Measuring Immeasurable Distances — Ian Paisley

Psalm 103: The Mercy of God

Take our Bibles and turn to the psalm 103, the 103rd psalm. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. As the old man said, when I'm happy in the Lord, even the false teeth rattle.

And I want to tell you that's the happiness that we need. That all that is within us should bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities.

Who healeth all thy diseases. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Who satisfyeth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

He will not always chide, neither will he keep us anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor awarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our freedom, he remembereth that we are thus.

As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children's children.

To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments, to do them. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.

Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts, ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works, all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Amen, and God will bless the reading of his holy word to all our hearts.

I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost, to fill me to the uttermost, I take. Thank God he undertakes for me. And the people of God said, you may be seated. Take up your Bible and open it with me tonight at the Psalm numbered 100.

The Immeasurable Distances of Redemption

Let me read you some verses, commencing from verse 11 of this 103rd Psalm. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

Like as a father pityeth his children, so the Lord pityeth them that fear him. For he knoweth our freedom, he remembereth that we are dust. I want to speak tonight on measuring the immeasurable distances that God has set forth in his word.

And you will notice three of them here. The first distance is the distance between the highest heaven and the lowest. The second distance is between the east and the west. And the third distance is the distance between a sinner and a thrice holy God, which is bridged with the bridge of God's pity.

How far is a lost soul distant from God? There is something to consider and to think. The Bible is the greatest book of all books. It is the king of books and it is the book of kings. Everything in the Bible is the greatest.

It is an unsurpassable tongue-tied when they are faced with the truth of the Bible. I remember once as a boy or a young man listening to an old-fashioned preacher. And he said something like this. He said, this is a day of cleverness and clever men and women.

At least they think they are clever. But he said, I took down the best dictionary I could find. And I looked up the word soul through letters only. And I could not find in any dictionary what was the real meaning of the word soul.

And then the old preacher looked at the congregation and he said, how clever is a man who cannot tell you the meaning of a two-lettered word. Well I picked up my dictionary, Britannic dictionary, which is supposed to be the best.

Today, and I looked up the word soul. And I found a jumble of the most terrible attempt to define the word soul. And I said that old preacher was right. You know why? Because the word soul is the word that God uses to contrast the measurements of man with the measurement.

Now please note these verses I have quoted. As far as the east, for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. The heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy to them that fear Him.

You know why men cannot tell you the real meaning of the word soul? Because no man knows the greatness of God's mercy. It is above measuring by human measuring rods or rulers. It cannot be fathomed. It cannot be bounded.

Circumference can never be walked round. Look at the heavens and think you could travel all the days of your life. And you would be only rubbing the outside of the circle. And you could travel all the days of the life of this world since it was created.

And you would not be near to getting the measurement of the height of the heavens above the earth. No man can measure the length and the breadth of the mercy of God. Now that brings to my mind the thought that if the indefinable measurement cannot be known, it must be the sin that needs such mercy.

How awful must be the blot and dart and our consciences and our inmost soul that sin makes. That it takes immeasurable sin to wipe out immeasurable mercy. To wipe out the darkness of our hearts. I said everything in the Bible is great.

And here we have a great distance for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. But then look again. As far as the east is from the west. Notice those words.

It is not as far as the west is from the east. And that is the way you would say it. You would start at the sunrise and you would finish at the sunset. But this measurement is from the sunset to the sunrise.

For this is the day of God. And the day of God, go back to Genesis 1, starts in the evening and goes on to the morning. So here we have a measurement from sunset to sunrise. And what is it about as far as the east is from the west?

So far has he removed our transgression from us. You can of course measure from the north to the south. That measurement is obtainable. But no man has ever mentioned, has ever measured the length of the west from the east.

Or the east from the west. Do you know why? Because nobody knows where the east begins and where the west ends. And nobody knows where the west ends and the east begins. We are at an immeasurable. And the Lord is emphasizing the little word, so.

And he is saying to us all tonight, as we sit and look into this scripture, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. The distance between heaven and earth is immaterial.

And the distance between east and west is a material distance. But God comes to something that lies at the heart of salvation. And he uses two immeasurable distances to describe the results, the wonderful results of redemption.

The Father's Pity and the Frailty of Man

But then he comes to something greater still, the pity of the Father. And God opens his heart, the Father's heart. And we read like, as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

For he knoweth our frame, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. Unto them that fear him, and his righteousness unto the children's children. And we have the heart of God open to the sinner in his darkness.

And the heart of God open to the children. For God is a family God, and God desires that the whole family should serve him. Please read the book of the Acts and discover how many families were converted when God did his converting work.

So as I have said, everything in the Bible is the greatest. It is a book that cannot be ended. Now, I have looked at these verses. And as I have looked at them, I see one presents to me a heavenly. Another one presents to me a huge measurement.

And the last one presents to me a heart measurement. The pity of the Father. And that is exactly a summary of the greatness of God. First of all, God's salvation is when God looked at me and uncovered my heart.

And looked into my inmost soul. What a filthy, despicable person I was. A breaker of God's commandments. And a breaker of his precious law. And oh, it was a hateful sight that the God of heaven saw. From the sole of the foot to the crown of the head.

Mercy Higher Than the Heavens

Wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. Yet God said, I have a measurement for this sinner. And as the heavens are high above the earth, so is my mercy. He took up the cup of salvation. And I called on the name of the Lord.

And I discovered that that mercy was high enough. And broad enough. And deep enough to blot out forever all my sins. Sins of the past. Sins of the present. And sins of the future. With one stroke, blotted out by the precious blood of the Lamb.

Thank God for mercy higher than the heavens. And that mercy is available, sinner, for you tonight in this meeting. As you sit here, not understanding perhaps much of what I am saying. Because your eyes are closed.

