All is quiet. You have brought your burden straight to the throne, and that is the rightest place for it. “Heavenly Father, please kindly forgive me,” you have breathed, and that handful of words, so short and so simple, has more weight in the courts above than all the fine speeches of the self-righteous. Do you think the Lord is reluctant to hear such a prayer? Far from it. He delights in mercy; it is the Benjamin of His attributes, the child of His right hand. He is never so pleased as when He is blotting out transgressions for His own sake. You have not come with a long list of excuses, nor have you tried to make your sins look small. That is a hopeful sign. The man who knows he needs forgiveness is already standing in the doorway of it.
Perhaps, though, the Enemy is at your ear even now, whispering that your sins are too many, too black, too often repeated. Let me put that notion to flight. “There is forgiveness with thee,” sang the Psalmist, and that little word “there” means it stands ready, like a meal on the table waiting for you to sit down and eat. It is not a far-off possibility; it is a present fact. The great God has given us the richest pledge of it by giving us His dear Son. He could not be merciful at the expense of His justice, but oh, what a wonder, His justice and mercy have kissed each other at the cross! For Christ’s sake, your pardon is a righteous thing as well as a gracious one. The blood of Jesus has made full payment; there is not a farthing left for you to settle. When you say, “In Jesus Christ’s name,” you are holding up to the Father the one token He will never refuse. That name is the love-letter in the black-edged envelope of your confession, open it, and there is life inside.
I do not know what brought you to this moment of asking. It may be some particular fall that has scorched your conscience like a noonday sun. It may be the accumulated neglect of many prayerless years, so that you feel Jacob’s fault: “Thou hast not called upon me.” Be that as it may, the promise is for those who have done everything wrong and who have no right to mercy except that God has commanded them to believe and receive it. Have you ever noticed the sweet command of the gospel? He bids you trust Him. He commands you to lay hold of forgiveness. This turns your question upside down. You say, “May I be forgiven?” God says, “I charge you, believe that I forgive you in Christ.” What a strong refuge this is! When the Lord makes a precept of it, you need never doubt His willingness.
So do not go on looking at the sins; look at the blood that covers them. Sin is no small thing, it has dug every grave that ever was dug and it has burned the day as an oven against the proud, but there is forgiveness, and forgiveness is a great deep, deeper than your iniquity. Where sin abounded, grace much more abounds. The mighty tide of atoning love has drowned every transgression in the sea of God’s forgetfulness. “I will not remember thy sins” is still a word from heaven, spoken to the self-condemned.
Go now, and let your soul breathe. You came fearful, but you may go in peace. The same God who made the heavens and the earth has put away your guilt as far as the east is from the west. Because He has freely pardoned you, you will find a new kind of fear springing up, not the fear of a slave hiding from the lash, but the tender, holy fear of a forgiven child who would not grieve his Father for the world. That is why He forgives, that you may fear Him with a loving, reverent heart, and walk softly all your days.
Let us pray.
Most merciful Lord, this trembling heart has cast itself upon Thee. Thou hast heard the cry, and Thou wilt not despise it. Blot out every transgression, and let the sunshine of Thy face chase away all the shadows of guilt. Give this soul the peace that the world cannot give, the peace that comes through the precious blood of Jesus, who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. Amen.