Forgiven

There are seven words I'd like to read with you in Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 Verse 32, the last verse. And be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Sometimes I'd like to be able to just picture what it must have been like for those who heard this letter written or read to them for the first time. Maybe they're meeting in an open field somewhere, don't know. There are no big ornate church buildings for Christians back then, no gospel halls for Christians back then.

Maybe in somebody's little house or maybe out in the backyard in the field and they're all sitting there and a man stands up and he says, I've got a letter here, scroll here from Paul. And almost all the people that are there would just be suddenly transported in their memory back to the time when this little man so zealous and so useful had been there with them a couple of years and preaching for them and they were saved and they remembered a tremendous time of blessing and a tremendous change that took place in their lives. What would Paul have to say to us? And they're listening to this.

And the minutes pass. I imagine they said amen once in a while, maybe just as subdued as we are and proper. But I tell you what, I think when the man got down to reading this part, be ye tender-hearted, be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you, I think over there in that corner and over there in that corner and all a lot of places in between there would be loud amens.

God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us. Oh, what a tremendous blessing to look back to in life and to know this, all the great debt of my sin, forgiven. I'm not so sure what I want you to put on my grave stone, but I hope we don't even have a grave stone.

Maybe one of these days the Lord's coming and it won't be any grave for me or for all the saved that are here tonight. But it wouldn't be a bad choice if you put on it forgiven. Great truth, forgiven.

Here is the availability of forgiveness. Let it be clear tonight that God can forgive sins, that it is possible to know in this world I am forgiven. We've been reminded earlier today of people who choose to live the way they wish to live that they don't want to know God, they would prefer to live in ignorance of God.

The problem is, the basic problem is, every one of us has an internal awareness of sin, every one of us. It comes with the package. The problem is there are those who choose to remove the issue of sin by denying that it is sin.

Somehow or other finding support in their friends. You do this and I do this and you're happy about it and I accept you doing what you do and it's just normal. This is the way things are.

But I want to tell you tonight that when you face the reality of sin, it is a marvelous blessing to know God forgives sins. The psalmist put it this way, there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. How would it ever be possible to have a connection with God if God was never willing to forgive sins? Well, I want to tell you tonight, if you went home and you knew tonight one thing, God has forgiven my sins.

Would that have any value to you? God has forgiven my sins. See, I can't help but tell you this. I remember the night for the first time that I knew God had forgiven my sins.

I was all concerned about being saved and that's a good thing to be concerned about. But I had not really made the connection that what I needed to know was that my sins were forgiven. But oh, what a night it was when I recognized the reason I need to be saved is because my sins have placed me in danger of eternal fire.

And I recognized from the Word of God that on that cross at Calvary, the Lord Jesus had suffered for my sins and that because he suffered for my sins, God had laid my sins on him and caused him to be the sacrifice for my sins. I knew for the first time God had forgiven my sins. You know what it meant to me that night? It meant I'd never be in hell.

Just knowing one thing, God has forgiven my sins, is the core, the center of eternal blessing. It is available tonight. And I want to just think with you about the appeal of that moment because Paul is not saying to these Christians, now God is in the process of forgiving you.

God has taken care of about 85% of your sins and he's working on the rest. He is pointing them, every one of them, back to a moment. Now, I don't know whether they knew on the calendar what it was.

In fact, I don't think there was a Gregorian calendar back then. So they might not have been able to tell you it was the 16th of April. That's when my moment comes.

But every one of them would go back to a moment, an event in memory. At that moment, God hath forgiven your sins. Oh, I tell you tonight, this business of a process and not sure just when it happened, but I'm forgiven.

Wait a minute. Like one moment you were not forgiven and then about five hours later you were forgiven and where were you in between? Well, no, it happened maybe just over a process of time. No, no, no, no, no.

One moment forgiven, the preceding moment unforgiven. There's no other way to look at this. There's no in-between between being forgiven and being not forgiven.

And so I wonder tonight, just to check us all, maybe this is all familiar truth to everybody here and you'd all agree with me, but just in case, just in case, I want to ask every single one in the meeting tonight, is there a moment in life when you were forgiven? Do you have an event to which you look back? You may not know the hour on the clock. In fact, if you pushed me, I couldn't tell you what hour it was either, but I think it was somewhere around 10 after 10 at night, but might have been 9 after 10 or 6 after 10. I'm not sure, but it was somewhere after 10 o'clock.

