THE REMOVAL OF SIN All of us know what it means to be sinners.  Romans 3:23 tells us that all of us have sinned and come  short of the glory of God.   Yet many times, even after we are forgiven, not only do other people sometimes have difficulty forgetting our sins but also sometimes we ourselves have the same problem.  The prophet, Jeremiah, reminds us about God’s forgiveness under the new covenant that when our sins are blotted out that He remembers them no more.  Mankind might remember, but God doesn’t.  We have difficulty accepting ourselves and believing that we really are saved, that  we really are in God’s keeping. When  God forgives us, that’s the end  of our sins.  I’d like for us to look at three passages in the Old Testament that give us a picture of what it means to be forgiven. The first is Psalms 103.  In verse 8, David says, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.”  God is a loving God who is merciful.  In verse 9 God shows that He will not  keep His anger forever.   Just as His heaven is high above the earth  so great is His mercy to them that fear him.  His forgiveness is so true and so complete and so overwhelming that our sins are removed -- as David says in verse 12, “as far as the east is from the west...”    No matter what the sin we have committed, no matter how bad it may seem, if we come to a point in our life where we turn to God, seek forgiveness for our sins, then we will never face those sins before God.  On the other hand, man may not forgive but not so with God.  We can truly say. “How Great Thou Art.” The second one is Isaiah 38:17, “Behold for peace I had great bitterness:  but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption:  for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.”    This is not the prophet, Isaiah, speaking but Hezekiah, King of Judah.  If you remember, he had begun a great reform movement in Judah and in the middle of it became very sick unto death.   Isaiah had told him he was going to die. According to verses 2-3 Hezekiah prayed with all his heart and said, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight...”  God heard his prayer and sent Isaiah back to him to tell him that he would live another 15 years. In prolonging his life, Hezekiah realized that God showed great forgiveness.  Hezekiah says in verse 17, “…thou hast  in love of my  soul delivered it from the pit of corruption…”  Here was a man on the brink of losing his life, losing everything; and God spares his life 15 more years.  He then says, “Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.”  Oh, what forgiveness! In its opposite, this figure is found in several different places in Holy Writ.  In 1 Kings 14:9 Israel had cast God behind their backs.  In Psalms 14:1 the Psalmist said, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is not God…”   I have heard men say and I’m sure you have, too, that the man who says there is no God is a fool; and we usually use this verse to prove it.  That is not what the Psalmist is saying.  He is talking about a man who with his mouth is saying he believes God but is in foolish disobedience to God.  David is making the point that no matter what this man says with his mouth, if he is in disobedience to God, he is saying in his heart there is no God.  In one way or the other, many of us fall into this category.  We attend services on Sunday and pretend to be Christians; but really in our day-to-day lives we are saying that there is no God.  When we leave the services, some just put on another face and leave God behind.  Just the opposite of this is found in Psalm 90:8, “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.”  The Scriptures say that the sins of the man who doesn’t repent are forever right in front of God.  I believe that many people think that time will take care of things.   They just let it go thinking it will go away.   But, no, not according to the  Psalmist.  Brethren forsake the assembling of the saints.  After a while they just start attending, never repenting, never making things right with God hoping the people will forget about his sin and accept  him back as a faithful Christian --  Not so with God.   As long as  a person has not repented of his sins in front of God, those sins remain.  They may become blurred in memory in the minds of men, but not so with God.  When He forgives, He casts our sins behind Him so that He can’t see them.  That’s what it means to be forgiven for our sins. Lastly, Micah 7:19”He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”  Sometimes you can drop something into  water like  a pool or  bathtub and you can see it.  If you were on a boat on the ocean and you drop something in, it will be gone.  That is what Micah is saying. When God forgives us, it is as if He drops our sins into the ocean never to be found again. Think about  the wonderful beauty of these  three great passages and what it means to be forgiven.  It means our sins are removed as far from our lives as is the east to the west.  It means our sins are removed from us and cast behind the back of God.  God takes our sins and casts them into the depths of the ocean.   We close with the passage in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and   that not of yourselves:   It is the gift of God:   Not of works, lest any man should boast.”   When we talk about forgiveness, we must understand and stress that a man is forgiven by God’s grace and not on the basis of his own goodness.  It also involves the preaching of the cross. 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”   God expressed His mercy in the cross of Christ.  It is by the preaching of that cross, the preaching that Jesus died for us all, that we can find forgiveness that results in God casting our sins behind His back. Bill Young.