Forgiveness - Part 1

I see we have people from all walks of life here tonight, and from all backgrounds of the church, and I'm trying to learn in some places, I'm told, and I feel very happy not to have a tie on and not to have a jacket, just to do my top button up, and I see some dear, dear people from all, I used to say you're from the Mennonites and the Amish, and you just look at me in the eyes and so on, we just washed in the blood Christians, so I don't know what to call you, but thank you for being here. Then I see people with ties, I take it you're Baptists. I think I'm going to take my jacket off and I'll be half a Baptist and half a Mennonite tonight.

I'm not sure how to do this, forgive me, not knowing what to do, but they've got a video camera. Do you know in my country, in many churches, if you don't have a jacket on, they lose respect to you forever and will never allow you in the pulpit again. That's to them reverence, not so.

So you've got to be so careful where you are, what you do, and to be able to win some, you become anything for them, and I'm willing, but God bless you from my heart, every one of you, from all your different backgrounds in Christ, so long as you're washed in the blood and united in Christ, then God smiles at you tonight. I believe that with all my heart. The central theme, the central theme of the whole Bible, the central theme of the whole Bible is the cross of Jesus Christ.

The central theme of the whole Bible is the cross, the cross of Jesus Christ, and the cross of Christ is revealed in no other chapter or passage of the Scriptures as in Isaiah 53. The cross of Christ is revealed in no other chapter or passage of the Scriptures as in Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions, God says.

To understand what God is saying here, listen carefully where God through Isaiah cries out, who hath believed in this building? Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him.

He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.

We've turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is done, so he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken, and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

He hath put him to grief. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief.

When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge, so my righteous servants justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.

When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he will be satisfied, God says. When did you do that? When did God look upon you satisfied with what you brought to him to forgive you of sin? Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. When did you come with nothing in your hands I bring? Nothing else but the cross, the blood of Jesus, the sacrifice of Christ, the payment of Christ on the cross, and by grace are ye saved through faith, being justified freely through faith in his blood.

There is no forgiveness apart from grace as a result of faith in the blood of Jesus. When thou shalt make his soul his payment for sin, for your sin on the cross, when thou dost come with his death, the payment he made for me, for he was wounded for my transgressions. I don't have to be wounded.

He was bruised. The chastisement of our peace was upon him with his stripes. We are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one, God says, to his own way. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.

None of us will pay any anything for the sins we have committed. If God sees we come with Jesus Christ's death, with the cross of Christ, on the cross alone God will look at. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, God says, he will be satisfied.

When thou shalt come with nothing else in thy hands, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. God will be satisfied. God will be satisfied.

He will in no ways turn away anyone who comes to him through Christ Jesus, but don't come with anything else. Do you remember how Christ said two men, two men went up into the temple to pray? The one a Pharisee and the other a publican. Now you must know the difference between these two men.

The Pharisee was a religious man, born in religion, raised in religion. He believed the religion of God that God ordained. He was so sold out that he dressed religiously.

He was unashamedly religious by the way he dressed. You could see him coming down the street that that man was totally sold out to his religion. He was unashamed that the world would see by the way he dressed that he was deeply, devoutly religious, but did that save him? Did religion save him? Being sold out unashamedly even by the way he dressed, did that have anything to do with his salvation? No.

Here he comes to the temple to pray and the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee was exactly the opposite to the publican. A publican is despised by religious people.

He is irreligious. He is not a man who frequents church. He is not a man who frequents the house of God.

He's despised by the very profession. He's known he couldn't be religious. He isn't God-fearing, but now here two men, the religious, dressed religiously, sold out in religion.

He comes to pray. The other, an irreligious man, comes to pray. Look at what happens.

Look who God forgives. Look who God forgives. The one a Pharisee, the other a publican.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are. I thank thee that I am not as other men are, exhaustioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week.

I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes onto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God, have mercy.