Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 130. Psalm 130 in verses
7 and 8. Let Israel hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. and he shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Psalm 130 and verses 7 and 8. In the holy word of God, wherever
the Lord gives a fear not or a direction to hope, or to trust,
he always gives a foundation for it. In our text it is not,
let Israel hope in the Lord and nothing more, but there's a reason
given. Now I know with the psalmist
he would have been pointing to literal Israel in the first place,
but In the gospel sense, this is spiritual Israel. This is
God's children. This is those of whom Paul says,
they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. These are those
that are God's redeemed children, as is very evident from the verses. And so why should God's people
hope in the Lord? Why should a people that are
seeking, a people that feel their sinnership, are people that feel
their guilt, are people that feel in bondage. Why? Why should they hope in the Lord? And there's two reasons that
are given. Because with the Lord there is
mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. Those two things,
how suitable, how precious to a sinner. Mercy is never deserved. Mercy is not worked for, it is
freely given. It is never deserved. And with the Lord there is mercy. What a reason to hope in the
Lord, to hope in His mercy. And with Him is not just redemption,
but plenteous redemption. to redeem is to gain or regain
possession of something in exchange for payment. And we know that
without the shedding of blood there is no remission, illustrated
so clearly what is accepted in the offerings of Cain and of
Abel. The Lord had respect to Abel's
offering, which is a blood offering, but not to Cain's, which was
of the fruit of the field. The payment that is required
is that which our Lord and Saviour paid at Calvary with his own
heart's blood. But here is plenteous redemption. It is not limited, not just to
one thought of Calvary, but a great redemption and we hope to see
later how much this applies to the hoping in the Lord. And if we were to say to God's
children, well, you've been quickened into life, you've been redeemed
at Calvary, but then all of the troubles and sorrows in their
lives and all of their sins and all of their adversaries and
death itself, how we need this plenteous redemption,
not just in one aspect but in everything. Really every blessing
that comes to the Church of God is a blood-bought redemption. It is a setting free by the payment
of that price and really the mercy of the Lord is different
than Any mercy that others could give, it is mercy through blood,
because it is not mercy that is at the expense of justice
and holiness. The justice of God is satisfied,
the holiness of God is satisfied, and mercy is shown and none can
say Well that person, they shouldn't have mercy. It goes against justice
and you know we would be very up in arms in our land if we
had a criminal before the law courts and done great evil in
the land and the judge just stood up and said look I don't want
to hear really any of the evidence or perhaps he'd heard all of
the evidence and they were completely guilty, and he said, well, I
just decided I'm going to let you go free. People would be
terribly upset. They'd feel that this is not
justice at all. Quite often we hear it said,
even if sentences are passed in our land, they're not enough.
They're not severe enough. And yet, here is mercy that God
shows. And it is mercy that none can
rise up and say, look, this is complete injustice, this is so
wrong. These are guilty, hell-deserving
sinners that you're letting go. And not only letting go, but
you're bringing them to heaven and you're giving them an eternal
inheritance and eternal life. How is this fair? How is this
right? Well, that mercy through our
Lord is a blood-bought mercy. It is in the redemption of God. And so we have the assurance
given and reaffirmed in verse 8, he shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities, all his sins. And iniquities are sins against
light, against knowledge. They're aggravated sins. And
yet the Lord shall redeem his people even from them. Truly we don't just have here
redemption, but plenteous redemption. not just in one aspect, but many
aspects. And then also we have is set
forth in the Word of God that this redemption is a particular
redemption. Our Lord says in John 10, I lay
down my life for the sheep. Other sheep I have which are
not of this fold, them also I must bring. So he's gathering in the
Jews and the Gentiles and he says, these my sheep, I lay down
my life for them. How do we know who his sheep
are? My sheep, they hear my voice and they follow me. How do we
know of those that are not his sheep? And there are those that
are not his sheep. There was the Jews that were
around him, accusing him of many things. And he says, ye are not
of my sheep, therefore ye hear not my word. He was laying down
his life for some, but not for others. We have it in Numbers
chapter three at the end of that. chapter, the redemption, particular
redemption of the Lord is taught with the children of Israel when
they were brought out of Egypt and made into a nation. And of
course in Egypt, blood was shed and put over the doorposts and
on the doorposts, the lintels of the houses where they are.
