made reference to this verse
in the first hour, Song of Solomon chapter 2. The Lord is speaking
and he says, I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys,
as the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. And then the next verse says,
as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved
among the suns. I sat down under his shadow with
great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." I hope
we'll have that experience this morning. I think, I hope we have. We'll sit under the apple tree.
Its fruit will be sweet. His shadow will cover us. Let's stand together. Caleb,
you're going to come lead us in number eight in the Sproul
hymnal, number eight. lift up from this earthly mire,
O may we think of heavenly things, and know the joy that Lord, let us see the Savior's
face, and let us taste of Thy sweet grace. May open ears Thy glories hear,
and may we smell Thy fragrance here. heaven's door and on our heads
thy blessing pour all wretched poor and needy weep where can
we go if not you ? That Jesus Christ becomes the
host ? ? To feed our souls with living bread ? ? And with our
souls in joy to share the bread of life ? What a great blessing it is to
be here. Turn with me for God's call to
worship to Psalm 51. Psalm 51. Some of you may or may not be
able to relate to what I'm saying, but it seems as I grow older,
I tend to pray more of the words of God and less about what I
think and asking him to give me the faith to believe what
he said. And these are precious words to me. I pray these quite
often. Starting at verse four, David
is in a time of great trial and tribulation and is overwhelmed. He said, the floodwaters overflow
me. And here's his prayer. Verse
four, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil
in thy sight. that thou mightest be justified
when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I
was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
I was born a sinner. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me
to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. O Lord, create
in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. The greatest fear is the next
word, the greatest fear of every believer. Cast me not away from
thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Verse 12,
I have to pray every day. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I
teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted
unto thee. David is asking 12 Lord, that
joy I had seems hidden and foreign from me. Dave was still a believer. He was still a child of God,
but the joy seemed to have disappeared. And he's asking God to restore
it. There is a difference between joy and happiness. Religion is
about happiness, how to have a happier life. The gospel is
about joy. I've known, we've all known believers
who had very difficult lives, and yet God's joy never left
them. That's how they were able to
face death and difficulties. Restore thy joy. And what is
our joy? Our joy is thy salvation. It's a great comfort at night
to close my eyes in that bed and know, Lord, if this is, you
choose not to bring me forward tomorrow, it's a good thing. And I look
forward to that day. Why? Because salvation is all
of the Lord. And I don't, I can sleep without
wondering, have I done enough or did I do it right? No, because
I know I'd mess it up. but it's a great joy to know
the Lord has done everything and a great freedom because we're
not like the religious trying to establish our own righteousness.
We are resting in the righteousness of Christ. And I look around you, many of
you, sometimes I feel guilty that I've had so little trial
and tribulation, but we've all had them. but the joy never left,
never left us. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we are so thankful that
we sinful, sinful people can come to you because of the life
and the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we plead with you, Lord,
today that you would restore to us the joy of your salvation. We ask your blessing upon your
preacher whom you've called out, our brother Greg and others,
that your spirit would be upon them today, that you would enable
them by your power, Lord, to declare Christ truthfully and
faithfully, boldly, not withholding anything. And we pray for your
people that you would send your spirit to us to give us the faith
to believe what is preached and to rejoice in it and to defend
it, Lord. And we especially pray for those
who sit in unbelief under the preaching of your gospel. Oh
God, that you would trouble them, give them nowhere to turn, that
it be your will, we would hope that you would be willing to
bring them to yourself and give them the faith to rest in Christ
and that we give you all the glory. Amen. Let's stand once again and sing
the hymn on the back of the bulletin. As on the cross of Christ I thought,
it seemed I heard one cry. Is all, there's nothing in your
eyes, you who this day pass by. Is not such suffering greater
than that which you see me? there ever any man who grieved
or suffered more? I looked again, and what I saw
I cannot fully tell. With sin within his very bones,
there raised the fire of hell. What caused you grief, I ask
the man, what crimes could you have done? That God, Jehovah,
struck you down, His answer caught my heart like
steel and left me buoyed up. It is for your sins this pain
I feel, for you I go to death. Your soul before my father's
throne could find no place to hide. This is the way. God can be just. Can you be justified? To the hopeless, mercies never
fail. Each one goodness and love, therefore
would not consume. Jehovah God in Christ the Son,
shall all my poor shun me. My soul shall therefore wait
for Him, and live eternally. I don't know who wrote that hymn,
but I like it. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 130. Psalm 130. Michael, you could
not have read a more appropriate passage of scripture in preparation
for what I want to try to say, and I hope more importantly,
the Lord will say to our hearts, from this Psalm, Psalm 130. For the believer, there is no greater need, no
greater need than to be forgiven of their sin. And for the believer,
there is no greater joy than to have been forgiven of their
sin. It's our greatest need and it's
our greatest joy. You say, well, how does that,
how does that work? I mean, but if we've been forgiven,
we've been forgiven. Well, the more we grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more of our
sin we see. And the more we're brought to
cry and call again and again on the Lord Jesus Christ to save
us, forgive us of our sin. So I said, what about those who
have cried, as the Psalm says, they called on the Lord and yet
they forsaken the gospel? Well, men call on God for lots
of reasons. Generally speaking, they are
temporal troubles that they are seeking to be delivered from.
