Now having to settle upon a text or a theme
upon rather short notice, for it was our expectation that Pastor
Nichols would be preaching tonight, as I sought the face of God and
cast about in my mind this afternoon what could possibly be the word
of the Lord to us tonight, I trust in answer to prayer without hearing
any voices or claiming any direct revelation, but believing in
specific guidance as promised in the Word of God that God has
directed my mind to a psalm that I want to read in your hearing,
and then we shall concentrate upon the teaching, particularly
of two verses within that psalm. Will you follow, please, as I
read from the 130th psalm? Psalm 130. The title that appears
in the 1901 edition, the American Standard Version, is, in the Lord's forgiving love. And this is, as you will know
from the subtitle, A Song of Ascents, one of the psalms that
the people of God would sing as they made their way out of
their various geographical locations up to Jerusalem at the stated
feasts. And here the psalmist writes,
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, Hear
my voice, let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Jehovah, shouldest mark
iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness
with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord,
my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth
for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, yea, more
than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in Jehovah, for
with Jehovah there is lovingkindness, and with him is plenteous redemption,
and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Let us again
seek the face of God in prayer that God himself will come and
minister to us his own word of pardoning grace and forgiving
mercy. Let us pray. Our Father, how rich is your
holy word! And already that word has come
to our hearts in the reading of it, And we have been reminded
of your grace and kindness to preserve your people from their
enemies and to establish them in their trust in yourself. And
now, as we contemplate the psalmist's declaration of your mercy and
forgiveness to needy sinners, may the Holy Spirit take this
great truth and make it, we plead, a fresh truth to every heart. even that heart that has known
your forgiving mercy for the longest period of time, and even
to the heart that even at this moment is a stranger to that
mercy. O Lord, speak to us with clarity
and with power as together we study your holy word. Hear us
as we make our plea in the name of your beloved Son. Amen. Now I am certain that all of
us who are part of this congregation are very conscious that these
past days and weeks have been a season or have constituted
a season when we've been very much aware of the searching eye
of God in our midst, that though the Lord continually deals with
us as his people, there are seasons when there is an intensification
of his work of searching and of uncovering our sins. And in doing this gracious work
of uncovering sin, God has struck a crippling blow to the Prince
of Darkness, who would seek to hinder the work of God in our
midst, and so ensnare us in sin, and then keep us impenitent for
our sins, that the Holy Spirit would be grieved away from our
midst. However, the enemy of our souls
has not been ignorant of the work of uncovering which God
has been doing. And the enemy of our souls is
continually pressed with his own wicked ambitions with reference
to this matter of human sin. On the one hand, he seeks to
blind men to its reality and its ugliness so that they will
have no felt need of divinely provided forgiveness. That's
one thing the devil continually seeks to do, to keep men and
women, boys and girls, ignorant or insensitive to the reality
of their sin, so that they feel no need of divine forgiveness.
That was the great problem with the Pharisees. Jesus said, they
that are whole have no need of a doctor, but they that are sick,
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. But
if the enemy of our souls fails here, And if by the probings
of conscience, or by the pressure of the Word of God upon conscience,
men begin to be aware of their sins, begin to smart under the
pressure of their sins uncovered and revealed, then the enemy
seeks to blind people to the reality and nature of the divine
forgiveness which God has provided for sin, or to keep them from
the believing acceptance of that divine provision. And I'm convinced
if the enemy is seeking to do anything at this point in our
life together, he would concentrate his attacks more upon this second
issue. God has sobered us by the laying
bare of our sins. God has brought us into a season
of searching of heart. And now the enemy, having failed
to keep us in a position of justifying and excusing and covering our
sin, will seek to blind us to the reality and nature of divine
forgiveness, or to hinder us from the believing acceptance
of that forgiveness. And there is but one cure for
this twofold thrust of the enemy. As we were reminded several weeks
ago, the people of God need continually to visit two mountains. Mount
Sinai, where our sins are uncovered, and Mount Calvary, where we see
the basis of just forgiveness. And so, not unconscious of the
ways of the enemy and of our present life, As a congregation,
