Psalm 130 verse 1, Out of the
depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Now David is crying from
a place that we need to know about. Some of us know about
it. Some of us know something about it. Out of the depths.
You might have said it one time or another about somebody or
maybe you said it about yourself. Somebody was really down, really
afflicted, really sad, really troubled. You know, you might
say of somebody that was on drugs and lost their job and lost their
family and were on the street. I've seen that. I've seen worse
than that. You might say, well, now they've finally, they've
hit rock bottom. They've hit rock bottom. Well, that's bad, but that's
not rock bottom. You see, when bad things happen
to you, It hurts. It's upsetting. It'll turn your
world upside down. And God uses that. He does that. He's the one that sets up one
and puts down another. But when bad things happen to
you, you may complain. You may blame God or somebody
else. But you haven't hit rock bottom until you are the bad
thing. Not very many people will ever
understand that. As I stand before you tonight,
very few will ever get it. And I guarantee you, not everybody
in this room gets it. Just about certainly. Not everybody. Most people will go through their
whole life without ever seeing themselves as a sinner before
God. Oh yeah, I've done some bad things,
but boy, you know I'm doing my best. You can't even pray, can you? You've got to be right here before
you can even pray to God. You can't cry to God from anywhere
else, really. But the depths, and you're not
there yet. Bad things happen to good people.
There are no good people. This is not just somebody that's
afflicted and bad things have happened to them. This is somebody
who has seen that he is the bad thing. The prophet Nathan showed
him that, didn't he? God showed him that through his
prophet. He said, David, it's you. You're the one that deserves
to die. And he saw that. Now you can
cry to God. Nobody has ever hit rock bottom
except our Savior. We need to just say that right
up front. You've never hit rock bottom even if you've seen your
sin. You haven't seen it like He has. You haven't felt it like
He has. You haven't suffered for your
sin like He has. Nobody's ever hit rock bottom
but Him. And the closest we're ever going
to come is to see ourselves as God sees us. Wretched, vile,
deserving of the wrath of God. That's rock bottom. No matter
how bad this life gets, if you have hope in God, you have real
hope. You have real hope. But there
are times when sinners see themselves in their exceeding sinfulness
before God. Paul said in his letters to the
Corinthians and in the book of Romans and in other places, he
said that when he realized that the law was not his friend, in
the sense the law couldn't save him, that his doing, and when
I say the law I'm talking about his keeping of the law really,
when he realized that That that wasn't the solution to his problem. That was his problem. My righteousness
is not the solution. My righteousness is the problem.
That's why he came to the place where he said, I wouldn't have
my righteousness anymore. I don't want it. My righteousness
is sin. Everything I've ever been, everything
I've ever said, everything I've ever done before God is vile
and wretched and unworthy. And then he said this about it.
That's when sin became exceeding sinful to me. I became the sinner
before God. And there's not any other cry
like this. And you might never hear it.
Somebody may cry like this and you may not hear it. This is
not just necessarily a cry that you can hear with the ears of
the flesh. And whether it is or not, maybe
you do. Maybe you do. Maybe you will hear, maybe you
won't, but either way, this is a heart cry. A heart cry. May not be audible, but whether
it is or not, this is a cry from the heart of a sinner to the
God that made him and to the God before whom he stands wretched
and vile, sinful and guilty. God can hear groanings which
can't be uttered. From this place, from the depths,
Job cried in 42.6 of the book of Job, I abhor myself. Very few people have ever really
hated themselves. You might say, you know, you
do something bad and the next morning you say, well, I really,
I hate myself. That's just a saying. Well, I hate my sin. That's not
what he said. I hate me. I hate the sinner. And people say God loves the
sinner and hates the sin. That's not what God said either. He hates the sinner. He hates
all workers of iniquity now. God's love is in Christ. God's
love is only in Christ Jesus. He said I abhor myself. I despise
myself and repent. in dust and ashes and in verse
4 of chapter 40 he said behold I am vile and up until that time
he'd had a lot to say hadn't he in the book of Job that's
chapter 40 he'd said a lot in those 40 chapters you know what
he said now I'm going to lay my hand on my mouth I've spoken
about things that I don't know anything about and now I'm going
to shut up I am vile that's the depth now Out of that place,
Paul cried in Romans 7.24, O wretched man that I am. Not wretched things
I've done. That's bad enough. But I am a
wretch. You know, they changed the words
in a lot of hymn books a long time ago. Amazing grace, how
sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. That was offensive to
something. Can you imagine being offended by being called a wretch? You're not going to like this
God if that bothers you. You're not going to like the
God in this book. That was too strong. That saved
a soul like mine. A soul, not a wretch. That's
too strong. Really? Oh, wretched man that I am. Who is going to save me? I need
to be saved from the body of this death. I'm a walking corpse. Stinking to high heaven, offensive
to God and everything good. From this place King David cried,
have mercy upon me, O God. According to thy loving kindness,
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out
my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse
me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions
and my sin is ever before me. ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. That thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest."