Your spiritual eyes are closed. And your spiritual heart is hardened. And your spiritual mind is filled with the things of sin. But thank God tonight, this mercy, higher than the heavens. Can reach down and pick you out of the horrible pit.

And from the miry clay and save you. Respond to the knocks of the Son of God upon your heart's door. Bid Him enter. Why be higher than the heavens? No wonder when God has saved a man and captivated their souls.

They must be busy telling others about what God has done for their souls. You can't keep quiet if God has put this mercy into your heart. It's like an overflowing tide. My, it comes in with great strength.

And it rolls over our souls. Do you know anything about it? You profess to be a believer as the mercy of God and the tide of God's mercy rolled over your soul. But look again for something more. There is not only this wonderful thing that God has done.

And given to you the refreshment of mercy higher than the heavens. He's done something more. He's done a removal job. What does it say? It says about this great distance. As the east is from the west so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Forgiveness Through the Blood of Christ

As far as the east is from the west. God did something when He saved my soul. He removed my transgressions. Took them all away. Blotted them out. Made a clean sheet for a dirty page with dirty things upon it.

Characterizing and carrying on the divine record my hopelessness and my sinfulness and my wickedness. But as far as the east is from the west so far has He removed. They're gone. They've even gone out of the memory of God.

The omniscient memory of God that knows when every spiral all over the world falls to the ground. Not a tiny spiral that dies that is not registered in the mind of the omniscient God. How can it be that that omniscient mind no longer can recall my sins?

Only the precious blood of God incarnate could cleanse a sinner so clean that his sins are gone and blotted out forever in the blood of Calvary's Lamb. This is God's forgiveness. This is not something that you get after a mass in a confessional box.

This is something you get from the only true priest, our Lord Jesus Christ. And He can give you that blessing tonight. God has blotted them out and now a shirt covers it all. To go on in your iniquities and go on down the broad road and pass out into eternity having missed the opportunity to have your sins removed in the precious blood of the Lamb.

Oh, call upon Him tonight from the depths of your heart. Lord, save me. I perish. And the Lord will save you. And you know what it is to be able to say, As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgression from us.

And as I have said, the measurement is taken from the west to the east. Thank God, God doesn't call men into the sunset. He calls them into the sunrise. And there's always the rising of the sun when the soul is saved.

As John Bunyan said, after the Lord saved him, he went down the road. And he said he looked over a gate and he said there were a lot of cows munching grass. And he said, I called out to them and I shouted, Do you see me?

I'm John Bunyan, the chief of sinners. And I've just got saved. And then he put his hands over the gate and he laughed. He said, if anybody saw me they'd think I was a fool. But they're the fools. I've got Jesus in my heart.

It's real, friend. And you can know it. And you can leave this house tonight as sure of heaven as if your feet were on the streets of gold. What does it say? It says, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions.

Gone, gone, gone. Yes. Come down the chapter a little. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. The best description of that is in the prodigal son. He's sitting in the far country.

God's Pity for the Lost Sinner

He would see and have filled his belly with the husks of the swine that eat. And no man gave unto him. He had lost all. Naked. The fathers. The joy and the blessing of hope. And what a distant your soul is from God, my dear sinner tonight.

I could not draw on any chart how far your sin has taken you from God. But there's something that reaches and spans the great distance between the lost sinner and the thrice holy God. It's God's pity.

That made Him not pity His Son, but pity you. And send His Son to die upon the cross in agonies and shame. That He might save you and cleanse you and make Him His child. What have you done? You've turned your back on Him?

You've said no. No, no. And what have you chosen? The drags of this world. The filth of sin. The things that you're ashamed of. And you wouldn't want people to know them. And that's what you've chosen in the place of the Son of God.

But God still pities you. He hasn't given up on you. As the old devil is whispering in your ear and saying there's no hope for you. God has given up on you. The devil is a liar. No one can exhaust the inexhaustible pity of God over the souls.

Manasseh as a Trophy of Divine Mercy

Read this story of Manasseh. Evil, dirty sinner he was. And you would have said when he was in prison in the far country. He doesn't deserve to get out. Let him die there. The harm he did to the kingdom of Judah.

The sins he committed. The outrages he carried out. And yet God reached down into the prison cell. Opened his darkened eyes. Revealed the light and the truth of God. Brought him back. Set him on the throne.

Everlasting Mercy for Every Generation

And made him a man who was the greatest trophy of Old Testament time. Because of the pity. Now all that I have said tonight are all linked with the mercy of God. And when we come down to verse 17. You will read there.

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. It doesn't run out. The mercy that the saints knew at the reformation. Is still flowing for me tonight. The mercy that the apostles learned on the day of Pentecost.

Is still flowing for me tonight. The mercy that our fathers knew in the 1859 revival. It's still flowing tonight. It's from everlasting to everlasting. And it reaches on to our children. And our children's children.

Our grandchildren. The inexhaustible. Unfeeling. Prevailing mercy of God. And it's mercy that you need tonight. If justice pulled out it's arrow. And put out the arrow to the bow. And pierced your heart.

And cut you off. You would deserve it. You don't deserve, neither do I. The mercy of God. But God in his grace. Has ordained that he will bestow his mercy. On the divineless sinner. Who truly believes.

The Call to Repent and Believe

That moment from Jesus. The pardon received. Is the time to respond. To the pleading of the son of God. Now is the time for you sinner. To leave the broad road. And start in the narrow path. Now is the time for you backsider.

To return with tears and penitence to the cross. Wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings. Repent. And believe the gospel. Why? Because there's mercy with the Lord. And he will surely give you rest.

By trusting in his word. Only trust him. Only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. Hallelujah! He will save you now. May the good Lord do it in your life this night. For Jesus' sake. Amen.