I want to direct your attention tonight to verses 3 and 4 of
Psalm 130, a text in which we have one of the most clear and
wonderful statements of the provision of forgiveness for sinners. If thou, Jehovah, shouldst mark
iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness
with thee, that thou mayest be feared. That great master of
heart theology, John Owen, has a commentary upon this psalm
that extends over some 320 pages, and over 200 of those pages are
an exposition and application of verse 4. There is forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared. And believe me, he has
not exhausted the theme even with 225 pages of exposition
and application. And so it's obvious that if he
could not exhaust the theme with all of those pages, I cannot
exhaust it in 45 minutes. But I hope at least to highlight
the great theme that is set before us in this text of God's holy
word. Will you note with me, first
of all, the setting of our text? We're going to concentrate on
verses 3 and 4, but they do not come to us in isolation from
other threads or strands of thought. Note with me the setting of the
text. The setting is given to us in
the language of verse 1. Out of the depths have I cried
unto thee, O Jehovah. The psalmist pens this psalm
in a condition that he describes as the depths. Now that word
in the original is the word commonly used for valleys or for deep
places, but especially to describe deep waters. And these depths
are difficulties attended with fear, with horror, with danger,
and with trouble. Now, what are the depths? What
is the situation of horror, of terror, and of trouble out of
which the psalmist cries to God, and within which this marvelous
statement of divine forgiveness is couched? Well, it's evident
that the depths had something to do with a present awareness
of the guilt of sin in the face of Almighty God. The deaths had
some connection with the desperate need for forgiveness. For the
question of verse 3 points in the direction of those deaths.
Out of the depths have I cried, if thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? So the depths have to
do with the problem of the felt pressure of guilt upon a human
conscience in the face of human sin. Furthermore, it's clear
from the emphasis of verse 4 that these deaths have something to
do with the necessity of forgiveness. There is forgiveness with thee. Verse 7, with him is plenteous
redemption. Verse 8, he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities. So these strands of thought clearly
indicate that the setting of this psalm is one in which the
psalmist is passing through an experience of felt and painful
awareness of his own sin. He is in the throes of conviction
for sin. And this conviction has become
so intense that he describes his state as the death. The deep places, the place of
danger and vulnerability and pain, out of the depths, have
I cried unto thee, O God. In other words, God has wounded
his conscience. God has brought home to his heart
the awareness of the reality and the ugliness of his sins. And so this passage, particularly
verses 3 and 4, is a text for anyone who sitting here tonight
has a smarting conscience, or for anyone who at any time in
his life will have a smarting conscience with reference to
personal sin. Then notice in the second place,
and this will occupy the remainder of our time, the substance of
the text. Having spent just a few moments
to establish that the setting of the text is a setting of the
felt consciousness of sin, what is the substance of the text?
Well, we have, first of all, a question asked, verse 3, an
assertion made, verse 4a, and a goal envisioned, verse 4b. So we look at the text and first
of all consider the question asked. Now to whom is this question
addressed? You will notice it is addressed
to Jehovah. If thou, Jehovah, or as you have
in the marginal reading, If thou, Yah, shouldest mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand? This word, Yah, is the same root
as that word translated Jehovah throughout the Old Testament,
Yahweh. It is seldom used, but when it
is used, it seems to underscore the terrible majesty of God. Notice its use in Psalm 68 and
verse 4. Psalm 68 and verse 4. Sing unto God, sing praises to
his name. Cast up a highway for him that
rides through the desert. His name is Yah, and exalt ye
before him. the exalted God who is to have
the highway under the imagery of a conquering king, this highway
made for him, it is God in his self-existent, unchangeable,
independent majesty which the psalmist envisions as he's in
the depths. He is feeling the pressure of
sin upon his conscience. He feels the overwhelming weight
of guilt in the light of that sin, and he is viewing that sin
in the light of the majesty and the exaltedness of Job. He is not thinking of sin in
terms of what it has done to himself. in terms of what it
has done even to others, but he is contemplating his sin in
the light of God's countenance. In the language of Psalm 90,
Thou hast set our sins before Thee, our secret sins, in the
light of Thy countenance. And so he addresses his question
to the majestic, eternal, ever-blessed God. If thou, Yah, shouldest
mark iniquities. Now having contemplated who is
addressed in the question, notice the essence of the question.
