A God Ready to Pardon

Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, January 9th, 1876, by

C.H. SPURGEON,

At the [2]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

"Thou art a God ready to pardon." Nehemiah 9:17

WHEN A MAN'S CONSCIENCE is so awakened to the existence of sin that he
cannot perceive any plea for mercy within himself, it is his wisdom to
look for a plea in the nature and character of God. Now, brethren, if
we search ourselves through and through, we cannot find anything in our
fallen nature which can recommend us to the Most High. If we think that
we have a claim upon God's goodness, we are in darkness, and deceive
ourselves. When the true light comes, it reveals our bareness of all
merit or excuse, and shows that there is nothing in human nature but
that which provokes the Lord. This is the fact as to our condition
while we are unregenerate, and oftentimes the true believer, when
darkness gathers around him, finds himself to be in much the same
condition. His evidences burn dimly, the candle of the Lord seems
quenched within his spirit, and, worst of all, the sun of divine favor
is not discernible; then groping all around he can discover nothing in
himself but that which causes him to sigh and groan, being burdened. In
such a plight he should cast overboard the great anchor of faith, and
escape from himself to his God. It were well for him always to do so,
but especially in the cloudy and dark day. To whom should he turn for
light but to the Sun of Righteousness? Where look for grace but to the
God of all grace? Where for all but to the All in all? If what I am
makes me despair, let me consider what God in Christ is and I shall
have hope.

That God is merciful becomes to sinners the first point upon which they
can fix their hope: that the mercy of God endureth for ever affords to
the saints a most blessed stronghold when inward sin assails the soul.
But whence do we learn this supremely consoling truth? How do we know
that God is merciful? I scarcely think we should have inferred from his
works the readiness of God to show mercy. I have heard a great deal
about the attributes of God in nature: I have, indeed, heard a great
deal more than I have ever been able to see. To "go from nature up to
nature's God" is a very common expression, but it is a very long step,
mark you, from the highest Alp of nature to the footstool of the throne
of God. It will be found much easier to go down from God to nature when
you once know the Lord than ever it can be to ascend from the works to
the Maker. It is more than questionable whether the best instructed
mind could have discovered much of God's moral nature from the universe
around— his goodness to obedient creatures we might have gathered, but
his mercy to the guilty is there but dimly revealed. Look at this
visible universe and you perceive that it is governed by certain fixed
laws. If a man offends against these laws, do the laws bend, and make
allowance for his mistake? Not so, they operate immutably, and every
violation of them is avenged. The captain makes a mistake of a few
points in his steering— there is a current which he has not perceived,
or perhaps his compass itself is out of gear; anyhow, he is, without
any fault on his part, drifted upon a rock. Does the rock move, or is
it softened? or when the ship strikes is there some miracle by which
the timbers are held together? Does some angelic hand undergird the
ship and preserve the precious lives? No, amidst the howling of the
pitiless storm the vessel breaks up, and those who struggle best are
unable to survive the fury of the sea. Is there any sign of mercy here?
Or take another case: the simple countryman, in his ignorance of the
laws of electricity, is overtaken by a pelting storm, and to escape
from the drenching rain he runs beneath some lofty tree to screen
himself beneath its spreading branches. It is a law of nature that
elevated points should attract the lightning: the man does not know
this, he does not intend to defy his Maker's natural law, but for all
that, when the death-dealing fluid splits the tree it leaves a
senseless corpse at the foot thereof. The law does not suspend its
operations though that man may be the husband upon whose life the bread
of many children may depend, though he may have been one of the most
guileless and prayerful of mankind, though he may have been utterly
unconscious of having exposed himself to the force of a physical law of
God, yet still he dies, for he has placed himself in the way of a
settled law of nature, and it takes its course. There is scant trace of
mercy here. Or it may be that a physician in the pursuit of discoveries
which shall alleviate pain, with no ambition except to serve his fellow
creatures, no mercenary motive swaying him, endeavors to penetrate into
the secrets of nature, and imbibes or inhales a certain noxious drug or
pernicious vapor. Will the noxious drug or destructive gas stay its
deadly office because of the generosity of the motive of the man who
exposes himself to its influence? Ah, not so, the precious life is
sacrificed, and we hear the sad news that a great physician is no more;
nature having stood fast and firm, and no mercy having been shown to
the breaker of her laws. Now, seeing that these laws move on immutably
like the great wheels of a mighty machine, and he that is entangled in
those wheels is ground to powder, it does seem as if we had slight
evidence of the mercy of God if we look to nature alone: certainly not
enough to calm the conscience or allay the fears of the guilty. We
admit that there are some tokens for good to the offender, even in
nature, for does not the Lord teach man to set up his beacons upon the
headland and anchor his light-ships near the sands, and has he not led
us up to the formation of life-boats whereby multitudes of lives have
been saved? In the case of death by lightning there is reason to
believe that the death is more certainly painless than any other; and,
again, loftiness need not remain a danger, for the lightning conductor
has warded off the bolt of heaven from multitudes of elevated
buildings. In the case of most poisons there are antidotes which save
life if they are taken speedily enough, and even the poisons
themselves, in certain compounds, turn out to be healing medicines. So
there are traces of the pardon of offenses in the mitigating or the
removing of penalties even under the iron rule of natural law. Never is
a law changed, mark you, in nature, except in the few instances of
miraculous interpositions; and in the moral universe never is a law
changed at all, for heaven and earth shall pass away but not one jot or
one tittle of the law shall fail. Still there are laws which counteract
full frequently the roughness and the crushing power of other laws; and
these, like their counterparts in the moral universe, prove that God is
merciful. But, all this being allowed, the light which nature affords
us is, upon this subject, rather conjecture than assurance. My
brethren, let us thank God we are not left to mere guesses upon this
point, we are not left to the sun and to the moon to give us light upon
this matter; we have a more sure word of testimony whereunto ye do well
if ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. We have
this book of Holy Scripture written by the pen of the Holy Spirit,
which tells us over and over again that the God whom we have offended
is a God ready to pardon, a God whose mercy endureth for ever.