And like is always the case, those troubles eventually go
away. And when they go away, there's
no more need for the Lord. And so they depart because they
never really called on the Lord for forgiveness of sin. If you
call on the Lord for forgiveness of sin, that need never goes
away. It only becomes more real to
you every day you live in this flesh and in this world. Lord,
save me. Save me from myself. Save me
from my sin. Save me from the powers of the
evil ones. Save me. Lord, forgive me. Forgiveness
of sin is the greatest need and the greatest joy of the believer. I hope that we're asking ourselves,
is that really my greatest need? And is that really my greatest
joy? Well, for the child of God, Forgiveness
of sin is in a category all by itself. It's a soul need that
nothing else compares to. Nothing else compares to it.
I hope that by the end of this Psalm, the Lord will renew a
right spirit, Michael, in us. and that he will make the forgiveness
of sin our greatest need and our greatest joy. Psalm 130, verse one, out of
the depths, the depths of my soul, David was crying from the depths
of his soul for the forgiveness of his sin.
Lord, everything else in the turbulence of this world is but
a shallow pond compared to the depths of my sin and my need
for forgiveness. And so David says, of the depths
I have cried unto thee." Now this word cry is the same word that the Apostle
Paul uses in Romans chapter 10, translated call. I don't want
to leave anyone with the impression that crying from the depths means
that you have to somehow experience a degree of remorse
and shame and sorrow that, you know, maybe I haven't gotten
there yet. Maybe I haven't plumbed the depths of my repentance yet. No, to cry is to call. Now the
Bible speaks of two callings. There's the outward call. All
men everywhere are commanded of God to believe and to repent. And then there is the inward
call. That is the effectual call of the Spirit of God that calls
us out of darkness into his marvelous light, forgives us of our sin,
and continues to make that our greatest need and our greatest
joy. We're talking about the inward
call here. Talking about the effectual call. Men are without excuse before
God because their conscience calls them to repentance and
faith. Creation calls them to repentance
and faith. The gospel calls them to repentance
and faith. But without the inward effectual
call of grace in the heart, men will not call upon the Lord.
Here's what I'm trying to say. The evidence, what is the evidence
that I have received the inward call? You have called. You see, the works gospel says,
if you call upon the Lord, then he will save you. Making your
calling on him and your crying out to him, the cause of your salvation. That's
what the false gospel says. You call and you cry and God
will reward you for your cry and for your call and for your
repentance and for your faith by saving you. No. If you've called on the Lord
to save you, it's the result of your salvation, not the cause
of it. It's the evidence of your salvation, not the cause of it.
