DO you know how your sins can be pardoned? Do you know how a just and holy God can forgive your many transgressions, and yet be just and holy still?
Will you turn to preachers, and put your trust in them? They cannot give you pardon: they can only tell you where it is to be found. They can set before you the bread of life; but you yourself must eat it. They can show you the path of peace; but you yourself must walk in it. They can point you to Christ; but you yourself must trust Him.
Will you turn to sacraments and ordinances, and trust in them? They cannot supply you with forgiveness, however diligently you may use them. They cannot justify the sinner; they cannot put away transgression. You may go to a place of worship every Sunday in your life, and yet after all die in your sins. You may attend a daily service regularly; but if you think to establish a righteousness of your own by it, in the slightest degree, you are only getting further away from God every day.
Will you trust in your own works and endeavors, your virtues and your good deeds, your prayers and your alms? They will never buy for you an entrance into heaven: they will never pay your debt to God: they are all imperfect in themselves, and only increase your guilt: there is no merit or worthiness in them at the very best. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isa. 64:6.)
Will you trust in your own repentance and amendments? "You are very sorry for the past: you hope to be better for time to come: you hope God will be merciful." Alas, if you lean on this, you have nothing beneath you but a broken reed! The judge does not pardon the thief because he is sorry for what he did. To-day's sorrow will not wipe off the score of yesterday's sins. It is not an ocean of tears that would ever cleanse an uneasy conscience and give it peace.
Where, then, must a man go for pardon? Where is forgiveness to be found?
The only way is simply to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. It is to cast your soul, with all its sins, unreservedly on Christ,—to cease completely from any dependence on your own works and doings, either in whole or in part,—and to rest on no other work but Christ's work, no other merit but Christ's merit, as your ground of hope. Take this course, and you are a pardoned soul. "To Him," said Peter, “give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins."(Acts 10:43.)" Through this man," said Paul at Antioch," is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things."(Acts 13:38, 39.)" In whom, "wrote Paul to the Colossians," we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins."(Col. 1:14.)
The Lord Jesus Christ, in great love and compassion, has made a full and complete satisfaction for sin, by His own death upon the cross. There He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, and allowed the wrath of God, which we deserved, to fall on His own head. For our sins He gave Himself: suffered and died,—the just for the unjust,—that He might deliver us from the curse, and provide a complete pardon for all, who are willing to receive it.
And now the Lord Jesus is exalted by God the Father to be a Prince and a Savior, to give remission of sins to all, who will have it.
Reader, "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Come to Him this day, with all your sins and wickedness, with all your doubts and fears, with all your feeling of unfitness and unworthiness, and He will not cast you out nor refuse you. He has said it. He will stand to it. He never breaks His word. "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37.)