Thank you Tom. I asked Tom to
lead us in that hymn this morning because I wanted to try to bring
a message to you from Psalm 139 and I've titled it, Come Ye Sinners,
Come Ye Sinners. Psalm 139, the Lord is telling
us that he knows everything about us better than
we could ever possibly know ourselves. And he does not tell us this
as a threat or a warning. He tells us this as an enticement
to say to us, come, I already know it all. And in spite of
that, I love you and I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Why
would you allow conscience to cause you to linger? Is it not
shame and guilt and fear that caused Adam to hide from God?
And is that not the same thing that works in our hearts that
causes us to be reluctant to come to him? And here in our
text, the Lord is saying to us, I already know everything. Better
than you do. I know every thought you've ever
had. I know everything you've ever done. And if I was a man,
you would avoid me because you'd be ashamed. But I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm God. And in
spite of all of that, I've demonstrated my love for you. And it's the
goodness of God that leadeth to repentance. There's such freedom
in that. There's such liberty. to be able
to come boldly to the throne of grace, knowing that, no, the
Lord's not saying, he's not just saying, I know everything about
you because I'm omniscient. That's true, he knows everything. But he's saying to those who
are his, I know everything about you experientially. For I bore in my body upon that
tree all the sins of all of my people. Guilt, shame, fear, rejection. You think you know what that
is? Oh, I know so much better than you do. And I was forsaken
of my father so that you would not have to be. Now that's what
Psalm 139, that's what the Lord's telling us. He's enticing us
to come to Him. He's saying to us, you don't
have to hide anymore. You don't have to pretend. You
don't have to be with me like you are with one another. I know
everything. Not just because I'm omniscient,
but I've experienced it. I've experienced it in a way
that you could never experience it. Not a blessing. All right, let's
pray together and ask the Lord's blessing. Our heavenly Father,
we thank you for your word. We thank you for the revelation
of your grace and your love and your mercy towards your people.
We thank you for the accomplished work of thy dear son, And oh,
how we pray this morning, Lord, that you'd be pleased to draw
us to yourself, to cause us, Lord, to come unto thee. For truly the burden and the
weight of our sin is greater than we can bear. But what hope
we have in knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ was wounded for
our transgressions. that he bore the full weight
of your wrath and your judgment, suffered the full shame and guilt
and fear that sin brings. And Lord, we thank you that the
spirit and the bride says to sinners, come ye sinners. Come ye sinners, poor and wretched. Weak and wounded. Sick and sore. Or bless your word, we ask it
in Christ name. Amen. We guard ourselves. With men. Lest someone know too much about
us and be offended. And that's a good thing. No one
wants to see all your warts. You don't want to see mine. We should be that way with one
another. But our God is not a man. With men, we ought to guard our speech. It's a good thing. to have a
filter between your mind and your mouth. That's a good thing. Scripture says in Proverbs chapter
29, a fool uttereth all that is in his mind, but a wise man
keepeth it till afterwards. Could you imagine the chaos,
the conflict, the havoc that would take place in this room? much less in the world, if we
were able to know each other's deepest thoughts. No, no, we
don't want to know that. I don't want to know yours and
you don't want to know mine. But our God is not a man. And we don't relate to him the
same way we relate to one another. What abuse men would inflict
on each other if they knew one another's true fears, or if they
knew everything that another man has ever thought or done,
what advantage we would take of each other. And yet, just
the opposite is true when it comes to our God. We bear our souls with Him. We pour out our deepest desires,
our deepest needs, our deepest, most secret sins, and the Lord
has mercy on us, and he loves us in spite of these things. He doesn't take advantage of
us. He doesn't forsake us because of our sin. No, just the opposite
is true. And that's what he's saying here.
Turn back with me. Let's begin in Psalm 73. I wanna
show you something here in Psalm 73. David in Psalm 73, I'm sorry,
Asaph, Asaph in Psalm 73, begins by saying, truly God is good
to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. Who shall stand
in his presence? He that has pure hands and a
clean heart. Those are the ones that kind
of come into the presence of God. How am I going to have that?
Well, look what Asaph says in the next verse. But as for me,
my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped,
for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. I looked at other men and I My
heart wasn't right with God. It wasn't right. I was jealous. I was fearful. I was covetous
of what others had. Look at verse 14. For all day
long have I been plagued and chastened every morning. I've
been plagued by this sinful covetous heart. And every morning I wake
up feeling guilty. And if I say, now here's what
I want you to see, look at verse 15, if I say, I will speak thus,
behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.
