Pardon

What a night it would be if someone in this meeting was to be saved as we've been hearing tonight. To know the truth of their sins, forgiven Christ as their Savior and heaven is your home. You might not realize, but I stepped forward and said to Brother Brody, I said, sing a couple verses of another hymn.

I know he's quick, he could catch that quick. So he flipped his hymn book and he gave out a hymn, that hymn number 58. Never thought of it, down to verse number three, those beautiful words, pardon from unoffended God.

Pardon from sins of deepest died, pardon bestowed through Jesus' blood, pardon that brings the rebel night. Who is a pardoning God like thee? Who has grace so rich and free? After a few years, I'm sure I'm speaking to some of the older preachers here, after a few years they ask you to preach the gospel, you say, what can I tell them? You like some kind of a confirmation, well that confirmed for me, because this is what I had before me tonight in Isaiah. This, what we often refer to as the gospel of the Old Testament.

Isaiah in chapter 55, please. Isaiah 55, verse number 7. Well, verse 6 really gives us the context of the verse, of the passage. Isaiah 55 and verse number 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way, verse 7, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him or her, and to our God, and to our God, for he will not just pardon, abundantly pardon. How, I think that you, for somehow I have reason to believe you know a little of the judicial system, how it functions in this country. If someone is put on parole, there's a condition by which they're released from prison, and there's conditions.

Maybe night reporting, whatever it might be. Might even have to wear an ankle bracelet, what it might be. But they are on parole.

In other words, staying out of the big houses, we call it, depends on what they can do. That's parole. God doesn't put men and women, boys and girls on parole.

Aren't you thankful tonight? I could never keep it. But he does much better than that. He abundantly pardons.

You know, there's the, you read of a computations, that's a prison sentence that's been commuted. That means it's, it's put off, and they're gonna look into it, and the individual sentence, either fully or partially, or a prisoner sentence is commuted. It means maybe if he's convicted and gonna be sent away for five years, then they put it down to two years or whatever.

God doesn't reduce the sentence. Understand tonight, young boy. You came into this meeting tonight with something you can go without, going out.

Do you understand that, girls? Older person tonight, you can leave this auditorium tonight without something that you came in with. You know what you came in with? Your sin. And you can leave it without it.

Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing? How could you leave it without it? By understanding. There is one that is coming to you and offering a pardon. Now, Canadians will know a man by the name of Conrad Black, knighted by the Queen, whatever that did for him, I'm not sure, a big, big businessman in Toronto, Ontario.

I won't go into all the things that he owned and did, but got into a little illegal business, and he did the same thing in the U.S. It took your country to catch him. Maybe our country looked the other way, I'm not sure, but Americans caught him, and they sent him down to Coleman Prison, down in Florida. Conrad Black.

You should see the house he lived in, in Toronto. His wife, a Jewish woman, wrote in the Maclean's Magazine, Imelda, and off to prison he went. And he's spending time there.

There happened to be a man that he knew in his time, they talked somewhat, his name was Donald Trump. And he'd really lost contact with Mr. Trump, and of course, he was in prison a while, a long while before Mr. Trump became president of your country. But he wondered if Trump would ever remember him.

What do you remember him? Thought, what should I do? I said, I can't call him, that'd be too embarrassing. But it came the other way. A call came from President Trump.

Said he wanted to speak to him, to Conrad. It's hard to believe he was speaking to the president. He said, Conrad, just to make it short, I'm gonna issue a pardon for you.

He said, you are? You are? Yeah, he said, I'm gonna do that. He had the power to do it. To pardon him.

And he wrote out a pardon for him. But I am telling you this, there was another man, and he had befriended Conrad Black during prison time. His name was Rufus Rochelle.

Great piano player, and he sang songs together, did a number of things, and when he heard that Conrad Black was getting out, he said, hey, any chance you put a word in for me? Just, just, like, mention my name. Was a little bit like Joseph, you know. And Rufus Rochelle got released.

