Let's turn to a familiar chapter
in 1 John. 1 John chapter 1. 1 John chapter 1, we'll read down
through the chapter First two verses of chapter two. That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word
of life. For the life was manifested and
we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal
life. which was with the Father and
was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard,
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us. And truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And these things
write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is
the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that
God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that
we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and
do not the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all
sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. My little children,
these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. And he is the propitiation for
our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world. Let's pray. our Lord and our God, our Heavenly
Father. We approach your throne of grace
in that name which is above every name, that high and holy name
of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for this, your holy
word that's just been read. We thank you for the Gospel we've
heard this morning concerning him who loved us and gave himself
for us. Most of all, we thank you for
the living word, even your son, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
Lord, we thank you for this place you've blessed us with to come
to meet, to hear your gospel, to worship you, Spirit and in
truth, we pray that we do that here tonight to glorify your
name. Lord, we thank you for your mercy,
for your grace upon us, for giving us faith to believe your word. Lord, we thank you for this people
here, your children. Thank you for your servants.
faithfully declare the gospel unto us. Pray for Brother Brad
tonight as he proclaims the gospel to us. Thank you for Brother
Donnie. For Sister Shirley, we pray for
their safe return. Lord, cause us to worship you
tonight here, spirited in truth. Save us by your grace, forgive
us of our sin. Cause us to look unto you for
all things, in Christ's name we do ask. Amen. I sit there thinking. of the service thus far, as I
said in the study with the men, and Brother Gary read the scriptures
and prayed, and Dirk read the scriptures and prayed, and Gary
led us in the songs, congregational hymns, and then Seth sang for
us. It appeared to me that our hearts are knit together, that
we all desire that Christ be honored and glorified and lifted
up, and that is so evident and also we pray for one another.
I'm so appreciative of that and we are very blessed here to have
one heart that loves the Lord supremely and love one another. So my heart rejoices, a delight
in that. I've got two verses of Scripture
I want to read tonight, and you all know these Scriptures, and
I know most of you could probably quote them. The first one is
found in 1 Peter 3. In verse 18, For Christ also hath once suffered
for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.
And then turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. For He that is God the Father
hath made Him, God the Son, to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. My subject tonight is a familiar
subject, familiar scriptures, familiar subject, substitution. More specifically, Christ our
substitute. In today's modern religion, it's
not a popular subject. I would venture to say that if
you scan the Cumberland County, there was not one message preached
on substitution outside this fellowship. I would venture to
say that, and it's not a very big venture, I would say. When a man begins to look into
substitution, it reveals what sin is, what man is. It reveals God's wrath and His
fierce indignation against sin. And it reveals an accomplished
redemption, an accomplished, finished salvation. And men don't
go there. They have no interest in that.
They have no need of a finished, accomplished salvation. They're
participating in it and working their own salvation by their
own so-called righteousness. And you know, what we believe,
what the scriptures teach, when we believe what the scriptures
say, what the scriptures teach, what we believe is unbelievable. Our flesh cannot believe God,
cannot believe His Word, cannot believe His Gospel, cannot believe
His Son. We must have the Spirit of God
imparted to us, the life of God given to us, and faith given
to us to believe what our flesh can never believe and will never
believe and bow to. So if you're here tonight and
you are one of God's, and you have said, I believe God, you're
like Abraham, I believe God, I believe God, and you owe all
that you have and all that you are to God who gave you that
faith. If you're here and you do not
believe God, you need to cry out to God, God give me faith. Come and reveal yourself to me. Teach me out of your word. You
remember that Ethiopian eunuch, when Philip was sent to him,
he was reading out of Isaiah 53. And Philip said, do you understand
what you read? And he readily admitted, how
can I, unless some man teach me? You will never learn of God's
Christ and his blessed gospel and the truth of his gospel and
who you are and who he is and where salvation is found by your
searching, by your doing, by your looking, by your endeavors. God must come and give you light
and reveal himself to you and we are dependent upon him to
supply every need And that includes our faith, even the very faith
to believe Him and to trust Him. But I want us to look tonight.
