Our Solemn, Inescapeable Gospel Duties

Recap: The Bible's Purpose and God's Provision

0:05 I introduced my sermons for the last two Lord's Days by asking and then answering two very basic and critically important questions. I hope that those of you who are here will remember them.

0:25 For those who are not, let me repeat them this morning. Question number one, what is the Bible? Well, this rather large, imposing black book that I open and lay on this desk, that many of you have in your lap, in your hands, what is the Bible?

0:52 And I said the Bible answers it by telling us that it is the Word of God. That is, it's God's revelation of Himself speaking to us His Word in the language. And words of men.

1:11 This book, which is really a collection of 66 lesser books, written over a period of 1,500 years by some 40 plus authors, this book is nothing less than that which St. Paul describes in 2 Timothy chapter 3, when he says all Scripture, that is all the parts of the Bible, are given by inspiration of God. They are the out-breathing of the mind and the will of God. But then the second question, why was this book given?

1:52 Why did God superintend more than 40 authors over so long a time span to give us this book that is His Word? And the Bible itself answers that question. In 2 Timothy 3 and verse 15, the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy, saying, From a babe you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise through salvation which is by faith in Jesus Christ. This book is given to us to tell us what we need to know and believe about God, about ourselves, and about the way of salvation, in order that we may be fit to live, prepared to die, and ready to go to judgment. That's why the Bible was given to us, to make us wise unto salvation that is found in Jesus Christ, a salvation without which we are neither fit to live,

Recap: Humanity's Sin and God's Yearning Invitation

3:09 prepared to die, nor ready to go to judgment. And while the things we must know and believe and experience are found from first to last, that is, from the first book, Genesis, to the last book, entitled the book of the Revelation, while those things we need to know about God, about ourselves, and about His salvation are scattered all over the entirety of this book, God has given us, in certain places, wonderfully condensed statements that are like the distilled essence of fine perfume. They give us, in a very short compass, the very heart of the message of the Bible. And this is the third Lord's Day in which we've been concentrating our attention upon three such pithy, succinct, condensed statements. These statements are those things that form the very nerve centers of what we need to know about God, about ourselves, and about His salvation. In the first of them, Isaiah 53, 6, we saw that God gives us the bad news of our desperate condition in sin.

4:33 All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one of us to His own way. That's the bad news. But then He gives us the good news of a gracious provision for sin.

4:46 And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. That is, in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, God has punished human sin that God might be just in His forgiveness and in His pardon. Then, in the next message, we concentrated on a passage that answers this very vital question. When God has given us the facts of our desperate condition in sin, and the facts of His gracious provision for sin, does He lay it before us and dump it on us with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude?

5:26 There's the bad news. There's the good news. Take it or leave it. Do as you will.

5:32 We looked at Isaiah 55, verses 1 to 3. And we saw that the answer to that question is a resounding no. God is no take-it-or-leave-it God. In fact, in those verses, God takes to Himself the figure of a street hawker.

5:54 Unless some of you wondered what a hawker was, you could have looked it up in the dictionary. A hawker is someone who goes into the street in order to sell his goods, and in order to do so, he announces his presence and his good with a loud voice. And that's what God does in those verses in Isaiah 55, 1 to 3. And He likens all of the blessings of the salvation that is in Christ, forgiveness of sin, being right with God, peace with God, being adopted into the family of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the promise of eternal life.

6:33 God likens all those blessings to the commodities of water, of wine, of bread, and of what? What's the fourth one? Water, wine, bread. I've got to look at the text.

6:54 Wine and milk. I forgot the milk. All right? God says, I'm like a hawker of goods, and I go into the marketplace, and I have my jugs of water, and my skins of wine, and my vessels carrying milk, and my baskets of bread, and I am determined that men will hear me when I say, I want you to have the blessings of my salvation.

7:23 So we have seen that God sets before us in Isaiah 53, 6 the facts of our condition in sin and His provision for sin. In Isaiah 55, 1 to 3, He comes to us saying, I am passionately desirous that you know the blessings of this salvation. I am determined that men will embrace my gracious saving mercy. And so He likens Himself to a street hawker, bringing His goods without money and without price to those who will have them.