In other words, if you judge me and put me in hell, you'd
be doing the right thing. Psalm 40 verse 11, withhold not
thou tender mercies Thou Thy tender mercies for me, O Lord,
let Thy loving kindness and Thy truth continually preserve me,
for innumerable evils have compassed me about." Oh, you say, well,
yeah, see, he's saying that the evil is out here and it's, no,
mine iniquities have taken hold on me. Mine. Not yours, not anybody
else. My sin is the problem. So that I'm not able even to
look up. Now that's rock bottom right
there. They are more than the hairs of my head, my sin. Therefore
my heart faileth me. Has your sin ever broken your
heart? It's easy to be broken hearted
over somebody else's sin. It's a lot easier to see somebody
else's sin. Has your own sin ever broken
your heart? Well, you might say, well, I've
never really done that many bad things. Yeah, I said that one
time. I used to say that too. And you'll
say that until you see yourself by faith, by grace through faith,
as God sees you. Not perfectly as he sees you.
You wouldn't be able to live if you did. I'm telling you,
you know that's right, don't you? You that know the Lord.
If He ever completely revealed what we are, He'd kill us. My heart fails me. Be pleased,
O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste. Make haste
to help me. Have you ever been in a hurry
for God's mercy? Honestly now, have you ever been
in a hurry for the mercy of God? Make haste and help me. The publican in Luke 18 13 stood
afar off. He didn't even feel whatever
from the altar or whatever just says he stood afar off. Whatever
he felt like the presence of God was represented as. He didn't
even want to come close. It says he would not so much
as lift up his eyes to heaven. He smote upon his breast. He's
not putting on a show now. He knew what his problem was
right here. And cried to God for mercy. Perpetuation
on the mercy seat. Jonah said in chapter 2 verse
2, Jonah, I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord.
And he heard me. Out of the belly of hell, I cried. Have you ever been in the belly
of hell? Then you heard my voice, even
from there now. For thou hast cast me into the
deep, into the midst of the seas, and the floods come past me about.
All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said,
I am cast out of thy sight. Yet I will look again toward
thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about
even to the soul. He's not just talking about being
in the ocean now. He's talking about waters that overwhelm the
soul. That's something else. Him being in the whale and being
in the ocean, that was just a picture of that. That was just an outward
representation of The waters that came in unto his soul. The
depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with
her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought me up,
brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came in unto thee,
into thine holy temple. Out of the depths have I cried.
Now listen. Everybody's experience in God's
province is different. I've never been in a whale's
belly. I've never sat on an ash heap scraping my boils like Job
was when he cried from the depths. But I know this, a doctrine won't
make you cry. You're going to have to experience
this now. You're going to have to become this. God's going to
have to show you what you are. And you don't get that out of
a book. You don't even get it out of this book unless God comes
where you are and does something for you. A doctor is not going
to do it. And here's what I mean by that.
This is very important. The Lord does use his holy scriptures
to teach us of our sinfulness. There's no other way we're going
to know about it. And he brings that truth home to our hearts
by the convicting work of his Holy Spirit. No question about
that. And so true doctrine, the Bible,
is the means of God revealing to us what we are before him.
And I've told you many times when a lot of people talk about
doctrine, they're not talking about the Bible, though, you
see. They're talking about the doctrine
of total depravity. Or something that some man wrote
in a book somewhere. And that's fine if it's scriptural,
that's fine. It's not the Bible, though. We
need to find out what the Bible says. I believe in the doctrine
of total depravity. But somebody else's doctrine
of total depravity may be different than what I mean by that. You
don't have to wonder what I mean by this. God has one book. One book. I believe in the doctrine of
the total depravity of man. That is, that man is completely
ruined in all of his faculties. Everything we do is full of sin.
And there's no hope in ourselves. We can't do anything about it.