We believe that we are saved by one who came and represented
us before God, stood in our stead and died in our place and suffered
the penalty due our sin. Virgin born, son of the Father,
anointed by God, And our sin was charged to Him, and He bore
the penalty due our sin. My sin became His. We sang that
song a minute ago, it's got a line in it. All my sins on Him were
laid. He took my sins and my sorrows,
that's what it was, and made them His very own. The sinless One made my sin His
own sin. You know, sometimes we talk about
the doctrine of substitution and our minds are removed from
the reality of what took place. Our Lord actually became a man
like you and I are men. He actually died, He suffered
and died in our place and died a cruel death at the hands of
men. And He suffered the fierce wrath
of God to the full. And in reality, He was made sin. You know, there's some thought
out there that It's wrong to say that Christ was made sin.
We defile the Savior by saying that. That's not what the Scripture
teaches. Flip over to Psalm 40 for just
a moment. Psalm 40 and verse 12, and this
is our Lord speaking. He says, For innumerable evils
have come past me about, and mine iniquities, mine iniquities,
he had no sin of his own, but he took our sins and made them
his very own. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me. He made
them His very own. He was made to suffer. Some say
that God punished Christ as though He were a sinner. God never does
anything in half measures. He condescended and took our
place. He condescended all the way down
that we may be raised all the way up to the full. God doesn't
do things in half measures. and say, I'll go this far, no
further. I'll take on this much, but no more. He became sin. He was made what we are and suffered
and died in our place and bore the wrath of God, whatever that
is, what that must be. I don't know. But he bore it. He bore our hell. Our sin was laid on Him and He
made an end of it, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. We are righteous. As God's people,
we've never sinned. It's put away. We never sinned. That's the fullness, the completeness
of the salvation that's in Christ Jesus. Scott used to say, He
didn't paste on a righteousness, and God didn't paste sin on Christ. He was made sin, and we're made
righteous to the full. And I heard Greg Elmquist say
this here recently. He said, he read over there in
Lamentations, Is it nothing to you, all of you that pass by,
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow wherein he hath
afflicted me in his fierce anger? And Greg made this statement
and it stuck with me, I think it's right. As we, is it nothing
to you that pass by, the view of Christ on the cross,
as a substitute for sinners, will be one of two things to
every man. And he said, don't look for any
middle ground, because there is none. It'll be everything
to you or nothing to you. That's everything to the believer.
As we look at Christ dying on the cross for our sins, there's
my hope. And it's a good hope. And it
fills my every need. It's all. He's always nothing. And there's some of us here tonight. I know he's everything. We must
have him. And we see him as our all and
in all. But our aspirations this evening
are high aspirations. The truths we endeavor to set
forth are high and lofty truths. which we touched on a moment
ago, man cannot reach it, cannot grasp it. And we, in our flesh,
we still cannot fully grasp it. It leaves us. That's why we come
and hear the Word of God again and again. I come to service
sometimes and just, oh Lord, speak to my heart and convince
me once again that there's hope for me. I've heard the gospel
all my life and I still, I have to hear it. I have to have it.
I have to see him dying for me as my substitute, bearing my
sins. Not just believe in the doctrine
of substitution or the doctrine of election or total depravity,
but seeing him as my representative, bearing my sin in his own body. Lord, let me get a glimpse of
that every time we meet and in between those times, keep it
fresh in my mind. But this defies human reason.
I had a man tell me one time that he said, now I've researched
this and I, you know, It just can't be right that God doesn't
love everybody. I've done my research and I don't
agree with you because this is what my research has discovered.
And that just sunk my heart. You don't find out the truth
of God by research, by searching, by looking, with your own reason,
your own thinking. You approach the scriptures,
read the scriptures, But with a heart crying out to God, show
me, teach me the truth. Send your spirit and teach me
what this book is saying. Like the Ethiopian eunuch, who's
he speaking of? Phil preached to him Christ.
