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The sermon teaches that humanity is deeply and helplessly corrupted by sin, including religious hypocrisy and destructive influence on others. Yet Isaiah 1:18 gives a broad and powerful invitation: even the worst sinners may come to God and receive complete pardon through Christ. This pardon is presented as a full change of standing before God, not merely partial improvement. The Holy Spirit must apply the preached gospel and make spiritually dead sinners live, so hearers are urged to repent and believe immediately rather than presume upon tomorrow. The message combines strong warnings of judgment with a confident proclamation of abundant divine mercy.
Theological center: God justifies and completely cleanses guilty sinners through Christ’s gospel, applying that salvation by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.
Applications: Come to God through Christ · Repent and believe · Come without delay · Consider the greatness of God’s mercy
Primary texts: Isaiah 1:18 · Acts 2:38 · John 3:18
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18 THE chief of sinners are objects of the choicest mercy. Christ is a great Savior to meet the great transgressions of great rebels. The vast machinery of redemption was never undertaken for a mean or little purpose. There must be a great end in so great a plan, carried out at so great an expense, guaranteed with such great promises, and intended to bring such great glory to God. The plan of salvation has in it all the wisdom of God. The purchase of salvation has in it the fullness of the grace of God. The application of salvation is an exhibition of the exceeding greatness of the power of God, and all these three attributes in their greatness could not have conspired together for any but a great and marvelous purpose. At the very outset of our discourse this morning, I think we might draw a safe conclusion that Christ contemplated saving great sinners with a great salvation. To make the whole affair great, there must be a great sinner, to be as it were the raw material upon whom the great wisdom, the great grace, and the great power may be exerted to make him into a great saint. I think both saints and sinners have a very confined and limited idea of the goodness of God. We measure Him by our own standing. Oh that we knew the meaning of that text, where God says, “I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man” (Hos 11:9.) He acts in everything, not as a king gives to a king, or as some right royal heart acts towards the needy, but as a God. There is none who can come near to Him. As He is surpassing in His glory so that mortal eyes cannot behold it, so He is excelling in His love and grace, so that mortal comprehension can never grasp, comprehend, or fathom the infinity of His mercy. Keeping mercy with thousands, showing pity to multitudes, who is a God like unto Thee, passing by transgression, iniquity, and sin? My text shall at once introduce itself. It is a great text, indeed, specially meant for sinners of the deepest dye. I pray that the energy and power of the Spirit may now open the door of all our hearts that God’s mercy may enter in. Four things we will attempt to do this morning. First, we will remark that the text is addressed to sinners of the deepest dye. Secondly, it contains in it an invitation to reason of the most prevailing power. Thirdly, it promises pardons of the fullest force. And f…