A man awoke one night with a heavy burden for the dream he has just experienced. In his dream he saw before him all of the sins and failures of his life and felt the sorrow over each misstep.
He turned to his nightstand and opened the light upon it. Reaching for his Bible he turned to the verse which says:
Psalms 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
For a moment he began to ponder the meaning of that verse. “Lord what does it mean? How far is the East from the West? I have so many sins Lord, how can you possibly remove them all? I feel sometimes Lord that I am just one sin away from you giving up on me. How can you still love me when you know about every failure of my life, I just don’t understand.”
As he continued to search the Scriptures for some semblance of hope for his wounded soul, he was led to the verses in Psalm 22:
Psalms 22:14-18 “I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me. They divide My garments among them,And for My clothing they cast lots.”
As the broken man read these words he was struck by the brutality of their meaning. “Lord what do they mean, who is the one that this Psalm is speaking of?”
The Lord told the man: “David wrote this about me more than 1,000 years before I came to the earth. This is what I did for you, what they did to me…”
Now the burden of abiding sin was evermore present than before. The truth of what the Lord had spoken to him set in deep to his soul. Picking up again his Bible, he slowly turned the pages until his eyes fell upon Isaiah’s account of the suffering servant in chapter 53:
Isaiah 53:1-11 “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.”
Finishing the final words of these verses, the man began to tremble and to weep. “I understand now Jesus, this is what you went through when they crucified you isn’t it?”
“Yes it is”, replied Jesus. “I went to the Cross for you. It was your beautiful face that I was looking at when I looked down from the Cross. It was your sins and your freedom that I endured it all.”
“Then why Lord do I carry such a deep sense of my failures and live in constant thought of them? No matter what I do I cannot escape the regret of the past and fear of future failure.”
Then the man felt a large warm hand touch his shoulder from behind and these words spoken softly to him:
“All you have to do now is ask me and I will remove these burdens from you forever. I have just been waiting for you to want me. I have sat near you everyday and long through the night just waiting for this moment when you you would come to the end of yourself and finally need me.”
Words now could not find their place on the tongue of the troubled man. His tears fell to the floor, his knees buckled and fell to the floor.
“Now I understand Jesus, you died to remove my sin, but I cannot experience that freedom until I ask you, is that right Lord?”
“Yes, you are correct. My Grace and the freedom I offer from the burden of sin is not forced upon any man. I wait until you are ready, and now your moment is here. Receive my gift, and be free…”
For the first time in his life the man felt a flood of peace overshadow him. His heart, soul and mind were freed and he knew that he would never be the same again.
“Lord I have just one more question, that first verse that I asked you about tonight; “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.“
What does it mean Lord? How far is the East from the West?
Jesus touched his shoulder one last time: “See this scar from the nail they drove through my hand on my right hand, notice there is another on my left hand?”
“Yes Lord”
Jesus opened up His mighty hands and stretched out His arms and said these words to me:
“The distance from the East to the West is measured from one of my nail pierced hands to the other…
Jeremiah 31:3 “The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”
Rob Robinson
