The Way of Forgiveness of Sins — Al Martin

Simple Signposts to the Celestial City

Last Lord's Day evening, we began what will be a relatively brief series of messages entitled Simple Signpost to the Celestial City. Taking the term Celestial City from Bunyan's immortal Pilgrim's Progress, used as a graphic synonym for heaven, this series of sermons will be an attempt to preach and to apply some of the most simple and clear texts in all of the Word of God which indeed constitute signposts to heaven.

Texts which address the great issues of sin and of grace. Texts which call us to repent and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Texts which contain the heart of the whole message of the Bible concerning the great and pressing question, what must I do to be saved?

And if you ask why am I embarking upon this series of messages focusing upon these simple basic gospel texts, I answer unashamedly that I do so for two reasons. First and foremost, it is because I desire to preach that gospel which is the power of God unto salvation in the faith and hope and I trust biblically grounded expectation that God will be pleased to call many to himself through the preaching of the Word, particularly from the ranks of our own children.

Those of you who are here through no choice of your own, you are here because mom and dad mandate that you are found in the house of God, but you are not only here under the sound of the Word, your name is brought daily, sometimes many days before the throne of grace with earnest prayers that you would be brought to know Jesus Christ in a saving way.

And I feel it only right that every generation rising within anything that claims to be a gospel preaching church should have its walls reverberate with these great epitomizing gospel texts which God has through the history of his church often made in a very special way, the instrument of imparting saving grace and mercy to sinners.

Equipping Believers to Proclaim the Gospel

But then I have a second purpose, and that is in keeping with the function of a pastor teacher, namely to help equip the saints unto this part, communicating the gospel to others as God gives you opportunity.

And I want to furnish you with a working knowledge and acquaintance to proclaim the living word of salvation and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Last week, our first simple signpost was composed of the very words of our Lord Jesus as found in John's Gospel chapter 14 and verse 6, in which our Lord declares, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes unto the Father but by me. Version, I am delighted to say that during the week one of our members called me and said, Pastor, I'm so thankful you preach that text. I was able to preach it at the bedside of my dying lost father, and I had a clear gospel message to preach to him as I gave to him in the solemn scene of a death bed.

The very message that was preached in my ears on Sunday night. Well, tonight we're going to fix our attention upon another simple signpost to the celestial city, a signpost taken from a sermon preached by the great Apostle Paul.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have heard an apostle preach the gospel? As I have read biographies, I have wished that somehow I could be shot into a time capsule and taken back to some of the open fields in England and hear the great Whitefield preaching Christ with such passion.

Spurgeon, as I have read his biography and read accounts of everything from the captivating, mellifluous voice with which he spoke and with which he pleaded with sinners. But I must confess that beyond the yearning to hear Whitefield and Spurgeon and other greats of the past, I have wished that I could have been somewhere to have heard Peter preaching, to have heard Paul or one of the other apostles.

Paul’s Sermon in Antioch

Well, in the book of Acts, God has given us a few, at least shorthand of several of the sermons of these great recorded in Acts chapter 13. And it is to that chapter that I direct your attention and from which we shall God helping us discover another of these simple signposts to the celestial city.

We have the record of Paul beginning in verse 16 of Acts 13 and continuing through verse 41. And it should not surprise us that this sermon has three very clearly marked. Now, not all of the recorded sermons or all of the shorthand versions of the sermons have clear divisions, let alone clear division, three divisions.

But this one does indeed have such divisions. You will notice Paul begins in verse 16 and Paul stood up and beckoning with the hand said, men of Israel and ye that fear God hearken. Here is a man determined to be hurt and to gain their attention.

And then he solicits the commitment of their ears, hearken. And then through verse 25, he sets forth the history of coming of John the Baptist in preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus. So his first heading of his sermon in the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia focuses upon Israel in preparation for the coming of Jesus.

Then in verses 26 to 37, his second heading is the history of how God fulfilled his promises in resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Notice in verse 26, brethren, children of the stock of Abraham and those among you that fear God, he's again addressing his audience.

He's fearful perhaps he's lost their attention since he raised his hand and said, men of Israel and you that fear God, listen. They were perhaps getting a little weary. So like a good preacher, he calls back their attention and says, brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, those among you that fear God, to us is this word of salvation sent forth.

