Isaiah 1: 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Crucified
Destroyed

In our text this morning, I asked myself, “How can our sins be compared to scarlet and crimson?  Why is God giving us the impression that our sins can seem so extreme and use a reference to scarlet and crimson to put his point across to us that we need not worry about feeling guilty over extreme sins?  What is there about scarlet and crimson that would help us understand that God can deal with any sin?”

What is so distinctive about crimson and scarlet in contrast with something being made white?

Scarlet
This dye was obtained by the Egyptians from the shell-fish Carthamus tinctorius; and by the Hebrews from the Coccus ilicis, an insect which infests oak trees, called kermes by the Arabians.

Scarlet and crimson were the firmest of dyes, and thus not easily washed out.

Jeremiah 31: 33-34  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Ezekiel 36:26-27  A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Matthew 9: 17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

Part of our old lives involves the guilt of the experiences that we had in the past.
• Somebody told me the story of a man several years ago who was in a bus with several other people.
• The bus veered off the road and went over the edge into a lake.
• The entire bus went underwater.
• People began scrambling out of windows and the doors that they could get out of.
• In his attempts to escape, this particular man saw a window through which people were escaping.
• He made his way to that window and there was a man who was just ready to use that window and likewise escape.
• This first man pushed the other man out of the way knowing that if he didn’t, he himself would drown.
• But he also knew that if he pushed this other man away, then the other man would most likely drown, too.
• He pushed a man away and made his escape and survived.
• The other man drowned in the bus.

This man was suddenly swamped with guilt over what he had done to the other man.
• It grew in him so much that he could not hardly live with himself.
• He tried to think of away to make it right.
• And this man chose to become a minister of the gospel, hoping that giving his life to the work of God would somehow repay the debt that he owed, not only to the man who drowned, but also to God, himself.

It’s sad that the very message he felt that he preached in repayment for what he had done contained the message that he never did truly come to understand.
• The gospel tells us that no matter what we experience in life, in regards to sin, and no matter how great to the guilt is that is derived from such sentence, God takes those old lives and guilts and sins, and crucifies them and destroys them as we are baptized into Jesus Christ.

No matter what guilt we may have from our old lives in sin, your crucifixion with Jesus Christ destroyed at all.

Somebody might say that we get Scott free without any guilt nor need to pay for crimes if this be true.
• But that is not so.
• Our guilt did deserve a punishment.
• And the gospel teaches us that that punishment occurred in our crucifixion with Jesus Christ.
• John 12: 31 now is the judgment of this world.

Sin does deserve judgment.
• The guilty person must be judged.
• God is not unrighteous.
• And that is why Jesus Christ had to suffer on the cross.
• Sin deserves punishment.
• And in John chapter 12, when Jesus said, “now is the judgment of this world,” and then said, “If I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me,” he was telling us that the judgment of all men would be fulfilled and taken care of in his death on the cross.
• In that manner, your guilt would be judged.
• The guilt of the people drawn into him would be taken care of.
• When you were baptized into Jesus Christ you were baptized in his death.
• Jesus was actually referring to baptism here, because being drawn into him in into his death is accomplished by water baptism according to Paul.

You might say that your guilt is very strong, because you have committed a very terrible sin.
• But the Bible does teach us that the cross takes care of this.

Isaiah 1: 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Scarlet was a dye that came from insects that infested oak trees in Israel.
• This dye was a very firm and deep dye.
• You can imagine something died a deep red and and trying to remove the color from it.
• It would be a very hard color to remove from a cloth.

Not only that, but the color red is a very brilliant and obvious color.
• This is a perfect description of extreme sins that would cause a person to have a very deep feeling of guilt.
• Obvious sins.
• Sins that can cause extreme guilt.
• Sins that may appear as being very hard to remove from our lives.

But even though our sins be as scarlet, God can make them white as snow.

Your guilt may be so strong because you insist that your sand was very great, but that is only from your perspective in thinking that such a stain cannot be removed.
• But though your sins be as scarlet, God can make them as white as snow.

Glaring sins can cause deep and guilt.
• But there’s nothing that is to glaring that God cannot deal with.
• What is hard for us is very easy for God to do.
• I don’t care how scarlet and how impossible that looks for God to remove that sin, his words says that he can make it as white as snow.

Isaiah 44:22  I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.

Isaiah 43:25  I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

Micah 7:18-19  Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. 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.

Romans 5:20  Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

Psalm 51:7  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow

Exodus 12:22  And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.

As Jesus was struck by death, we are baptized into his death, and by doing so, we are purged from our old sins, having been made whiter than snow.

Remember what we said last time.
• We were born crucified.

Your past can only affect you according to how much you doubt or are unaware of the destruction of the old man on the cross through Christ’s death.

Living by faith is seeing yourself as God sees you.

If you take something that is not a part if you anymore and think that it is still apart of you, as you try to deal with the guilt of the past, you are not getting the truth of the cross into your heart.

Not only might a sin seem glaring accompanied by great guilt, but you might consider the sin so extreme since it was so habitual with you.
• Many people experience habitual sins.
• Their guilt is so strong because they have actually commit those sins.
• And that might make them seem as scarlet.
• But once again, though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as wool.

