? All manner of sin and blasphemy that men will blaspheme will be forgiven to them. All manner of sin and blasphemy that men blaspheme will be forgiven. You know that God is a God who can forgive all manner of sin, and all manner of blasphemy, and all manner of wickedness. And you know, you may think that you're a respectable sinner, or you may think you're not a very respectable sinner, but either way, God is a God of enough mercy. He can forgive you either way because He has enough mercy for your sin. Remember the story of the woman in the book of Mark, in the book of Luke, that comes to Jesus, and she brings an alabaster box of oil, and she stands behind Jesus, and she puts the oil on His feet, and she weeps, and the tears drip down on His feet, and she washes His feet with her tears, and she's wiping His feet off with her hair, and there's a Pharisee sitting there, and he said, well, if this was a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is, because she is a sinner. He wasn't saying she is a normal sinner. He was saying she is a notorious sinner. A sinner and everybody knows what kind of sinner she is. Everybody knows about her sin and her wickedness and the life that she's lived. Very probably she had been living in some type of sexual sin. And he looked at that woman and said, if Jesus was a real prophet, he would know what kind of a great sinner this is that's washing his feet off. with her hair and with her tears. You know what Jesus said? Her sin, which is great, has been forgiven. So the Lord is a Lord who can forgive great sin. Now, if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have went to the prisons all those years, and I'm going to go again tonight. I wouldn't have went to the prisons and preached that God is able to forgive sin if I didn't believe that God is able to forgive great sin, great transgression. God is a God who is able to give and forgive great transgressions. You know, we need to think about that. Because I think sometimes we get the touch of the Pharisee in us, don't we? And we sit in our respectable churches with our respectable lives, and our respectable families, and our respectable homes, and our respectable clothes, and our respectable opinions, and we look down our noses at other people and we think, now that man or that woman, their life was in such a mess. And even though we would never say it, we think that could God ever forgive someone like that? He forgave you and I, didn't He? He's a God of great mercy. And what bothers me is sometimes churches, they begin to look at people based upon their social standing, their social status. And they only want to evangelize people who they think fits into their club. We're not forming a religious club here. And I don't care if they're poor. I don't care if they're black. I don't care if they're white. I don't care if they're polka-dotted pink. It doesn't matter to me. They can be forgiven by the grace of God and they can be in the family of God and live as a full member in fellowship with God's people once God's grace is operated in their heart. It doesn't matter. You say, but they were a drug addict. And we were in love with ourselves. But he was a drunk. Yeah, and you were prideful. But he was a thief, and so were we. We were just respectable thieves. But you don't know what kind of a... You don't know how he done his wife. Yeah, and you don't know how you've done God. He's a God of great forgiveness. And great sinners need great mercy. Right? And the only reason you would think you're not a great sinner is because you're in the dark about yourself. And whenever the Spirit of God opens your heart and you begin to understand the truth about yourself, you realize what a guilty person you are and you realize that you need not just a little mercy, you need a lot of mercy from God, don't you? The third thing I want you to see is that God's forgiveness is found and given for the sake of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4.32. And this talks about our forgiving others, but there's a little statement in this verse that really is connected to our being forgiven. Ephesians 4.32. By the way, your ability to forgive is connected to the knowledge that you've been forgiven. If you've not been forgiven, you're going to have a hard time forgiving others. If you've been forgiven, you'll find it a lot easier to forgive others because you understand what guilt's all about. Ephesians 4.32, here's what the Apostle says, "...and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." Now I want you to notice the last part of the verse. He says, "...you forgive one another in the same way that God forgave you, but understand that God forgave you in Christ." Now, does God forgive on the basis of anything that we do, or does God forgive us on the basis of the Lord Jesus Christ? He forgives us for the sake of another. Now here's the problem. God never forgives anybody on the basis of their goodness. Do you believe that? Do you believe that God doesn't forgive on the basis of your goodness? If you don't believe that, you've got a problem. Here's what your problem is. You're not good. You may not have discovered that yet, but you're not good. If you were here Wednesday night, remember what the Apostle said? There is none that does good And remember what I said? And just in case you think of your old Aunt Emma that you think is so good, the Lord said, no, not one. There is none that does good. No, not one. Not even one. There's nobody good. You've heard me tell the story about preaching in northern Kentucky on that verse in Jeremiah 17. The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. Who can know it? That morning I got up and spent about an hour preaching on the deceitfulness and the wickedness of the