Tag Archive - hell

No Impediment to your Pardon

December 12, 2011 in Sermons with 1 Comment

In working through Jonathan Edward’s sermon Great Guilt no Obstacle to the Pardon of the Returning Sinner, based on Psalm 25:11, I’ve come to the portion of the sermon where Edwards begins to apply the sermon to his audience. He says,

The proper use of this subject is, to encourage sinners whose consciences are burdened with a sense of guilt, immediately to go to God through Christ for mercy. If you go in the manner we have described, the arms of mercy are open to embrace you. You need not be at all the more fearful of coming because of your sins, let them be ever so black. If you had as much guilt lying on each of your souls as all the wicked men in the world, and all the damned souls in hell; yet if you come to God for mercy, sensible of your own vileness, and seeking pardon only through the free mercy of God in Christ, you would not need to be afraid; the greatness of your sins would be no impediment to your pardon. Therefore, if your souls be burdened, and you are distressed for fear of hell, you need not bear that burden and distress any longer. It you are but willing, you may freely come and unload yourselves, and cast all your burdens on Christ, and rest in him.

In the full context of his sermon, this is such a beautiful climax. Edwards has open the scriptures and expounded on the doctrines of mercy, justice, judgement, wrath, salvation, faith, and repentance. Now, he sums it up in succinct fashion. If you’re a sinner, come to Jesus to receive mercy.

Not Worthy of God’s Mercy

November 7, 2011 in Sermons with 0 Comments

In his sermon Great Guilt no Obstacle to the Pardon of the Returning Sinner, based on Psalm 25:11, Jonathan Edwards offers three excellent points that serve as reminders on how we must come to God for mercy. His first point is that we see our misery and need for mercy. His second point is that we should be sensible that we aren’t worth of God’s mercy.

They must be sensible that they are not worthy that God should have mercy on them. They who truly come to God for mercy, come as beggars, and not as creditors: they come for mere mercy, for sovereign grace, and not for any thing that is due. Therefore, they must see that the misery under which they lie is justly brought upon them, and that the wrath to which they are exposed is justly threatened against them; and that they have deserved that God should be their enemy, and should continue to be their enemy. They must be sensible that it would be just with God to do as he hath threatened in his holy law, viz. make them the objects of his wrath and curse in hell to all eternity.—They who come to God for mercy in a right manner are not disposed to find fault with his severity; but they come in a sense of their own utter unworthiness, as with ropes about their necks, and lying in the dust at the foot of mercy.

Wow… Again, conviction sets in at the sense of “entitlement” I often approach God for his mercy. Rarely do I ever come “as with ropes about their necks.” I wonder why it is that so often in regards to God’s mercy I neglect the very thing he is being merciful in regards to, namely that I deserve wrath. Mercy, somehow, has become an island to itself with no boards to touch the great expanse of wrath my sin deserves. Truly, I “have deserved that God should be their (MY) enemy, and should continue to be their (MY) enemy.”