Hebrews 2: 9 But we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the Angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

Death is the end of a life.  He dealt with the end of a life for everyone.

Claim your freedom from the guilt of the past.

Your guilt is gone.

Plead the blood.

Let’s go back to the idea of the cross once again.  Notice the ramifications of the cross.

Romans 6: 7 for he that is dead is free from sin.

The next verse tells us that we are dead with Christ.
• So if Christ died, and Christ’s freed from sin.
• But it also says that we are dead with Christ.
• So what is that tell us about our relationship with sin?

Romans 6: 8 Now if we’d be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

Romans 6: 9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more Dominion over him.

Romans 6: 10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Therefore we read...

Romans 6: 11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Reckon your selves dead to sin.
• First seven says that he that is dead is freed from sin.
• Freed from your guilt.
• If you are freed from your sin, that you are also freed from the guilt of that sin.

If you can believe the Bible enough, your past and the guilt of that past can lay absolutely no claim upon your lives whatsoever today.
• When guilt hammers your mind, plead the blood.

God has forgiven you.
• Your debt to society has been paid.
• When somebody is found guilty of a crime, and the judgment is passed by the Judge, the court does not continue to find a way to judge the criminal.
• The guilt has been dealt with.
• Judgment has been passed.

Jesus said now is the judgment of this world.
• He was speaking about his crucifixion.

You might say that your guilt and your sins that has caused the guilt is too great.
• Jesus did not say that the judgment was for only part of the world.
• He looked ahead into the future, and he saw every sin that anybody might ever commit.
• And he still said, “Now is the judgment of this world.”

When you feel extremely guilty, it is a sin that can be compared to the die of scarlet.
• But God knows how to deal with scarlet.
• Though it be like crimson, he can still make it white as wool.

Condemnation is another term for guilt.

Romans 8: 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,

You have to understand that God is complete when he deals with something.
That is what Isaiah 1: 18 is trying to tell us.

It does not matter how extreme your guilt is, if you can get this word from God into your heart, and realize that he dealt with that extreme sin, your extreme guilt will be overcome.

When God forgives, he forgets.

2 Corinthians 5: 16-17  Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him know more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things to become new.

So what is no wonder that we read that we are new creatures when we are in Christ.

Paul was trying to emphasize a point to us.
• Verse 16 tells us that we are not know any man after the flesh.
• Paul even said that he refused to know of Jesus Christ after the flesh.
• When Christ was in the flesh he was meek.
• But now he is Lord and he sits on the throne is king of kings.
• Paul did not look at him anymore as meek and a servant.

Notice that Paul is comparing how we look at each other with how he looks at Jesus Christ.
• How can we dare compare how we look at each other with how we look at Jesus Christ?
• It is because we came into union with Jesus Christ.
• And all the benefits that he has because it is crucifixion, including not having us look at him after the flesh anymore, are also our benefits.

As we close, think of some biblical characters who could very well have a lot of guilt due to their past experiences.

Paul the apostle: This man stood and watched the first Christian martyr die.
• And he did nothing about it.
• If anyone would have extreme guilt it would be a man like Paul.
• Especially when we think that Paul became a Christian, remembering that he killed a fellow Christian.
• But we can read from his own words how he was freed from guilt.

1 Timothy 1: 13-14 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

Once again we need to understand that when we’re in Christ we have died, and he that is dead is freed from sin.
• Like somebody set free from their crime, because in some wonderful way the judgment was already dealt with, we are freed from our sin and crime and guilt.

1 Timothy 1: 15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am Chief.

1 Timothy 1: 16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in the first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

Aren’t you glad that God gave us a pattern like that?
• God took one of the worst case sinners that he could find and provided him with mercy for a pattern to them who believe on him later on for everlasting life.

In Matt. Chapter 9 Jesus sat with many publicans.
• Pharisees saw it can criticize Jesus for it.
• The first 13 shows Jesus telling them that he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

When you think that your sin and guilt from the past makes you a shameful Christian today, remember what Paul in Jesus Christ said: “Jesus came into the world to save sinners, not the righteous.”

It’s interesting when you think of what Jesus said.
• He did not come into the world to save the righteous, but to save sinners.
• Combine that thought with John 3: 16.
• God gave his only begotten Son because he loved the world.
• If the Son was given because God love the world, and he did not come into the world to save the righteous, then we know the entire world was comprised of sinners.
• He did not say “a part of the world,” as though only a part of it was considered as sinners.
• He included the whole world what he came, and indicated that everyone was a sinner.

If you think that your sin was too great for God to deal with, then perhaps unconsciously you feel that Christ came to save the righteous.
• But rest assured that Christ came to the entire world, not to part of the world, to save sinners.
• And though your sins be as scarlet they shall be made White as wool.

So once again we see an instance where we can plead the blood, claiming our rights to freedom from any accusation of guilt that may enter into our minds.
• Stand upon the fact that you are baptized into Jesus Christ’s death, and he that is dead is freed from sin and all of the guilt that goes with it.

Don’t condemn yourself; the devil doesn’t need any help being an accuser.
• He’s doing a good enough job with it without your help.