God sends preachers to tell men of Christ from his word. And
it's by revelation. But we've got three persons in
our text here in 2 Corinthians 5. We have God the Father, God
the Son, and then there's us, the elect, the elect of God. First point is that none but
God can cause His Holy Son to be made sin. That's God's doing. That's God's act. holy of God
and the cause being in God. He was made sin by imputation.
Only God can impute sin. Only God can do that. And the
sins of all His people was transferred to His Son, laid upon Him. Our
iniquities, all my iniquities on Him were laid and charged
to His account. He did not become a sinner through
any act of His own, but through His Father's act of imputation,
He was charged with our sin, having none of His own. And it
was God that did it. It was He that made His soul
an offering for sin. And He delivered Him up into
the hands of justice, into death, into the hands of men. And he
bore the punishment due our sin by the wrath of God. And here's
the thing, he made satisfaction. And he atoned for that sin, whereby
we're accepted wholly and totally, eternally and completely by and
through what he did in our behalf. We read in Romans 8 verse 3,
for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the
flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for sin, condemned sin, in the flesh. You know, we sing
that song, when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent
Him to die, I scarce can take it in. It's just too good to
be true. It's too good to believe apart
from grace, apart from God-given faith. You know, we remember
the story of Abraham who was commanded by God to take his
only son Isaac up on the mound and offer him there for a burnt
offering. And as Abraham stretched forth his hand and took that
knife to plunge it into the heart of his son, God sent an angel
to stop him. and he provided a ram instead
for the sacrifice. But there was none to help or
to provide another way as God the Father slayed his son. He
didn't withhold the knife from his own son. He spared Abraham
and Isaac, but himself he spared not. He gave his own son for
us. He plunged the knife of His wrath
into the heart of His Son, and He caused Him to suffer, and
to bleed, and to die. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by, what took place at the cross? And isn't it a
wonder that God didn't do this for good people? He did it for
you and me. Is it nothing to you, all you
that pass by? And He did it that we, what's
it say? That we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He would have us righteous because
He would have us righteous. Not because we called on Him
to come and make us righteous. Because He would have us righteous.
He would have a people. He hath done this that He might
make His people the righteousness of God. And He's purposed the
means and He's purposed its end. Do you reckon He'll accomplish His
purpose? That's a rhetorical question, isn't it? He's God. You see, this is God Almighty's
doing. This is God procuring salvation
for His own people. This is God making a way. And
He's here doing what none but He can do. None but He can do
it. Salvation is of the Lord. That
theme runs throughout the Scripture. Old Testament and New. Salvation's
of the Lord. If we're to be saved, God must
save us. No hope in man. You or I have
no part in the accomplishment of it. Men see no accomplishment in
the death of Jesus Christ. But what glory is in the accomplishment
of it? I see in the death of Christ,
God's mighty arm saving His people by the death
of His Son and accomplishing redemption, full and sure. all that He's chosen unto salvation. It was planned and it was purposed
and carried out to completeness and perfection entirely outside
of myself. He chose us before the world
began. He sent His Son in time. And for us here, God died. and paid the penalty for sin,
Christ died on the cross before we were ever born. So this work was accomplished
totally outside of ourselves to completeness and perfection. Now does He wait for us? God
waits for no man. We wait on Him. We need to wait
on Him. I was telling some of the men,
Joe Terrell preached down there in Florida the other day, in
Psalms it says, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee. And he
said, Leave it there, don't try to fix it. Cry out and wait. Wait on the Lord. Cry out and
wait. He hears the cries of the needy,
those that be cast down. But He doesn't wait on us to
respond favorably to His attempt to save us. He shall, through His Son being
made sin, make His people the righteousness of God in Him. And what assurance this gives
a believer when he finds out that his salvation is accomplished. What assurance that gives a believer. It says two things, all God's
people must be saved and shall be saved. And none of his people can ever
be lost. Nothing we can do to be saved,
nothing we can do to be lost. My oh my, it doesn't get any
better than that. And what are we called on to
do? Believe. You say, I can't do that. I don't
know if I can do that or not. Who are you going to believe?