I would call your attention to the expression, "a God ready to pardon,"
not a God who may possibly pardon; neither a God who upon strong
persuasion and earnest pleadings may, at length be induced to forgive;
not one who, perchance, at some remote period after we have undergone a
long purgation may manifest a mercy which is now in the background, but
a God "ready to pardon,"— willing and more than willing— ready,
standing prepared, or to use another Scriptural expression, "waiting to
be gracious." We have a God who stands like a host at a festival, which
is all provided and prepared, saying, "My oxen and my fatlings are
provided, all things are ready, come ye to the suppers." Not only are
all things ready but God himself is ready, his own heart and hand all
ready to bestow pardon upon the guilty ones who come before him. There
is forgiveness with him that he may he feared.

This blessed truth, in the first place, was remarkably seen in the
story of Israel, on that we will dwell; and secondly, it is equally
true of the Lord at all times. May the Holy Spirit in mercy lead us to
feel the power of mercy while we speak thereon.

I. First, then, I shall ask your attention to THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AS
SINGULARLY ILLUSTRATING THE READINESS OF GOD TO PARDON. Brethren, the
Israelites seem to have been set forward as a picture of all God's
people. As the foot of the altar was made of the looking glasses of the
women, the polished brass of the mirrors being melted down, so it seems
to me as if Israel was intended to be a looking-glass in which every
one of us might look and see his own image. Full sure I am that when I
speak of Israel you will perceive that the record speaks of you, and
draws your portraits to the life.

