A popular movie these days is suggesting that the summer of 1942 was a particularly disappointing and frustrating one for some folks. I rather imagine that 1974 summer is going to be remembered by a lot of people the same way. First of all, the Astros didn't make it after all, and then Mr. Nixon didn't make it, and now Evel Knievel. And I've gotten rumors over the last weekend that Haile Selassie didn't make it. I don't know what's going to happen next. Mickey Mouse will probably fall before it's all over and disillusion all of us. Roland Evans, writing in the Post this week, editorializing on the presidential pardons, has suggested that Mr. Ford might find one day that the presidential pardon could turn out to be a running sore like Watergate was for Mr. Nixon or Chappaquattic for Mr. Kennedy. My own response to the president's pardon was affirmative. I happen to think that it was a good idea and stated so some weeks ago when I preached to you on the subject of the resignation of Mr. Nixon. A lot of people disagree. Three, the press has been very strong and a dammit, as have many legislators, in their attitude toward the pardon of Mr. Nixon. And I suppose that most of us, regardless of where we stand on that issue, have at least been incensed by the response of the California Bar, which said that they were sorry that the pardon had occurred. They were sorry that he had willingly resigned from practicing the bar law in the state of California because they had wanted to, in their words, throw him out and were sorry that they didn't get the chance. It's not enough for some folks to have a corpse. It has to be quartered and drawn and hung out to dry in the wind. Whatever your feelings might be on this matter, one thing is dynamically true, and that is that God is winning, God is overruling, because a lot of things, like the resignation of the president and the movie on The Exorcist and now the presidential pardon that have been happening in our nation, have been bringing to our attention words and concepts in which God is overruling that are opening up entire people's minds to avenues of understanding and openness to concepts of divine grace. I'm thrilled that the concept of a heavenly, of a superior pardon is on the minds of people today because there's an awfully lot that God in his word has to say about that. You do not need to turn. I want to read just one verse in the Bible to you from Isaiah chapter 55, verse 7. I want to say seven or eight things to you, first of all, today about the matter of the president's pardon. First of all, it should be understood that this is not too surprising a thing because this is, after all, a Christian country and the most likely place in which it would happen. And the concept of pardoning forgiveness is the Christian distinctive. It is that theology, it is that doctrine, which makes Christianity grandiose in its uniqueness. No other religion in the world teaches a doctrine of grace, a truth about pardon. Search the world's great religions and you will find that they are preoccupied with the future. How by man's wood works he can improve his life and his relationship to God from here on. Where there is a doctrine of the past, it isolates somewhere between a doctrine of self -recrimination and incrimination and penance in which men try to efface themselves and defame themselves and denude and destroy themselves by punishing themselves. But nowhere in between do you find the world's great religion saying, wait a minute, I love you, I forgive you, you can start all over again. That's why the Christian message is called the gospel. Because the gospel means good news about a second chance. But when you begin to read as far back as the very first book in the Bible, you find man with his fig leaves of self -righteousness being replaced by God's shedding of blood and the offering of innocence. From Genesis to Revelation, the exclusive premise upon which God remits sin is the principle of the death of the innocent for the guilty. It is not new. It is the Christian concept. It is the gospel message. It is God interfering in the affairs of man and holding over society an old rugged cross, dripping with the blood of His Son, saying, Look, look at the cross. I love you. I forgive you. I pardon you. Not because you deserve it. Not because you beg for it. But because I love you. It is the message of the Christian gospel and it is unique to our faith. The second thing I would suggest to you is that while this system of love, while this uniqueness that makes Christianity what it is, is based on love, it is still established in justice. It is not a system like the presidential pardon which sets aside justice. Now whether it was just or not, only time may reveal. But we do know that it is not based on justice. The man that is pardoned does not get what he deserves. Whether it is a traffic ticket or murder, the pardoned man goes free strictly based on love. Justice is set aside. But ladies and gentlemen, the Christian gospel goes beyond man's finite ability to comprehend love and compassion. Because in divine terms, there is a harmony between love and justice. For you see, in the Christian faith, though the guilty party goes free because of love, still somebody pays. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God loves. God had a bleeding love for humanity. But God was not willing to set aside justice because God is a just God and the wages of sin is death. The penalty for transgression is death. There had to be a death. And God had to harmonize his justice because if God is no longer just, God has to go out of the business of being a sovereign God. But God had to harmonize his justice with his love. And so God found it impossible to forgive man whom he loved and yet overlook man's sins, which he hated. Because there was nothing left in the world that was perfect. Sin had stained the world. The planet had fallen. Society had fallen into sin. But God, looking around heaven, found one thing left yet that was perfect. And that was himself. And so God had to have a body. God had to have become a man. And when Jesus Christ stepped out of the Father and came in visible, tangible, fleshly terms, identifying with man in his sin, and went to an old rugged cross where God laid on him the iniquity of us all, he was satisfying the love of God and the justice of God. God never sets aside justice because of love. But he harmonizes both of them when they meet in the vertical and horizontal bars of a cross. Thirdly, much has been said in recent days about the motives of the president in pardoning Richard Nixon. Andrew Tully, syndicated columnist, has suggested that Mr. Nixon has inside information that the depression of President Richard Nixon is so great that suicide is a possibility. Reporters have said that Edward Cox has stated his depression is severe and the swirling in his left leg is twice his normal size and he is in physical pain. Martha Mitchell said this week that she believes that it was a deal all the time and that when Nixon resigned, she knew he had something up his sleeve and that President Ford is repaying a debt which helped to catapult him into the White House. David Brinkley said that no matter what else is true, one thing is certain, it was not necessary. It was premature, no charges had been brought by any court. Writing in this week's Houston Post in the Thursday edition, Donald Morris stated, Gerald Ford is not a calculating man. His speech and behavior are not conditioned by consideration of the eventual effect of his public image. He operates from instinct and emotion. He swings from gut level and these emotions are by all signs enormously honest ones, and the instincts also by all signs appear to be still true. I think I tend to concur with that. I do not know much about our new president, but I have reason to believe him to be an honest man. Whether it was compassion for the president or unity of the nation, and it may not turn out to be a unifying factor, the truth of the matter is that only Mr. Ford and the good Lord really know why he did it. But ladies and gentlemen, there is no question as to why God pardons us. From beginning to end, the message of the word of God is a love story. John 3 16 says, for God so loved those two reasons. Make it ineffably clear once and for all that it was an unselfish, undying love for men that promoted and prompted God to send his son on the cross to say, I love you. God so loved. God so loved. God so loved. The motive of God is unquestionable in his pardon of us. Quote with me aloud, if you will, know. John 3 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Fourthly, there is still some question as to the guilt of Richard Nixon. I do not know if the world will ever know all of the final details, but ladies and gentlemen, the Bible is clear that there is no question about the guilt of us. The Bible says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? All we like sheep have turned, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. There is none righteous on the earth. There is not a just man upon the face of the earth. It matters not whether you be a king or a priest, a beggar, or a rich man. The Bible tells us that every one of us stand neutral before the cross, condemned at the judgment bar of God. Paul says, so then let all the world become guilty before God. Fifthly, there has been much columnizing and editorializing these days about the matter of the inequity of our judicial system. A rich man, they say, dies in the electric chair far less often than does a poor man. Paul Harvey took the extreme to the other conclusion Friday morning and said that most anybody can pay a little fine or get out of a fine for a drunk driving charge and it'd be forgiven and overlooked. But he said, you let a preacher be arrested for drunk driving and he's never forgiven. His life and his ministry are over. You take it to either extreme that you will and anything that is made by man and run by man is imperfect. I still believe our judicial and legal system, however, to be the finest in the world. But I want to say to you that there are no inequities in God's judgment. No man ever is treated unfairly. No man either gets more or less than he deserves. The Bible says in Revelation chapter 20, for then I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were open and there was another book open which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books of life according to their works