If you, great and majestic God, should mark iniquities. Now what does that word mark
mean? Well, the word is used in many
ways in the Old Testament, but here, as in Psalm 56, 6 and Psalm
37, 37, it obviously means to mark or to observe with diligence,
to lay up something in the memory. Notice that use in Psalm 56 and
verse 6. They gather themselves together,
they hide themselves, they mark my steps. Here are the enemies
of the psalmist seeking to track him down, they mark his steps,
they observe the patterns of his life that they might plot
his destruction. And so when the question is asked,
if thou, Yah, shouldest mark iniquities, what the psalmist
is asking is this, If you, great, self-existent, unchangeable,
independent, eternal, majestic God, if you should store up in
your memory everything that you know of me that can be called
sin, O Lord, who should stand? Job 10 in verse 14 is perhaps
the best commentary upon the significance of the use of the
word in this context. Job 10 in verse 14, If I sin,
then thou markest me, and thou wilt not acquit me from mine
iniquity. If I sin, then thou markest me. If I sin, then God, you consider
and observe that sin, and then you reserve punishment for me
on account of that sin. And notice the word used, if
thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities. And that word points to any kind
of sin against God from either table of the law. So here's the
question. If thou, Yah, majestic, holy,
self-existent God of glory and power, if you should observe
with your eye of omniscience that searches the depths of every
thought and intention of the heart, as well as every unspoken
thought, every deed, every word, if you should mark every deviation
from your holy law in thought, word, impulse, motive, desire,
as well as external deed, who could stand? That is, who among
all the creatures of the earth could appear before you and be
righteously acquitted? That's his question. Lord, if
you should mark, observe, record, and store up the deserved judgment
for iniquity, who among us could stand? That's the question that
burned in the conscience of the psalmist. And let me ask you
as you sit here tonight, has that question ever burned in
your conscience? Has that ever become the most
pressing question upon the face of the earth to you? If you're
a Christian, it has. If it hasn't, you can mark it
down. You are not a Christian. For
the devil has blinded you to the magnitude and the horror
of your sin, and you have no felt need for Christ and his
salvation. Now, having considered to whom
the question is addressed and the essence of the question,
notice what the assumed answer to that question is. If thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Who could stand? And it's obvious
that the assumed answer is none could stand, for there is not
a just man upon the face of the earth that doeth good and sinneth
not. And when we turn to scripture,
we come to a shocking discovery that the men and women most accounted
righteous by their own peers were the ones most ready to confess
the magnitude of their guilt and their sin. Job is described
as a just and righteous man above all others on the face of the
earth, and yet he cries out, I have heard of thee by the hearing
of the ear, but now mine eyes see of thee, and I abhor myself,
and I repent in sackcloth and ashes. Had he gone out on a weekend
drunk? Had he gone down to the local
area where people push their dope and shot up dope for a weekend? No, he was a blameless man. Yet when he stood before Yah,
when he stood in the presence of this great, this glorious,
this God of burning holiness, he said, I heard of you by the
hearing of the ear. But now mine eye sees you, that
is, by inward spiritual perception I've come to grips with something
of your own burning holiness, and by comparison I abhor myself
and I repent in sackcloth and ashes. Likewise with Isaiah the
prophet. Isaiah was no bum, and yet when
he saw God he said, I'm unclean. I'm unclean. I'm a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
Woe is me! He felt something of that inner
terror that comes when a sinner is exposed before a holy God. And even the great Apostle Paul
cried out, O wretched man that I am! The good that I would,
I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. Who shall deliver
me? In my flesh dwells no good thing. It is this realization that brought
the psalmist into the depths, the contemplation of the holiness,
justice, and majesty of the Lord, who is Yah, and the reality of
his own sin. And he cries out, If you, Yah,
if you should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Now that's the question. Now
notice the assertion that he dares to make. But, blessed transition,
but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. Notice first of all the focus
of his assertion. The focus of his assertion is
the reality of divine forgiveness. There is forgiveness with thee. You see, he is not concerned
simply to have peace somehow, inwardly and subjectively. He
wants to know that something has actually happened in the
court of heaven by which sin is no longer marked, but is passed
over and put away. And that's a most crucial issue
in this matter, of being right with God. Many who feel the initial
smartings of conscience are quick to get any kind of ease for their
smarting consciences, and the enemy of the souls of men is
quite ready to say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. The assertion made in our text
has a focus, and the focus is upon the reality of divine forgiveness. There is forgiveness with Thee. He's not interested in absolving
himself. He's not interested in having
a fellow mortal absolve him. He wants to know that Yah, this
great, eternal, majestic, holy God who marks the sin, is the
one who blocks out and passes over the sin. There is forgiveness