They were, in the first place, a people very specially favored, but
they were a people as specially ungrateful. To what other nation did
God give the oracles of his truth? What other tribes did he separate
unto himself to be a people in whose midst he would show forth his
glory? What other nation did he bring forth out of the house of bondage
with a high hand and a stretched out arm? For what other people did he
pour out of heaven the dread artillery of all his plagues, smiting
their foes with judgments most terrible? For what other race did he
divide the sea that he might lead them through the deep as through a
wilderness? What other armies of men had food to eat which dropped from
heaven? What other hosts were led and guided for forty years, and
supplied without their own labor, without sowing or planting, or
reaping, or gathering into barns? Surely the Lord himself was with
them, and they were favored above all the rest of mankind. Who is like
unto thee, O Israel, a people chosen of the Lord! But they were just as
specially sinful. It scarcely seems to us as if any other nation ever
existed who provoked the Lord so much, for they transgressed against
light and love, against instruction and illumination, against wooing
and warning, against entreaty and rebuke. They rebelled though they
knew that they were highly favored, and were conscious that they were a
distinguished and elect people. Their iniquities were committed against
a God whose hand they had seen, and whose voice they had heard, as he
spoke to them from the top of Sinai. They lived amid a blaze of
miracles, and walked a pathway of marvels. God was in the camp, his
glory shone forth between the cherubim and under the symbol of the
fiery cloudy pillar his presence was revealed to them all. God was
round about them for a wall of fire, and as the glory in their midst:
and yet with the Lord before their eyes they refused to see him, and
with all his wonders before them they refused to believe. You know,
dear friends, that we are always particularly wounded by the unkindness
of any to whom we have been specially attentive and generous. We
complain, "It was not an enemy for then I could have borne it, but it
was thou, a man, mine acquaintance, my friend." Hard is it to be
injured by a child for whom you have endured much self-denial, and to
whom you have rendered tenderest love. "Sharper than an adder's tooth
is an unthankful child." After this fashion Israel offended, and,
speaking after the manner of men, the Lord felt it keenly, he was
grieved at his heart, because his great goodness to them had been so
basely misused. He cries, "O that they had hearkened unto me," and in
another place, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear O earth, I have nourished
and brought up children and they have rebelled against me." Such is the
language which Scripture puts into the mouth of the Lord, and yet he
forgave his provoking people times without number— was he not indeed
ready to pardon?

Again, the Israelites were absolutely dependent upon God for
everything, and yet they were proud. Read in the sixteenth verse, "They
and our fathers dealt proudly." If any people in the world ought to
have been humble, surely the Israelites were they. They had been slaves
in Egypt, and lien among the pots in degraded bondage— brickmakers all
of them. Their backs were raw with the lash of the slavedriver, and
they cried out under the sore oppression. The Lord chose them in the
ignorance and debasement which always come with slavery. When he
brought them out they had no treasures but such as they had demanded of
their former masters. Their stock of food was very slender, and they
had to traverse the arid wilderness. Tied up in bundles on their
shoulders, they carried a little food, but that was soon spent, and
every day they had to receive bread fresh from God's own ovens, while
as for water they would have perished had it not been for the rock
whose streams followed them all their way. They were not a people
addicted to commerce, they had no opportunities for hunting, there were
no means for husbandry; and therefore, if day by day the manna had not
fallen, they must have utterly starved. Yet though they were pensioners
upon the daily charity of God, and were both fed and clothed by his
bounty, still they were proud. I know some others who are much in the
same condition, and perhaps they are proud too. Paupers and yet proud!
Living on alms and yet boastful! Ah, brethren, but this in Israel was
very provoking to God, even as it is in us. Those vagrant mendicants
thought themselves somewhat, so that when they were a little tried they
began to murmur against Moses, and to accuse their God of bringing them
out into the desert to die. They hectored it very loudly, and with a
high stomach, and thought themselves hardly put upon, and would not do
this, and would do that, as though they were some great ones, while all
the while they were no better than so many birds of the air, which have
to gather what God's generous hand is pleased to scatter for their
daily food. Was he not a God ready to pardon, to have mercy upon a
proud people? Is it not always very hard to forgive a haughty spirited
offender? If the offender will humble himself before you there is less
difficulty; but if, being absolutely dependent upon you for everything,
the offender nevertheless insults you with high words, it becomes very
hard to keep your temper with him. Pride is irritating, yea abominable.
O Lord, when thou didst forgive the haughtiness of thine erring people,
thou wast indeed ready to pardon.