He didn't mention his name. He was afraid maybe he'd mention his name and send him back again. Whatever, he didn't.

But you know what, what that man Rufus Rochelle did? He started out to make his case, to plead his cause. He actually meandered his way, got before Congress, and pleaded with them for a release. Had a personal conversation with Nancy Pelosi.

Different ones. People in high places. And he was begging for a pardon.

And finally, because they felt sorry for him, they pardoned him. They let him out. Do you understand tonight? I think that's a wonderful thing about the gospel.

You don't have to beg for a pardon, okay? You say, well, where would I find the pardon? Where do you think you'd find it? For most of you tonight, good for you. You're holding it on your lap. Here's your pardon.

Like you've been hearing, it's taking God at His word. That's exactly what it says. He that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life.

What are the conditions? Well, the only condition is to seek. It's not crying out to God for a pardon. God is more willing to pardon you than you are to be pardoned for this reason.

You don't realize the need of it. No person will ever be in heaven that isn't pardoned. No person will ever be in heaven that doesn't have their sin forgiven.

If you're gonna know anything of heaven, you've got to be pardoned. No way around it. God just can't overlook it.

God just can't say, well, you know, they tried their best and I gotta let them go. No, no. And God doesn't pardon a person because of their pleading and their wailing and their crying and their so on.

No, no, not at all. What is He? How can God come out to you with a pardon? That's my point. Do you know why? Because right beside Him there's one called His Son, that He sent to Calvary's cross to die in your room and your stead.

Why? So you can hear a message like this in the gospel meeting? Why? When you realize, when you realize, it was for me. It was for me. I'm the one that needed it.

I'm the guilty party. I'm the one that if I die in my sins, that's where I'll be. Just exactly where I deserve to be.

And it wouldn't be parole tonight. It wouldn't be clemency. It wouldn't be a commuted sentence or so on, but it would be a pardon.

Now presidential pardons are powerful things. There are certain individuals, I just haven't read all the detail. Your governor can issue a pardon too, but he hasn't got the power of the president.

Okay, that president can issue a pardon. Now what that does, that relieves you of any further sentence, any further complications. There's one thing it does not and cannot do, written in the books of your law.

It will never erase, erase what you have done. Sure, it'll say, signed by the president, that you've been pardoned. But just turn the page back.

There's all that you've got. Isn't it wonderful today Christians? We got pardoned. The sheet's clean.

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not his part, but the whole. He's nailed to his cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, oh my soul. Why should we be a happy people? Pardon. Going home to heaven.

I sleep at all kinds of homes and beds and wherever it might be. I can tell you this, there is something so sweet, whether the bed is short, a little too short, Mr. McLeod, or too long, whatever it might be. I can still thank God that when that light goes out, thanks Lord for saving me.

I'm pardoned. Never come back. You have another president in your office and we're so close to the same age, I think we're just days apart.

Don't ask me how old he is, I don't want to tell you. His name was George Bush. Not his father, the younger one.

So he issued the least pardons of any president in the country. Bill Clinton issued the most. Now, I'm not sure what's going to go on now, but let's not get into that.

But George Bush was very, very limited in the pardons that he would sign. But there was one man in particular that he decided that he could sign and give him a pardon, and his name was Isaac Robert Toosey. And he was involved in the Republican Party and that sort of thing, and George W. Bush decided he'd pardon him.

He hadn't done a lot of pleading for it and so on, so he wrote him out a pardon. You know, he was pretty involved in the government and urban development. Only thing is he swindled a bit of money out of it.

Yeah, that happens. But ended up in prison. But he got a pardon, he was thrilled.

He walked out of that prison, pardoned. Do you know how long it lasted? One day. One day! Aren't you glad God's not like that? Pardon you for the day? There's no more than a day pass.

And unfortunately, George W. Bush had to revoke that pardon. You know what he said? I am so sorry that I didn't have all the facts of his condition. I didn't have all the facts of the charges, and I cannot pardon Robert Toosey.