8:02 Now then, this brings another very important question. And that question is this. Having clearly given us the facts concerning our need as sinners, the facts of His gracious provision for our need in the person and work of the suffering servant of Jehovah, that is, Jesus, God then comes to us as a yearning, passionate, entreating God. But now the question is this.

8:34 Does He only come to us as a passionate and an entreating God and say no more to us? That if we are tempted to regard with indifference His passionate pleading, O everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. He who has no money, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. He reasons with us.

9:01 Why are you spending your money for that which is not bread and that which can never satisfy? Does God stop by entreating and pleading, I say it reverently, begging us to embrace gospel privileges? Well, the answer of Isaiah 55, verses 6 to 9 is another resounding no. God does not stop with entreating.

The Exalted Sovereign's Command: Repent and Believe

9:31 God does not stop with begging. God does not stop with His passionate yearning. But notice how God now speaks in verses 6 through 9 of Isaiah 55. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.

9:53 Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him and to our God for He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are my ways your ways says the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. You see what God is now doing?

10:29 The God who has declared the facts of our desperate condition and His provision. The God who comes entreating in the role of a street hawker that we embrace our gospel privileges. This God now speaks as the exalted unrivaled sovereign with absolute authority and in that capacity and posture He commands you and me to repent and to believe the gospel. He now sits in regal royal state and says to us as His creatures in all the weight of His regal authority seek me while I may be found. Call upon me while I am near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord for He will have mercy and to our God for He will abundantly pardon.

11:40 And so this morning we are going to park on these verses and consider them under this title Our Solemn and Inescapable Gospel Duties. Our Solemn and Inescapable Gospel Duties. Our Solemn and Inescapable Gospel Duties. Do you see the connection now between the three passages we've studied?

12:14 I hope you do. From laying out the facts of our sin and His provision for sin taking the role of the street hawker laying bare His heart that He yearns that we know the blessings of that salvation provided in Christ God now confronts us in all of His authority and says you must repent you must believe for I am your God who commands you I exercise all my rights as your Creator as Sovereign and Judge of the Universe hear me and heed my call to repentance and to faith. We're going to unpack these verses under three heads this morning. First of all the foundational gospel duty identified. The foundational gospel duty identified.

The Foundational Gospel Duty: Seek and Call

13:20 And I call it a gospel duty because you see these words of command come after God has shown us His provision for sinners in Isaiah 53 He's shown us the largeness of His heart in Isaiah 55 1 to 3 so that whatever He commands us here oozes with the overtones and the realities of the gospel. These are not bare commands from a mighty holy sovereign they are the commands of a holy sovereign who in Jesus Christ has provided an adequate salvation to the vilest of sinners has laid bare His heart that He longs for us to know the blessings of that salvation. So these are gospel duties and we want to consider first the foundational gospel duty identified and we'll do so under two subheadings the essence of our gospel duty and the urgency of our gospel duty. Look at the verse Seek the Lord while He may be found Call upon Him while He is near The essence of our gospel duty

14:46 is bound up in these two phrases Seek the Lord Call upon Him God is saying to each and every one of us who has gone astray like a sheep each and every one of us who has turned to his own way and gone into the God business living by our own standards to our own end according to our own will and purposes He is saying to us Here is the essence of your gospel duty in the light of all that I have done in Christ in the light of the yearning of my heart that you enter in to the benefits of that salvation Here is the essence of your gospel duty Seek me Seek the Lord while He may be found Call upon Him while He is near You see the duty is not get religion or get religious The duty is not go to church, join a church Certainly the duty is not walk an aisle, raise a hand pray a certain canned prayer When God says seek the Lord Call upon Him You see what He is saying? In the gospel God calls every sinner to engage himself person to person

16:12 Seek ye the Lord upon Him The sinner, the person who is laden with guilt who deserves the wrath and judgment of Almighty God The sinner with the gnawing unmet hunger of his soul who is invited in the earlier verses of this chapter That sinner is told to seek the Lord What Lord? The very Lord who has told him that he is a sinner The very Lord who has told him the provision He has made for sinners The very Lord who has passionately and earnestly invited him to lay hold of the provisions of His salvation God now says Look sinner Have direct personal dealings with Me Seek the Lord while he may be found Call upon Him while He is near And dear people that's the wonder and the glory of the gospel That the sinner in all the nakedness In all the pollution All the vileness In all the hell deservingness of his sinnerhood Is commanded to have direct personal dealings with the Savior

