Beloved,
I perceive in your cry a heart that is troubled, and a soul that is bowed down under the weight of sin. You speak of a relationship, and you bring it before the Lord, crying, "Help!" It may be that you have been unfaithful, or that your trust has failed, or that you find yourself entangled in bonds that are not according to the pattern of God's holy law. Yet hear me, for there is balm in Gilead, and a Physician there for sin-sick souls. The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
I read your words, and they seem to me the language of one who has tasted the bitterness of transgression and now longs for cleansing. Consider the wonder of that word: "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." What a proclamation! Even if you have been prayerless, even if you have despised the things of God, even if you have run the full course of iniquity, yet there is forgiveness with the Lord. He delights in mercy; it is the very darling of His heart. He cannot be merciful at the expense of His justice, for His throne is established in righteousness, but in Christ Jesus the two have kissed each other. For Christ's sake, God blots out the record of our sins, casting them behind His back into the depths of the sea.
Do you say, "But my sin is too great"? Listen. The first sin our parents sinned was a mother-sin, yet even then God gave a promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. No sooner had the wound come than the cure was proclaimed. And what shall separate you from that love? Shall the multitude, the blackness, or the stubbornness of your iniquities? Nay, for it is written, "But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." That little word "but" turns the black thundercloud into a whisper of hope. You have confessed your sin; you have cried out in the secret of your soul; you are condemned in yourself. Then look away to the pierced hand that writes the pardon with His own blood. Jesus can say to you, as to the paralytic let down through the roof, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee."
You ask, "Help!" and well you may, for you cannot untangle the cords of your own transgression nor wash out the stains of your guilt. But our Lord Jesus Christ bound Himself to His people from before the foundation of the world by covenant, and He has made full satisfaction for all our rebellion. When you come to God by prayer, with faith in Jesus, He will receive you, and you shall be as though you had never been cast aside. He restores the years that the locust hath eaten. If your heart is praying, if you are saying even now, "Lord, save me, or I perish," that is the token that mercy is near.
But understand this: the forgiveness that comes from God brings with it a healing of the soul. The Lord first forgave the palsied man, and then He said, "Take up thy bed, and walk." So it must be with you. If you have sinned against the bond of marriage or against the chaste life to which we are called, repent, and turn from your sin. I say not this to drive you to despair, but to point you to the true liberty. "Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye" is the rule for our own hearts; but first, look for the forgiving love of Christ to cover all your iniquities, and then go and sin no more.
Come, then, with all your burden, and cast it at the foot of the cross. The Lord is ready to hear; His arms are outstretched to embrace the returning prodigal. Let your prayer be, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." And be assured that the answer shall come swiftly from the mercy-seat. Trust His dear Son, and you shall find that where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound.
Yours in the fellowship of the forgiven,
C. H. Spurgeon