And then he gives them the death and resurrection of Jesus. Then his third heading begins in verse 38. Be it known the death and announcement that the great blessings of salvation are now available. Obtain them for brethren.

Then done to you remission of sins. And by him, everyone that believeth is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken in the prophets.

Behold, he despises and wonder and I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe. If one to you, let's feel to men of Israel, people within these walls of you, teenage guys who are very much aware of the great shock of Jordan's retirement.

Hey, God, who Michael was your idol to me, decides about the first time you're going to be able to just touch the rim me carefully. I guarantee by the time you're 25, you'll be marrying a guy handsome enough to be a movie actor, strong enough to make Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a wimp, wealthy enough to make the Rockefellers go on welfare.

Would you listen? Guaranteed. I'll say to you guys, I guarantee you by the time you're 25, you'll have the dream woman on your elbow, a ring on your finger and yours. Would you listen? In other words, what's important to you?

What would you listen to if I could hold it out and say, listen and heed and follow through? And this will be the end. Well, I say to you kids and young people, listen, I don't care whether it's Michael stuffing the ball through the hoop from two and a half feet above it, whether it's wealth and fame and money, there's a time coming when all of that will be dust and ashes and only one thing will matter.

And it will be whether or not you stood before this signpost and took its directions. Only one thing will matter. Did you stand before God and by the grace of God, Michael Jordan and the Rockefellers and the wealthy and the beautiful and the bold and all the rest have passed into nothingness and the awesome eons of eternity will have broken in upon us with everlasting bliss or everlasting horror and torment.

Kids, young people, children, men and women in the name of the God of heaven, who's given you an ever dying soul, come with me and gaze intently upon this simple signpost to the celestial city. And the first thing we notice as we stand before it is this, that the forgiveness or the remission of sins is the central blessing held forth in the gospel.

Forgiveness as the Gospel’s Central Blessing

When we get excited about the gospel, when we get excited about the grace of God, what is it that lies at the very nerve centers of the gospel that gets us excited? Well, if you look at our signpost, we read in verse 38, be it known unto you, therefore, brethren, that through this man is proclaimed unto you not how to jam a ball through a hoop, not how to land a bold and beautiful one, but is proclaimed unto you remission of sins.

And in those on our simple signpost to the celestial city, the truth that the forgiveness or remission of sins, and it shines in many ways because our needs as sinners are many. And there is no need that we have as sinners, which is not addressed in some marvelous facet of gospel.

That is the forgiveness. And hence, when the apostle in his sermon there in that synagogue comes to bring that sermon to a conclusion, having demonstrated in his first heading, how God prepared the world through the history of his ancient people, Israel for the coming of his son and how under his second head his son had come in fulfillment of those prophecies and had died and been raised from the dead.

Now, on the basis of that mighty redemptive activity of God, he says, be it known here is the great blessing procured by all of this work of the mighty, gracious, saving God throughout human history. The Lord Jesus had this estimation of the gospel for when he commissioned his own as recorded in Luke chapter 24.

Notice how it takes the central place. Luke 24 in verse 45, then opened he their mind that they might understand the scriptures. And he said unto them, thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day and that repentance unto remission of the forgiveness of remission comes from a verb that means to send away and means nothing less than the complete removal of is removed.

There is no more wrath and there is no more condemned blessing under the gospel. When he uses such language as we find in Psalm 103 and verse 12, or has he removed our transgressions from us? We have a North Pole.

We can locate it precisely. We have a South Pole, but we have no east and one can chase the east to the west or the west to the east and never overtake the one with the other. As far as he removed our transgressions, that wonderful word in the prophecy of Micah chapter seven and verse 19, he will again have compassion upon us.

He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Thou will cast or we are told in some places my into the depths of the sea of his 30 and verse four, if thou, O Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, O Lord, who could stand?

If you should gaze upon the niquity with a view to calling it to remembrance and in calling it to remembrance, view it in terms of its just guilt and deserved wrath and deal with it in pure just be enough to for the psalmist exclaims there is forgiveness.

