Pardon For Sin

Great is Thy Faithfulness is a beautiful and much loved hymn that has provided comfort and encouragement to the People of God for many years.  The third stanza in particular is a favorite of mine, and goes like this:

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine and ten thousand beside!

Here are five Biblical truths that give us comfort in every circumstance: Pardon; Peace; Presence: Power and Promise.  Today we will consider Pardon for Sin.

For those in Christ, pardon means that God casts from Himself our every sin, flinging them with violence, never to be taken notice of again.  This God accomplished through Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.  And what God has done through Christ, He has done to the uttermost and there is now no circumstance that can take away the pardon for sin that we enjoy at the purchase of God's own Son.  There is much that can be taken from us; health, wealth, family and friends, but in Christ, pardon for sin may never be lost - it is eternally secure.  And thus it is a reason for confidence and rejoicing and hope and song!  

Oh! Does that not make a sinners heart sing - "Great is Thy Faithfulness!"

Sing!

Did you notice? In the midst of Jeremiahs Lamentation there is found the inspiration for a most beautiful and favored hymn?  “Great is Thy Faithfulness!" (Lamentations 3:23)  

I am coming to appreciate singing now as a means of worship and praise more than I ever had - I am enjoying singing, both as a participant, and as an audience - - I love singing!  Singing is a beautiful means of expression, but singing is also good theology. Our singing is more than a warm-up for the sermon or a filler for the service.  In Colossians 3:16, we read: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly . . . singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. . . “  This teaching of Paul highlights a very important theological reason for singing.  Singing is important to our knowledge of Christ.  Pastor C. J. Mahaney says, “Church singing is take home theology,” because, Mahaney says, “the best songs we sing together are a powerful three minute, easily memorized, deeply Biblical summary of many important truths and doctrine.”

Singing is so important that it is a command!  And it is a command that comes with a promise. As we sing Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs together, we are promised that the word of God will dwell in us richly.

Over the next several posts, Lord willing, we will borrow from a another preacher, a hymn writer named Charles Chisholm who is the author of the song “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”  His third stanza shall serve as our outline for the next three or four posts, here is what Chisholm has said:

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth.

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, and ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Lamentations is not a book filled with many happy things.  Lamentations 3 in particular is a somber, bitter chapter.  Yet in the midst of Lamentations 3, there is a declaration about God that seems not to fit; it is “Great is Your Faithfulness.”    The words of verses 21 through 23 seems contradictory to all that comes before.   What has the Prophet done?  How can he make such a proclamation in the midst of stark and bitter and heart wrenching circumstances?  An answer to this difficulty is found in verse 21:  “This I recall to mind, Therefore I have hope.”

It really is all about thinking, it is all about faith.  Jeremiah, in the midst of his lament, raises his thoughts above the calamitous circumstances, and he lands them solidly upon the God who is Lord over those circumstances, even the most difficult of them. He bolsters his faith with remembrance of the character of God and the faithfulness and power of God to deliver all that He has promised.

The prophet leads us too, to remember the faithfulness of God – even in the midst of circumstances that would tempt us to doubt His faithfulness and goodness.  Jeremiah knew that his assurance was not at all based upon present circumstances – his assurance is in God.

Jeremiah is suffering, the people of God are in the midst of a great trial, and sometimes we too suffer.  What shall we do in the midst of it?  I think first, let us remember the cause of our trouble. Jeremiah teaches us that it is not God who is the author of our troubles; it is sin that deserves credit for those tragic realities.  Let us remember secondly the solution of our trouble.  It is the faithfulness of God.

Are You Patient?

I have learned recently that I am not nearly the patient person I have thought myself to be.  I am often dissatisfied and seek to push on to the next thing.  I often need to be reminded that waiting on the next big thing often comes at the cost of actually living!  Certainly, our our Enemy must gain much encouragement and joy when we are looking to escape to better circumstances rather than waiting on the Lord of those circumstances to deliver us. 

I am still thinking through Lamentations 3 today, and in particular verses 25 and 26.  "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.  It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the Lord."

This passage comes directly after the passage we were thinking about the last time.  Remember that Jeremiah, in the midst of great lament, remembered the Lord's faithfulness and mercy.  Look at what Jeremiah says:  "The Lord is Good!"  I love the implications of that!  God is not some miserly old curmudgeon who hoards mercy and goodness and blessing, He is compassionate and just and good and wise, and He know exactly what we need.  Because of His perfect will and wisdom, our God deserves our trust and faith and patience.  God will deliver, but it will be in accordance to His timing and purpose - - and it will be perfectly just and good.

Let us conclude with some words from the Holy Spirit inspired pen of Paul:  ". . . . for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am.  I know both how to have little, and I know how to have much.  In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content - whether well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or need, I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:11-13).

Can You Help Me Find a Bible Verse?

Can you help me find a Bible verse? it goes like this:  God will not give you more than you can handle.  Did you find it?  You won't.  Nowhere in the Bible are we told that hardships come with an "only-as-much-as-you-can-handle" clause.  That is not true to life.  In my life, I am made painfully aware of my human reality on a daily basis; I am weak and frankly I am given much, much more than I can handle.

The idea that God will not give us more than we can handle wrongly emphasis ourselves, it assumes that Gods desire is never to overwhelm us with difficulties that would cause us to actually need Him.  Believing this adage is to brush aside the difficult realities of our weakness and need.  The Bible does not say that God will spare us from circumstances that are too hard for us, the opposite is true.  God has great lessons to teach us by increasingly giving to us more than we can handle.  As He does so, in His infinite grace, He roots out our sin and  reveals the futility of all that is not Him and teaches us to love Him and trust Him above all else.

Having asked you to find something that is nowhere to be found in the pages of your bible, I leave you with an assignment to find something that is.  Take a look at Lamentations 3.  You will find there some of the bitterest, most somber words in all the Bible.  Yet it is exactly there, in the midst of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, we find the only hope we have as we are enduring the often harsh realities of life.  Hear this!  Verses 22 and 23; "Through the Lords mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not!  They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness."

What Shall I Cry?

"A Voice says, 'Cry!' and I said, 'What shall I cry?" (Isaiah 40:6).  It is not for us to craft a message we believe people will want to hear; the message is already given.  Our message is the very Word of God.  Faithful preachers and teachers and proclaimers of the Word will open their Bibles and ask, "What shall I cry?" and then they speak what they find in front of them.  The message is given, it need not be invented.  We need to proclaim only what is in the text, nothing more and nothing less.

"What shall I cry?"  God gives the answer: Here is what you are to say, "All flesh is grass, and all beauty is like the flower of the field."  But that is not all, for God says our life is fragile: "The grass withers and the flower fades."  A voice says "cry!" What shall I cry?  Speak of the beauty and fragility of human life.  We must know that life is beautiful, precious, a wondrous creation of God, but we must also know that life is fragile.  Listen to James 4:13,14 - "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."

To live well, we must know both the beauty and fragility of life.  If we learn these truths well, we will be both thankful and humble before God.