Are you going to trust yourself, your own heart, your own reasoning?
Believe God. God's to be believed. God's to
be believed. And that's it. Believe God. Believe Him. Trust Him. Follow
His feet. So we have the utmost confidence
in the substitutionary death of Christ for His people, where
it's conceived and it's carried out by none other than God Almighty
Himself, who cannot fail. And He will have His people,
He will have His own. And if God did it, it's well
done, and it's perfectly done, and it's complete. If it's God's
salvation, And there is only one salvation, and it's God's
salvation. Well, let's consider Him, our
Lord Jesus Christ, in our text. God the Son, the second person
of the Trinity, who was made in the likeness of sinful flesh,
He whom God made sin. We can't enter into that, what
all that entails. Can't explain it. I don't even
know why folks try to explain it. It's to be believed. He was made in the likeness of
sinful flesh and God made him sin. The God-Man, great is the
mystery of godliness. God was in Christ reconciling
the world to Himself, great mystery. The God-Man, and He came into
the world to die. His purpose was to die. He came
to die. He came to stand as a substitute
for sinners before the justice of God and be judged and found
guilty, to be found with sin laid upon Him and to endure the
wrath of God against that sin that He bore. But as God discharging
sin's awful punishment in behalf of His people and putting an
end to it, First of all, note that our Lord
Jesus Christ is a pure, spotless man. He's God Almighty. No sin. He's without sin. Though He was made in the likeness
of sinful flesh, He knew no sin. He knew no sin. And the rulers of that day concurred
with that. They said, this man had done
nothing amiss. They found no fault in him, no
cause of death in him. Judas Iscariot himself said,
I betrayed innocent blood. And he must be so. He must be
perfectly spotless to be an acceptable substitute. Look over in Leviticus
chapter 22 and we'll read that. To be qualified. as a substitute,
as a sacrifice for sin. Begin reading there in verse
17, And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, and unto all the
children of Israel, and say unto them, Whatsoever he be of the
house of Israel, or of the strangers in Israel, that will offer his
oblation for all his vows and for all his freewill offerings
which they will offer unto the Lord for a burnt offering. He
shall offer at your own will a male without blemish of the
bees of the sheep or of the goats, but whatsoever hath a blemish,
that shall he not offer, for it shall not be acceptable for
you. And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord
to accomplish his vow, or a freewill offering in beefs or sheep, it
shall be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no blemish therein.
Blind or broken or maimed or having a wind or scurvy or scabs,
ye shall not offer these unto the Lord, nor make an offering
by fire of them upon the altar unto the Lord. Either a bullock
or a lamb that hath anything superfluous or lacking in his
parts, that mayest thou offer for a freewill offering, But
for a vow it shall not be accepted. You shall not offer unto the
Lord that which is bruised or crushed or broken or cut. Neither
shall you make any offering thereof in your land. Neither from a
stranger's hand shall you offer the bread of your God of any
of these, because their corruption is in them and blemishes be in
them. They shall not be accepted for you." Our Lord was a perfect
sacrifice in His own person. a suitable sacrifice to be offered
for the sins of His people. The spotless Lamb of God being
offered for the sins of His people. You see, a suitable sacrifice
must be perfectly innocent to atone for the sins of others. And so our Lord is, but as perfect
and sinless man, which He is and which He was, He yet cannot
atone for sin, but as God, with whom all things are possible
and of whom it is said, there's nothing too hard for God, He's
able to atone for the sins, not His own. He's the God-man. So we now see that our Lord Jesus
Christ is perfect man and holy God in one person. God was in
Christ, the blessed substitute, reconciling the world unto Himself,
by Hisself, by the virtue of His person, who He is, perfect
man and holy God in one person. And we quoted this a moment ago
from 1 Timothy, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. He robed
himself in human flesh and was made under the law, but he owed
nothing to that law, for he perfectly fulfilled it in all respects.