The inability of man. I believe that. No question about
that. But believing that's not going to cause you to cry unto
God now. I agree with that doctrine. Well, you might make a good speech,
but that's not going to take you to the depths. It's not just giving mental assent
to a statement of truth, but it is a sinner becoming, by God's
revealing grace and spirit, in his own heart, becoming the thing
that he hates. First of all, you have to hate
what God hates. Sin. And then God shows you that
you are the sin. Sin's not some quality floating
around out here that's trying to, you know, That's my enemy,
you know, from without. Sin is me. Wretched man that
I am. God be merciful to me, the sinner. That's what's got to happen.
Now, it's a sinner experiencing the fact that he himself is in
actuality a horrible, hell-deserving wretch. Have you ever experienced
that? Not the same thing as agreeing
with a point. Would you agree with that? Not the same thing. Psalm 107 says over and over,
then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble. In their trouble. And he delivered them. They didn't cry unto the Lord
in their theological studies. They cried in their trouble.
I hope the Lord will make this clear what I'm saying now. I
study. I study. And that's important,
isn't it? Important. But we cry to the Lord in our
trouble. I wish I could say it clearly. Studying, agreeing. Let me just
say what the Lord said about it. He said, you search the scriptures.
He said to the Pharisees, who knew the scriptures better than
you do, I guarantee you they did. And yet, as good as they knew
the scripture, he said, this book, all this book does is tell
of Christ. That's all. And I don't say that
to minimize it. That's everything. That's all
of it. He said, they are they which
testify of me. You know this book, but this
book, all it does is testify of me and you won't come to me.
How can you know a book that all it says is come to Christ,
go to Christ, bow to my son, hear him, believe on him? How are you an expert on that
book and yet you haven't come to him? Because you haven't experienced
it. God hasn't revealed what you
are to your wretched heart and who he is. In his holiness, in
his righteousness, in his mercy, in his love and grace. I hope
that's clear. Study is good. Understanding
true doctrine is good. Just don't confuse bare knowledge
with actual grace. Knowledge will puff you up, but
the love of God will make you something that you never were
and never could be on your own. Love builds up. He said, they testify of me,
but you won't come to me. And when you come to him, when
you see him, you come this way because when you see him that's
when you see yourself. Job said right before he said
behold I am Baal he said I've heard of you Lord by the hearing
of you. Now man I see a thing and I hate myself. That's why
I hate myself because I see you. I see what man should be. I see
perfection. I see righteousness and I see
how I measure up to that now. And when you see Him in you,
you're gonna cry. This is taking sides with God
against yourself. It's knowing that God hates what
you are by nature. I didn't say He hates you. I
don't know about that. He may love you. If He does,
He always has. And He always will. No matter
what you do, no matter what you've done, No matter what you ever
will do. But he hates what you are by
nature. We are the children of wrath, even as others. And it's
knowing that. Not just what we've done. And
no wonder he hates me. What I am by nature. Look at
me. No wonder. I would put me in
hell if I was in God's place. Can you say that? Have you ever
seen yourself as God sees you? And it comes to you in experiences.
Like I said, in life you experience it by His grace. Not everybody
will. Most won't. Most that grow up
and mature and live a life in this world will not. But you will if you're His. You'll
see proof in yourself that you ought to go to Hell. The Apostle Paul saw that about
himself, and he said, if any man loved not the Lord Jesus
Christ, let him go to hell. And he was pretty clear, that
used to be me. That used to be me. I persecuted him, he said.
I'm less than the least of all the saints. But God, when it
pleased God, He revealed His Son in me anyway. He did it anyway. And what do I mean by experiences?
Well, Jonah, he was running from God. He had defied the God of
heaven and earth. God said, here's what you're
going to do. And God's on the throne. God calls the shots.
And Jonah said, well, I think I'll do what I want to do. And
then not long from that, he says, I'm in hell. I've hit rock bottom.
And I put myself here. I deserve to be here. You see
how that happens? He wasn't sitting in his study
somewhere saying, Oh yeah, that makes sense. You see what I mean? David had committed unthinkable
sin. If I accurately describe, and
you know, most of you know what I'm talking about, but if I described
it to you accurately, it'd make you sick just thinking about
it, wouldn't it? Have you ever made yourself sick? He had committed unthinkable
sin. That when he heard about it,
he heard about what he had done from somebody else, from Nathan
the prophet. And it was a milder version of what he had done.
Nathan called, said it was a ewe lamb that that man loved. You
remember that? No, it wasn't a lamb, it wasn't an animal.
But even in that milder version of what David had done, that
he heard from somebody else, he condemned himself to death,
didn't he? He said, tell me who this is.