and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast in the lake of fire. I dreamed that the great judgment morning had dawned and the trumpet had blown. I dreamed that the nations had gathered in judgment before the white throne. From the throne came a bright shining angel and he stood on the land and the sea and he swore with his hand raised toward heaven that time was no longer to be. Now the moral man came to the judgment but his self -righteous rags would not do and the men that had crucified Jesus were cast off as moral men too. The soul that had put off salvation, not tonight, I'll get saved by and by. No time now to think of religion but at last he had found time to die. The rich man was there, but his money had melted and vanished away. The pauper, he too, stood in judgment, his debts far too heavy to pay. The great man was there with his greatness, but the angel that opened his record not a trace of his greatness could find. And oh, what a weeping and wailing as the lost were told of their fate. They cried for the rocks in the mountains. They prayed, but their prayers were too late. There is only one basis. And oh, what a weeping and wailing as the lost were told of their fate. They cried for the rocks in the mountains. They prayed, but their prayers were too late. There is only one basis upon which the rich and the poor, the rabbi, the preacher, the priest, the whoremonger, or the puritan are going to be judged before God. The books will be opened. There will be no question of inequities. It will all be cleared before God. And the only question at the great white throne judgment is going to be, what did you do with Jesus Christ? I warn you, many thousands of you that are listening on television, you're Baptists and Episcopals and Methodists and Lutherans and Presbyterians, and you have never had a personal encounter with Christ. You've never repented of your sins. You've never been washed in the blood. You've never really been saved. You're not going to go into heaven. You'll not come prancing down the streets of glory like the Pharisees of whom John the Baptist said, who hath warned you to flee for the wrath to come. Bring forth fruits, therefore worthy of repentance. There'll be no confirmation slip, no baptismal record, no church membership letters, no record of a good life that God will judge. The only question will be, were you saved? Did you receive Christ as your Savior? Was your life transformed? Have you been born again? I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. There's no escape, no paying off the judge, no getting a second chance. The second chances are all in this life. There are no inequities at the great white throne judgment. Number six. Yes. We have learned that Mr. Nixon has a great concern about how he will be remembered in the future. I could not help but be a little bit saddened a few weeks ago when I heard that the Whittier, California newspaper, which used to carry as its byline under the title front page, home of President Richard Nixon, had changed that byline, had dropped the byline, and said nothing. Some of the public wrote in and said, we ought to think it ought to be back on there. Some of them complained, we want it off of there. And so they reached a compromise, and now it says, Whittier, California, home of the 37th president of the United States. Somehow that was a sad spectacle to think that things in the life of a once honored man had come to the fact that his hometown newspaper was not even willing to carry his name as the fact that he had been born there. But I suggest to you that the world, unless something fantastically dramatic happens to reverse things, will never remember Richard Nixon with honor. To remember, to forgive, but to forget. But ladies and gentlemen, the Bible teaches that the Christian gospel goes beyond forgiving. And it goes to forgiving. But even more than that, it goes to reinstating. William Herschel was a young man in the Army of Germany. He played in the Hanover Band. He went AWOL and was dishonored. He became a dropout. They could not find him. Then he became a musician of some repute and changed his name. But all along later, when he became an astronomer and invented a fine telescope and discovered a new planet, he wanted true recognition. And so the world knew where the draft deserter was, the Army deserter. One day, a letter came requiring the man to come and stand before the king. It was King George who had called him to his appointment. But before he would see him, he sent a personal message out in a sealed envelope. In the courtyard, not knowing whether he was facing his execution or what was going to happen, William Herschel, with trembling hands, opened the envelope. There inside was a free and full pardon of his guilt. And then at the bottom it said, now we can talk. And he was brought inside and instated as a knight, as a lord in King George's court. God does that. I don't know that the world will ever forget about what Mr. Nixon did or didn't do or what they think he's done. I don't see any way in a hundred million years he's ever going to be reinstated as president of the United States. It's all over. But ladies and gentlemen, when a man comes to Christ, it's just beginning. It's just starting. He not