The Lord passed by that night, the angel, and destroyed all
the firstborn, man and beast, except where that blood was.
The promise was, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
great antitype of that Passover lamb. And so our Lord, with desire,
had that last Passover with his disciples before he suffered. And the children of Israel were
to remember that redemption, remember that their firstborn
were redeemed or given life instead of death by blood. The way it
was to be served, the tribes of Israel, Levi was to be a tribe
that just served the Lord. They were not to have possession
in the land of Canaan. And the Levites were used to
redeem the children of Israel in that they counted the number
of the Levites And then they counted the number of the first
born in Israel, and it had to be one for one. And it turned
out that there was 273, I think it was, more of the children of Israel, the firstborn, than
those of the Levites. And so it was that Moses, the
Lord said to Moses in verse 45 of Numbers 3, take the Levites
instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel,
and the cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle, and
the Levites shall be mine, I am the Lord. For those that are
to be redeemed of the two hundred and threescore and thirteen of
the firstborn of the children of Israel, which are more than
the Levites, thou shalt even take five shekels apiece by the
pole." And it's said at the end there that Moses gave the money
of them that were redeemed unto Aaron and to his sons according
to the word of the Lord as the Lord commanded Moses. Now the
Lord didn't say, don't worry about those other 273. No, there's
23,000. What's that few number left?
No, he said, those Those that are left over, they
need to be redeemed as much as the other and payment for them. And so it is one for one. We have that taught in Proverbs
as well. A just balance and a just weight
is of the Lord. Particular redemption, a particular
love, a love that Lord had to each one that he died for. and
pour their sins in his own body on the tree, not just a general
payment for all of the world, if only they would just accept,
not an attainment of which doesn't secure countless millions who
perish. Our text says he shall redeem
Israel, not might, he shall. It is certainty and it is a particular
redemption. And where it is a particular
redemption, it is a redemption in every aspect of that plenteousness
that is set before us in our text. So I want to look, with
the Lord's help, at this plenteous redemption in the aspects of
what it is to be redeemed. Firstly, redeemed by blood at
Calvary. This is one of the reasons we
read the chapter that we did in Ephesians. In verse 7 of that
first chapter, in whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. It is that redemption that's
spoken of in Hebrews as well, where we have set before us Christ
in verse 11 of chapter 9, Christ being come and high priest of
good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not
made with hands, that is to say not of this building, neither
by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered
in, once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. And as in contrast to the blood
of bulls and of goats, how much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot
to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God. The redemption that is in the
Lord is seen in all its beauty in Calvary and what the Lord
has accomplished and done there. Paul writes to the Colossians
and he says of those who have been translated into the kingdom
of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood,
even the forgiveness of sins. The redemption, the plenteous
redemption, is seen in this first instance. in the payment of the
price. The apostle says, you are bought
with a price. Wherefore glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are his. But then secondly, it is redeemed,
redeemed by the spirit in the new birth. All of God's people have been
like we sung in our first hymn, just going along their own way,
haters of God, enemies, enemies to God by wicked works, Satan's
servants, and loving his service. But in the new birth, there is
a redemption, there is a delivering, out of Satan's hand. And it is
through that new birth and that work of grace, the Lord says
he must be born again. And the apostle writing to the
Romans, he says in chapter 3 verse 24, being justified freely by
his grace, that is, justified, made free from condemnation,
accounted, guiltless, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. So when we read in our text,
plenteous redemption, it doesn't just stop at Calvary 2,000 years
ago, but the benefits, the blessings of that redemption are known
in every sinner that is plucked as a bran from the burning and
is converted and born again and taken from Satan's dominion and
has been his servants and put amongst the children of God,
regained, reclaimed for the people of God, those that were not a
people but are now the people of God. To the redemption, this plenteous
redemption, is seen in our day. And blessed be God if we can
say it is seen in our souls and we have known it, we have experienced
it, or where we have seen it in others. Those in the Apostle
Paul's day would have seen that great change that brought him
from being an enemy to the people of God. to be one that preach
the Lord Jesus Christ. That is redemption. It doesn't
just happen. It is the Lord redeeming His
people. But then there's a third way.