These people, again, deliberately rebelled, for the sixteenth and
seventeenth verses tell us they "hardened their necks, and hearkened
not to thy commandments, and refused to obey." It was not that they
made mistakes, it was not that they fell into errors or were misled;
but they did not want to go right, and refused to know what God's will
and mind were. They stopped their ears, and closed their eyes. When
they asked that the words which the Lord spake from Sinai might not be
spoken to them any more, it was but natural that they should dread the
terror of the trumpet sound; but deep down in their hearts there was
also a distaste for a law so pure, so holy. Their hearts were set on
mischief, and they were not to be led in the way of obedience. They had
a ready ear for Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who preached sedition, they
were ready to be led into idolatrous ceremonies and lustful acts by
Moabitish women; but before the Lord they were as bullocks unaccustomed
to the yoke. Anybody and everybody they would hearken to except their
God, but to him they had such small regard that they cast his
ordinances and precepts behind their backs, and sinned again and again
with resolute deliberation. They often went astray though often
reproved. It was not mere error and mistake, but the set and current of
their heart was towards evil. Deliberation adds greatly to the
heinousness of sin, and it is a sad thing when we have to charge
ourselves with this. The repetition of the same offense also shows a
state of heart very near akin to determination, for it has all the
appearance of a deliberate refusal to watch against temptation, and of
a fixed resolve to treat the voice of God with indifference. Alas, that
we should be so readily decoyed by the baits of evil, and so feebly
held by the cords of goodness. Lord, when we provoke thee in this way
be pleased to show thyself a God ready to pardon.

More than this, we are told that the Israelites were unmindful of what
the Lord had done for them: "Neither were mindful of thy wonders that
thou didst among them." They were by this unmindfulness led into the
great crime of unbelief. You think, my brethren, that if you had seen
the Red Sea divided and Israel's hosts led through, while Pharaoh's
army was drowned, you would have trusted God all your life. "Oh," say
you, "if I had been present, and really gathered the manna and eaten
it, I could not, I am sure, with such a demonstration before my eyes,
have ever fallen into unbelief again." Well, I leave that question
whether you would or not; having a very shrewd suspicion that your
heart is by no means better than that of the ancient unbelievers. At
any rate Israel soon fell back into her chronic unbelief. Within a few
days after they had seen the whole host of Pharaoh destroyed, they
began to murmur against God and against Moses; and though every day
they ate the manna, and drank the miraculously given water, yet
continually they asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?" and they were
perpetually putting questions such as made Moses demand of them, "Is
the Lord's hand waxed short?" They were cankered to the heart with
unbelief. For a moment they had a sort of faith, but in another moment
they relapsed into infidelity.

"Now they believe his Word,
While rocks with rivers flow;
Now with their lusts provoke the Lord,
And he reduced them low."

The slightest peril, the slightest trouble to themselves, they began to
think that now they were come to a difficulty out of which the Lord
could not deliver them, and they cried, "Surely, he means to destroy
us. He will never bring us into the promised land." Do you know any
other people like this? I need to put out my hand to touch one of the
same order. At any rate, since the Lord forgave his people Israel,
though they angered him with their ungenerous mistrust, we see most
clearly that he is "a God ready to pardon."