And they're going to die. They deserve to die. And Nathan
said, it's you, David. It's you. That's rock bottom. And that's how this comes, you
see. when you've done it, when you
are it, and you know it. Job was sitting on the ash heap and he had seen the Lord Jesus
Christ, the perfect stone against which every sinner is weighed.
You remember the balances we saw in the book of Proverbs,
the perfect stone. And he didn't say, You know, I'm
just, I'm down on my luck, what terrible luck I'm having. He
said, look what I am. This is what I am. God's finally
opened my eyes to what I am. And I'm vile. And I hate myself. Everybody who comes to this place
all have one other thing in common too. They all cry to the one
who brought them to that place. They cry unto the one. It doesn't
have to be a cry that can be heard with the human ear. The
woman who was a sinner in Luke chapter 7, it doesn't appear
that she ever made a sound. All she could do was weep. And
she washed the Savior's feet with her tears and the hairs
of her head. And she kissed his feet and anointed
his feet with ointment. It never made a sound. She just wept her heart out before
the Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledging in her heart her guilt before
him, her wretchedness before him, and expressed her love for
him. What is David crying in our text?
Out of the depths of our crowd. Is he just complaining? A lot
of people cry like that. Why me? You know. What a week
I've had. Is he cursing God? That's what
Job's wife told him to do. Just curse God and die. God clearly
has abandoned you. Just shove your fist in his face
and end it. Well, if you're still a good
person that bad things have happened to, you may well complain or
blame God. But when you are the bad thing,
when you're the sinner, you always cry the same thing from the depths. Because, you see, these depths,
these are the depths of sin, the depths of shame, the depths
of depravity. the depths of guilt before God.
That's where God brings us. He gave his law to shut us up
and cause us to own our guilt before him. Romans chapter 3, verse 2, he
says, Lord, hear my voice. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. This is
not saying your prayers. We have a lot of bad ideas about
what prayer is, don't we, that were taught from very early. It's not about saying your prayers.
It's not repeating something or rehearsing something or trying
to impress God with your eloquence, you know. The Pharisees liked
to pray publicly and show how good of prayers they were. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
don't be like them, whatever you do. Don't be like them. Don't pray like the hypocrites
do, to be seen of men. He said, go in your closet. This
is between two persons, you and God. Go in your closet. This is urgent,
isn't it? Lord, hear my voice. We saw that other place where
he said, make haste, Lord. It's urgent. It's needy. It's desperate. It's from the dust. It's humble,
isn't it? It doesn't even take for granted
that God will even hear us. He says, Lord, hear me. Will
you hear me? Hear me. But it knows this heart that
cries to God from the depths knows that everything hangs upon
Him hearing us. Everything hinges upon whether
or not God will hear me. It's a cry to the Sovereign,
isn't it? Lord, Lord. He said Lord twice in this prayer. Lord, if you will. Now that's
Sovereign. If He wants to, what can God
not do for you? You ever think about that much?
What can he not do for you? He's got power over us to forgive
all your sins if he wants to. Lord, you see who he's crying
to? He acknowledges the sovereignty
of Christ. Lord, if you will. And it's a cry to the one It's
a cry to the sovereign, Lord, if you will. It's a cry to the
one who is able to do abundantly above all that you could ever
ask or think. Lord, if you will, you can. You see that? Sovereign, you're
able. What could God not do for you? Verse 3, If thou, Lord, shouldst
mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? When we ask for
mercy, we have to do so from this standpoint, okay? If God
is pleased to deal with all of us just according to what we
deserve, everybody goes to hell. Do we understand that? We preach the sovereign grace
of God that the Lord saves whom he pleases. This is not about
man's will. This is about God's will. If
you will, you can. We preach that and people say,
that's not fair. Really? Do you know what's fair?
If God deals with us according to what's fair, we all go to
hell. Do we understand that? I don't
think we do. I don't think when people use
the word grace that it means what they think it means. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, if you just write down and keep a record and hold
me accountable for what I am and what I've done, I'm a goner! And doesn't God do that? Does
he not do that? The scripture says, the soul
that sinneth, it shall die. Didn't Paul say we all must appear
before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in
this body, whether good or bad? How then shall we stand? There's
forgiveness with thee, verse four. That's how. There's forgiveness. God does mark iniquity, and yet
it says in Numbers 21, 23 that when he looks at his people,
he doesn't see any iniquity in them. How can God look at the chief
of sinners and not see any sin? That's the good news now. That's
the gospel. And the last thing I want to
do in the world is complicate this. This is not complicated. How does God look at the worst
vile wretch that ever lived and see no sin in him? Well, let
me just let the word of God speak for itself. Colossians 112, we
give thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet. Worthy, he's
made us worthy to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light who has delivered us from the power of darkness and
has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Why in the world
would he do that? In whom we have redemption. through
His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. God makes us worthy
to be in His presence, to be accepted of Him, to be welcomed,
and not just getting a pass, not just tolerable to God, but
well-pleasing in His sight by the precious blood of His Son. That's how. It's just that simple.