Because God's dear people, like David, even though he was a man
after God's own heart, they fall. They are sinners. You know, in our text, verse
8, he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. What, just
up until the time he is converted? Or what about afterwards? After
they've come to the faith. Their sins then. What shall happen
then? Well, David wasn't just left. God sent Nathan, God sent a parable,
God brought him to be convicted of his sin, brought him to own
it, to confess it, I have sinned. And then it was pronounced, the
Lord hath also put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. How could
it be said so quick? Because there is plenteous redemption,
plenteous redemption in the Lord. And a soul redeemed at Calvary,
a soul redeemed in cold and quickened by grace, that same redemption
is there for him when he sins, when he falls, to recover from
that fall. And yes, the way of transgressors
is hard. The sword did not depart from
David's house, the troubles, the sorrows that he had, but
he wasn't cast out as a child. He didn't perish eternally. In
one sense, he would have seen by faith, when his child died,
that it would be his greatest son, of whom he spake in Psalm
22, beautiful prophecy of our Lord, and in all his sufferings,
that David, like Abraham, saw Christ's day and rejoiced at
it. And David partook of that redemption. What a message to us that sin,
May we never love sin, may we be delivered from the love of
sin, we do by nature, but may the Lord redeem us from our sins. There is plenteous redemption
with Him. You might wonder how we can be
recovered, how we can be saved from the power of it, from the
lust of it and the world and from sinful habits and ways and
besetting sins. Well, the way is in this book.
There's plenteous redemption to be set free by this same payment
of a price. Plenteous redemption. But what
about the troubles, all the troubles that we have in our lives? In the fourth place, we think
of the end of Psalm 25, the last verse. redeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles. And dear Jacob, and Jacob had
many troubles, didn't he? And how many of them came from
his own sin and reaping what he had sown, deceiving his father,
making out he is Esau. And yet the Lord then in mercy,
blesses Jacob and blesses him when stones are his pillow. But then Laban, he deceives him
ten times. And then we find that there is
his own sons deceive him concerning Joseph. These troubles that Jacob
had, he refers to these, he says, as he blesses his his grandchildren
in Genesis 48, he blessed Joseph, but then he
says this, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lands
and let my name be named on them and the name of my fathers, Abraham
and Isaac. and let them grow into a multitude
in the midst of the earth. And you know, dear Jacob could
look over all of his life and look over all of those troubles
that he'd been in and the Lord redeemed him from them. He didn't
just get out of troubles. They didn't just come to an end
of their own. No, they came all because of
what Christ was to do for him. And for all the God's people,
may we remember this, remember this, of what we have in our
text, this plenteous redemption, bound up with that, is what is
your trouble tonight? What is mine? We say with thee,
Psalmist, the troubles of my heart are enlarged. Or like the beginning of this
psalm, out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Jonah,
in the depths, when he was in the whale's belly, he cried unto
the Lord. And he says, salvation is of
the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish.
vomited him out on the dry land. And our Lord referred to Jonah
as a sign, a sign to the Ninevites and a sign to those of his day,
that as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's
belly, so the Son of Man should be so in the heart of the earth. If you and I have troubles, we
cannot see any way Our eyes return to this same redemption, this
same way of escape and same deliverance. Then we have in the fifth place
a redemption from bondage. The children of Israel were in
bondage in Egypt and the Lord delivered them from that bondage.