Does that matter? No, I can remember the moment when I took in from the Word of God that when Christ died at Calvary, that took care of my sins. And at that moment, I knew I would never be in hell. God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.

You could have heard the message. You could have believed all the facts of the gospel. You could believe that you needed to have your sins forgiven and you could believe that God forgives sins for Christ's sake and you could believe that there are millions of people in the past that have enjoyed forgiveness and there are people that you know that are forgiven and you could have all of that and wish to be forgiven more than anything else in the world, but that is not forgiveness.

Great thing. To have received from the Word of God, God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Do you have that moment? I'm not emphasizing an experience.

I am emphasizing a moment when a person personally receives the forgiveness of sins. Let me think with you about what we have been reminded of already. Because underlying all of this is an awareness of the need.

Do you know tonight that you need the forgiveness of sins more than you need another meal. Well, I know you need a meal. Somewhere along the line you've got to eat.

But you need the forgiveness of sins more than you need another meal. You need the forgiveness of sins more than anything else in this world, whether you realize it or not. That is the fact.

And the preaching of the gospel is intended by God to make men and women aware of this need. The Spirit of God is at work in the world with this great design to convict men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. And as we preach the gospel, our longing is that the Spirit of God will take faltering words from human lips and wing them to the heart to the conscience of those in the meeting.

I would love to think tonight that already, and in these moments of the meeting, there is something happening in your conscience, an awareness of sin, an awareness of the awful reality of your sin in the presence of God. It is an internal problem. And by that, I just mean this.

You do not become a sinner when you sin. You are a sinner and therefore you sin. Now that does not remove your responsibility.

But I would remind you tonight of the tremendous reality of the internal problem within you. A leopard can no more remove his spots than a sinner can remove his sin nature from him. He cannot in any way, you cannot in any way, cease to sin.

You cannot somehow or other make yourself fit for the presence of God. The reality is that there is a bent within human nature, a bent within your nature and mine that is directed toward sin and not toward what is right. There is within every one of us what defiles us.

It is not external impulses. There are a lot of things you can see and they're very defiling. But ultimately the defilement comes from within.

There is within every human being a source of iniquity that is of a worse quality than the devil himself. Well, and I'd like to have that just substantiated from the Word of God. The heart is deceitful above all things and incurably wicked.

Oh, the devil made me do it is no excuse. There's a greater problem, the internal problem within. The awful, if I said cesspool, that's a pretty difficult word.

The cesspool of sin within. Defilement, ruin, uncleanness, just in what I am. An internal problem, but it is a relational problem.

Because of sin, you cannot, you do not enjoy a relationship with God. Listen to the words of Isaiah again. The Lord's hand is not shortened that he cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that he cannot hear.

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. I want you to know tonight that there's a loving God who longs to bless you. There is a God who would long to enjoy a relationship with you.

But as long as sin is in the question between you and God, it's a relational problem. You cannot enjoy the most wonderful relationship that exists for a person in this world. Now, I'll tell you what, relationships are great.

I mean, how would you like to live in this world without any relationships with anybody? I mean, just walking through the world in a plastic bubble and not talking to anybody, not any input from anybody, just an isolated it in the middle of a empty world. Great to have relationships. And there are some close relationships that you just would not want to have to do without in life.

But I'm here to tell you tonight that the best, the greatest, the most wonderful, the most profound, the most significant, the most meaningful relationship in this world is a relationship with God. And until the sins are removed as a barrier between your soul and God, you will not, you cannot enjoy a relationship with God. I'm so often aware of this.

I just been at a few funerals recently. It comes up at funeral times. You go visit somebody in the hospital.

It comes up in the hospital. People say, if I didn't have the Lord in this circumstance, I don't know how I would deal with it. I went to visit Martin Prince a week ago.

Now, some of the folks here know Martin Prince. But the Martin Prince that is today is not the Martin Prince I remember of 10, 15, 30 years ago. Very limited.

In a hospital bed, looks at you with an almost blank stare. Don't know whether he's happy or sad with you. Very, very limited.