It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. We just
sang it, didn't we? That's enough. There is forgiveness with God
because Christ has died for my sins according to the scriptures.
And now, he didn't die for your sins to give you a shot. If he
died for your sins, You are just and perfect and holy and righteous
before God. How do I know if he died for
my sins or not? Have you ever cried to him? Have you ever cried from the
depths of your sin and guilt before him? You know, he promised,
whosoever shall call upon my name, I'll save them. Have you
ever done that? Do you believe on him? Do you
believe that he's able? Do you believe he's sovereign?
Have you ever said, Lord, if you will, you can wash all my
sin away? It's not complicated. It's just
a matter of who he is, who you are, and what had to happen for God to forgive my sins. Christ
crucified. You're going to see who God is
by looking to Christ crucified. You're going to see who you are
by looking to Christ crucified. And you're going to see how God
saves sinners by looking to Christ crucified. No wonder Paul said
we preach Christ and Him crucified. There is forgiveness for all
those for whom He shed His precious blood, all for whom He interceded. He said from the cross, Father
forgive them. Who is He praying for? I don't
know, but I know this, they're forgiven, whoever they are. He
just got through saying in the Garden of Gethsemane, I don't
pray for this world, I pray for those whom you've given me. You
think he started praying for the world when he got to the
cross? I don't reckon, do you? Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do. Now, not knowing what you do
is not an excuse for your sin. He's not making excuses for your
sin. You know what he's saying? He's saying, Father, forgive
them because what they're doing is so... It's the epitome of evil, isn't
it? To kill, to murder God. They have no idea what they're
doing. He's not making an excuse for their sin. He's saying they
need forgiveness. Because look what they've done.
Look what they're doing. They have no idea. No idea. We can never have any idea how
horrible we are. This is the condemnation that
God sent his light, his son, into this world. And we hated
him and loved our evil. Father, forgive them. He said,
I pray not for the world, but for those which thou hast given.
Every one of them is forgiven. Christ bore our sins in his own
body on the tree, and he bore the wrath of God against our
sins, and we are forgiven, redeemed, justified, and sanctified. He bought, he purchased our redemption. The scripture says that he With
his own precious blood, with the very blood of God, he ransomed
his church and made us without blemish and without spot before
God. Now this word fear, we've got
to, let's try to get through. We won't go another hour, but let's
look at the rest of it briefly, very briefly. The word fear might
be strange there to you. There is forgiveness with thee
that thou mayest be feared. Wouldn't it sound more along
our lines of thinking if it said, there's forgiveness with thee
that thou mayest be loved, or thanked, or worshipped, but feared? Why would forgiveness inspire
fear? That's a good question. If you
were a leper, that's a disease that our Lord uses to picture
our sinfulness. horrible, wretched, disgusting,
ugly, stinking, contagious, defiled everything that they breathed
on, much less touched, and incurable. If one person had the cure, wouldn't
that person get your attention? Wouldn't you kind of be in awe
of them? Maybe listen to what they had to say. Maybe try to
get an audience with them. That's the idea here. That's
a weak, I know, illustration, but that's the idea. Wouldn't
it suddenly terrify you that that one person just might not
see you? All of a sudden there's hope,
but will he? Will he? That's that leper that
came to our Lord in Matthew chapter 8. I know, Lord, that you can make
me whole. You can make this wretched, disgusting
leper clean. But here's what I need to know.
Are you willing to do that? Would you come to sin in your
mercy to save a wretch like me? You see the attitude here? Not,
I've decided to follow Jesus. No. That's not it. Christ is so precious to us,
so vital, so important, so essential, that we are haunted by the thought
of not having Him. You see that in the word of God
now, now be honest. And I'm not saying that's a commendable
thing because I believe that's a lack of faith. The Lord's promised
to never leave us. But when we look at ourselves
and how deceptive our own hearts are, we examine ourselves. When I turn my eyes within, I'm haunted by the thought that
just maybe Listen to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, 23,
and this I do for the gospel's sake. Preaching, you know, if
you look at the content, he said that I might be partaker thereof
with you. I do what I do for the sake of the gospel, because
I need saving just as bad as you do. Know ye not that they
which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize.