The law had no claim on him until he became sin. And then the judgment
fell upon him because he owed obedience to that law. And he
was capable, as God, of standing in the room and place instead
of others. He was under no obligation of
his own to the law, or else he could not enter into bonds for
guilty men. And he did, and he put our sin
away. So he's qualified, he's suitable, and God accepted his offering.
He offered himself to God without spot, without wrinkle, to God. In Isaiah 45, 24 we read, Surely
shall one say, And the Lord have I righteousness and strength,
even to him shall men come. And all that are incensed against
him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all of the
seed of Israel be justified and shall glory." Our hope's in Him,
and it's a sure hope, and it's an accomplished salvation. Nothing
to be added to it, nothing to be done, it's done. And then
thirdly, let's for a moment consider the us in our text. He hath made Him to be sin for
us. God hath made Christ sin for us. What a statement. What
a statement. Sometimes when you just think
on one thing, if you're reading a lot of scriptures, if you just
stop and think on three or four words, it'll just overflow your
heart. You just can't take it in. The us here are God's elect.
There's no doubt about that. For whom Christ died, they're
the recipients or the beneficiaries of what Christ did. And he was wounded for their
transgressions, for our transgressions. Most of us are numbered in that
us. And in doing so, we're free from
the burden and the guilt of sin and the penalty of sin. We won't
stand in judgment and give account for our sins, because Christ
has bore our judgment and accounted for our sins. And we're made
the righteousness of God in Him. And there's no good, the first
two persons, God the Father and God the Son, nothing but goodness,
nothing but perfection and holiness and righteousness. and majesty
and power. Can't be said about the us. Can we attribute any greatness
to us? We can attribute all the greatness
to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Can't attribute
one ounce of it to us. Not one ounce, not even any goodness,
much less greatness. No goodness in us, there's none
good. No, not one. Can we perceive any part of the
substitutionary work of God in Christ to us? We must be made
the righteousness of God in Christ. And this is a work that only
God can do. And as we were created by God
without our own aid, we would all have to readily admit that. we must be made the righteousness
of God, holy and solely by and through a sovereign work of God
on our behalf. So the us are the beneficiaries
of this great transaction. It's done outside of us and it's
done in spite of us. And we did not ask or seek to
be made righteous or did we see the need to do so. God reveals to us in time what
great things He hath done for us. And by faith which He gives us,
we lay claim to it and acknowledge our need of being made the righteousness
of God by and through Him, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So we can say this about the
us. We supply the need or the void,
the necessity of Christ's substitutionary death. If we're to be delivered,
he must come and die. We being lost and undone and
dead in sin, we stand in need of a substitute. and God provided a substitute. He provided what we need. I'm
reminded what Scott used to say, God provides what God provides,
what we need God provides, and what he provides he accepts.
God supplies our need. We need a substitute and God
provided a substitute. Having loved us before we were
without causing us, thanks be to him. We are dead in trespasses and
sins and have no ability to do what needs to be done. We cannot
help ourselves. We cannot give ourselves life. We stand in need of God to act
for us. He that created heaven and earth
must create the life of God in our hearts and create something out of nothing. We're void of the life of God.
We're dead and God must create that life in us. This need that pertains to life
and death, men think they can choose to to gain that life by their act
of faith, the faith that lies within them. But they have no
faith. We touched on that earlier. These things pertain to life
and death. God gives life. God takes life. It's Him to give. It's His to withhold. These things
come from God. God's the giver and the taker
of life. And we are totally subject to His will. We're in His hands. The verse of scripture over in
Revelation 21 talks about, there shall be no, let me read it real
quick, I thought I could quote it, but, there shall in no wise
enter into it anything that defileth, talking about the celestial city,
the heaven, There shall in no wise enter into it anything that
defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh
a lie." But who's going to enter in? They that are written in
the Lamb's Book of Life. Who wrote those names there?