That's so important. Child of God, if you find yourself
calling upon the Lord to save you and to forgive you of your
sin, what greater evidence can there be than that? That's the evidence of grace
in your heart, that you need a Savior, and that you believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the sovereign, successful,
substitute and surety of his people. You believe that. And
you've got no place else to go but to him. Calling upon, David
is saying here, out of the depths, I have cried. I have called unto
thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to my supplication. If thou, Lord, should mark iniquity,
O Lord, who shall stand but There is forgiveness with thee that
thou mightest be feared. Turn to me to that passage I
referred to a moment ago in Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. We'll begin reading in verse
9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus
and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from
the dead. You believe the Lord Jesus Christ
satisfied all the demands of God's holy justice and that God
rewarded him by raising him from the dead and proving to us by
his resurrection that God's satisfied with his successful redemptive
work. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference
between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Don't make your calling,
your contribution to salvation. Don't do it. That's a works gospel. You know, that's kind of like, you
know, when, when I think it's in second Corinthians, when the
apostle Paul said, search yourself to see whether
you be of the faith. You know, what a man, what a
man. They look at that and they think, well, here's what we think.
I need to put my life under a microscope and I need to check on how I'm
living and what I'm doing and what I'm not doing and prove
whether I'm a Christian by the outward evidences of my life. Brethren, that's the worst gospel. Examine yourself. That's the
word that Paul uses. I couldn't think of it a moment
ago. Examine yourself to see whether you'd be in the faith.
What is it to examine yourself to be with, so that you'd be
in the faith? Do I believe that Jesus Christ
is the son of God, the sovereign savior, and that he successfully
put away all the sins of his people And I've got no place
else to go but to Him. I'm resting the hope of my, I'm
calling on Him. I'm calling on Him. That's the
evidence that He's done a work of grace in my heart. That's
the evidence that I am in the faith. I'm trusting Christ. I'm believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm looking to Him. I'm resting
in Him. That's what it means to examine
yourself to see whether you'd be in the faith. So calling, let's go back to
our text in Psalm 130. Calling upon the Lord is the evidence that the Lord
has shut you up to Christ. You've got no place else to go.
You've got no place else to go. No one else to call on. Out of the depths, I have cried
unto thee, Lord, out of my sin, I've cried. Not out of the, there
are difficult circumstances that God sends into all of our lives. But if that's all we need God
for, You know, those things come and go, they change. Our need for a Savior never goes
away. Our need for forgiveness never changes. Lord, forgive
me. That's what it means to be. Lord,
I've got to have my sin put away. I've got to have a I've got to
have a righteousness and a Savior, I've got to have I've got to
have Christ standing in my stead before God Almighty. Out of the
depths have I cried unto thee. Now, oftentimes the Lord will
bring difficult circumstances into our lives. Count it all
joy, James said, my brethren, when you fall into diverse temptations,
knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience, and patience
will make you complete and entire, lacking in nothing. I'm looking
to Christ. I don't need anything else or
anybody else. So the Lord sends those things.
Fiery trials, Peter calls them, are sent by God to expose our
weakness, our inability. our complete dependence upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, if I can't handle, if I'm
not up to the task of handling my temporal circumstances, how
am I gonna do anything about my eternal sin? Lord, I need
forgiveness. And so Peter says, the trial
of your faith. being much more precious than
gold that perishes it, though it be tried by fire. God tries us with fire, doesn't
he? And that fire usually springs out of a thorny bramble bush
that we've turned to our own selves. I was talking to someone recently,
their small child was ill. And I said, well, trust this
is just another experience where the Lord is building up their
immune system so that, you know, they can become stronger physically. And that what childhood diseases
are that way. Our children are building their,
they get sick so easily, especially when they're very young. It's
the Lord's way of building their immune system. You know the same
thing's true spiritually when it comes to our sin? We don't blame God for our sin.
That's all on us. But here's the glory of our God. He uses our sin to expose our
weakness and our need. This is what it means to cry
unto the Lord out of the depths. The older Esau shall serve the
younger Jacob. The man of flesh shall serve
the man of promise. And our sin serves our soul.
God uses our sin to expose our weakness and our
dependence upon a savior. Lord, I've got to have a savior.
I've got to have Christ. Out of the depths I've cried
unto thee. Paul said he had a thorn in the
flesh. What was that? I don't know.