So I read to him a little bit from the Word of God. And in the course of my little visit, because I expect that I'd have to do all the talking because Martin doesn't talk very much. And even if he does, it's hard to understand.

So I said, Martin, but I'm sure, I'm sure you're glad to be saved. Now, that's the one time of two times in my visit that I heard him say anything and I understood what he said. He said, nothing else matters.

I want you to know tonight, in the darkest moments of life, to have this relationship changes everything. I would just, I would love for everyone that's here tonight to be saved, to enjoy this relationship. I would love for you to be saved so you won't lose your soul in hell.

I would love for you to be saved so you'll enjoy heaven. But I would tell you tonight, I would love for you to be saved so you would enjoy a relationship with God in life. God gave us a couple of children.

The thing that thrills me in their lives at this present moment is the degree to which they have a relationship with God. There's some grandchildren coming along. You know what I want for every one of them? I want them to enjoy God in life.

I want them to have a relationship with a God who is with them, who is present, who is known to them, who brings meaning and joy and blessing to life. Sin stands in the way of your relationship with God. You cannot enjoy a relationship with a God against whom you have sinned, and that sin remains.

But I'll tell you more than that. It's a judicial problem. Judicial problem.

Because as far as God is concerned, every sin is a crime against heaven. That's no small matter, a crime against heaven. To realize that every moment you have sinned, you have offended the ultimate, the supreme, authority.

You have said to God, your laws are not good. I prefer laws that I make and not laws that you make. I do not agree with your character.

I do not agree with what you say is right. I could not tell you tonight how drastic it is to sin against the Almighty. I would remind you tonight of your guilt in the presence of God.

You have sinned. You are guilty of violating the law of heaven. God has no lack of awareness of your sins.

He has no lack of ability to bring you into court for your sins. He has no lack of witnesses sufficient to condemn you for your sins. It's a judicial problem, and every single sin, from the seemingly smallest matter to what may be looming in your mind.

There may be some sin in your mind at the moment, and you're thinking to yourself, as the subject of sin is being emphasized, you're thinking to yourself, oh, I hope I never have to meet God and have him bring out that sin on my record. A judicial problem, sin. And could I emphasize to you tonight, it is an eternal problem.

There is an eternal consequence of every sin you have ever committed. It is an infinite crime, and the only acceptable penalty for that crime is an eternal sentence. The books are open, and the solemn judge will give a sentence for every single sin.

They will be judged according to their deeds. And the long-forgotten sins will all be brought out in judgment. And the insignificant sins will have their curse forever.

If there's one thing you would like to have when you stand before God, it's this. You would like to have the assurance that the record of sin has been cleared. If you stand before God and the record book has no sins recorded to your name, it's cleared, washed clean by the blood of Christ.

I'll tell you, there's no hell, no judgment. No sentence. If you stand before God, and there's the record of one sin, and it won't be one alone, one sin on the record, when you meet God, it will be an eternal condemnation.

Demanded by your sins. It's a judicial problem. It's an eternal problem.

Will you understand tonight that the one reason you need to be saved is described in one word, sins. I'm thankful to God to be able to tell you tonight about the abundance of this grace. If you just think about who these people were, we were reminded about the people that first listened to this message from Paul.

They were brought up with superstition, and magic, and black magic, and they were brought up with idolatry, and I wouldn't want to tell you tonight all the sins that were associated with idolatry, but it would be a black record. They were people that willfully lived without knowing God as far as they were concerned. No interest in knowing about the Son of God.

They were disobedient to what they knew to be right. They were strangers to God. God for Christ's sake hath graced you.

That's the word forgiveness. I love that play on the word. It's God has graced you.

God has forgiven you. So I think I go around that company. I think there might have been maybe 47 people there this day.

Well, I don't know, maybe 470. I don't know, but I'd like to just go around every one of them and ask them, excuse me, but did you merit forgiveness from God? Excuse me, but are you ever amazed that God forgave your sins? Well, I wouldn't have to go back to Ephesus. Suppose I stopped here, and I asked you, are you ever amazed that God forgave your sins? Well, I can't speak for everybody here tonight.