17:38 In all the glory of his person And in all the perfection of his work The sinner and the Savior come together in the gospel No water No wafer No priest No minister No ritual in between The sinner in his need And the Savior in the presence of God The Savior in the plenitude of His grace They come together in the gospel That is the foundational gospel duty laid upon us In its essence To have heart dealings with God Himself As He is revealed in Jesus Christ And isn't that confirmed in the New Testament In Matthew 11 28 The Lord Jesus says Come unto Me All you that labor and are heavy laden And I will give you rest He doesn't say Come to My church Come to My ministers Come to My ordinances Come to My sacraments Come to My standards of morality No He says Come to Me Come to Me Have dealings with Me Seek the Lord while He may be found Call upon Him While He is near Again John 6 37

19:05 All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me And him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out My sinner friend hear me Hear me if you get nothing else from this morning Hear me This is your duty To break through all secondary issues And say I will not rest until I know That I personally as a sinner Have had dealings with Jesus Christ As the Savior of sinners That's what Paul meant when he said Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord Shall be saved Whosoever comes to the place where he sees My need is such That no human being can meet it No group of human beings can meet it No rituals can meet it No forms can meet it No ceremonies can meet it No building can meet it I what only Jesus can give me And I'm determined to have dealings with Jesus That's it That is the essence of your gospel duty But now there's an urgency or an immediacy Of our gospel duty Look at the passage again Seek the Lord while He may be found Call upon Him while He is near

The Urgency of Gospel Duty: While He May Be Found

20:31 While He may be found He is near Clearly if there's a time when He may be found There's a time when He may not be found If there's a time when He's near There's a time when He's not near There's an urgency There's an urgency There is an immediacy To this gospel duty In the context When is the near time The appropriate time When He comes and offers Himself To us With all of the gospel blessings Bound up in the Lord Jesus Seek the Lord While He may be found When can He be found When you're still alive You still have your rational faculties You're in a context where Christ And the sufficiency of His work for sinners Is preached And is urgently pressed upon you And God comes as it were As the street hawkers saying Oh everyone who thirsts Come to the waters He who has no money Come buy wine and milk Without money without price Why do He reasons with us He entreats us He gets inside our consciences He tweaks our affections He makes the issues of our soul salvation

21:58 An important thing to us He has come near In the preaching of the gospel He may be found In the context Of the proclamation Of His Son And His salvation While we are yet in the land of the living Before we have been cut off And the door of opportunity Is eternally shut In our faces This is a terrifying truth dear people It is a wonderful truth That there is a time When He can be found There is a time of His nearness But there is a time When He may not be found Jesus said To His own generation You did not know the time Of your visitation Behold your house Is left unto you desolate You didn't know the time Of your visitation God incarnate was among His own people Offering Himself And all of His saving mercy and power And they didn't recognize it They turned away from Him And He says your house is left desolate You did not know the time Of your visitation There are frightening words in Proverbs chapter 1 verses 24 to 30 One of the most terrifying passages in all of the Bible Listen

23:27 Because I've called and you refused I stretched out my hand and no man regarded You've said it not all my counsel And would none of my reproof I will also laugh in the day of your calamity I will mock When your fear comes When your fear comes as a storm And your calamity comes as a whirlwind When distress and anguish come upon you Then will they call upon me But I not And mercy They will call Who says Oh everyone thirsts Come to the waters Come Come Buy wine and milk Who reasons Who entreats Who expostulates With us This same God says Then they will call And I will not call And I will not answer They will seek me diligently But shall not find me I didn't write those words my friend God almighty wrote them They will seek And they will not find Why