with thee and that word forgiveness means remission no longer charging
men with their guilt and liability on account of their sins so that's
the focus of his assertion divine forgiveness now notice the certainty
of his assertion but there is forgiveness with thee there is
no doubt in the psalmist mind Though he is in the depths, And
out of the depths he cries to God, he cries with a realistic
view of God's majesty and holiness, a realistic understanding if
God marks, that is, observes and holds any man accountable
for sin, no one will stand before him. And yet in the face of all
of that, he makes this certain assertion, there is forgiveness
with thee. Now how in the world did he come
to that confidence? How did the psalmist come to
the confidence that there is forgiveness with God? Well, writing
out of the context of the old covenant, a person could come
to that certainty by reviewing God's dealings with our first
parents. When Adam and Eve sinned and
ran from God, it was God who came seeking them. It is God
who gave that first gospel promise, I will put enmity between the
seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and promised that
eventually the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the
serpent. The psalmist could look back
to the institution of the sacrificial system in which God was demonstrating
in these external symbols that when guilt would symbolically
be transferred to the head of an innocent victim, the lamb,
the goat, whatever the animal or sacrifice was and that sacrifice
was slain and its blood sprinkled upon the altar and the worshipper
given access and in particular In the great ritual of the Day
of Atonement, as described in Leviticus chapter 16, God was
declaring that he was a God of forgiveness. In the establishment
of the priesthood, in the words of his promise, in his gracious
covenants, and in his dealings with men, he forgave Abel. Enoch and Noah and Abraham and
Moses were forgiven men, and by all All these means even someone
living in the relatively limited light of the old covenant could
say there is forgiveness with thee. Don't let anyone make you
pity Old Testament saints. Here is full assurance. There
is forgiveness with thee. There is this certainty of the
assertion And it was based upon the revelation God had made of
His disposition to forgive and the framework of His forgiveness,
which was that of sacrifice, the innocent dying in the place
of the guilty. But oh, if the psalmist within
that relatively limited light of the old covenant could make
this certain assertion, how much more should we be able to make
it? For we have all of that Old Testament
revelation of God's disposition and of his method of forgiveness. And added to it, we have the
reality of the enfleshed God. We have the reality of the personal
life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. We have His death and
resurrection and His ascension, the descent of the Spirit, the
inspired explanation of these events in the apostolic preaching
and writing. And then we have all of the promises
based upon all of those realities. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin. God justifies the ungodly. Christ died for the ungodly. God, who is rich in mercy for
His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in
sins, has quickened us in union with Jesus Christ. And so we
have a far broader base for the certainty of assertion that there
is forgiveness with God. And now what is the ground of
that assertion? We've already hinted that the
ground of that assertion for the psalmist was the revelation
given to him up to that moment in history, the revelation made
plain to him, made real to him by the Holy Spirit. And you and
I have, in addition to that, all that God has revealed in
Christ. and in the full revelation of
his mind and will in the New Testament scriptures and so the
psalmist can say there is forgiveness with thee not because He ceases
to be Yah, God of holiness, God of majesty, God of inflexible
justice, but because as God of majesty, as God of holiness,
He has made a way of forgiveness consistent with His holiness
and His justice. He has so loved the world as
to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now having considered the
question asked, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O
Lord, who could stand? Having contemplated the assertion
made, there is forgiveness with thee. Now notice in the third
place, the end described. What is the end for which God
conceived, procured, revealed and announces a way of forgiveness
for guilty sinners consistent with his justice and with his
holiness. What is the end? Look at the
text. There is forgiveness with thee
that thou mayest be feared. Now on the surface, that's an
apparent contradiction, isn't it? If it said If thou, Lord,
shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand, there is judgment
with thee that thou mayest be feared. We could all understand
that without much trouble, couldn't we? If you, Lord, mark iniquity as
you marked it in the days of Noah, When a whole generation,
except eight souls, were inundated in the flood, if the text said,
If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? There is judgment
with you that you may be feared. The meaning of the text would
be plain. We could take the flood and the cities of the plains,
Sodom and Gomorrah, the individual judgments that fell, the judgment
upon Nadab and Abihu, upon Achan and his family. We could find
instance after instance. Or if the text said, there is
forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be loved, then we could
understand that. And it wouldn't take much explanation
to explain it. But on the surface, this seems
to be a contradiction. If, Lord, you should mark iniquities,
who could stand? But there is forgiveness that
you may be feared. That seems to be a contradiction.