I'll speak for myself. Why did God forgive me? Of all people, he could have found others. He forgave me.

Oh, thank God for wondrous grace. I did not merit forgiveness, and no person at Ephesus merited forgiveness. Every person who is forgiven is forgiven because of grace.

Every person forgiven is forgiven because they did not have any merit, and they acknowledge they did not have a merit. Did you quote from the words of the the prodigal when he came home? And he says, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy. And if you kind of have those words catch in your throat, because you just wouldn't want to have to acknowledge to God that he does not owe you forgiveness.

You're trying to do the right thing, and you're trying to persuade God, because you have said the right things, and you believe the right things, and you've tried to do the right things, and you know the right verses. You're trying to convince God that God should, therefore, he's got to act. I've done what I'm supposed to do.

I don't know why he doesn't do what he's supposed to do. Isn't he supposed to save me when I do this? You could do the right thing. Of course, it would still be sin, because it comes from a sinful heart.

But you could do the right thing until the last moment of your life, and God wouldn't owe you salvation. Not for one moment. Here are people, and they recognize this.

It is the abundance of God's grace that has brought me forgiveness. I'd like to ask tonight. Is there any sinner in this meeting who would like to be forgiven, and knows he cannot, does not deserve it? That knows that instead of forgiveness, if God gave him what he deserved, or she, what she deserved, it would be eternal fire now.

Do you understand? God does not have to have any more record of sins in order for evidence to condemn you to eternal fire. There's plenty of evidence on his book. If he did not give you, kindly give you, another breath, he would be perfectly just in calling you today to account for your sin, and your soul to be condemned forever.

Thank God tonight that God is withholding from you what you deserve, and offering to you what you don't deserve. Withholding from you the judgment of your sins, offering to you the forgiveness of your sins. But I want to remind you tonight of the ability of this one who is offended.

It is God, the offended one, who forgives. No one else can forgive your sins. It must be the God who has been offended by your sins, and he has been, if I said royally offended, it's just because I'm groping for a word, he has been so greatly offended by your sins.

And yet, that's the God tonight that is saying to you, I am ready to forgive your sins. I will forgive your sins tonight. You didn't come into this meeting weeping and praying for salvation, but if you're interested in being forgiven tonight, if you're aware of your guilt, and would like to have forgiveness, I'm interested in meeting you.

I'm ready to forgive. I'm anxious to forgive you. There's a God who would not keep you waiting one moment if you came tonight as a guilty sinner.

God and his ability, the offended God, able to forgive sins. He does not forgive sins one at a time. He does not forgive sins of the past and say, now let's see what you can do about the future.

He forgives sins. The whole matter of my account was all removed the moment I trusted Christ, all on the basis of what Christ did at Calvary for my sins. I am not trusting somehow in what I have done to get forgiveness up to here.

I am trusting the Christ who answered to God for every sin of mine when he suffered and died at Calvary, my forgiveness. Let me just move to that tonight because that's the heart of this message. This God who is able to forgive sins does so because of the acceptance of the sacrifice.

Listen now. God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us. Why does God forgive? Because he wants to forgive.

No. He provided Christ because he wants to forgive, but he does not forgive just because he is a kind God. Does he forgive because he does not feel he could really bring you into judgment because you really don't deserve that judgment? I hope you're clear on that.

That's not the case. But rather than try to enumerate all the reasons that people think God would forgive which are not reasons, I can tell you tonight there's only one reason. One reason, one solitary reason.

I see two birds of a feather walking down a street in a place called Frostburg, Maryland. Sammy who was brain damaged at birth and a preacher by the name of David and the two of us are walking down the street and every time, we did it quite about every night, we walked down the street and we sang one hymn because I figured there's no point in Sammy learning three or four hymns. One will be all he'll get.

So we sang every night. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Sammy's safe home in heaven through the power of the blood of Jesus. But while he was still living and I had the chance to visit that community after he'd been saved, preachers do things sometimes. There's two things I do.

I'd always try to quote the verse that he was saved through and I'd always try to weave into my message. What can wash away my sin? Or if it was Sunday school, we'd have to sing What can wash away my sin? Because I could predict the result. There'd be a big smile if I was facing him.