People must rated revelation. Let us never end and again and again and again in our own, our hymns and in the selection of joyfully forgiven sinners proclaiming to our fellow sinners that there is a way for their sins to be in this simple signpost to the celestial city.

There is first of all, this statement true blessing held forth in the gospel is what is remission of sins. But then there's a second line on this signpost that we're considering tonight, and it is this that this forgiveness is found only in connection with the Christ of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament.

Forgiveness Through the Promised Christ

You must not miss that. It's not enough to see on the signpost second line. It says this forgiveness is found only in connection, prophecy and New Testament history. You see that in the text, the four brethren that through believe it is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Now, to whom is the apostle referring? Well, if we read back to the first two heads of his sermon, it's very plain to whom he is making reference. It's the Jesus who was the great magnet of all of the board with 31 who was seen for many days of them that came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses.

This simple signpost to the celestial city of the gospel, but then underneath it printed with equal clarity is this statement that this forgiveness is found only in connection with the Christ of Old Testament prophecy and of New Testament reason that true forgiveness deals with the true God and with real sins that can only be dealt with with the real Christ of real biblical revelation.

We're not dealing with philosophical ideas, kids. We're not dealing with religious theories. The very God, the consciousness of whom you cannot drive from your mind, though it would make life a lot easier for some of you if you could, the haunting awareness in the secret chambers of your conscience is activated when you think those thoughts of dishonesty and lust and meanness.

And conscience is there, the eyelash of God brushing over your moral consciousness, for that's what consciousness is, the eyelash of God. It's not some inherent thing programmed in from the primeval slime.

It's an evidence that you are an image bearer of God, albeit a marred image bearer. And you killed when you do wrong has been imposed upon you by your mom and dad in your church. And if you're going to come of age or his way to sear your conscience and go to hell, you dear young people, listen carefully.

That's real guilt you feel because there's a real God against whom you've committed real offenses. And the only way for those real offenses against a real God to be really dealt with is that there's a real Christ who came into this real world by a real womb of a real woman named Mary and who was born in a real stable and who lived up in a real place, grew up in a real place called Nazareth and who, as a real man of maturity, was plunged into the real water of a real River Jordan and was really and truly anointed with the Spirit and with power and went about raising really dead people and healing really sick people and opening really deaf ears and opening really blind eyes.

The wrath of God against the sin and vileness of the seething wrath of God against our sins that our Lord sweat as it were great drops of blood his whole soul what it would mean to drink that cup. And he went to a real place called Gabbatha and a real place called Golgotha and in his feet and upon a real cross he was lifted up between a real earth and a real heaven and the real God.

There's a real hell that was poured out of heaven upon the Son of God when he hung on the cross. The real hell to which you'll go if you miss. Dear young people, we're not dealing with ideas and notions.

We're dealing with the stuff of reality just as real as that little lip you stuck out and pouted when you broke the fifth commandment yesterday when mom asked you to dry the dishes and you wanted to go play with your dolls.

That was a real pout. That was a real defiance of the real law of the real God who tells you to honor your mother and your father. And that'll bring upon you real wrath and a real hell forever unless you get God's real way of real forgiveness through the only real Savior that is the signpost.

It tells us forgiveness of sins is the great and central blessing set forth in the gospel. It tells us secondly that this forgiveness is found only in connection with the Christ of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament history.

Justification by Faith Alone

But then there's a third line on this simple signpost. Look at it in our passage. Paul goes on to say, be it known unto you brethren that through this man is proclaimed unto you remission of sins and by him everyone that believeth is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Third line on this simple signpost, it's this. This forgiveness is received in Christ by faith. This is received by faith for our preacher. Brethren, you kids hang in there for a minute. I'll come back to you.

The English translation somewhat weakens the crucial emphasis of the original. Alexander suggests this very helpful translation. And from all things from which you were not able to be justified in the law of Moses in this one, the emphasis upon everyone believing is held to the last to give it tremendous impact upon the mind and the spirit from all things from which you were not able to be justified by the law of Moses.

Why? That's all of my sins for the law cannot justify me. Forgive me. Pardon me. Give me acceptance with God with reference to one of my sins from all things from which I cannot be justified by the law of Moses in this one.