24:49 Because they refused to seek him While he could be found And to call upon him While he was near Does that strike fear to your heart as it does to mine And look out on your faces and say oh God Who among the boys and girls and young people and visitors sitting here this morning Will be the fulfillment of this passage Who will be those who fit the framework of this passage perfectly frighteningly Or take the words of John chapter 12 Equally frightening terrifying passages With respect to the urgency Of this gospel duty Listen again To what John says in John 10 12 I'm sorry And verse 37 Though he had done so many signs before them They believe not on him That the word of Isaiah the prophet Might be fulfilled which he spoke Lord who has believed our report And to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed For this cause they could not believe For Isaiah said again He that is God has blinded their eyes Hardened their heart

26:15 Lest they should see with their eyes And perceive with their heart And should turn And I should heal them They could not believe At one point Because they would not John 5 40 You will not come to me that you might have life They could not because they would not But now the time has come That they would not Because they could not And they could not Because almighty God said okay Then shut your eyes You don't want the light of the gospel To come in and flood your soul You don't want to hear what I've told you About the bad news about yourself The good news about my son You would not be entreated When I came into the bazaar And down the street And took the role of a common street hawker And I begged And I pleaded And I begged And I entreated That you take all of the gospel commodities That are offered to you freely in Christ And you shut your eyes And said I don't want the light of the gospel I don't want the light of the gospel I don't want the light of the gospel Until God says alright I'll cut the muscles of your eyelids I'll cauterize your optic nerves

27:41 Now you can struggle to pull your eyelids up And you won't see Because you can't see Can't see Because I can't see Because I've blinded you Some of you dear young people I fear Are tempting God To cut the muscles of your eyelids And to cauterize Your optic nerves You sit week after week Under earnest Sincere Biblical Passionate Entreaties To go to Christ And you say I won't I don't want the light I don't want the light I don't want the light I don't want the light I don't want the light I don't want the light I don't want the light God says okay Right now You cannot Because you will not The time may come When you Will not And it's one and the same God Who comes as a street hawker Begging Pleading Entreating

29:10 Who judicially blind Pardons The lovers of darkness He's one and the same God Not a different God So our text sets before us The foundational gospel duty identified What is it To seek the Lord Call upon him That's the essence of it The urgency of it While he may be found While he is near But now secondly note with me The essential elements Of our gospel duty described The essential elements Of our gospel duty Look at the passage again Everything of our gospel duty As the prophet describes it Hangs on these two words Let the wicked forsake his way And the verb understood And the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts And let him return unto the Lord And he will have mercy upon him And the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts And the verb return understood again And return to our God For he will abundantly pardon

Essential Elements: Gospel-Produced Repentance

30:37 The essential elements Of our gospel duty Are described in these two things Forsake and return That's it There's some things that have to be forsaken There's someone to whom we must return And this is nothing but Old Testament language for what is set before us in the New Testament as repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have, first of all, the duty of gospel-produced repentance. The duty of gospel-produced repentance. Now remember, remember, don't forget this. This call, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts and let him return. These things are conditioned by what's gone before in Isaiah 53 and in

31:46 Isaiah 55, 1 to 3. That's why I say it is a gospel-produced repentance. It is a repentance produced in the full face of what God has done. It is done through the suffering servant of the Lord. He hath put him to grief. When you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he was bruised for our iniquities. Chastisement of our peace was upon him. That's pure gospel. It's pure gospel when God comes and says, here are all these gospel blessings of forgiveness and eternal life and peace with God and the gift of the Spirit.

32:28 And I set them before you under the figures of water and wine and milk and bread. And I tell you they are yours without money, without price. And I am such a God that I now say, forsake your way and forsake your thoughts and return unto the Lord. You see, it is a gospel-produced repentance.

32:57 It is the reality of God's provisions for sin in Christ and the yearning of His loving heart that we enter into those provisions that condition the command, forsake and return. Now, what does this forsaking involve? Look at the text. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. What is that?

33:24 That is a call to a radical, break with sin. A radical break with sin. Radical means you're going to the root. You're not fooling around on the surface. You're not skimming off the top. You're going to the root of the issue.

33:42 And God says, let the wicked forsake his way. What is his way? Well, you remember Isaiah 53.6?