If it said judgment to be feared, or forgiveness to be loved, I
could understand it. But it says forgiveness that
you may be feared. Now the key is in understanding
the word feared. This is not the fear of dread
which results in an aversion to God, which is always the case
when sin is known and its guilt felt, but it is not forgiven. That's the fear that Adam had
in the garden. God came to him and said, Adam,
where are you? And what was Adam's response?
I heard your voice and I was what? Afraid. And he ought to
have been afraid. That was the fear of dread by
which he ran from God. And he should have run. Yes,
he should have. He was guilty. God was marking
his iniquity. The anger of God burned against
him. He knew God's word. In the day
that you eat, dying, you will die. And now he wonders, what
will the full weight of God's threat be? I have violated the
command of my God, and as a God who keeps his word, he has marked
my iniquity. He's full of dread, the fear
of dread, which always creates an aversion to God. That's why
an unforgiven sinner can never draw near to God. Truly draw
near to God. An unforgiven sinner who has
any sense of his sin cannot draw near to God. He runs as Adam
did, and he hides. But this fear is that fear of
God which is the very soul of true religion. It includes love,
reverence, and trust, and all of the graces produced by those
three great graces of love, of reverence and of trust. And according
to this text, the great end for which God has made a way of righteous
forgiveness, has revealed it to men, seals it to their hearts
by the Holy Spirit, is that such forgiven sinners may fear Him,
that is, be bound to Him in cords of deepest love, deepest reverence,
and deepest trust. And these are the very terms
of God's covenant of mercy, as clearly stated in such passages
as Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah 32, and Ezekiel 36. Notice as I just
read briefly from these passages. Jeremiah 31, verses 31 to 34,
Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I'll make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, Not
according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, verse
33. This is the covenant that I'll
make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord.
I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will
I write it. And I will be their God, and
they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them
to the greatest. For I will forgive their iniquity,
and their sin will I remember no more. And in Hebrews 8 and
10, this passage is quoted as being fulfilled in Jesus Christ
and in gospel provisions now. Not some future blessing for
ethnic Israel, here and now in the gospel. Now notice, the same
God who says, I'll put my law in their inward parts. I will
fully and completely forgive their iniquities. I'll no longer
mark their iniquities. I will forgive and pardon them. Notice what he says in Jeremiah
32. In doing that work, beginning
with verse 37, I will gather them out of the
countries whither I have driven them in mine anger and wrath
and great indignation, bring them again to this place and
cause them to dwell safely. They shall be my people, I will
be their God. I will give them one heart and
one way. that they may fear me forever
for the good of them and their children after them. And I will
make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn
away from following them to do them good. I will put my fear
in their hearts. Now notice that they may not
depart from me. Here is a fear that does not
cause its possessor to run from God, but to cleave to Him. To
cleave to Him in deepest bonds of love, of reverence, and of
trust. You see, it is the promise of
full pardon that produces this true fear of God in the heart
leading to a life of whole-souled obedience and perseverance in
the ways of God. Now, why is this so? What is
the connection at the level of our own psychology and experience? Well, I believe it is this. He
who is ignorant of God and of his own sin despises God. There are some of you sitting
here tonight that God is a boring subject to you. To put it bluntly,
God is a boring subject to you. Christ is a boring subject. Forgiveness,
the blood of the covenant, pardon, mercy, these are boring subjects
to you. Why? Because you're ignorant
of who God is and what you are. If you could but see Him as the
mighty God, exalted, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises,
doing wonders, God of pure eyes than to behold iniquity who will
by no means clear the guilty if you could but see him with
the eyes of the soul in all of his glorious splendor and then
see your own heart and see your own sin against the backdrop
of the white light of his burning holiness. You would not despise
God and regard him as a boring subject and his son and his forgiveness
as matters of indifference. He who is ignorant of God and
of his own sin despises God. He who has some true knowledge
concerning God and of his own sin will dread God. You see,
once you begin to take who God is seriously and take what you
are seriously, you can no longer despise God. You can't ignore
Him. You can't count Him a boring
subject. But neither can you draw near
to Him. Begin to discover who He is and what you are, and like
Adam, you'll run from Him. You'll dread God. But he who
comes to the knowledge of God as a God of forgiveness and embraces