Yes, one. Everyone. The third line upon this simple signpost of the Celestial City says this forgiveness is received in Christ by one very perceptive writer has perceived the reality of this text and spoken as follows.

In these two short verses, we have the book of Romans and Galatians in a nutshell justification by faith alone. So Lafayette is an endless, inexhaustible theme. The way to salvation so slowly and with such difficulty prepared for us slowly through the time of preparation in the old covenant had one of Paul's sermon with difficulty through the bitter suffering and death of Jesus had number two in his sermon.

Yet so short and so pleasant for us to travel short for all we need do is to embrace the cross of Christ by faith. Pleasant for here we find remission of sins, life and salvation. Now, I don't know what else to call that, but beautiful.

That's not only true for God to procure this salvation, bloody sweat and the agony and the forsakenness of the Son of God and the miracle of resurrection and other. Therefore, it is likened. It is likened to eating.

It is likened to looking upon the serpent of brass. It is the unique capacity of faith to have nothing in itself upon which to rest and to go totally out of itself into another to find all. And that other is the Lord Jesus.

And you, dear children, one of my greatest fears and you young people is that you have been soundly and properly instituted. And you must be and ought to be if we parents are to do our task. But my great fear of a sinner and as a sinner exposed to the real wrath of a real God who could send you to a real hell if he took your life.

Then I'm warranted as I stand by this simple signpost to tell you, if owning the reality of your sinnerhood, owning the reality that there's nothing you can do to scrub away yours to the lap of Jesus and everything that has to do with my sin problem, I'm willing to entrust it to you.

I'm willing to entrust it to you in the light of what you did when you died on the cross and rose from the dead. Oh, Jesus, everything that has to do with cleansing me from my sins of lying and pouting and disobeying and scrapping with my sisters and cheating at school and being nasty on the playground and talking dirty words.

I'll not describe your sins, but you know them. Are you prepared to go to Christ stinking and raking with the foul stench of your sins and say, Lord Jesus, King, rotten, foul smelling sinner like me and wash me and cleanse me in that blood that you shed.

This signpost to be found in connection with the Christ of biblical history and prophecy is received in Christ by faith. Man wants to have something and an adequate savior. Faith alone is the parched mouth that breaks.

The Free and Sincere Proclamation of Forgiveness

I must hasten to look at the fourth line there on our simple signpost. And it is this. Look at it in the text by him. Everyone that believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses will do with that truth.

Back up unto you, therefore, brethren, that through this one remission of sins, the fourth line in our simple signpost says this. This forgiveness in Christ by faith is freely and sincere forgiveness in Christ by faith is freely and sincerely proclaim to the living God that there is no one here in this synagogue within the sound of my voice.

Whether you are of the stock of Israel after the heart of those come to embrace the God of old covenant revelation, whatever your background, whatever your sins, whatever your blindness, whatever your perversity, I solemnly declare to the specific that everyone by him, everyone proclamation made.

But the promise must be embraced one by one. Would to God we could bring you in in twos and fours and six. Would to God we could get you in on mom and dad's aprons. There's no godly parent who doesn't wish for the power to bring his children in.

I've never asked for miracle powers for this, that or the other. There's one thing I could ask God for the Lord. Give me the power to bring my kids in. But God hasn't given you that power. They've got to go in on their own.

You children, you've got to go in on your own. You've got to go in on your own. You've got to stand by the simple signpost and you've got to see that the God who has etched these directions on the signpost is saying to you as you stand before it tonight, this is solemnly declared to you, little ones, teenagers, preteens, pony women.

It matters not. Forgiveness in Christ by faith is freely and sincerely proclaimed to all of you without. Whoever lay hold of Christ and that's to lay hold of him in the word and promise of the gospel.

Don't wait for something else. You won't get it. And if you think you got it, it will be a spirit of delusion. You hear me? Some of you, again, this is the great stumbling block, you say, but Pastor Martin, this is all else.

I have no reason to doubt it with all your heart and begin to live in the confidence of it. How you'll be saved tomorrow and saved tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and saved in the day of the Lord Jesus as you go on believing.