Further on we read that these people committed in spirit an act of
utter apostasy. They made unto themselves a captain to return to their
bondage. They said they would go back to Egypt, since there was no hope
of their ever conquering Canaan, for the Canaanites were too strong for
them. What, back to slavery! Back to making bricks without straw!
Leaving God and his tabernacle, and the glory of his presence. What
think ye would they go back for? What was the attractive bait which
lured them? They would return to their taskmasters for the sake of the
leeks and the garlic, and the onions, the flavour of which was still in
their mouths. Their soul lusted after the fleshpots of Egypt, and they
would, to sit down by those savoury cauldrons, go back to the ignoble
condition of slavery again, and leave the Lord and all his guardian
care, and forego the goodly land, which was but a little way beyond. O
foolish people! Ah, brethren, this is madness, but; alas is there not
in us, even in us, an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the
living God, and have there not been times when we also have been
tempted to return to the beggarly elements of the world, and seek
content in the grovelling joys of earth?

Perhaps it was worst of all that the Israelites did actually fall into
shameful idolatry. They set up the figure of a calf to represent God;
they compared their glory unto the image of an ox that eateth grass,
and they said, "These be thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee out of
the land of Egypt." God was incensed at this, as well he might be,
nevertheless at the entreaty of Moses he did not utterly destroy them.
Oh, brethren, it is a shameful thing when we love the creature more
than the Creator, and dare to set up anything which is dear to us in
Jehovah's place. "Little children keep yourselves from idols," but if
you have had idols, and have been forgiven, then you can see in this
history, and in your own experience, that the Lord is ready to pardon.

For a minute I desire to show you the opposite side, namely, the divine
goodness. While God forgave this people he showed his readiness to
pardon in the following ways. First, he continued while they were in
all these sins to guide them both by night and by day. The nineteenth
verse says, "Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in
the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day,
to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to show
them light, and the way wherein they should go." Only think of it, that
very day they made a calf, when the sun went down the fiery pillar
still lit up the camp. At that very hour in which they said "We will
make to ourselves a captain, and go back to Egypt," the cloud was
covering the camp, and screening them from the burning heat of the sun.
They sinned beneath the shade of special mercy. Oh, if the Lord had
said, "Now I will leave you, I will give you no more guidance. Since
you will not follow my commandments, go which way you will," should you
have wondered? If he had left them to faint in the heat of the day and
grope in the darkness of the night would you have been surprised? Ah,
but let us wonder to think that the Lord has guided us as pilgrims
through this desert land: he has still been both sun and shade to us,
even to this day, notwithstanding all our sin. Had he deserted us what
countless evils had befallen us. Blessed be the mercy which faileth
not.

Another marvelously gracious fact was that he continued still to teach
them. I am more surprised at this than at the other. Read the twentieth
verse— "Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them." I should
have thought he would have said, "Moses, take down the tabernacle, roll
up the curtains, put away the ark, no more morning sacrifices, no more
evening lambs. Aaron, go home, take off your breastplate, and your
ephod, and all your garments, which were made for glory and for beauty.
This people shall be taught no longer, they are incorrigible. It is in
vain that I dwell among them and walk among them." No, but still he
made known his ways among them, and maintained the testimony of his
servant Moses, and gave them still those matchless types which set
forth so fully the way of salvation. My brethren, bless ye also the
Lord that though he has often smitten you, and given you the bread of
affliction and the water of affliction, yet he has not taken away your
teachers from you, nor quenched the light of Israel. Still doth his
good spirit enlighten and instruct the people. Is he not a God ready to
pardon?

Nehemiah also notices that God did not stint them in their daily
provisions, notwithstanding their offenses. "Yea," says he, "thou
withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for
their thirst." I am struck with wonder to think that God should have
caused his manna still to fall. They provoked Moses and they set up
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, but that very morning God's bread was in
their mouths. They came up to speak against God and against his
servant, but their tongues would have been cleaving to the roof of
their mouths for thirst if that very morning they had not drunk of the
water which God had given them. When dependent persons will persist in
disregarding our remonstrances and violating our rules, we are driven
to stop the supplies. But the Lord did not stop the supplies even in
this urgent case. Would not famine and drought have brought them to
their senses? If there had been no food for the women and children, and
no drink for the strong men, would not that have tamed them? Even lions
and savage beasts may be thus subdued. But no, their bread was given
them, and their water was sure. Was he not a God ready to pardon?