33:51 All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each one of us to what? His own way. That's your and my tailor-made pattern of sin. My way, that is the pattern of my life lived, how I want to live it, by my standards, to my ends, with my associations, with my value system, my way. In other words, I've gone into the God business. Made by God, to know God, to do the will of God, in our sin, we have turned from Him. And said, no, God, I'll live how I want to live, to please my lusts, my passions, my ambitions, my goals, my desires, to hell with you. That's turning to your own way. Now, God says, get out

34:47 of the God business. Let the wicked forsake his way. Not just something that's grown out of the way. For your way, it may be, you become dishonest in business, because money is important to your way.

35:03 Maybe you become coarse and callous in human relationships. You can cuss someone out and walk away without a twinge of conscience. Maybe your way is fulfilling your sexual lusts and passions any way you want to fill them. And God's seventh commandment means nothing. Your lips don't speak the truth. This ninth commandment means nothing. Worshipping God and serving God. In other words, your way has all of its little tentacles.

35:33 All of the streams that flow out of the mighty river of your way that is living to please yourself. Now, God says, let the wicked forsake his way. The whole shoot and match. Forsake it.

35:48 Abandon it. Look upon it and say, that way is dishonoring to the God who made me. That way brings me under the wrath of God. That way will take me to everlasting hell. I am with that way.

36:05 Repudiating that way. Not just the parts of it. Some aspects of it. Let the wicked forsake his way. The whole shoot and match.

36:20 But not only that. Look at the text. And the unrighteous man, his thoughts. It's going deeper now. Repudiate the way. But then you've got to repudiate what gives birth to the way. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

36:40 Jesus said, for from within out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft. These things proceed out of the heart. And God says you've got to forsake them at the deepest level. Recognize you have no right to indulge them.

37:04 Thoughts of envy. Thoughts of pride. Thoughts of lust. Thoughts of greed. Thoughts of anger. Thoughts of resentment.

37:12 Thoughts of retaliation, God says, forsake your thoughts as well as your way. That's a radical break with sin.

37:24 That's the first essential element of your gospel duty. And when you've seen your sin in the light of the cross of Jesus Christ, that it is your way and your thoughts and all of the things that flow out of your way and your thoughts that caused God incarnate to hang upon a cross and to have the heavens shrouded in blackness and the billows of God's wrath poured into his soul when you shall make his soul an offering for sin. Chapter 53, verse 10, and you hear the cry run from that soul. My God, my God, why have you abandoned? You see your way, your thoughts in the light of the agony and the soul abandonment of Jesus.

38:29 Your way no longer looks pretty. Your thoughts are no longer attractive. And you say, oh God, it is right and reasonable that if I am to know the blessing of the salvation procured by Jesus who took the punishment for those sins, that I turn. From them that there be a radical break with them.

Essential Elements: Radical Return to God

38:52 Forsake my way, forsake my thoughts. But according to the text, the radical break with sin must be accompanied with a radical return to God. Look at the text. Let him forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him.

39:20 Let him return unto the Lord and to our God. Forsake and return, return, return unto our God. The Shorter Catechism has a beautiful definition of repentance that wonderfully captures this biblical truth. What is repentance?

39:47 Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sin, is saved. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sin, is saved. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sin, is saved. and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ.

39:56 and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. You see, it is gospel-conditioned repentance. and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does, with grief and hatred of his sin, forsaking his way, his thoughts, return unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. You see how that is captured.

40:23 You see how that is captured. the essence of the biblical teaching, forsake His way, and return unto Jehovah and to our God. Return unto the Jehovah who's revealed Himself in Christ. Return to the God whose profuseness of mercy is concentrated upon the cross and the open tomb, and a God who comes to us saying, O everyone who thirsts, return to such a God. Return to Him, the God from whom you have turned away in your sin. Return to this God. Return to Him through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, if you only know God in terms of His wrath and His judgment against your sin, you will either hate Him or run from Him.

