Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2422
“But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.” Psalm 130:4.
HAVE you noticed the verse which comes before the text? It runs thus, “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” That is a confession. Now, confession must always come before absolution. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” If we try to cloak our sin, “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” and no pardon can come from God to us. Therefore, plead guilty, plead guilty! You ought to do it, for you are guilty. You will find it wisest to do it, for this is the only way to obtain mercy. Cast yourself upon the mercy of your Judge and you shall find mercy—but first acknowledge that you need mercy. Be honest with your conscience and honest with your God—confess the iniquity which you have done and mourn over the righteousness to which you have not attained.
You notice that this confession is recorded with a kind of grave astonishment—“If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” This is as much as for the Psalmist to say, “I am sure that I cannot, and who can?” And, my dear Brothers and Sisters, if God shall deal with us according to our iniquities, where shall we stand, and who among us shall stand anywhere? I dare not stand to preach if God shall judge me according to my iniquities! You dare not stand to sing—what have you to do with singing if God is marking your iniquities? I wonder that men can stand at their counters and stand at their work while their sin is unforgiven! And then how shall we stand in the Day of Judgment? The best saint on earth, if he stands in his own righteousness, alone, and is judged according to his own offenses, why, the Justice of God will blow him away like the chaff, or consume him as with a flame of fire! “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”
It is a dreadful fact that this, “if,” is no, “if,” to those who are not believers in Christ, but it is a matter of terrible certainty! God marks the iniquities of you who are unbelievers. Although as yet He does not visit them upon you, else you could not stand, yet He sees them and He records them! As gold and silver are put into a bag and sealed up, so are your iniquities. All the transgressions of your past life are in the Book of Record, from which they can never be blotted out except by one gracious hand! Would to God that you would accept pardon from that pierced hand! But, apart from that, your iniquities are engraved as in eternal brass! And in that day when the forgotten things shall be brought to light, all the sins that now lie at the bottom of the sea of time shall be cast up upon the shore and all shall be seen. And every secret thing shall be set in the light of day, and every transgression and iniquity shall be revealed by the light of the Great White Throne—and the ungodly shall be punished for all their ungodly words and ungodly deeds and ungodly thoughts according to the rules of equity in that last day of assize!
O Sirs, God will mark iniquity and then, whoever is out of Christ shall be able to stand! Whoever has never hidden in the riven Rock of Ages shall find no shelter! No, shall they not all cry to the mountains to fall upon them, to hide them from the dreadful face of Him who shall sit upon the Throne of God? Even at this time there are some in this House of Prayer whose sins are lying upon them and whose transgressions are written in God’s Book of Remembrance! How can they dare to stand, even, before a Throne of Grace, and how will they stand before the Throne of Judgment?
That third verse makes an appropriate preface to my text—it is the black thundercloud upon which I see written, as with the finger of God and with a lightning flash, the wonderful words we are now to consider, “But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.”
I. My first head is taken from the first word of the text—“But.” Here is A WHISPER OF HOPE. “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But”—Oh, the sweet music of that little word! It seems to come in when the terrible drum of alarm is being beaten and the dreadful clarion of judgment is sounding forth! There is a pause with this word, “But there is forgiveness.”” It is a soft and gentle whisper from the lips of Love—“But there is forgiveness.”
This comes into the soul after a full confession of sin. When you have knelt down before God and acknowledged your transgressions and your shortcomings, and your heart is heavy, and your soul is ready to burst with inward anguish, then may you hear this gracious Word of God, “But there is forgiveness.” When, under a sense of sin, it seems as if the very fiends of Hell were shrieking in your ears because of the awful doom which is drawing near—when you shall be driven from hope and from the Presence of God, then, when you fall on your face in the terror of your soul because of your iniquity, then comes this sweet Word of God—“But there is forgiveness.” It is all true which your conscience tells you. It is all true which the Word of God threatens concerning you! Then acknowledge that it is true and bow yourself in the dust before God—and then you shall hear in your soul, not only in your ears, but in your heart, this blessed Word of God, “But there is forgiveness.”