that forgiveness We'll fear God in the language of the hymn in
our own hymn book with deepest, tenderest fear. And that will
be the fear that binds us to him in a life of loving, trustful
obedience. And the psalmist understood that. He was not taking sin lightly. He was not trying to calm himself
into some notion that sin is not quite as bad as his conscience
was telling him. No, he says, out of the depths
have I cried. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities,
even the iniquities of your covenant people, O Lord, who could stand? That's the cry of a man who takes
God and his sin seriously. But he also takes seriously the
God-given provision for sinners, the reality and way of forgiveness. There is forgiveness with thee
to this end that thou mayest be feared. Now, by way of concluding
application, what does this text say to us? Well, obviously it
strikes a death blow to all of the Romish teaching. that full
and free forgiveness received by faith in Christ alone will
lead to a life of license. The Council of Trent has never
retracted its pronouncement of anathema upon anyone who teaches. that sinners, upon believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ, are upon the moment of looking away
from themselves to Christ alone for pardon, fully, completely,
eternally pardoned and accepted as righteous in the sight of
God on the grounds of the obedience and death of Jesus Christ. The
Roman Church has never retracted her anathemas her curses upon
those who preach free pardon for believing sinners because
poor Romish Deluded Romish theologians think that if we tell sinners
that they are pardoned solely on the works of another, that
will lead to a life of carelessness, a life of indifference to holiness
and self-denial and obedience. And it's only if you're conscious
that you are working for forgiveness that you really fear God. That's
not what the text says. It says, there is forgiveness
with thee, not that you may be despised and treated rightly
and carelessly. There is no true fear of God
apart from the reception of mercy and forgiveness. And so this
text strikes a death blow at every notion that full assurance
in divine forgiveness leads to a life of carelessness. But it
also strikes a death blow to all talk of cheap grace. People
who say, oh yeah, there's forgiveness, who even when they contemplate
sin in the midst of temptation say, oh well, if I sin, I can
always go to the Lord, there's forgiveness. Listen, my friend,
it doesn't say there is forgiveness with thee that we may sin with
a high hand. That is not what the text says.
And if you use the truth of free forgiveness based upon the work
of Christ as an excuse to sin, you turn the grace of God into
lasciviousness. Do you actually do what I've
described in moments of temptation reasoned that way? Oh well, there
is forgiveness. No sin I may commit is greater
than God's grace. Therefore, I can sin and come
and tap into that grace after I've wallowed in my filth After
I've drunk down the cup of my iniquity, my friend, if you think
that way, you beware lest you come under the frightening condemnation
that God describes in the book of Jude with reference to those
who turn the grace of God into a license for sin. Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we who
have died to sin live any longer therein? If the faith of forgiveness
is the faith born of God's regenerating work, it has brought you into
union with Christ. And if it's brought you into
union with Christ, it's brought you into union with Him in the
virtue of His death and resurrection, so that His death for sin has
become your death to sin. And you fear Him, and you dread
to sin. lest you should abuse the grace
of God. This strikes a death blow to
Romish teaching. It strikes a death blow to all
antinomian talk of cheap grace. But thank God it does set before
us the one way in which guilty sinners can find acceptance with
God. If God marks your iniquity, my
friend, you won't stand. Now, what are you going to do
about the reality of your iniquity? What are you going to do about
all the thoughts and words and attitudes and deeds and motions
and desires that have been violations of God's law? You can go out
and get yourself stoned and forget. Yes, but God doesn't forget. He marks them. You don't keep the records. He
does. You can shut it out of your mind
when you sneak off for your immoral relationship with that man or
woman. When you sneak off to blow your
mind on drugs and booze, you can crowd out of your head the
fact that God is marking your iniquity. But that doesn't change
the fact that He's marking your iniquity. That's why Revelation
20 says in the final day, the books will be opened and the
dead will be judged out of the books, according not to their
memory of their sin, but according to God's knowledge of the sin,
according to their works. Young man, young woman, you listen
to me. You better take seriously that
God marks your sin. You may do everything to rub
it out of your conscience, but it doesn't rub it out of God's
book. And you'll stand before God. And what a horrible thing
to have God pronounce your sins in your ears and demonstrate
to the entire moral universe that when He says, depart from
me, He is utterly just. He is God. He is the majestic,
exalted, holy, spotless, righteous judge when He sends you into
hell laden with your sins. You better take that seriously.