human heart. And a man came to me afterwards. He said, my son is in jail over here, and I was going to come to you and ask you to pray for him. And the first thing I was going to say is that even though he's in jail, he's really got a good heart. But he said, he doesn't have a good heart, does he? I said, no he doesn't, and I don't either, and you don't either. So God never forgives anybody on the basis of human goodness. You can't think that you can be good and somehow God will see some goodness in you and forgive you because you are good, because you are not good. Neither am I, nor is any other human being. And if that offends you, it offends you because you're offended in your own pride at what God said about us as human beings. There is none good, no, not one. So forgiveness never is based upon human works or human goodness. Now, let me say this. Forgiveness is not based upon your prayers at an altar. Now, that's what will offend you. Well, at our church, you've got to come and you've got to stand up there and you've got to pray through. Well, understand, what you do is you turn that into a work. And how many young people have been deceived And how many people have been messed up because they're lying on an altar in some church crying, asking God to forgive them, when in reality they're trying to work up the emotion to somehow earn the forgiveness of God. I'm not saying there won't be contrition, or there won't be sorrow, or there won't be tears. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying God does not forgive you because of your contrition, or because of your tears, or because of your sorrow. God only forgives us because of Christ and Christ alone. And if we're not careful, we'll make an idol out of an altar. Or we'll make an idol out of an experience. And that's where you get these people that supposedly were saved 45 years ago, and you say, do you know the Lord? Oh, I remember I went to the altar. I stayed there three weeks. I cried and cried and cried, and finally I had this great light hit me, a feeling hit me, and all of a sudden I got up and I knew I was saved. But you go, where was Jesus in all of that? I don't know, but I'm telling you what I felt. They might have known, or they might have experienced. You may feel a thousand different things when God is dealing with you. You may be under deep contrition and sorrow and tears and agony of spirit. That's all good. That's all good. But in the end, you need to understand that forgiveness is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ, not in some barren, squalid or found that you did at church somewhere. It is in the person of Christ. There will be sorrow. There will be contrition. God does do a work in the heart. But God forgives, not because of anything you do, but because of what Christ did. And for you to get anything else other than that in your mind is idolatry. You make a God out of your own experience. You say, well, look what I felt, look what I said, look what I did. I remember the night what the preacher did. It ain't about you, it ain't about the preacher, it ain't about your feelings. It's about the Spirit of God crushing your self-sufficiency and you being brought to Christ alone and realizing that my forgiveness is in Him. And God forgives me not because I cried or because I came to church or because I wept, but God forgave me because He bore my sins in His Body on the tree and paid a debt for me that I could never pay. So forgiveness is for Christ's sake. Forgiveness. is because of the debt paid. Now how can God be just and forgive sin? Think about it. If we confess our sins, you all know the verse, if we confess our sin, 1 John 1, he is faithful and just. How can God be just? How can God who is holy be just in forgiving the sin of a guilty individual? I'll tell you how He can be just in forgiving sin, because in the person of His Son, the debt was paid. If you were here a month or two ago, I preached a message on substitution. By that Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree. And the wrath of God for our sin was inflicted upon the person of His Son that we might go free. Can't borrow our sin. My debt was placed upon the person of Jesus Christ. He suffered in my place. Therefore, my debt has been paid by another. And because my debt has been paid by another, when I come to Him in brokenness and confession, He can forgive me justly. He doesn't sweep my sin under the rug and act like it didn't exist. That's what a lot of people think. You come and you cry and you pray, and God takes your sin and sweeps it under a rug and says, OK, I'll just ignore that. No, that would not be just. Because sin must be dealt with justly by a holy God, or God would cease to be holy. But what He does is He goes, listen, because my Son bore your sins in His body on the tree and paid your debt, I can forgive you and let you go free, and I can be just in doing it. Because the debt has already been paid. If a debt's been paid, it can't be paid again, can it? And it would be unjust for the debt to be required again. If I were dead and Marty or Joe or some of you go and pay that debt, wouldn't it be unjust of my creditor to require it of me even though you had already paid it on my behalf? And that's what forgiveness is rooted in. It's rooted in the fact that Christ bore our sins in His body and paid our debt. And I can be forgiven because my debt has been paid. It's not like God is just taking my sin and trying to put it over in the corner somewhere and act like it didn't exist. No, He knows it did exist, but it's been expiated. It's been paid for. It's been dealt with in the person of His Son. So God can be just in letting me go free because He was just in punishing His Son in my place. So forgiveness is rooted in