Was it a physical problem? You know, I wonder if he was
really talking about a physical ailment that he had, or whether
he was talking about the thorn in the flesh that every one of
us had. The one he described in Romans chapter seven, when
he said, when he talked about this body of death. wretched
man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death and the Lord said my grace is
sufficient for thee for where sin abounds grace does much more
abound Paul said when I'm weak then
I'm strong for his strength is made perfect in my weakness and
Brethren, this is what it is to cry out of the depths. Yes,
we call on God when we're sick. We call on God when we're having
trouble in this world, whatever it might be. But here's the depths. Those
things are not depths. Those things are relatively shallow
compared to our sin and our need for forgiveness. So when David
says, out of the depths I've cried unto thee, he's not talking
about calling unto God to deliver him or give him a new job or
help him out with a relationship or financial or sickness or something. No, he's talking about sin. Lord, I need to be forgiven. So this is what it means to cry.
It's to call. And the fact that we're crying
out of our need for our sin, not just our circumstances, but
our sin, is the evidence that God has done a work of grace
in us. It's not the cause of it. God's
not gonna reward you because you called unto Him. Child of
God, take great comfort and joy in knowing that the awareness
of your sin and your need of a Savior and the calling that
you offer up in your heart to Him is the evidence that the Lord's
done a work of grace for you. You've got no place else to go. Why do we cry? That's my first
question. Why do we cry? Why do we call? Because of our sin. The second question I want to
try to answer from this text is to whom do we cry? To whom do we cry? Out of the
depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. God's the only one that can forgive
sin. I can't help myself with the
forgiveness of my sin. You can't help me, and I can't
help you. I looked to my right hand and to my left, and there
was no man to help me. That's why we don't go around
burying our sins with one another. We confess that we're sinners,
and if we sin against one another, we try to deal with that, but
we don't go around sharing our secret sins with other that just
that that doesn't that's what men in religion do you know and
it and it salves their conscience because i've told somebody my
sin that's why people go to therapy and counseling they're you know
they're just trying to get some relief isn't that you know what
adam and eve felt the shame and the guilt and the fear as a result
of their sin. And so they hid from God. And
we find men doing that today. They hide among the trees. They hide in religion. And the
bigger the religion and the more people that are involved in it,
the better they can hide. Or they sew together fig leaves
and they try to cover up for their sin. Or they blame other people for
their sin. Isn't that what Adam did? He
blamed God, really. Isn't that what the world says?
You know, it's not really your fault. You're just a victim of
circumstances. It's because of your environment.
It's because of, you know, the way you were potty trained. That's
what, you know, that's what made you the way you are. No. Oh, we don't blame anybody for
our sin. And we don't, and we don't try
to hide from God. And we don't, we don't try to
sew together fig leaves. We flee to Christ. Lord, you're
the only one that can help me. And there is forgiveness with
thee. There's my hope. You see, there's
no, in the blame game, there's no liberty. In the sewing together
of fig leaves and trying to cover up our nakedness, there's no
liberty. There's no freedom. In the hiding among their trees,
there's still the fear and the guilt and the shame of sin is
still there. It doesn't go away. But where the Spirit of God is,
there is liberty. And if the Son has made you free,
you're free indeed. The gospel of God's free, this
is what God's people do. They cry unto the Lord out of
the depths because there is forgiveness with thee. And if God be for
me, who can be against me? Who is he that condemneth, Romans
chapter eight? It is God that justified, yea,
that is Christ that died and is risen again. So now there
is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Yes, I'm
sinful. And I'm perfectly righteous in
the sight of God Almighty, so that as He is, so am I in this
world. And I have liberty and freedom,
the hope of my salvation because of Christ and being found in. If God should mark iniquity, Now, in the English language,
that word iniquity means unequal. Unequal. It's a pretty simple
conjunction of words there. And anything that you do to try
to atone for your sins, Anything that you do to try to satisfy
the justice of God is iniquity. It's unequal. It doesn't measure
up. And if God should mark iniquity,
the Bible speaks of transgression, iniquity, and sin. Transgression
is the bad things we do, transgressing the law of God, the shameful
things. Iniquity is the good things we do to try to make up
for our sin. And sin is what we are. And so
David says, if the Lord should mark iniquity, if he should,
if he should take notice of the best thing that I've ever done
in my whole life, it's going to fall short of his
glory. And it will be sufficient in
and of itself to send my soul to hell. Lord, if thou shalt mark iniquity,
who shall stand? Who shall stand? And what I'm
saying to you, brethren, not if God takes the one thing, you
know, the most glaring, besetting sin in your life or my life,
the things that we're most shameful of, the thing that, you know,
we hide and grieve over. No, I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about the iniquity. The good thing, the thing that
you try to do to atone for your sin, for those shameful things.