If I try to, if I try to resolve this problem with another man
and tell him what's really going on in my heart, all I'm going
to do is make him to stumble. He can't help me. That's, you
know, people try to resolve their guilt issues and their shame
with another man. They go to a therapist and they
can't help you. They're not going to be able
to. Look at the next verse. When
I thought to know this, it was too painful for me. Where am
I going to go? How am I going to resolve this
heart problem that I have until I went into the sanctuary of
God, then understood their end. Until I came to Christ. I came
to the place where his gospel was preached. And I realized
that I have a God who knows everything about them and knows everything
about me. Look what he says. Surely thou
did set them in slippery places. Thou casted them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation
as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors? As a dream
when one waketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt
despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and
I was pricked in my reign. So foolish was I, ignorant I
was as a beast before thee." You ever feel like that? Asaph said, I was like a wild
animal before God. Nevertheless, nevertheless, in
spite of the sins of my heart, in spite of that, nevertheless,
I am continually with thee. Now that's what Psalm 139 is
all about. In spite of the fact that I'm this way, in spite of
the fact that I've got this wicked, covetous thought, mind, and heart,
nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou hast holden me
by thy right hand, or by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with
thy counsel and afterwards receive me to glory. In spite of. That's a good definition
of grace, isn't it? In spite of. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon the earth
that I desire beside thee. Nobody can help me with this
sin problem I have. Come ye sinners, weak and wounded,
come. Come to the throne of grace with
boldness, with confidence. Knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ
is our forerunner has gone before us. He's sprinkled his blood
on the mercy seat. He's experienced the full shame
of every sin of every one of God's people. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. You see, the Lord's telling us
that you can't help yourself and no man can help you. And
I know everything there is to know about you. I know every
thought you've ever had, everything you've ever done. And I love
you. And I know it not just because
I'm omniscient, but because I experienced it. For lo, they that are far
from thee shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all them
that go a-whoring from thee. But it is good for me to draw
near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord
God that I may declare all thy works. It is good for me that I draw
near unto God. Why won't men come to Christ?
The Lord answers that question for us. Turn with me to John
chapter three. John chapter three, verse 19. And this is the condemnation
that light is coming into the world. Light, what does light
do? It exposes everything. Turn the
lights on and what could not be seen in the dark is now fully
exposed. Light is coming to the world
and the Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the world. And he says here, light is coming
to the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their
deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil,
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be exposed. The irreligious, immoral man
will not come to the light of the gospel because he's indulging
his flesh and his sin doesn't want anybody, doesn't want anybody
telling him what to do. The religious, self-righteous
man won't come to Christ because his, his, His iniquity will be
exposed for what it is. His works will be exposed for
what they are, filthy rags, and he will not come. The Lord said,
you won't come to me because you're going to be exposed. You're
going to be reproved. You're going to be shown for
what you are. But verse 21, he that doeth truth He that loves the truth shall
come to the light. He comes. Lord, I need to be
exposed. I need for you too. You see, what men cover, God
will uncover. And whatever we uncover, God
covers. Isn't that the way it works? Just come Lord, here I am. All
my sin, all my shame. Lord, you've already seen it
all. You know it all. And the hope
that I have is that you've experienced in infinitely more than what
I've known in my experience in terms of the real horror of my
sin. He that doeth the truth cometh
to light, that his deeds may be manifest, that they are wrought
in God." Repentance is a work of grace. Faith is a work of
grace. Coming to Christ is a work of
grace. Loving the truth is a work of grace. And when we're able,
by the grace of God, to come to Christ, then it's evident
that that this is rod of God, this is God's work in me. It
is God that works in me, causing me to will and to do after his
good pleasure. Psalm 44 verse 21 says, shall
not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of
the heart. Man looks at the outward appearance,
God looks upon the heart. You say, oh, that's an intimidating
thought. No, it ought not to be. It ought
not to be. Because he says, I know you. I know everything about you.
And he looks upon us like he looked on Peter that night after
being flogged. And he set his eyes on Peter,
didn't he? After he told Peter, he said,
Peter, before the cockroach, you're going to deny me three
times. And he didn't look at Peter with a look of disgust.