Brought back into prison, still there. That'll never happen. Do you know why? The one that has pardoned me, that's pardoned every believer here tonight, has all the facts.

Okay? Knows every sin I've committed. Knows everything that's happened. There's nothing that's gonna come to surprise you.

Oh yeah, Murray McCandless, he did that, he didn't know it. Not at all. When God pardons, he knew all about me.

Knew all about my sin. And he has totally pardoned me tonight. That's why I'm a happy man.

Wouldn't you be? Wouldn't you like to be? Come on, you can't tell me tonight. It's the height of insanity to be able to go home and sleep, like nothing was gonna happen. Man stood in our home just last winter.

The older son got him out to gospel meetings, and he said, Dad, I'm bringing him over, I think he needs to talk. I said, yeah, bring him to the house. Well, he came in the house, and you know, he said, you don't mind, I'm more comfortable standing up than sitting down.

And he looked around at the text, I think it scared him a little bit, but whatever. And I said to him, called him a name, I said, Shad, where would you be if you died? There's a long wait, and I'm always prepared to wait. I looked at the clock, and I've had to ask them sometimes, do you hear the question? I waited.

He looked at the ceiling, he looked at the floor, did a 360. He said, you know something, I'm not comfortable with this conversation. Alan, he said, would you take me home? He said, you sure want to go? Yeah.

I said, well, look, we'll put a little, no, no, he don't want no tea, no cheese, no crackers. He wanted to get out of there. That's what he did.

You know something? Within two weeks, he was dead. Two weeks, within two weeks, his late 30, no, sorry, he's old, actually went to school with Alan. I don't want to tell you how old Alan is, you'll think I'm old man up here preaching.

He's 51. Died, gone into eternity. Did he realize while he was standing in my home, I've only days, and I'm in eternity.

That's where he is. Well, I'd love to tell you a happier ending to this story that he had come to trust Christ as his savior, do his sins forgiven, pardoned, saved and safe in heaven. I'm afraid such is not the case.

Listen tonight, my friend, while you may have more respect for a gospel preacher, somebody that to say something like that, let me ask you, dear girl, boy, in this meeting tonight, if it was the last time you're going to be asked, you died tonight, where would you be? One of two places. Where? Where? You know where. More than that, you know, you're not ready to go.

But Oliver's going to go. Hundred years from tonight, nobody's here. None of us.

All gone. To one of two places. And you'll never, ever, my friend, end up on the wrong side of that fixed gulf and be able to accuse God and say, I didn't understand.

I, I, this and that. Not at all, friend. Sad.

Perish the thought of the, from the wrong side of a closed door. You will remember sitting in a meeting right here in this high school in North Crawford, listening to two Canadians try and preach the gospel. How you can be saved.

I'm a savior that's coming. That's so sweet to every believer. I couldn't help but think of my, my dear wife, because of a few challenges in her life.

We work with Post-its. She says, can I write down where you're going? Sure. So she wrote down on her Post-it on my sister-in-law's counter.

Maria's leaving with Scott and Wilma tomorrow for Waterloo. The nights of the minister meetings, she knows where I am tonight. She forgets, goes out and reads it.

But you know, there's one line, one line. I assure you, she will repeatedly read. Monday, he's coming to take me home.

Because she doesn't like her sister's house? No. She enjoys her sister's house. She's a home girl.

Every believer's a home person. We're going home, Christians. And she waits for that moment when to meet me at the airport in Pennsylvania, Allentown Airport.

And I won't have to tell her she's going home. Going home. That's all that matters.

She can do whatever, live with the rest, and not with this truth, that he has assured me that on Monday, he is going home. Isn't that a wonderful truth tonight? But what about you? You know what I'm saying? You know what the wife just said? An emergency. That's what we're talking about, emergency.

Because mom and dad are going home. You know what? You're not. Why? Why are they going home? They've been pardoned.

