Sinclair Ferguson

You can think about it this way.

The only thing that God says he forgets is your sins.

He has blotted them out with the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.

That's a very important promise to remember.

Because some of us, I suspect more of us than might be prepared to admit it certainly in public, many of us are haunted by the memory of our past sins.

Remember how that was true of King David.

He wrote, you remember, that his sins were ever before him.

And obviously he could be paralyzed by the memory of them.

Perhaps there were days when he didn't reflect, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the memory of his sins would be like a fiery dart in his mind and paralyze his sense of fellowship with God.

So he needed to know day by day that his sins were blotted out and that the Lord remembered them no more.

In the United Kingdom, people sometimes invest in what are usually called gilts, g-i-l-t-s, gilt-edged securities or very high-grade government-issued stock.

I think they're called that because originally the paper on which they were printed was actually gilt-edged, like some of the old Bibles.

And you know, I sometimes think that the devil, who is described as the accuser of the brethren, I think the devil is also an investor in guilt-edged stock.

But not G-I-L-T.

G-U-I-L-T.

You know, when he tempts us to sin, he tells us, this isn't such a big deal.

But then when we fail and fall, he capitalizes on our sin.

He emphasizes our guilt.

He comes to us and he almost seems to screw into us our deep incapacity.

And as John Calvin once said, seeks to drive us to despair.