a debt that's been paid. That's why the Bible makes so much about the blood. Forgiveness through His blood, through His blood, through His blood. The blood was the redemption price of our soul's salvation. God's forgiveness is given only by grace. I want to read this verse to you. You can just listen to it. Here's what it said. says, "...in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace." Now there's three things in that verse. Redemption through His blood, forgiveness of sins, and the grace of God. They're all connected. God in grace sent His Son to purchase us by redeeming us with the gift of His own life. And we have forgiveness of sin because we have been redeemed. We have been purchased. by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we have forgiveness of sins because of God's amazing grace that caused God to lavish favor upon us when we did not deserve the favor of God. It's an amazing concept. People say, I want what I deserve. Not with God you don't. You want mercy and you want grace. Grace is God's unmerited favor. Listen, Brother Marty made a comment in Sunday School about some people that would say, well, now I believe that God does three quarters of it, then you've got to do the rest of it, that one quarter yourself. Can I tell you, whenever you take a drop of man's works and mix it in, it's no longer grace. It ceases to be grace. Grace is like oil and water. It doesn't mix with works in any sense. You say, but man has to do this and man has to do that. Can I tell you, if you'll study your Bible, you'll find out that everything that man has to do to be saved, it is God who supernaturally gives him the ability to do it. Do you remember the verse this morning in Sunday school, whoever sees the sun will have eternal life? Well, my question is, how can a blind man see the sun? He can until God opens his eyes and gives him the ability to see. It's prevenient grace. God operating to draw men to Himself. No sinner can see Christ faithfully apart from a supernatural work of God in his heart. So we sit around and say, well, man needs to do this, man needs to do that. No, it's all of grace. If you're here and you've been forgiven, it is because God has lavished grace upon you. God opened your eyes. God convicted you of your sin. God crushed your pride and your self-sufficiency. And God brought you to see yourself as you really were. And that's just the grace of God. So forgiveness is always rooted in grace. And that's what drives people nuts. For me to stand up in a public place and say, I know my sins have been forgiven, it'll start a fight. You know why it starts fights? Because you're sitting in a room full of people who are trying to somehow figure out a way that they can get their sins forgiven by their own efforts. And for you to stand up in a public place and say, I know I'm saved, I know my sins are forgiven, they think that you've figured it out and you're doing it on your own. And they know they're trying to do it on their own and they're not cutting it. So they get mad. But when you say that, what you're saying is, You know, I'm so hopeless, I knew I could never save myself, so Christ did for me what I could not do for myself. And because Christ in grace did for me what I could not do for myself, I have perfect peace. And I know my sins are forgiven, not because I've done anything, but because of what He did for me on my behalf. And I lay down at night and rest peacefully because my sins are under the breath of the Lamb of God. And I rejoice in Him because I know my sins are forgiven." And they just get mad. Because they don't understand grace. And they're still trying to somehow earn the forgiveness of God. And they know that no matter how hard they try and how much they work, they know they're not getting it done. It's sad. Grace. Go to 2 Timothy 2. I'm about done. You say, but what about repentance? Hasn't a man got to repent? Absolutely. But why won't they? Why won't men repent? Go down to work tomorrow and say, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Repent. Believe the Gospel. Other than losing what few friends you had, they'll think you're nuts. Or they'll just say, hey, that's good news, let's repent. Have you found that to be the case? I mean, you go down at work on Monday and say, oh, by the way, let me tell you all about the Lord's maddest line-up, and they're just like little sheep just wanting to feed upon what you've... I want to hear that. You know why men don't repent? They can't. They can't. Until God. grants them the ability to repent. Unless you think I'm making that up, I want to show that to you in the Bible. 2 Timothy chapter 2. It's talking to a young preacher about how to deal with people. Look what it says in verse 24, chapter 2. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel. Why? It don't do no good anyway, does it? You want to go down and argue them into heaven? You ever tried that? Go down and try to argue people into heaven and see how far you get with that. The servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, but look at the next verse, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth. and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will." God has to give them the ability to repent. You know why you repented? Because of prevenient grace operating in your heart, bringing you to the end of yourself, illuminating your understanding, and then bringing you to the place where He could give you the ability and the gift of repentance. By the way, is faith, we say, by grace through faith, is faith an action of man? Or is it a gift of God? For by grace are you saved through faith, and that, the faith, is not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. Forgiveness will transform your life. Absolutely