He didn't look at him with disappointment. He didn't look at him with, you
know, see, I told you so. No, when Peter fixed his eyes
on our Lord's eyes, all he saw in his eyes was compassion. And
Peter wept bitterly. You see, it is the love of God
that constraineth us. It is the goodness of God that
leadeth us to repentance. What the Lord is telling us over
and over again is I'm not a man. I'm not like you. Not like you. If other men knew you the way
I knew you, they wouldn't have anything to do with you. But
just the opposite is true with me. As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. I have a pity and a
love and a passion for you because of what I know about you and
because of what I've experienced for you. Come, come, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, come. My yoke is easy, my burden is
light. We bear the burden of a guilty
conscience and of fear and shame, and the Lord's saying, come,
I'll take that. I've taken that. Here's what the Lord's saying,
if God be for me, if God be for me, who can be against me? He
knows us. Turn to Galatians chapter four. They preach it when we got to
our text yet. Galatians chapter four, verse eight. How be it then when
you knew not God, you did service unto them, which by nature are
no gods. Before you knew God, you served
the idols of your own darkened imagination. But now, how be
it then, when you knew not God, you did service unto them which
by nature are no gods? But now, after thee you have
known God, or rather are known of God, oh, we know him in part, don't
we? We know him in part. He knows
us in whole. How turn ye again to the weak
and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? You're known of God. You're known of God. He's a God of liberty. He's a
God of freedom. He's a God of grace and love
and mercy. And all of that is available.
All of that is true. Didn't even say available, that's
true, because he's a God of justice. And he satisfied his holy justice
at Calvary's Cross. And so the Lord is saying, I've
already paid for that. You see, when we allow conscience
to cause us to linger, as we just sang, When we use guilt
and shame, all we're doing is denying the finished work of
Christ. And we're in essence trying to
do penance for our sin, are we not? All right, let's go to our text. Let's just read a few of these
verses. It's a long psalm. Oh, Lord, thou hast searched
me and known me. The Lord knew exactly which tree
Adam was hiding behind. When he said, Adam, where art
thou? He wasn't asking that for his own information. He was exposing
Adam, Lord thou hast searched me, thou hast known me, you know
where I'm at, you know how I'm sewing together fig leaves trying
to hide my nakedness. The Lord's saying, it's not working,
come. Come out of there, get out from
behind that tree. There's a lamb that was slain
before the foundation of the world and his fleece will provide
for you a hiding place, a covering. His righteousness will be sufficient
to satisfy everything that I require of you. And he'll get all the
glory for having put away your sin and having made himself an
offering for sin. and perfected forever, them which
are sanctified." What hope? That's what the... I can remember
reading Psalm 139 years ago and I thought, boy, this is true. But it's not... God's not saying
this in order to shame us. He's not saying... it's just
the opposite. It's just the opposite. He's saying this in order to
entice us to come to Him. Don't allow your Don't allow anything to keep
you from Christ. Light is coming to the world. Men love darkness
rather than light. Why? Because the light reproves
them. It exposes them. That's what
we need. Look at verse two. Thou knowest
my down sitting and my upright is rising. Thou understandeth
my thoughts afar off. Oh, we don't understand our own
thoughts, do we? Why do I think that? Where's that coming from?
And what is really the motive behind all of that? And we don't
understand ourselves. You remember back in the 70s,
what we did was navel gazing, saying what we're trying to find
ourselves. You ever do that? No, we never did. And haven't
yet. You don't know yourself. You
don't know why you think what you think. You don't know why
you do what you do. You don't know why you say what
you say. But here's the good news. Our
God knows. He knows every nuance and every
motive and every everything in every thought before we think
them. Thou can passeth my path with
my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Lord, you're
acquainted with everything about me. You know it all, and you
know it all perfectly, and you know it all experientially. For there is not a word of my
mouth, but Lord, O Lord, thou knowest it all together. Oh,
how many foolish words we've spoken. How many things we wish
we could take back. And we speak out of anger and
out of fear. And the Lord says, I know. I know every word you've ever
spoken. I know why you said it. I know everything about it. It's
okay. Come, come you sinner. Come you sinner. I love you. That sin's been, God made him
who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. Is this not what keeps us from
Christ? Is it not what keeps us from
coming to Christ thinking that he's like another man? He thought that I was altogether
such a one as thyself. Surely you wouldn't come to another
man. You would do everything you could
to avoid another man who knew every secret of your life and
heart and mind and thought. If you knew he was going to be
in that room, you wouldn't go in that room. You'd go somewhere
else. You'd hide from him. The Lord is saying, I'm not a
man. I'm not a man. I've already taken
care of that. I've proven my love for you by
bearing the real shame and guilt and fear of all of that. I know
you. I know your thoughts. I know
you're downsizing, you're uprising, you're down-sitting. I know when
you go to bed. I know when you get up. I know everything. Why are you hiding? Why are you
trying to find a hiding place in the law or in your works or
in your will or in something else? No, God has made the Lord
Jesus Christ to be our hiding place. A man shall be your hiding
place. He shall be the covert from the
storm. David says in Psalm 6, such knowledge
is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto
it. Lord, I can't comprehend this. Whither shall I go from my spirit?