One other remark here, and it is this,— he did sustain them to the end
and ultimately bring them into the land of promise. "Yea, forty years
didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing:
their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. Their children
also multipliedest thou as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them
into the land, concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers
that they should go in to possess it." Yes, and I know a people who,
despite their sins, have already taken possession of many a gracious
promise, so that they already dwell in the midst of covenant blessings.
I know a people too who, notwithstanding their sins, shall enter into
rest. "He shall surely bring them in," for he will bring his chosen
into his glory, and they shall see his face with joy. Is he not a God
ready to pardon?

My tale is all too long for me to tell it. I must cease from this
portion of the history and ask you to meditate upon it, and as you do
so to admire our pardoning God.

II. Secondly, IT IS EQUALLY TRUE THAT THE LORD AT ALL TIMES IS A GOD
READY TO PARDON. It is true of him by nature, for mercy is an essential
attribute of God. We must never think that our Lord Jesus died to make
God merciful; on the contrary, the death of the Lord Jesus is the
result of the mercy of God. When man sinned God was willing enough to
pardon him, for the death of a sinner is no pleasure to him. Judgment
is his strange work. The way in which the Lord came to Adam at the
first showed his mercy. He came, if you remember, in the cool of the
day,— not at the instant the crime was committed. God is not in a hurry
to accuse man, or to execute vengeance upon him; he therefore waited
until the cool of the day. He did not address rebellious man in the
language of indignation, but he kindly said, "Adam, where art thou?"
And when he had questioned the guilty pair, and convicted them, and the
sentence was passed, it was terrible certainly, but oh how mildly
tempered; the curse was as much as possible made to fall obliquely:
"cursed is the ground for thy sake." Though the woman was made to feel
great sorrows, yet those were connected with a happy event which causes
the travail to be forgotten. There was tenderness in the dread
utterances of an offended God, and mainly so because almost as soon as
he declared that man must labor and die he promised that the "seed of
the woman should bruise the serpent's head." Assuredly the Lord our God
is by nature very pitiful and full of compassion.

This truth is evident when we remember that God was abundantly ready to
pardon, for he himself removed the impediment which lay in the way of
forgiveness. Being judge of all the earth it was essential to him in
that office that sin should never be treated as a light thing, but
should be duly punished, lest others rush into it, hoping to escape
judgment. For the good of all his creatures, as well as for the glory
of his own character, God must not allow sin to go unpunished. The
judge may be willing enough to pardon the culprit, but he is a judge,
and as such he must condemn the guilty. The readiness of God to pardon
was seen in this that at his own cost he provided a way by which his
mercy might be consistent with justice. From his own bosom he took his
only begotten Son, his own self, for he was one with him and God, in
the person of his Son, suffered that which has honored justice,
vindicated the law, and enabled God to be just and yet the justifier of
the ungodly. Oh, as I see the adorable Father giving up his
Well-beloved, to bleed and die for men, I know beyond all question that
he is a God ready to pardon.

And now, the atonement being made, and justice being unable any longer
to offer any protest to boundless mercy, God stands ready to pardon. By
the blood of his dear Son he is able to blot out offenses, through the
sweet savor of the sacrifice of Jesus he smiles on guilty men. He
delights now to blot into oblivion the transgressions of all them that
seek his face.