only forgives us, he drops our iniquities in the sea of his forgetfulness behind the back of his memory as far as the east from the west and remembereth them against us no more. Hallelujah. That's good news for that shouting ground. And further than that, he makes us a king and a priest. He puts a ring on our finger. He says, welcome home. And he makes us an eternal son of God. And all the presidential pardons in the world cannot go as far as does the pardoning grace of our heavenly father. The seventh thing I want you to remember is that before a pardon becomes effective in the life of a man who has been convicted, he not only must confess his guilt, but he must go beyond that. Mr. Nixon to date has confessed to no crime. He said, I've made mistakes. He said, I've done some things wrong, but he's not signed on the dotted line or perhaps may never will. Maybe he doesn't need to. Maybe he knows that he's innocent. I don't know. But I do know this. You cannot be pardoned by a blanket immunity. It must be personalized. There must be a contrition. There must be repentance. The Bible says, if we confess, confess, it begins with a preposition, a condition which is on the condition that we confess. If you will do that, then God is faithful. Then he is just. The Bible says, if we confess with our mouth, the Lord Jesus Christ, if we believe God has raised him from the dead, if we acknowledge our sins, let the whole world be guilty before God. As the publican in the temple who got on his knees and said, God be merciful to me, a pretty good fella. No, no. There was a man over there on that side who was saying that. The publican, the Pharisee was saying, Lord, I thank thee that I'm not as other men. But the poor sinner got on his knees and said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And the Bible says, I say verily that only this man of the two went home justified before God. You cannot receive your heavenly pardon. You cannot be saved until and unless you acknowledge you are guilty. That's why we have an invitation. It's not easy for us to come in humility before a couple of thousand people and bow our head and acknowledge, I am guilty before God. It is a self -effacing thing to say, I have found myself, I've judged myself, I found myself guilty, and I plead for mercy. Then Christ becomes not your judge, but your advocate, your lawyer to plead his righteousness before the judgment bar of God. But if you don't, then you have no one to plead your defense and you will stand condemned before God. And the eighth and last word I want to say to you is this. Before a pardon becomes effectual, it must be received. It has to be accepted. In a very famous court case many years ago, it was determined in a case in which a man swearing by his innocence refused to accept a pardon because it would be a confession of guilt. The law was thrown into a dither and they went back and said, this man won't accept his pardon. What are we going to do? Can we let him go free if he won't? And it has been a law for a long, long time on the books that he condemned guilty criminal cannot go free if he refuses to accept the pardon that is given. You can't force the door open. And a distinguished judge told me in this city Friday, not only that, but the pardon has to be signed in writing. The man has to fess up. I am guilty. I accept it. I go pardon and mercy. Then when he accepts it and then alone does it become effectual and effective for him. Hyman Appleman, who was a famous preacher today, was a brilliant boy in Chicago. He was the youngest man ever to graduate from DePaul University. He was the youngest man at that time ever to be admitted to the bar in Illinois. Became a brilliant lawyer. Hyman Appelman, as I said, is an evangelist and a preacher today. He told me a story some years ago about a friend of his with whom he had gone to school. He said the boy was convicted and tried and found guilty of a major crime. Hyman went to the judge with some friends and pleaded and finally got the man's pardon. With the judge just before zero hour when he was to be executed later on that night. They went with the judge and the preacher to give the man his pardon. He refused to accept it, refusing to acknowledge his guilt. And the judge said, Dr. Appelman said as they walked down the corridor and the clanking bar closed behind them for the last time, the judge said, Brother Appelman, we have left a dead man. He was not physically dead until 1 -1201 that night. But long before those cyanide pellets fell into that death chamber, because he was already condemned, already guilty, because he refused to accept the pardon, he was then as good as dead. The Bible says we are condemned already, right now. You're a living, walking, dead man. But God in Christ on the cross has offered you a pardon. And I plead with your heart this day that you will come in mercy, acknowledging your guilt and sin, asking him to forgive you and save you and praying the prayer of the penitent, God be merciful to me a sinner. And Jesus Christ will save you. God has threatened it. He has signed it in his blood. And he comes and waits for you to accept it. Yea or nay, the decision is yours. Will you bow your heads with me, please, as we bow our heads and close.