God says it's iniquity. If the Lord shall mark that,
if he shall take notice of that, we'll go to hell for it. But,
but. Notice that verse three and verse
four begin with a conjunction. A conjunction is a word that
brings together two ideas. And so verse three says, if the
Lord should mark iniquity, who shall stand? And verse four says,
but, oh, what a glorious, a glorious conjunction this is. With the Lord, there's forgiveness.
There's forgiveness. Listen, I get ahead of myself.
In Luke chapter five, the Lord was preaching to a group of people
and there were some men who had a friend who was crippled. And they couldn't get near to
the Lord with their crippled friend who they had him on a
bed. because the crowd was so pressed
and so large. So they went up on top of the
house and they removed some tiles from the roof and they lowered
him down right where the Lord was. And the Lord saw them. You know, there's a lesson here.
If I'm calling from the depths for the Lord to save me of my
sin, there's nothing that's going to keep me from him. No obstacle will keep me from
him. And there will be obstacles in
the way. That's one of the ways the Lord tries our faith to see
whether or not we really need to be forgiven. If forgiveness
is such a light issue for us that we allow the slightest circumstances
to keep us from him, then, you know, these men, they weren't
gonna be held back. They weren't gonna be kept. And
they lowered their friend down. And the Lord said, In seeing
their faith, the Lord said, your sins are forgiven unto thee.
And the publicans and the Pharisees, or the Pharisees and the Sadducees
began to murmur among themselves, who's this man think he is? Only
God can forgive sin. And the Lord looked at them and he
said, what's easier to say? Your sins are forgiven unto thee,
or stand up and walk. But that you might believe that
I am the Christ, the Son of the living God, that I have the power
to forgive sin, I say unto thee, stand up and walk. And the man
stood and walked and went home rejoicing. The Lord performed
that miracle to to prove that he had the power, not the power
to heal. That man got sick again. He's
not around today. He died. But his sins were forgiven
him. That was his need. His sins were
forgiven him. No man can forgive sin. To whom
do we cry? The Lord Jesus Christ. You get
sick, go to the doctor. You have a financial problem,
you know, go seek some advice from somebody that knows more
about that. You're ignorant about something, get some education.
Men can help us with certain things, can't they? But if sin
is your need, if forgiveness is your need, there's only one
place to go. Only one place to go, amen? No
place else to go. Out of the depths I have cried
unto thee, O Lord. Lord, look at our text. Lord,
hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplication. Now you know what the root word
there is for supplication, it's supply. What do you need God
to supply you with? What is the voice of your supplication? When you call out and cry out
to God to meet your need, what is your need? What is your need? What do you need him to supply
you with? Oh, you see, this gives evidence to the depths of our
cry, doesn't it? If all we're crying out to God
for is a better job and a, you know, better life and whatever,
you know, healing. If that's all we're crying out
to God for, we haven't cried from the depths. But if we're
crying out for forgiveness, for righteousness outside of
myself, for wisdom, for mercy, for grace, For love. You see, these are the works
of grace in the heart. Lord, my problem is a heart issue. My problem is not my life or
my circumstances. My problem is my heart. Lord,
I need to see, I need to have eyes of faith. Lord, I need to
be able to hear the voice of God. These are my supplications. Where do I need to be redeemed?
I need to have peace with God and I need the peace of God.
