Our sins are blotted out from God's memory. The last of this wonderful
text is the best. When we detect a failure of memory here in this
world among our friends it is an evidence of weakness, but it is no
weakness in God to forget. This is but another one of those
expressions descriptive of God in which human language is used to
describe a thought and in which human language is too poor an agency to
convey all the depth of the meaning. It is just another picture of God
stooping down to meet our weakness and it is God assuring us that our
sins are gone completely. It is as if they never had existed, for they
shall never stand against us and in the day of judgment they shall not
even be mentioned. Our sins must have been a grief to him, just as the
sin of an earthly child is the source of sorrow to an earthly parent;
but they are so no longer, for he has forgotten. The Bible represents
God as being angry because of our transgressions, but if ever there was
anger with him it is so no longer, for you cannot be angry with a
person whose injury against you you have forgotten entirely. We do not
in this world speak of what we have forgotten, nor will God speak of
our sins. We do not punish what we have forgotten, nor will God permit
us to be punished, for he has blotted out our transgressions and will
remember them no more. There is no awaiting penalty for your sin,
there is no judgment to meet at the great white throne, there is no
hell for you at the last, for your sins, for Christ's sake, have been
forgotten.
If you cast a stone into the water and it sinks away there is for a
time a ripple, where the stone has gone down; but in a moment it has
gone forever, you can see it no more. So God has cast our sins into
the sea and the place where they have gone cannot even be found.
V
But what must I do to take advantage of all this gracious offer of God?
I answer according to the Scripture. There must be true repentance;
repentance is a change of mind, it is having a new mind for God. There
must be regeneration; regeneration is a change of nature, it is a new
heart for God. There must be conversion; conversion is a change of
living and a new life for God. If we would be born from above we must
accept God's word.
Two friends were conversing one evening. One of them with a skeptical
mind had just rejected the Bible because it did not tell him the things
that he would know. He insisted on knowing how the worlds were made,
and demanded that he should be told concerning the origin of heaven and
why God permitted it, and because the Bible failed here he would have
none of it. Just as his friend was leaving the skeptic said to him,
"Here is my lantern. I want you to take it and it will light you
home." But the lantern was refused by the Christian man, "for," said
he, "this lantern will not light up the mountains in the distance, nor
the valley stretching away at my feet." His friend was amazed. "Man,"
said he, "take the lantern; it will make a road for you across the moor
and light up your pathway home." "Oh," said his friend, "if that is
true I will take it; but listen to me. So is the Bible not for distant
paths of investigation; it is not so much to tell us concerning
creation and existence--we shall know these things by and by. It is
for the path at your feet and it will light you home a space at a
time." The skeptical man saw it in an instant, he took God's word and
came back again to the faith of his childhood.
So I offer it to you with its promises as of lanterns, if its commands
are carefully received and followed out. You, too, may pass from
darkness into light and you may claim from God this text of mine which
says, "I even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine
own sake, and will not remember thy sins."