“I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins.” Isaiah 44:22 NKJV
Pay attention to the instructive comparison here: our sins are “like a cloud.” As clouds come in many shapes and shades, so do our transgressions. As clouds obscure the light of the sun and darken the landscape below, so our sins hide the light of Jehovah’s face from us, causing us to sit in the shadow of death. Clouds are earthborn things, rising from the miry places of nature; and when they are filled to their measure of moisture, they threaten us with storm and uproar. Sadly, unlike clouds, our sins bring us no helpful showers—rather, they threaten to deluge us with a fiery flood of destruction. How can it be fair weather with our souls while the dark clouds of sin remain? But let your eye dwell upon the notable act of divine mercy in Isaiah 44:22: “I have blotted out.” God himself appears upon the scene in divine gentleness—instead of showing His anger, He reveals His grace. At once and forever, He effectively removes the source of trouble, not by blowing away the cloud, but by blotting it out once for all. Against justified people, no sin remains; the great transaction of the cross has removed their transgressions from them, eternally. On Calvary’s summit the great deed, by which the sin of all the chosen was put away forever, was completely and effectively performed. Let us obey the gracious command, “Return to me” (Isaiah 44:22). Why should pardoned sinners live far from their God? If we have been forgiven of all our sins, we should allow no fear of the law to prevent the boldest access to our Lord. Express regret over your backsliding, but don’t stay in it. Let us strive, in the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, to return to the greatest possible nearness and communion with God. Oh, Lord, restore us tonight! - C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening
It's an awesome thing to me to be reading and to hear the voice of my Savior speak clearly to me. That's where the title of today's post came from. Those words are from Him.
Read well what Spurgeon says. Think on the book of Leviticus next. The do's and don'ts of what the Lord instructed His people on the clean and unclean foods. On their behavior during even child birth as to what the mother needed to do for the birth of a sin vs the birth of a daughter.
The analogy of clouds as sins is a good one. We may have different kinds, shapes and sizes of them in apparent array between us and God. Yet asking for forgiveness makes them no more. Poof! They vanish. The light of Christ shines forth as before the sin, unhindered, to our souls.
We are often a people who often insist on consequences for our actions when it comes to sin. I have done it, perhaps you have too. We may have indeed asked Jesus to forgive you but then you brood about finding ways to be angry at you for what you did. You are an uncompromising judge upon yourself. You insist upon a summary judgment upon you for your actions. But wait a minute. If you asked Jesus to forgive you, and He says that those who do, that He casts the sins as far as the east is from the west, what are you doing? If Jesus says He remembers them no more, what in the world are you doing?
Grace means unmerited favor. As one saying goes "God's Riches At Christ's Expense". My Friend, He wipes the slate clean. The clouds are gone. The light of Christ shines forth in its brilliance.
Why would you insist upon creating clouds again between you and God? Grace, forgiveness, removes that punishment.
You may have CONSEQUENCES to your sin but not the judgment from God concerning a truly repentant heart.
Consequences are not a punishment for sin that is forgiven. You created a snowball that rolls down a hill. It can gain momentum and become a much larger snowball. You are forgiven when asked from a repentant heart, but that momentum of that now much greater snowball is going to take some doing to bring to a stop. Others might be hurt along the way. Dabbling in pornography will potentially impact you and those you love. If you are in it deep enough and are at work, using company computers, it likely will get you fired. Yes God will forgive you if you truly mean it when asking, but the consequences remain. You likely lost your job. You are impacted, if married, your spouse is impacted. If you have children they are impacted.
God's grace, His unmerited favor, cleanses unlike any launderer on Earth. That's what the Bible says. The white purity of Christ's forgiveness is unparalleled, unmatched, in all of nature.
But I don't know the kinds of sins that you have done! There must be a punishment for them! Are you, my friend, going to say that you, the sinner, knows more, than the Righteous King on what is worthy of punishment and what He has taken care of? Are you wiser than God? Are you going to sit or stand there and say that God's cleansing isn't perfect? Are you going to say that the work of Jesus Christ on the cross wasn't enough? Because that's what you are saying when you insist that your sins are too great for the forgiveness of Jesus.
Even in your consequences you are not alone. Jesus told a parable of the Good Samaritan. While a Levi and a Priest did nothing to help the one in distress. The Samaritan did. With no regard to the disastrous state of the person they picked them up an took them to be cared for.
With no regard to how we think we look, Jesus still wraps His arms around us to care for us. That's the other part. His mercy. Not giving us what we do deserve.
We are promised that we who are in Christ never will walk alone in this life. Never.
We easily forget that but that doesn't change the truth of God.
Thank God for His forgiveness.
Thank God for His mercy.
Thanks be to God for His unending love.
Don't listen to your sin nature about crime and punishment. Don't listen to Satan about it either. Only the Word of God holds the truth on the matter.
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