41:21 Let me repeat that. If you only know God in terms of His wrath and His judgment against your sin, you'll either hate Him or run from Him. Remember what Adam did? When he only knew God as the God who would punish him for his sin, in the day you eat you'll surely die. Adam's cowering, hiding in the trees. But when I know this God, in the light of His mercy revealed in the person of Christ, I say, how can it be? The God who could crush me in His wrath and consume me in His justice. This God is pursuing me with grace and mercy. He has sent His only begotten Son, and in Him there is a sufficient Savior for a multitude whom no man can number. And He comes to me sincerely and treating

42:15 and offering and reasoning with me to embrace this Savior, to take the water, the wine, and the milk, and the bread of Gospels provisions. He begs me. He entreats me. Why would I want to keep it a distance from a God like that? What rational reason could there be to do anything other but run to a God like that. Remember what the prodigal did when he came to himself? What were his first words? I will arise and go to my Papi's table. I will arise and his bed. I will arise and go to my papi's bed. No, he said, I will arise and go to my father. He had all these unreasonable thoughts of his father when he left the home. Papa's

43:12 rules are strict. Papa's ways are old-fashioned. Papa's ways are too constricting. If I'm going to find life with a capital L, it's out there with the harlots. I'll find my fulfillment in the harlot's bed and at my buddy's bending elbows at the local bar. But when he came to himself, he said, I've been guilty of madness. I've been guilty of madness. My dad's ways are just and right and holy and loving and gracious. I will arise and go to my father.

43:49 Ah, my friend, when you see the heart of God through the cross of Christ, what can you do but run to him? Return to him. Return. Return to him. Return to him. That's the essential element of repentance. Look at it in these two New Testament texts. Acts chapter 26. Remember what we're doing now is just looking at the very essential elements of this gospel duty as they are described. The first being the duty of gospel-produced repentance that involves a radical break with sin and a radical repentance.

44:33 Return to God. Look at Acts chapter 26, where we have a record of God commissioning Paul.

44:41 And he says to Paul, this is the task I'm giving you. Verse 18, to open their eyes, go to the Gentiles, that they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me. Paul, I send you a message of repentance. I send you a message of repentance. I send you out to preach a message that will be instrumental to turn people from darkness to light, the power of Satan to God, that they might get their sins forgiven, have the pledge of inheritance, the eternal inheritance. Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared both to them of Damascus first and at Jerusalem and throughout all the country of Judea and to the Gentiles. Now note that they should repent. Repent and turn to God.

45:39 And in what context did he preach it? Look at verse 22, having therefore obtained the help that is from God, I stand to this day testifying to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses did say should come, how that the Christ must suffer. And he, by the resurrection of the dead, should proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles. When Paul preached that men should repent and turn to God, it was God revealed in Christ.

46:05 It was God. It was God's gospel-conditioned repentance. And what did it involve? A turning from sin unto God. A turning unto God.

46:17 And look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Paul says, wherever I go and I start to open my mouth to tell people what a blessed time I and my companions had when we preached at Thessalonica, they cut me off and say, Paul, we've already heard. They already heard the report. Verse 9 of 1 Thessalonians 1. They themselves report.

46:38 Concerning us, what manner of entering in we had unto you, how that you turned unto God from your idols to serve a living and the true God. They report that you turned to God from your idols. There was the radical break with your sin. There was the radical turning unto God. My friend, that's a gospel duty. The old preachers, they used to say, turn or burn. And that's the truth today. And I ask you, sitting here today, do you know anything in your heart of hearts of what it is to have a radical break with sin? Turning not just from this or that thing that your particular religious context says is a no-no, but turning from your way and all of the rivulets and streams that go out of it.

47:43 And from your thoughts, so that your mind has been given over to God to think his thoughts after him about right and wrong and purpose and direction and standards for every facet of life. You've turned unto this God away from your own way and your own thoughts. That's the first duty of gospel-produced repentance. Verse 10 of 1 Thessalonians 1. They themselves report that you turned unto God from your idols to serve a living and the true God. They report that you turned unto God from you to serve the living and the true God. Verse 11 of 1 Thessalonians 1. They themselves say to them, if you turned unto God from your sin as a created rod, to turn unto the Lord.

