Sermon Outlines

By Frederick F. Schwindt, Evangelist

BLOTTING OUT THE PAST

1. One is awed by the appeal of God to his backsliding people to return unto Him:
   1. "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions"
   2. "And as a cloud thy sin"
2. For God to blot out our sinful past:
   1. Is contrary to the law of sowing and reaping - Gal. 6:7-8
   2. It surpersedes the law of retribution - grace how amazing - Rom. 5:20

1. The Past and its implication:
   1. Our past was, at best, marred by sins and many shortcomings
   2. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" - Rom. 3:23
   3. "The scripture hath concluded all under sin" - Gal. 3:22
2. Penitent souls, not only grieved as thy thought of the past, but were eager to have the past blotted out:
   1. One of these anxious souls was David, "Have mercy upon me, O God...blot out my transgressions" - Ps. 51:1,9
   2. And the prophet Jeremiah prayed that the Lord would not blot out the sins of some people - Jer. 18:23
3. The blotting out of sin indicates:
   1. That God has a record of our transgression "yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord" - Jer. 2:22
   2. The record of our sinful past will be brought into full view before God on the day of judgment - 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 20:11-12
4. Some were given a preview of their sinful past:
   1. Felix saw his sinful past when Paul spoke of righteousness and judgment to come Acts 24:25
   2. Belshazzar, too, saw his sinful life - Dan. 5:1-22

1. Note God's method of redeeming His people:
   1. He first disposes of sin; the barrier between His people and Himself - Is. 59:1-2
   2. And how does He dispose of our sins? By making Him sin, who knew no sin; He laid our iniquities upon the Lamb of God - 2 Cor. 5:21; Is. 53:6; I Pet. 2:24
2. "I have redeemed thee:"
   1. This is an amazing announcement; it shows that redemption is the free gift of God without any of our own contribution
   2. That shows why Christ promised salvation to the penitent thief on the cross without any regard to his passed sinful life - Luke 23:42-43
   3. That is why God speaks of David in glowing terms, "a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all My will" - Acts 13:22
   4. The merits of the saints is based upon what God does for them, and not on what they accomplish
3. Note further some of the expressions God uses to reassure us of the absolute and complete deliverance of the believer of their sinful past:
   1. In Micah 7:19 the prophets says, "He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea
   2. There are, so we are told, three depths in the sea; the air depth, the light depth and the pressure depth; now if sin is subjected to all the depths it will never be seen any more
   3. Says the prophet Isaiah, "Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back" - Is. 38:17
4. These divinely inspired pronouncements affirm the marvelous prediction in the book of Revelation:
   1. "Behold, I make all things new" - Rev. 21:1-6
   2. "For the former things are passed away"
5. The prophetic forecasts of God blotting out our transgressions sheds light on Paul's statements:
   1. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature..." - 2 Cor. 5:17