I mean, that's very simple. If your name's in the Book of
Life. If your name's not in the Book of Life, you'll not enter.
And God wrote those names there before the foundation of the
world. The flesh says they can't be
right. That's what the Bible says. We're
shut up to that. We're shut up to God's will. subject to his divine will. What
can you and I possibly add to the substitutionary work of Christ? What glory can we partake in
it? What validity can we add to it? What can we do to make
it effectual? We're told in our day, we've
got the power within us to make the death of Christ effectual
to us by willing it to be so. Your free will. But the substitutionary
death of Christ, it's a completed work. It's accomplished. It's
done. A finished work. And God does
not seek any man's approval. And Christ was never offered
to you or me. Christ was never offered to any
man. He offered Himself to God and
were to bow to Him and sue for mercy. And God does not wait
for a man to be born and decide someday to accept what Christ
has done. What a ridiculous thing. Man in his awful pride, he'd
have God to be the beggar. And God's in the market as a
seller in the marketplace and waits on others to observe his
goods and decide how valuable it is and make him an offer.
That's what religion does. Ultimately determine if his time
and effort was well spent depending on what we choose to buy. And
that's what man brings God down to, down to their level. But
God is not like us. His ways are not our ways. He's
far above us. And to even think that God is
like that, waiting on us, is abomination. It's sin and it's
pride, the sin of pride that's in man that only God can root
out of him. Well, we see in Christ's substitutionary
death seemingly conflicting attributes of God being reconciled. We see mercy and justice. upheld,
mercy and justice. The center goes free. The guilty
center is set free and God's justice is satisfied and upheld
and we see vengeance and forgiveness brought together. The question
is asked, how can sinful man be just with God is answered
through a perfect spotless substitute, the just for the unjust. That's
what the scripture tells us. The flesh can't believe that.
The flesh won't believe that. The flesh got to do something
to save himself. He was made sin. And he did it
with joy and gladness. Can you imagine that? And it
pleased the Lord to bruise him. There's a scripture, I can't
remember where it is, it says that God hath planted His people
with His whole heart and His whole soul. He doesn't do things
halfway like you and I do. And what He does, He does because
He wills to do it. He desires to do it. He joys in doing it. He's glad
to do it. It's with joy and gladness. Who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God. And then
finally, he was made sin as though he did nothing but sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him as though we did
no sin and were perfectly holy. just can't be believed by our fleshly minds, can't enter
into that. And we stand entirely and wholly
through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And no wonder Paul made this
statement. He said, I'm determined to know nothing among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Spurgeon preached on this text
and he said, I have no desire to be famous for anything but
preaching the old gospel. What a blessed thing is a gospel
preacher. God sends to tell of his son
and his blessed salvation in and through his son. And let
me say, here's a wind this up. I would now encourage not only
us as believers to look to Christ for as our substitute and our
surety, our confidence and our standing before God, our peace,
our hope, our joy, our all in all. But any here tonight who
are outside of Christ look to him. It's true that he died for
his own. He died for his elect. But who
can tell if you be one? Only in coming to Him and seeing
in Him as your all in all can you discover if you're one of
His. See, God has fixed it so any
man that desires to be saved can be saved. Come to Him. We must not blame God for passing
us by, which is the first reaction of man. and leaving us alone
when we desire Him to do so. And that's what you're doing.
Can't blame God. Do you wish to come and be saved
by Him? Then come. Come to Him in your
heart and you'll hear Him say, welcome sinner, welcome. Come and welcome poor sinner. God enable you to do it. Does
that mean he'll go open up that book of life since you believed
and trusted and write your name in there? Oh, no. You'll find out it was always
there. May God bless our time together. Gary, you want to lead us in
a closing hymn? Let's stand and turn in our hymnals
to Psalm number 129.