And here's the good news, brethren, don't miss this. If you don't
hear anything else, if this is your supplication, all of these
things come in Christ. Forgiveness, wisdom, love, mercy,
grace. Peace. Don't separate those things
from God. I mean, from Christ. Don't say,
well, you know, I need all these. No, no. They all come together
in Him. That's why the Bible says Christ
is all and He is in all. If this is what I'm crying for,
then what I'm saying to God is, Lord, I need Christ. I've got
to have Christ. And all that comes with Him, This is what it means to cry
from the depths. This is the evidence of God's
grace and mercy and salvation in the heart. Because the natural
man doesn't cry like that. The natural man only calls out
to God when he gets in circumstances that he can't handle. Then those
circumstances change and he doesn't need God anymore. This need never
goes away, does it? does a child of God. And the
Lord Jesus Christ never fails to forgive. With the Lord, there
is forgiveness. This is why we cry, and this
is to whom we cry. Notice in verse four, But there
is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. The fear of God is the beginning
of wisdom. Most of the times when we experience
fear, it's sinful. It's consequences of our sin. It's when we get afraid, isn't
it? But this is, and fear can be
paralyzing, can it? It can be paralyzing. The fear
of God is not that way. The fear of God is to worship
God. It's just to worship Him. It's to bow before Him. To just submit to Him and trust
Him. put down, you know, the Lord
said, I'm going to make them turn their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning forks. There was a time when
we had our fist raised to heaven and we had the weapons of our
own sword and our own spears, our own faith and our own words. And they spoke against God. And
now we lay those weapons down because we fear the Lord. And
he takes those very weapons and turns them into plowshares and
pruning forks. What are those? Those are for
planting, aren't they? That's what we're doing. There is forgiveness with thee. Turn with me back just a few
pages to the book of Nehemiah. I want you to see this. I have
Job before Psalms and then Nehemiah. Nehemiah chapter nine, verse
15. There is forgiveness with thee.
Here's our hope. There is forgiveness with thee.
Not there might be forgiveness with thee. Not if you do your
part, there's be forgiveness with thee. There is forgiveness
with thee. Look at verse 15. Now, Nehemiah, they've come back
from Babylon and they're reading the law of God. And Nehemiah
is reminding the Israelites. They've rebuilt the city of Jerusalem
and the temple, the tabernacle. He's reminding them of how God
has been so merciful to them as a nation. And so in verse
15, he says, and he gave us them bread from heaven for their hunger
and brought us forth water for them out of the rock for their
thirst and promised them that they should go in and possess
the land which thou hast sworn to give them. But they and our
fathers dealt proudly and hardened their necks and hearkened not
to thy commandments and refused to obey, neither were mindful
of thy wonders that thou didst among them, but hardened their
necks and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return
to their bondage. But, here's that conjunction
again, but. but thou art a God ready to pardon,
gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and
forsookest them not. Oh, has the Lord given you an
abundance of bread? And in your need for other things,
said with the Israelites, in a sense, I loathe this light
bread. Has the Lord opened up the rivers
of grace and mercy and you find yourself drinking from the broken
cisterns of polluted waters in this world? Are we not just like
these Israelites, but With the Lord, there's forgiveness. He's
ready to pardon. And here's a glorious truth,
brethren. Our God is much more ready to
pardon than we are to go to him to be pardoned. If we don't know forgiveness,
that's all on us. It's all on us. And I hope, if anything, that
the Lord will cause us to cry out of the depths unto thee,
O Lord. Lord, hear the voice of my supplications. This is what I need. More than
all those temporal things in this world, this is what I need. For Lord, if thou shalt mark
iniquity, who shall stand? But, but, With the Lord, there's forgiveness,
plenteous mercy, ready to pardon, forsake us not his people. Always,
always, always there. Psalm 86 verse five, Romans chapter
eight says, he is as near to us as our lips. Romans 10, I don't know what
I said, Romans 10. He's as near to us as our lips.