Oh yes, you can go out of this meeting, and you can turn on
your radio, and you can fill your ears with jungle music,
hell music. There's a preview of the cacophony
of the damned in the pit. Oh yes, you can do it. But my
friend, it doesn't affect God's book. He's marked your iniquities. He's marked your iniquities,
and you're going to meet them. And you won't stand, for the
great day of His wrath is coming, and who? shall be able to stand."
Oh, thank God for the next statement. But there is, there is forgiveness. There is forgiveness. And oh,
my unconverted friend, why do you despise that forgiveness?
God doesn't ask you to go out and cut off your fingers. He
doesn't ask you to crawl on your knees, even to the front of this
building, let alone to Rome or any other place. All he asks
you to do is leave the things that will damn you and take the
gift of his own salvation in the person of Christ that will
remove all of your guilt, will give you the status of a son
or daughter in his family, that will endow you here and now with
the rights and privileges of an adopted member of the household
of God and start a work in you that he will not let off. until
he's made you over into the very likeness of his dear son. And
when by grace we've come to taste of that forgiveness, then we
can say, Oh, how I fear the living God with deepest, tenderest fears
and worship thee with penitential tears. Dear child of God, what
sin has God uncovered? What ugly morass of uncleanness
and devious actings of your own heart and mind has God laid bare
in recent days? Don't go on crippled. Don't go
on in the state of aversion from God, feeling the uncleanness
and the distance. There is forgiveness. There is
forgiveness. There is forgiveness. There is
forgiveness. But not for those who cover their
sin, for he that covers his sin shall not prosper. Not for those
who extenuate their sin and say, well, my circumstance, my friend,
stop all that foolishness. Come before God and say, God,
it's my sin, my sin, my sin. It was my sin, the child of my
own remaining corruption. It was the fruit of my own indwelling
corruption and remaining uncleanness. Oh, God, it's my sin. But I have
not exhausted the virtue of the blood of your son. How many times
have I come before God with this very passage and opened my Bible
and put my finger upon the verse and found that the only way I
could get relief to my conscience, God didn't need to have me point
to his word, but I don't think he's upset when I do it. And
I actually say, Lord, this is your word of promise. There is
forgiveness with you. seal that forgiveness to my heart.
That's the latter part of the song. I wait for the Lord. You
see, he didn't go in, rush into the presence of God, say a few
words of penitence and rush out. He waited upon God, that God
might seal to his heart experimentally. with spiritual relish, the reality
is His forgiveness. He waited upon the Lord, not
to earn forgiveness, it was freely extended, not in any way to do
some kind of penance, but to have His own soul, as it were,
drink in the wonder, the freshness of forgiving mercy, that He might
go out more firmly bound to God in bonds of true holy fear. May God grant that this passage
of His Word will minister to all of our hearts by the power
of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray. Our Father, we do marvel that
there would be forgiveness for the likes of us. We have sinned
times without number. Our sins are known fully only
to your eyes. But we thank you that as far
as your eye searches out the magnitude and the horror of our
sin, so you cast over our sins your forgiveness. And for this
we praise you. We thank you for the remission
of sin, the forgiveness of sin, that you have declared in your
word that you have buried them in the depths of the sea. You've
blotted them out as a thick cloud. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. O how we thank you, we praise
you. And O God, for those who despise
this forgiveness, because they do not take you seriously nor
their sin seriously, may your word so fasten itself upon their
consciences that they'll not be able to sleep this night until
they know that this forgiveness is theirs. We pray for any of
your children who are walking, as it were, lame and halt and
maimed because you've discovered sin to them. And yet they've
been reluctant to come to that one place where even your sinning
children find forgiveness imparted and sealed afresh to their hearts
by the Holy Spirit. Oh, God, to such may your word
come with power. that they may know that there
is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared. Oh, increase
in us that holy fear which is the intended fruit of your gracious,
forgiving mercy. Seal your word to our hearts
and to your name be praise and honor and glory through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.