Nine signs and wonders would never loose them from it, except
when that blood was shed in the tenth sign, and then they were
thrust down. And when we read of it, there's
many, many references through Deuteronomy and through the Psalms,
it is always emphasized that they were redeemed from bondage. They were never to forget that
they were in bondage. and the Lord had delivered them
from that bondage. Now maybe tonight you feel to
be in bondage, bondage to your sins, bondage to the world, bondage
to lust, bondage to the fear of man. The fear of man bringeth
a snare. Labouring and held fast and cannot
get free. And we are to think of the children
of Israel, impossible that case seemed and in one way the Lord
emphasized the impossibility of it by sending those signs
that reduced Egypt to ruin and yet that didn't do anything and
you may have looked at many ways you think how how can I be released
from bondage to this or that How can I be set free? Well,
the children of Israel were set free by being redeemed and our
text says, with him is plenteous redemption. God's dear children
do know what bondage is and there's some of us here that know what
bondage is. And what a mercy when we are
to remember that the Lord setteth free his captives. He looses the bonds. Think of
those Hebrew children. They had to wait so long, didn't
they? They might have thought the Lord
had delivered them from their bonds before they got into the
fire. But the fire was the means. loosening their bonds. May it
be so with us. Our flesh doesn't like those
fiery trials that the Lord often uses those fiery trials to bring
us into. It's like those three Hebrew
children had the Lord with them. I am with thee, says the hymn
writer, Israel passing through the fire. And it's through that
time that the Lord then loses that bondage and delivers out
of those things that have been holding them fast. With him is
plenteous redemption, redemption from bondage. But then there is in the sixth
place that redemption by death to heaven. Again, the portion
that we read in Ephesians. We have in verse 14 in that first
chapter, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory. The Lord has purchased his dear
people, purchased them at Calvary, purchased them, redeemed them
right the way through their lives. But his will is, Father, I will
that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory. The Lord says when we see the
signs of the end of the world and there are those that are
falling upon the rocks and the hills to hide them from the face
of him that sitteth on the throne, that the people of God are to
look up For their redemption draweth nigh, that is, they are
to be redeemed from the earth, they are to be brought to the
Lord. And for most it will be in the
time of death, is when the Lord comes to take his redeemed home,
to be with him, so that they actually are with him. And that is a precious thing,
that this is the whole end and aim of the law, that his people
be not just redeemed through remain and stay here, but they
are to be with Him. And so we desire that redemption,
that what the psalmist says in Psalm 49, that God will redeem
my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me. That's a great blessing and mercy
in that way. The dying thief, the Lord said
to him, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise. And the
power of the grave, it couldn't bind his loosed, redeemed soul. That soul was set free. It was
with the Lord. and death then is turned into
a friend, a blessing, a way that the Lord brings his people to
himself. Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom, no. We must die to enter there. We must fall on sleep. We must
have this mortal laid in the grave. It must be that we are
redeemed in that way. That is God's appointment. Death,
which is a curse, turned into a blessing, turned into a chariot,
as it were, to bring his redeemed people to be with him. And then there's a last one.
that redemption from the grave. Paul beautifully sets it forth
in writing to the Corinthians in his first epistle. As he closes that epistle, he
speaks of the certainty of the resurrection, answering the There
is that were being said that there is no resurrection of the
dead. Yes, there is, he said. How vital
it is. If Christ be risen, then we shall
rise. If there is no resurrection of
the dead, then our faith is vain. Our hope is vain. Our preaching
is all lies. But there is. And so he speaks
of that victory. So when this corruptible shall
I put on incorruption, and this mortal shall I put on immortality,
then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death
is swallowed up in victory. He speaks of that blessed change,
that change at the last day, when this corruptible puts on
in corruption, this mortal must put on immortality. When he writes to the Romans,
he says in chapter eight, he says of the body that we are
groaning, The whole creation, he says, groaneth and travaileth
in pain, together until now, not only they, but we or ourselves
also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption. And what does
he call the adoption? to wit the redemption of our
body. Yes, even our body that is laid
in the grave is not forgotten, not cast away, it is redeemed. And that also shall be with the
Lord. Dear Job, he says that even after
my skin, even when worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God. For myself and not another, it
shall be Job that is raised, not someone else. It shall be
Job, and he shall see the Lord with his own eyes, and it shall
be with all of the people of God. The spirit returns to God
at death. Then at the last day, the last
great day, when the Lord returns, when the world ends, his dead
in Christ shall rise first. We that are alive shall be caught
up together with them in the heavens. We shall be changed. But that redemption, that body,
what a sacred thought when standing round an open grave and that
lifeless form is laid in that grave, and that's a sacred spot,
that dust shall be raised. Why? Because it is redeemed. Christ's precious blood extends
to the redemption of that as well. What a complete redemption. No wonder our text says, let
Israel hope in the Lord. Dear Francis, the subject is
the word this evening, given you, given me, a reason to hope,
a ray of hope in that redemption that has no bound, but a fullness
that extends back, really extends to eternity when the Lord chose
his people. And that extends to Calvary and
extends to calling by grace, and then in the keeping of his
people and delivering them, redeeming them from every snare and every
sin, and death itself, and then after death, redeeming their
body and to be with him. There is these reasons given
why we hope. Our hope is built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. Wholly lean on his redemption. Let Israel, let the people of
God, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy,
and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall, one of the Lord's
shall, redeem Israel. from all, not some, but all his
iniquities. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.