Abundant Pardon

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 20, sermon number 1,195, "Abundant Pardon."

“When the whole earth shall be filled with His glory, in the multitude of repentant and forgiven sinners of the golden age men shall see that God does ‘abundantly pardon.’”

Oh, what a subject I have now before me! Here is a river for depth unfathomable, and for breadth a river which cannot be passed over; it is a river to swim in! I must correct myself, and call it an ocean. Indeed, what shall I say of this sea of sin? Therein are creeping things innumerable, both small and great beasts; there is that leviathan who doth mightily disport himself, and there are fierce tempests and horrible storms, which well may sink the barque which tempts them. I am overwhelmed with the thought of the abundance of transgression. Sin! From thy fruitful womb what myriads of ills proceed! What countless hosts of evils are the fruits of sin! How many are the sins themselves! Sins of thought —rebellious thoughts, proud thoughts, blasphemous thoughts, atheistical thoughts, covetous thoughts, lustful thoughts, impatient thoughts, cruel thoughts, false thoughts, thoughts of ill memory, and dreams of an unholy future; what swarms are there! Moreover, the omission of thoughts which should have been, such as thoughts of repentance, gratitude, reverence, faith, and the like, these are equally numerous: with the double list my roll is written within and without with a hideous catalogue. As the gnats which swarm the air at eventide, so numerous are the transgressions of the mind. Then there are sins of word. I should have to repeat the list again. What words have vexed the pure and holy ear of God! Words against himself, against his Son, against his law and gospel, against our neighbour, against everything that is good and true! Words proud and hectoring, words defiant and obstinate, words untruthful, words lascivious, words of vanity, and words of wilful unbelief. Oh God! how many are our sinful words. The sins of our tongue—what man is there who is able to reckon them up? Then come the sins of deed, which in very truth are but the fruits which grow out of sins of thought. Can any man here estimate the number of his own sins from the first transgression of his childhood until grey old age, or to his present period of life? “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” Perhaps the sins we do not know are more numerous than the sins we are conscious of. Conscience may not be properly enlightened, and hence many a thing may not seem to be sinful which really is so; but God’s clear eye perceiveth everything that is obnoxious to his holy law; and all our errors are written down against us until the whole is wiped away by an abundant pardon through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Our sins are as the countless horde of locusts which descend upon the fertile land and devour everything, leaving nothing for man but famine and despair. But as it was in Egypt so it is at this day; the Lord commands the wind of mercy to blow every locust from off the face of the land, and as they all depart at once our hearts rejoice and are glad. Our sins are countless as the drops of dew in these autumn mornings when every leaf is wet, for every tree is weeping tears of sorrow over the dying year; and yet when the sun has risen, with a little of his heat the moisture is gone, the dews are all exhaled, they are as if they had never been. So countless are our sins, and so complete is the removal of our transgressions when the infinite love of Jesus shines upon us, and God in his Son has reconciled us by his atoning blood. Innumerable sins are forgiven by one word from the life of divine love.