They sought the Lord while he could be found. They're heaven-bound tonight. They're just waiting to get home.

Wonderful tonight. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous men his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. For he will have mercy. And to our God, to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

He's a God that deals, I don't want to say extravagantly, but abundantly. Abundant mercy. Abundant love.

And an abundant pardon. There's a man by the name of William Newell. He attended university.

In fact, he attended some of the top universities. And he became a Christian. And he was one day in the university, and some words come into his mind, and he just, he was supposed to go to a class, he forgot the class, didn't really, intentionally, slipped into a side room and took an envelope out.

And he began to write on those, on that envelope, his own experience. Here's what he wrote. Might sound just a little familiar to you.

Years I spent in vanity and pride. Caring not my Lord was crucified. Knowing not it was for me, he died on Calvary.

Mercy there was great, and grace was free. Pardon. Pardon there was multiplied to me.

As he wrote, there my burdened soul found liberty. Where? At Calvary. That's where the pardon was transacted, my friend.

It's as good as Calvary tonight. Because there is one who has died because he loved you so much, that he would give his life, shed his blood. And all he asked you to do tonight is take the pardon.

You do one of two things. You can walk over those doors like you heard nothing in this meeting tonight. Or you can make up your mind.

That message is for me. That offer is from, not a preacher, it's from God. And it's for me.

Whatever you do to your boy, to your girl, don't miss it. Don't ignore it. I know it is to pack away relatives' belongings.

Lost a little niece up in New Jersey. Myself and my brother-in-law had the sad business of packing away her little belongings. Wasn't very old.

A little dress. Oh, and none of the women could do it. We did it.

Wasn't easy. You know, as I stood there, I thought, you know, it's a good thing Olivia's not any older than this. What if she had her Bible with her name in it? Where would I put that? You've got a Bible tonight.

It may or may not have your name in it, but it's your Bible. Let me ask you, let me ask you, what would mom and dad do with that? What would they do with that? Would they give it to the preacher to read at your funeral? Took a funeral just a week ago. Two weeks ago, a man saved the means that Mr. Sona and I had.

Great brother. Great brother. Gerald couldn't read a book until he started reading his Bible.

He only had grade three, okay. Worked in the woods in northern New Brunswick. Boy, I tell you, talk about a Bible marked to the help in the assembly.

It was a delight to take that Bible up on that podium and just speak from it. And all of his relatives are from Sussex. People I know, they live right in my town.

That's where he lived. Then they moved to Prince Edward Island. And I just asked them this, something happened to you, could I take, do you have a Bible I could bring up here and read? Do you know where it is? Do you ever look at it? Does it mean nothing to you? Oh my friend, you could take a lot from Gerald Gellier, you couldn't take his Bible.

What a privilege, what an honor. How about you tonight? Just going to be a verse that you memorize in Sunday school? Or is this going to have meaning that never had before? Your call. You make up your mind.

Let me quote this verse just as I close tonight. Let the wicked forsake his way. Let him go.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return. This is what he says, let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon, shall we pray.

Our Father, we thank you for the gospel, and we thank thee for all thy mercy and for ever saving us and making us thine. Oh, thou art such a kind God. And to think of some that have heard this message of the gospel so much, and still they sit in their sins tonight without a pardon.

They hold it in their hand. They'll go home with it. Oh, that someone, more than one, maybe in this meeting tonight, that not because of our preaching, but God has touched their hearts and they don't even want to tell anybody.

They know it. And they will seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near. Bless thy word we ask of thee in the Savior's name.

Amen. We're going to sing that hymn again, number 58. Hymn number 58.

Thank you so much for coming and for your attendance and attentiveness. From all you young people up here, thank you very much. Number 58, great God.

That's what he is. Great God of wonders all thy ways display that attributes divine, but the bright glories of thy grace above another wonder shine. Who is a pardoning God like thee? No one.

Or who has grace so rich and free? No one. Standing to sing number 58.