The Lord's readiness to pardon is very conspicuous to sinners, because
he sends his message of love to them while they are yet in their sins.
He presents perfect pardon through Jesus Christ to them, even while
they are sinners, for "Christ died for the ungodly." I love to think
that the gospel does not address itself to those who might be supposed
to have helped themselves a little out of the mire, to those who show
signs of lingering goodness, but it comes to men ruined in Adam and
doubly lost by their own sin, it comes to them in the abyss where sin
has hurled them and lifts them up from the gates of hell. "Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners." "The Son of man is come to seek
and to save that which was lost." Jesus Christ's salvation is like the
good Samaritan, it comes where the wounded man is, and pours in its oil
and wine into his bleeding wounds.

The readiness of God to pardon is to be seen in the fact that he makes
no hard conditions with sinners. He does not say, "I will pardon if you
suffer this or endure that penance; I will pardon if you perform this
act of heroism or that deed of consecration." No, he himself says,
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Receive
what is freely given— that is the gospel precept, and nothing else.
Only confess thy transgressions, or, in other words, own thine
emptiness, and then trust thy Savior, and thou art saved.

That he is ready to forgive appears in this yet more glorious fact,
that what God demands of man by the gospel he also works in him by his
spirit; as for confession of sin he puts the words into the sinner's
mouth, repentance he works in the sinner's heart, and saving faith his
own Spirit creates in the sinner's soul. Is he not ready to forgive
when even what might be called the condition of pardon in one light is
under another aspect a gift of free grace?

See ye not his readiness to forgive, when he accepts even the very
lowest grade of the necessary graces? Of repentance, so long as it be
sincere, he doth accept a tear or a sigh; of faith, though it be but as
a grain of mustard seed, he doth accept it if it be but true. And
notwithstanding all the faults that are in the sinner, though his heart
be neither as tender as it ought to be, nor his knowledge so clear, nor
his eye of faith so bright, nor his conversion so complete as it should
be, yet God looketh not at any of these faultinesses except to forgive
them. The ignorance and shortcoming God winketh at, and he only looks
at what he can see of Christ in the sinner. The sinner's plea on his
lip is, "for Jesus' sake," the sinner's hope in his heart is "for
Christ's sake,"— and it is this that the Father looks at; when he sees
that the poor trembling soul has embraced Jesus, his own dear Son, the
Father puts the sin away at once without a word, and says, "Be of good
cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace." Oh, he is indeed a God
ready to pardon.

Dear child of God, this text has a bearing upon you, and you can see it
in your own self. Observe how the Lord chastens you. "Why is that?" say
you. Why, because you have been offending him. You are his child, and
he is your Father, and he desires to forgive you, but there is a
hindrance. Have you never felt a difficulty about expressing
forgiveness to your own child when he has done wrong again and again?
There is no difficulty in your heart, for you love him well, but still
you do not wish him to think lightly of the fault, and you are afraid
that if you at once tell him that you forgive him he may, perhaps,
think that he may transgress with impunity. Therefore you chasten him,
so that after the chastening has been endured it may be safe for you to
pardon— I mean safe as far as he is concerned. He will not be tempted
to go into the sin through the readiness with which you forgive him,
for he will remember the smarts which your love inflicted. Look upon
your chastening as a proof that God is ready to forgive because he
executes in wisdom that discipline which is necessary for a safe
forgiveness.

Think, too, how lightly he chastens.

"He will not always chide,
And when his strokes are felt,
His strokes are fever than our crimes,
And lighter than our guilt."

That rod of his, ah, he never loves it. He doth not afflict willingly,
nor grieve the children of men. But when he does use it, how quickly he
puts it up again. Brethren, note how ready the Lord is to pardon us,
for when we have sadly fallen he graciously sets us on our feet again.
"He restoreth my soul." If you have wandered, like Noah's dove flying
over the waste of waters, the Lord will receive you, even as Noah
received the weary bird. He put out his hand at once and plucked her in
unto him, into the ark, and even thus does the good Spirit pluck us in
to himself. He fills our empty spirits again, revives our dying hope,
relights the candles of our joy, and makes us once again what we had
been, and perhaps more. And then he comes and restores to us his own
presence, oh so soon. He says, "For a small moment have I forsaken
thee, but in great mercy will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my
face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting mercy will I have
pity upon thee." Very loath is he to hide his face, but very swift is
he to come on wings of mercy to restore joy to his mourners. Is he not
ready to pardon?