Essential Elements: Gospel-Produced Faith in Abundant Pardon

48:36 Verse 12 of 1 Thessalonians 1. Their message says to them, because the Scripture organ of Boris C tier taught this in the first Christians who spoke to them, it is to turn from our sin unto God. Verse 12 of 1 Thessalonians 1. They themselves say to them, If you failed in aye that God is, turn unto the Lord, the stars are ataque, and the yup which〜 pardon. He will have mercy. He will literally multiply pardon. He will have mercy. He will multiply pardon. And those statements must be embraced in faith or will never turn to God. If we do not see him as a merciful, pardoning God, we'll either hate him or run from him. It is impossible to turn to God if he's only clothed in his robes of justice, holiness, and righteousness. He is terrifying and only terrifying. He's a consuming fire. But when you

49:33 see him revealed in Jesus Christ as the suffering servant of Jehovah, on the basis of whose sufferings God comes with all the gospel commodities and offers them in the marketplace, to us freely and without money and without price, this God now says, this God now says, I will have mercy and I will multiply pardon. Multiply pardon. For every sin there is pardon. Oh, but I have multiple sins, God says. That's no problem to me. I'll multiply pardon.

50:16 No matter how many sins you've multiplied, God says, I've got a bigger multiplication. process going on here. I'll multiply pardon. I won't just add it, I'll multiply it. You see what he's saying? This is what God comes to us saying in the gospel. That's your duty. In gospel, produce faith to lay hold of that promise of mercy and of multiplied pardon.

50:47 I speed read a sermon of Spurgeon's early this morning, where he preaches on this, part, God will multiply pardon. And I told the men in the back room, I said, I get discouraged whenever I read Spurgeon. I say, Lord, have I ever preached? I've never preached once.

51:06 I can't read Spurgeon too much. Not only blesses me, it blasts me and discourages me. But he's piling up reason after reason to why sinners should lay hold of the truth that God multiplies pardon. Let me tease you with one little bit here.

51:20 In addition to there being many sins in one sin, I want you to remember how much virus of sin we sometimes manage to stow away in a sin. A man is done wrong and smarted for it, yet he does the very same thing again willfully, against his own conscience and against the warning he's received. A man will sometimes acknowledge what a fool he's been, and yet play the fool again. If any of us have been blessed with a tender conscience and with godly training, and have heard sound preaching of the gospel and have had light and knowledge if we go deliberately into sin there is in that sin a degree of obnoxiousness to God which is not to be found in the transgressions of the poor and the ignorant who have lived in darkness and scarcely know what they do. Yet sins against light and knowledge God pardons. Deliberate and presumptuous sins He forgives. Blasphemous, impudent, provoking sins sins that would otherwise sink us as low as the lowest hell.

52:26 His mighty mercy sweeps away in one single moment when we believe in Jesus Christ. At the foot of the cross not merely sins vanish that are a little stain upon us but the deep and double crimson of deliberate guilt and the daring scarlet of gross iniquity all disappear when we are washed in the fountain filled with blood which is open for sin and uncleanness. Abundance of sinners are forgiven the abundance of sins and the abundance of the sin which lies in each one of the sins is removed. He will abundantly pardon.

53:08 Our text grows, does it not? And then he goes on to pile encouragement upon encouragement. My friend, this is God's requirement of you that you believe this gospel. That you lay hold of this promise that coming to God through Christ in a disposition of repentance and faith He will have mercy and He will abundantly pardon.

Encouragement to Obey: God's Higher Thoughts and Ways

53:42 Well, having looked at the foundational gospel duty identified seek the Lord, call upon Him. The essential elements of this gospel duty described repentance and faith. We close briefly the wonderful encouragement given to obey this gospel duty. You say, well, don't we have enough encouragement?

54:03 God knows us better than we know ourselves. What's His encouragement? Look at the text. No sooner does He say these things that identify our gospel duty but He says this, for, verse 8, for, there's a logical connection what I'm about to tell you has connection with what I've just told you for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord for, as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

54:42 Now, what's the connection with these two verses with all that's gone before? Well, good and godly men who love their Bibles know their Hebrew and know God they differ. as to what the connection may be and I'm not going to trouble you with all the different possibilities but there are two that I find very plausible reasonable they agree with the text with the context and I find them very attractive and maybe God means both. Some say, well, this is what God is saying see how He's called them to forsake their ways and their thoughts well, the reason He does is because our thoughts and ways are not His thoughts and ways so to give added incentive for us to forsake our ways and our thoughts God comes along and says my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than yours and my thoughts than yours that God is underscoring the rationale for calling us to forsake our way and our thoughts because they are not His way and His thoughts and we have been made for God to walk in His way to know His thoughts that's a possibility but then others say no what He's doing is God recognizes that when He lays out what He's laid out in this passage