So run that you may obtain. And every man that striveth for
the mastery is tempered in all things. Now they do it to attain
a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so
run, not as uncertainly, so fight I, not as one that beateth the
air. This is serious. We're not playing around. We're
not shadow boxing. This is a real fight, and we're
fighting it. I keep my body under my body and bring it into subjection,
lest that by any means when I've preached to others, I myself
should be a castaway. It's like running a race. He
said we're pursuing now. This is not a contradiction of
what paul said in romans 9 16 He said it's not of him that
runneth salvation is not of you running But having been saved
and seeing that christ is that salvation we run to him With
all of our hearts with all that we have and we keep running to
him That's what he's saying here Philippians 3 12 not as though
I had already attained either were already perfect But I follow
after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended
of Christ Jesus He laid hold of me. That's salvation. Now.
I'm gonna lay hold of him if I can And I'm gonna run to him every
day I to make sure that I lay hold of him. Brethren, I count
not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those
things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God. I'm running for the prize. What
is it? It's in Christ Jesus. He is the prize. He is the goal.
He is salvation. He's the door. He's the life. Does this verse make sense to
you? If this verse makes sense to you, I think you'll understand
what he means by, there's forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be
feared. Listen to this, Hebrews 411,
let us labor therefore to enter into that rest. Work to rest? Exactly. Do you understand that? Not working
for ourselves, not working to please God, but working, laboring,
striving to just rest in Christ. You know what the hardest thing
in the world to do is? Nothing. To rest in His arm, to rest in
His finished work of salvation, and not try to add my works to
it. Labor to enter into His rest, lest any man fall after the same
example of unbelief that we have in the Old Testament. Are you a little bit afraid of
that? Of falling? That's the warning here. And
we'll just read the rest of it. Look back at Psalm 130, verse
5. I wait for the Lord. My soul
doth wait. My soul hangs upon him now. If
this is still just about your circumstances in life, you've
missed it. You've missed him. My soul hangs
upon him. And in his word do I hope. I'm hanging upon him because
he's promised life to those that come to him. He that cometh to
me shall not be condemned but shall have everlasting life. I'm hanging on that. I'm counting
on that, aren't you? My soul hangs upon that. I call upon, he's promised if
I call upon his name, he'll save me. I've called, and now I'm
waiting on him. I'm waiting on him. I keep calling. We don't ever quit calling, do
we? I don't just have what passes
for faith and religion, that if we just believe enough, you
know, it's the, you know what, what faith is and the, by the
definition of this religious rule, it's just the power of
positive thinking. If you just believe enough, everything
will be fine. That's not it. Faith is believing
that God will do what he said. Not that if I just believe enough,
everything will be fine. I believe God. I believe God. That if I believe on his son,
if I come to his son, if I trust his son for righteousness and
to wash my sins away, He's able. He's sufficient. He's faithful. It doesn't depend on the strength
of our faith. Who's the object of your faith? And I'll tell
you if you have a real hope or not. I believe that he is able to
do what he said he'll do. Verse six, my soul waiteth for
the Lord more than they that watch for the morning, I say
more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope
in the Lord, for with the Lord there's mercy, and with him is
plenteous redemption. Where sin has abounded, his grace
has much more abounded. Plenteous, plenteous redemption. We are not to sin that grace
may abound. That's not our attitude. We'll
just sin, you know. He's grace. He'll forgive us.
We'll just sin. That's not our attitude. But
you know what? We will sin. And His grace will abound. It does abound. It much more
abounds. And He shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Now listen to me. He shall redeem
His people And you listen to what the Apostle Paul says in
the New Testament about who Israel is. They are not all Israel which
are of Israel. He's not talking about earthly
Israel here, he's talking about spiritual Israel. His elect,
his people, those whom thou hast given me that he prayed for in
John 17. He shall redeem them from all
of their iniquities. This ain't up to you. Are you
okay with that? It ain't up to you. He shall
redeem them. I'm so glad it's not up to me. He shall redeem all of his people
from all of their sins. And that's the gospel. That's
the good news. If it's up to you, that ain't
good news. When you see the truth of what
happened on the cross, he shall redeem. He said, I've come to
redeem them. I'm going to prepare a place
for you. And I'm going to come back and get you. You're going
to be with me forever. That's what's going to happen. And I'm
going to do it. When you see that, you can say with all God
forbid that I should glory. Saving that cross. Saving Christ
crucified. Amen. Let's pray.