In other words, that's the text where he says, do not say, what
can I do to make God come down? Or what can I do to raise him
up from the dead? In other words, what work can
I perform in order to make what he did work for me? Perish the
thought. For he is as near to thee as
thy lips. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Lord, out of the depths
I've cried unto thee. This is my need, my greatest
need, and my greatest joy is to be forgiven. Psalm 86, verse five, for thou,
Lord, art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all
them that call upon thee. Psalm 85, verse two, thou hast,
past tense, forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered
all their sins. That's what the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ did. So when we cry from the depths
and we offer up our supplications, we're saying, Lord, give us Christ.
Give us Christ. Verse five, Psalm 130, I wait
upon the Lord. This word wait doesn't mean, you know, I'm just
gonna go home, go to bed, and you know, if God's gonna save
me, he's gonna have to do it. And he's gonna, you know, he's gonna
have to do something for me. Waiting is not some sort of fatalistic
attitude about salvation. No, it's an eager expectation. It's a hope that does not disappoint. It's a looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm waiting on Him. And He said, they that wait upon
the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk
and not faint. Now is walking and running, is
that a do nothing attitude about salvation? No, I'm fleeing to
Christ. walking after him, waiting on
the Lord. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth
wait. This is a soul need. And in his
word do I hope. What evidence do we have that
God can be trusted? If you're a believer, you believe
every word of it. Every word of it. And you are resting the
hope of your immortal soul on the precious promises that God
has made in his word and fulfilled in Christ, the living word that
was made flesh and dwelt among us and bore your sins on Calvary's
cross and satisfied the justice of God and put them away by the
sacrifice of himself. Lord, out of the depths I cry,
I wait on the Lord. In his word do I trust, do I
hope. Look at verse six. My soul waited
for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say
more than they that watch for the morning. You had a sick child
you've been up with all night long. The doctors tell you they're
not sure if he's gonna make it. And you're waiting on the Lord.
I think, you know, when the light shines out of darkness in the
morning, there'll be hope. You cry and you wait all night,
or you're on watch, and you're in a war zone, and you're in
the military, and there's bombs bursting all around you, and
you're waiting for the daylight to come that you might see the
light and have some hope. more than they that wait for
the morning. As awful as those two examples might be in this
world, more than they that wait for the morning, I'll wait on
the Lord. Waiting for the light to shine out of darkness in my
heart, coming to Christ, that He would shine the light of His
mercy and grace and forgiveness Look at verse seven. Let Israel
hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with
him is plenteous redemption. No lack of sufficiency in his
forgiveness, in his grace. Say, well, my sin is awful. No,
it's a lot worse than you think it is. And where sin abounds,
grace does much more abound. With the Lord, there is forgiveness. Verse eight, he shall. Not he's gonna try to, not he
will if you do your part. He shall redeem. That word redeem means to purchase
and that's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He purchased us with
his precious blood and he made us his own. He shall redeem Israel. Not all the trees of the forest,
but the trees of righteousness, which are the plantings of the
Lord who cry out from the depths for him for forgiveness. He shall
redeem Israel from all their iniquity. When we think of forgiveness, we think of those things that
smite our conscience. Those shameful thoughts and words
and acts and things that I love what the Lord says here.
Yeah, he's going to forgive you of those. He shall. He has. And all those things
that you take no notice of your iniquities. He knows them. And yet he says, I've separated
them from you as far as this is from the West and I remember
them no more. He shall save Israel from all
their iniquities. Our heavenly father, we pray
that you would put it in our hearts to cry out, to call, to
rest the hope of our immortal soul on the glorious person of
thy dear son and on his accomplished work of redemption at Calvary's
cross. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. Number 10 in the spiral hymn,
let's stand together, number 10. We'll sing this a cappella. There is a Redeemer, Jesus Christ
God's Son. Precious Lamb of God, Messiah,
Holy One, ? Thank you, O our Father ? ? For giving us your
Son ? ? And making sure the work for sinners ? ? Was completely
done ? ? Jesus Christ, redeemed ? name of all names precious
Lamb of God Messiah ? Oh, poor sinners slain ? ? Thank you,
oh, our Father ? ? For giving us your Son ? ? And making sure
the work for sinners ? ? Was completely done ?