Oh, dear children, dear children, don't make it more complicated. There on the signpost, God is saying to you, forgiveness in Christ on this simple signpost of the celestial city, if you've got them in your mind.

Line number one says forgiveness is the great blessing held forth in the gospel. Forgiveness is to be found only in the Christ of biblical revelation. Forgiveness is found in Christ only to those who believe forgiveness is sincerely offered to all and you are urged to believe.

The Warning Against Unbelief

But then, as I look down at the bottom piece of that simple signpost, there's an asterisk and you know what it says? It says warning, warning. This simple signpost concludes with a warning. Look at it in the passage.

Behold or beware. Therefore, verse 40, beware. Therefore, beware is a word of warning. You come up to a house, you're going to a friend's place and it says, beware of the dog. Beware of this danger. The word beware means there's a danger lurking about and this simple signpost ends with an asterisk on the bottom and a warning.

Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken by the prophets. Behold, you despisers and wonder and perish for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe if one declare it unto you.

And here the apostle takes a quote from the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint from Habakkuk one in verse five. Habakkuk had predicted judgment on unbelieving Israel and Paul concludes his gospel sermon, his simple signpost to the celestial city with an asterisk and with a warning.

And the warning is against the greatest sin of all. And you know what the greatest sin of all is that will keep you out of heaven. It's not the sin of lying. There'll be many, many forgiven liars in heaven.

Thank God I'll be one of them. There'll be many forgiven murderers in heaven. There'll be many forgiven adulterers and homosexuals and pedophiles and child abusers and every vile. But there's one kind of sinner that won't be in heaven.

You know what that is? An unbelieving sinner. The crowning damning sin is the sin of unbelief. Beware, therefore, Paul says, lest that come upon you spoken by the prophets. Behold, you despisers and wonder and perish.

I'll work a work in your days which you'll in no wise believe if one declare it unto you. In other words, they were listening to the word of the prophet in the spirit of cynical unbelief. And he says such unbelievers will perish.

You know, the New Testament counterpart of that, don't you? He that believeth not shall be damned. He that believes not the wrath of God abides upon him. And I would conclude our study of this second simple signpost to the celestial city by saying to every one of you kids and men and women and friends gathered here tonight, look at the asterisk on that sign.

We've looked at the four simple statements that constitute this signpost to the celestial city. But here's the warning. Beware. Beware. Oh, that was nice. And I like that imagery of the signpost. And that was clever.

How are you? My concern is, will you go out with the Savior or without such a Savior is unwilling to receive me in either case? It's unbelief about what God says you are or unbelief about what he says his son is.

And you've got to believe what God says you are a hell deserving sinner, whether you're three years old or 30 or 90. And that Christ is the only Savior suited to any sinner, three, 30 or 90. Don't go out in unbelief, but embrace the offered Savior.

Coming to Christ by Faith

Stand by that signpost and say, Oh, God, thank you for planting it in your word, for bringing me near it in the preaching. Oh, Lord, I see beyond the preacher and beyond my mom and my dad and the friends and the visitors around me.

Oh, Lord, I see that I stand before you covered with my sins. I see that there's no way to have them removed unless Christ takes them away. I see that Christ alone can take them. Christ is willing to take them, and I want them taken.

What do I wait for? Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am in waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come.

May you make haste to Jesus. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you for your holy word. Thank you that you have given us in the scriptures a sure and a certain word revealing your saving mercy to hell deserving sinners.

And as we have stood before this simple signpost, pointing us to a better world and how to be prepared to meet you and stand before you. May your spirit take the truth concerning Christ and make it effectual to bring some this night to embrace the Lord Jesus.

O God, renew us in the confidence that we ought to have in the gospel. Renew us in our expectation that you will make it in our day your instrument of power unto salvation. May we dare to let it loose in all of its pristine simplicity and all of its saving beauty.

O Lord, deal with us, your people, that our sinfully silent tongues will be loosened, that we may, as you give us opportunity and as we make opportunities, be bold to speak forth so glorious a message of life and salvation.

Thank you, our God, for this day in your courts. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your people. Thank you for all of your institutions, all of your ordinances. O Lord, our hearts are full. We give you praise and ask your continued blessing to rest upon us as together we commit ourselves and your word to your care.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.