I have almost done when I have answered a question on the behalf of the
unconverted, and the same on behalf of the children of God. A poor
seeker says to me, "You tell us God is ready to pardon, why is it,
then, that I have prayed so long for mercy and have not found it?" That
was a question I asked once when my prayers went up to heaven, and
seemed to smite upon a dome of brass, and were reverberated in my ears.
Listen! Dost thou know to what God has promised to give pardon? To
prayer! I think if thou wilt read aright he promised pardon to
confession, to repentance, and to faith. Hast thou acknowledged thine
iniquity? Wilt thou renounce thy sin? Hast thou believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ? Come, wilt thou now trust Jesus Christ? Man, thou shalt
have pardon now. But if thy prayers are unbelieving prayers thou art
going the wrong way to work. Thou mayest as well hope to win heaven by
thy works as by thy prayers, for indeed thy prayers are but a kind of
work— salvation is by believing, not by praying. If faith be mixed with
thy prayer, then wilt thou succeed. Believing is essential, and if thou
believest thou shalt have mercy, now at once. "Still," says another, "I
have believed in Jesus Christ, and I hope I am saved from guilt, but
how is it if God is ready to pardon that I am still suffering from the
result of sin." This, my friend, you must bear so long as God wills it.
God does not make a man healthy if he has brought his body to sickness
by sin, neither does he fill a man's pocket if he has spent his money
in profligacy. This, my brother, is left to be a thorn in thy side; not
as a token of anger, but because thou art not to be trusted with health
or wealth, and God will not lead thee into temptation again. Accept
this from the Lord's hand as a gentle chastening. Remember, if he save
thy soul it little matters about the rest, for it will be better for
thee to enter into life halt or maimed than to have all thy limbs, and
all the world, and lose thy soul. Accept sickness, or whatever else
comes, as the result of sin, and do not think it by any means proves
that God has not pardoned thee— on the contrary it may be that he loves
thee enough to chasten thee.

A child of God now says to me, "If God is so ready to pardon, how is it
I am still a sufferer, I am still poor, and so on?" Ah, my dear friend,
perhaps that is not a rod at all, for remember "every branch that
beareth fruit he purgeth it." Not because it did not bear, but to make
it bring forth more fruit. You are God's child, and you have a cross to
carry. Do not look at it as a token of anger. Was God angry with Simon,
the Cyrenean, who carried Christ's cross after him? No, he was
conferring an honor upon him.

"Shall Simon bear the cross alone,
And all the rest go free?
No, there's a cross for every one,
And there's a cross for me."

Take it up, for "through much tribulation" we shall "inherit the
kingdom." Look at addiction in this light, and you will see that there
is nothing of anger in it.

"But," says one child of God, "I am under a cloud. I cannot see the
face of God. Why does he hide himself from me?" Not because he is
unready to pardon, but, perhaps, because you are not ready to forsake
the sin which he is aiming at. Perhaps you have not searched your heart
yet. There is still hidden under the camel's furniture some idol or
other. Make Rachel get up, and do you search even in the secret places.
Cry, "Wherefore dost thou contend with me?" for, if like David and Job
you have to say that you are chastened every morning and plagued every
evening, there is a reason for it. If you have walked contrary to God
he is walking contrary to you. Take your Achan and stone him, and then
the Lord will come into the camp again. Tear down the idol and you
shall have Jehovah's presence once more! But mark the word— whatever
your experience may be, this is true— he delighteth in mercy, and he is
a God ready to pardon. May the Holy Spirit bless this truth to your
souls, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Nehemiah 9.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— 907, 106 (Part II.), 101.
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The Oil of Gladness