And after the meeting, he'd come to me and he'd say, David, that was my hymn. What can wash away my sin? I want you to know tonight, there is nothing that God will accept for the forgiveness of sins. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

God forgives sins because he has accepted the sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. On that cross, he was delivered for our offenses. He was raised again from the dead because God had accepted that sacrifice as a basis of justification.

Oh, tonight, the fullness of what took place at Calvary, the absolute satisfaction brought to the infinite requirements of God's holiness, all satisfied through the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus on the cross. I tell you when we preach the gospel, we cannot make too much of the Savior. We cannot make too much of the value of the work that he finished at Calvary.

And if you tonight, grasping for the forgiveness of sins, longing to know your sins forgiven, and a right relationship with God, and a home in heaven, if you tonight would take a look at that cross and take in the great truth, the work of Christ is enough. God asks for nothing more than what Christ has done. If I could just put it into simple homely language, on the 16th of April in 1961, a schoolboy longing to be saved said to God, I have nothing to plead but the Christ who died for my sins at Calvary.

And God said to me, David, I ask for nothing more. I seek no other argument. Do we sing that sometimes? I want no other plea.

It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. If I stopped at every seat here tonight, on the basis of the answer to one question, I think I could do this. I could tell you who's going to heaven and who's not.

Is the death of Christ sufficient to purchase heaven for you? If I stopped and asked you that, would you have any trouble answering? No trouble. You can ask me until you're blue in the face. I'll give you the same answer.

Never change. By the grace of God, it'll never... And if I stopped and asked you, and if I stopped where you are tonight in your sins and asked you, is the death of Christ not enough to take care of your sins? Would you not take a look at Calvary? Would you not listen to the Word of God? Would you not receive the message tonight? God, for Christ's sake. It all matters what God thinks of Christ, who is the Savior who suffered for sins.

It all depends on what God thinks of him, not what God thinks of me. It's not how much I believe. It's not how sincere I am.

The one thing that God requires and the one thing that God accepts, the one thing, the one person that God accepts, is the Christ who suffered for sins at Calvary. He's raised them from the dead and there is salvation tonight for every guilty sinner. God, because of Christ, forgives sins.

I think Paul probably had in mind a very human picture when he wrote this, because he wrote a letter at the same time that involves this very truth. A slave has run away from a master that he has robbed. He ends up hearing the gospel through Paul, saved, and now Paul's sending him back.

So you've got three people in mind. I tried to draw a triangle. The name of the master is Philemon.

The name of the slave, Onesimus. Paul the evangelist writes to Philemon and he says to Philemon, for my sake, forgive Onesimus. Now if Philemon is not too friendly toward Paul, then Onesimus is in trouble.

Am I right? If Philemon owes his salvation and his life to Paul's preaching and loves that man that brought the message of the gospel to him, how is it going to be with Onesimus? That clear? Philemon, for Paul's sake, will receive Onesimus. And God, for Christ's sake, forgives me. Let me tell you tonight about the assurance of this.

Here are people listening to this. And this is not the moment when it dawned on them. Oh, it's wonderful.

Now I'm forgiven. They had received that assurance a way back in the past. There's another group of people, actually it could be some of the same people, and John writes to them one day and he says, I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you.

How did they know their sins were forgiven? Had a great feeling come over them. I don't know what the feeling of forgiveness is like. That wouldn't be enough.

But I will tell you this, if you have God's word for it, you need nothing more. There were people in the days of the Lord Jesus, remember this? And the Lord Jesus says to the woman, thy sins are forgiven thee. Were her sins forgiven? Would the Lord Jesus tell an untruth? Did she know they were forgiven? Well, the Lord Jesus said so.

And I have the same word, not heard audibly, read visibly in the word of God. God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Would you like to leave the meeting tonight with forgiveness? I'll tell you what, I think I know this is the case with a lot of people here, maybe all the Christians.

It's great to be together, great to study the word of God, great to get a hold of some wondrous truths in the word of God, but I'll tell you what, this would be some weekend if you were saved. God would be glorified. Heaven would rejoice.

The Christians here, thanking God. And you? Leaving this meeting tonight, knowing you'll never be in hell, knowing you are fitted for heaven, because God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Let us pray.