transform your life. Now think about the verse. We've all quoted it a million times, so don't read over it and not listen to what it's saying. Blessed is the man or the woman whose transgression is forgiven. Happy is the man or the woman whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. First of all, the knowledge that you've been forgiven will bring joy and peace and unbelievable thanksgiving and gratitude to your own heart. Next of all, it will make you love God, worship God and obey God. If you know that you've been forgiven of your transgressions, how could you not love the One who forgave you? How could you not worship the One who forgave you? And how could you not desire to obey the One who forgave you? But you know what else it'll do? It'll affect our relationships with one another. Because when you know you've been forgiven by God, you'll find it much easier to forgive the faults of others. When you know what a great sinner you've been and what grace God has bestowed upon your life, and you see the faults of your fellow man, your husband, your wife, your children, your neighbors, the people you work with, you're going to say, you know, God has forgiven me of much more than He would ever ask me to forgive them for. And if God has forgiven me of so much, can't I go to God and get the grace from Him to forgive them also of their failings and weaknesses? Change your whole life. You want to know why some people can't forgive? They've never been forgiven. Never been forgiven. You want to know why some people spend their whole life trying to make other people earn their forgiveness? Because they've been spending their life trying to earn God's. You want to know why Pharisees are the meanest people in the world? Because they're doing all that stuff. Trying to earn forgiveness. What did Paul say about them? Being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. What a wonderful thing to be forgiven. I read something one time, I can't remember where I read it and I can't remember who said it. This pastor was meeting with a psychologist, a well-known psychologist. And he asked him a pointy question. He said, Sir, can you tell me, in your experience of talking to people and all their personal problems and family problems and emotional problems, what do you believe is the one thing that could help people more than anything. You know what the psychologist said in this case? Now, a lot of them might not say this, but this is what this one said. He said, most of the people that I deal with, if somehow they could feel that they could be forgiven of everything they've done in the past, he said, they wouldn't even need me anymore and they'd go home and be fine. So everybody in this room, you've got some nasty, nasty monsters creeping around in your past. And you'll go to no extreme, there's no extreme that you won't go to to keep that from being found out. That's right. Every one of us in this room, there's sins in our past, failings in our past, periods of time in our past, we are so ashamed of and so troubled about that we will go to, there's no extreme that we will not go to to keep that ever from being found out on us. You know what the Bible says in Proverbs? If you cover your sins, you won't prosper. But if you'll confess them and forsake them, you'll find mercy. I'm not saying confess them to me or the church. I'm not saying that. But you remember when you were a kid? I remember Daddy was a carpenter, and he had a lot of expensive tools. And every once in a while I'd get the harebrained idea that I was going to try to do something with some of his tools. And I remember one case in particular, I took something of his that was pretty valuable and I broke it. Playing with it as a kid, I broke it. And like a lot of kids, my way of dealing with that was, hide it. Cover it up. And maybe, And you know, I just made the comment yesterday to you, didn't I? How that our boys think they can do stuff that they know that we don't want them to do, and they think it ain't going to get back to them. And it always does. But it just hit me I was the same way. I took Dad's tool, I broke it, and I hid it, thinking this will never catch up with me, which it wasn't no time until it caught up with me. And when it caught up with me, it caught up big time. And I'll never forget what Daddy done. He said, no son of mine is going to be a liar. Never forget it. And if you'd just come to me and told me what you'd done, it would have been alright. From then on, When I'd done wrong, you know what I'd done? I was standing at the driveway when Daddy drove in in the afternoon saying, I've got something I've got to tell you. Because as much as it hurt me to tell him that I'd done wrong, I knew that was better than trying to cover it up and live with it and let it haunt me. And it always caught up with me in the end. Can I tell you there's a lot of people, that's the way they live their life. Is my past going to catch up with me? Is my sin going to catch up with me? Is what I've been doing that nobody knows about going to catch up with me? Is what's going on in my mind, is that ever going to catch up with me? Is what's going on in our home behind closed doors, is that ever going to catch up with me? Is what I'm doing down at work that nobody at home knows about, is that ever going to catch up with me? And it's just like this cloud follows them around. Can I tell you? Those that cover their sins will not prosper. And Moses told the people of Israel, be sure your sin will find you out. It's just better to run to the Lord and say, God, You're a God of great mercy, and I'm a great sinner. Have mercy on me. Forgive me. You know what you'll find out? He's been waiting to forgive you all along. If you'd have just come. Let's pray.