56:08 that all the mountain of our sin that deserves the wrath of God can be leveled in an instant of time if we obey these gospel commands we say, wait a minute that doesn't make sense you mean that the mountain of iniquity that I have raised one shovel at a time one foul word at a time one foul deed one selfish attitude one rebellious disposition to my parents one cheating in my test one this one that a shovel at a time that I've raised up a mountain that reaches to heaven and you're telling me that the mountain of iniquity the moment I seek the Lord call upon Him while He's near in the way of repentance and faith the mountain is leveled forever and not one shovel will ever be resurrected by God I can't believe it no, doesn't make sense we don't deal that way with one another someone raises up even a molehill against us they gotta take it down a teaspoon at a time how can anyone deal like that? just wipe it all away! remove it in an instant

57:33 all based on what someone else has done nothing I have to do I don't have to fast I don't have to pray for three hours I don't have to join the church I don't have to get baptized I don't have to have the sacraments all I do is in my heart say oh God I abandon my way abandon my thoughts in my heart oh God I embrace you through Christ to be my God to God govern me, to guide me, to be my sovereign, to lead me in life and death and take me home to heaven when I die, that based on that turning in repentance and faith, I am fully, completely, irrevocably, irreversibly pardoned and forgiven. Oh, God, I can't make sense of that, that you, the offended God, would do everything necessary, but God, you've said it, God says now, I know that's hard to believe because my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. My grace is like myself, infinite, transcendent, above your puny, narrow little heart and your shriveled little brain. Don't squeeze my grace into your teeny shriveled

58:55 little brain and into your narrow heart. It wouldn't be large enough for you. So, God says, I want to encourage you. encourage you. My thoughts are not your thoughts. It's so good to be true. But remember, I'm God, and my mercy is like me. It's infinite, transcendent, glorious. My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than your thoughts. So whether it's either one or both, I think they're glorious. Don't you? That's the God, my dear people, that we love and that we serve. And for you who sit here, who do not know the exquisite joy of your mountain of sin being leveled on the basis of what Christ has done, we lovingly entreat you. Get your mountain removed the same way we did. Go to God,

60:04 through Christ. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near.

60:13 Forsake your way and your thoughts. Return unto God in the confidence that he will have mercy and will abundantly pardon. And everything in you that says, no, that's too easy, too simple, remember, God's thoughts are not yours. His ways are not your ways.

Final Exhortation and Prayer

60:36 Take your heels and tremble on every opposing thought of your proud heart that says, I've got to do something more than what God says I must do. Dare, dare to lay hold of God's promise of free grace and pardon in the person and in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you do that, you know what it will mean? It will mean, that from your heart, you can sing with us as we close this morning, hymn number 431.

61:17 And I trust that every true child of God will, in a sense, come back to that fundamental posture captured in the words of this beautiful hymn and once again say, Lord, this is how I'm going to live. This is how I'm going to die in the confidence that my relationship to you is sealed by the love of God. The work in the doing of another, just as I am without one plea. I come that way today. I had to come that way this morning and say, oh God, if I want blessing on my ministry, I can't plead my track record for the week. I've wasted time here. I've thought thoughts there I ought not to. Lord, I come as a sinner to preach to fellow sinners. Dear child of God, when you get beyond

62:10 singing this hymn, as your daily testimony, you've gone beyond where you ought to be. May God help us to all take our posture there as we sing this as our closing hymn this morning, hymn number 431, the first two. Let us pray. Our Father, we do confess that our narrow, shriveled little minds and hearts

66:45 struggle to take in the expansiveness of your grace. Forgive our wretched unbelief. Forgive, we pray, our efforts to make you into our own image. Help us, oh help us, to believe the testimony of your word, and as it were, to throw ourselves with joyful abandonment into the ocean of your forgiving love and grace, your pity to poor, helpless, hell-deserving sinners. God, would it not please you in this place today?

67:27 This place today, Lord, to cause many to lay hold of the promised mercy and to mark this day as the day when they returned. Seal your word. Continue to have dealings with our hearts. We plead in Jesus' name. Amen.