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I. Compare your thoughts of THE POSSIBILITY OF PARDON with God's thoughts about it. You naturally form your ideas of God's ways from what you conceive would be yours if you were in His position.

1. I take you on that ground, and we will suppose that some wicked person has very grossly injured you and that the question of your forgiving him is now mooted. We will suppose you to be of a generous, frank, forgiving disposition, and in a calm and judicious state of mind. You are ready to act most leniently, but still the case in hand is no trifle and requires consideration. After well pondering the matter, you feel bound to say, "I could forgive this person, but his offence is of a peculiarly grievous kind. With the most sincere, desire to pass over it, I feel that I must not, but must let the law take its course." There have been many occasions when persons aggrieved have thus spoken, and when no reasonable person could have blamed them. Such, O awakened sinner, is your case as before the Lord, and if He should think of you as one man would think of another, you must own Him to be just. You have offended God in the very tenderest point; you have denied His right to you, though you are His creature. Though you have been a pensioner upon His bounty, you have constantly insisted upon it that you were your own master, and had a right to do just as you pleased. You have thus invaded crown rights of the King of kings, and committed treason against His sovereignty: worst of all, you have committed sin against His only begotten and most dear son, the Lord Jesus. If it were your case, you could not forgive; but be astonished as you hear that your thoughts are not God's thoughts, and His ways of forgiveness are as high above your ways as the heavens are above the earth.

2. It is supposable that when you are weighing the case of an offender you decide upon it thus: "I could forgive him, bad as the sin is, if I thought he had fallen into it from inadvertence or carelessness, or if I supposed that he was moved by some great hope of gain for himself, but the offence was intentional, malicious, and wanton, and therefore I cannot remit it." Naturally you transfer these thoughts of yours to the Lord of heaven, and you say, "He will never pardon me, for I have trespassed wilfully. I have sinned without excuse." Such language as this befits a penitent's tongue; men cannot forgive their fellows when they perceive wanton malice in their crimes, "but God can forgive" you.

3. You will in some cases also be obliged to say, I could very readily have overlooked this fault, but it has been repeated. Such to the full, is your case, O troubled sinner, with regard to God. Though you hardly dare to think of forgiveness, God can not only think of it, but bestow it.

4. I can conceive a person greatly injured saying, "I would overlook all these injuries which have been hurled against me, but I cannot see any reason why I should have been the particular object of this man's spite; it has been quite undeserved on my part, and unprovoked. That would be a very excellent reason in a court of justice for insisting on the punishment of an offender. Listen to the voice of the good God whom you have injured (Isaiah 1:2, 3). What is the sequel to this very just but sad complaint? (Isaiah 1:18).

5. "Yes," says an offended person, "I might overlook the fault if I thought the man were wholly humbled now; but you seethe asks me to pardon, but he has not a sufficient sense of his guilt." Troubled sinner, this is very much your case. You are somewhat broken down, but you must confess that your heart is hard still, compared with what it ought to be. But, God says, "I will take away the heart of stone, and I will give them a heart of flesh."

6. "Still," exclaims the aggrieved party, "I think the man ought to make me some compensation." This principle is very properly recognized in courts of justice. Now, poor sinner, you feel that you cannot bring any compensation. But our loving God does not ask you for any compensation; He says, "Only return unto Me." Sin is freely forgiven for Jesus' sake.

7. Naturally, many a just-minded person would say, "If I were most gracious, yet I could not find it in my heart freely to forgive when I see the consequences always-before my eyes. Suppose that somebody had wantonly" injured your child; suppose he had broken one of your child's limbs, for instance; I think I hear you say, "I could forgive him, but look at my poor limping child." But sinner! God sees before Him daily tokens of what you have done! You can never unwrith the past, nor restore the lost one. All that accursed past of sin must live on. If you light the fire, it will burn on to the lowest hell. God may forgive your incendiarism, but the fire itself still continues. With all the consequences of your sin before Him, He forgives you freely if you rest on Jesus.

8. Furthermore, I can conceive a case in which the offended party can fairly say, "I do feel from my" heart fully prepared to forget this offence against me, but it was public, and therefore highly, "obnoxious, and injurious." Trembling "sinner," you also may well think, Surely God wall never forgive me, for against Him only have I sinned, and done this evil in His sight. I sinned in the face of the sun. I sinned unblushingly, and gloried in my shame. Rejoice, poor mourner, that this is no reason why the Lord should not forgive you, for as high as the heavens arc above the earth so high are His thoughts above your thoughts.

9. I can imagine it possible that an offended one might add, by way of clenching all his arguments against pardon, "My forgiveness he has already despised. I have put myself to great expense in order to subdue his hatred, and yet he has stood out against me. How can reason and justice expect me to do any more? I might, perhaps, answer, No; neither of them can well expect more of you; but what we cannot expect of you, the guilty sinner may yet expect of God.

II. Contrast your thoughts about THE PLAN OF PARDON with God's thoughts. If you have advanced far enough to believe that God can pardon, and have to this extent laid hold upon God's thoughts, it is well; but still another of your own thoughts drags you down, for you have a wrong idea of the way of pardon.

1. I will suppose that there are persons who ignorantly say, "If it be true that the Lord will pardon sin, let Him do it outright; let Him just take the pen and mark through all my transgressions, and have done with them. He has but to say, ' I forgive thee, and there is an end of it. But God's thoughts are not your thoughts in this case. You have evidently become so impure in heart as to look upon sin as a trifle; but the Judge of all the earth is of another mind. The great Rules cannot suffer sin to go unpunished.

2. Others have a notion that God may, perhaps, forgive them by putting them through a course of affliction. It is still a superstitious notion lingering in England, that poor persons are the special objects of Divine favour, and that hard work and poverty, and especially a long lingering sickness, are a means of putting away sin; for persons so afflicted have had so much misery in this life that they do not deserve to suffer more. But your thoughts on this matter are not God's thoughts. You may be as poor as Lazarus, but never lie in Abraham's bosom; yon may endure as many sufferings here as fell to the lot of Job, and yet may go from Job's dunghill to hell. Cast out any idea that these sufferings or privations of yours can make atonement for sin

3. A more current idea still is, that God will pur away the past and give men a new start, and that if they go on well for the future, then in their dying hour God will speak pardon. But there is nothing of that kind in the Word of God.

4. There is a very current supposition, however, that God pardons sin in this way: that He says, "Well, now, I forgive you the past. My law was a little too severe for you, but I will try, you again under a more lenient rule. Do as well as you can, and I will save you. But God does nothing of the kind! The forgiveness which is given to a sinner reaches to the sins which are yet to be committed as well as to the sins which he has already done. Christ stood for you, and therefore God is severely just while He is bountifully merciful to you. In the next place, when God forgives you He does it unconditionally.

III. THE PRESENT POSSESSION OF THIS PARDON.

1. There is an idea in the mind of many that the plan of just trusting in Christ, and being pardoned on the spot, is too simple to be safe. It is a well-known fact that the simplest remedies are the most potent and safe; and, certainly, the simplest rules in mechanics are just those upon which the greatest engineers construct their most wonderful erections. Do not despise the Gospel because it is simple.

2. I think I hear you say, "It is too good to be true." But it is just like our God.

3. I think I hear your heart say, "It seems to me to be a plan too swift to be sure." This is no human nostrum, this is a Divine prescription.

4. Believe and live!" Have done with thyself, and begin with Christ.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

WEB: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," says Yahweh.