Lord, I'm always prone to wander. I'm always prone to leave the
God that I love. I'm always, I'm always trying
to wander away from you. I'm constantly diverting my attention,
my eyes away from you to something else. But whither can I go from
thy spirit? When I depart from you, you never
depart from me. He said, I'll never leave you
nor forsake you. Yeah, we get, we get, right to
the precipice, but God's got his children on a leash. He won't
allow them to fall into destruction. Where can I go from thy spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy
presence? This is a good thing. Lord, I
can't. I can't get away from you. You're
always there. If I ascend up into heaven, thou
art there. If I have a wonderful time of
prayer and worship and experience with God and glory, Lord, you're
there. And if I go down into hell, you're
there too. If I find myself in the darkest pits of my own unbelief,
Lord, you're there too. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, I find myself in
the turbulence of this world. What did we see last week? The
way of the ship in the sea is the church, and the way of the
Lord is through the seas, and the turbulence of this world
is... And what's he saying? Lord, you're
there with me. Those disciples, when they, when they, the Lord
was asleep and they were about to, I mean, these were experienced
fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. They were about to die in a storm. Lord cares not that I, that we
perish, wake up. Oh, do you not remember the loaves
and the fishes, what the Lord said? Why, why do you not believe? And then what the Lord do, he
spoke and, oh, what manner of man is this that even the wind
and the seas obey his voice? That's what the Lord's saying
to us here. In your time of worship, in your darkest hour, in your
time of turbulence and trials and troubles, I'll not leave
you nor forsake you, come. You don't have to pretend. Lord called that Syrophoenician
woman a dog. And when she say truth, Lord,
truth, Lord. Now, you know, you know me. You
know me. Lord, if you could just scrape
one crumb off of your table, one crumb from God's table is
more than more than all the feasts that this world has to offer.
or the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.
And that woman at the well, don't you love when the disciples came
back and they tried to get the Lord, they'd been down in Sychar.
They had the son of God with them. They left him there at
the well. They never mentioned to anybody in the city that he
was there. They were just Samaritans. They came back with lunch. Try
to get him to eat. What'd the Lord say? Have meat
to eat that you know not of. You don't, you don't understand
this, this meat that I have for my meat. It's what are you going
on to say? My meat is to do the will of
the father, which sent me and to finish the work. That's my
meat. And this woman ran back to town.
I mean, the reason why she was at the well in the middle of
the day is because she couldn't go in the mornings when all the
other women were there in the cool of the day because she had
lived such a shameful life in town that, I mean, she'd been
married five times. She was embarrassed. And that's who the Lord met.
I must needs go through Samaria when the disciples tried to get
him to go another way. I've got one of my lost sheep
there that's dying of guilt and fear and shame for her sin. And I'm going to have mercy upon
her. And she went back into town and
she did what those disciples didn't do. She went down through
the streets. Come meet a man who told me everything
I ever did. Is not this the Christ? Meet a man who knows everything
about you. Is not this the Christ? Come. That woman with the issue of
blood, she was unclean and she was supposed to declare herself
unclean and was supposed to, I mean, we talk about social
distancing today. It was very serious issue back
then. If you were unclean, you had
to announce yourself to be unclean, and you could not get within
certain distance of anybody else. And she saw the Lord, and he
was, I mean, they were strong, the people around him. She got
on her hands and knees and crawled through the crowd to touch the
hem of his garment. Oh, if I could just touch the
hem of his garment. And the Lord said, who touched
me? And the disciples said, Lord, everybody here is touching you.
Oh no, he said, virtue has gone out from me. Mercy and grace
and healing has gone out from me. And scripture says she looked
at him and she told him all the truth. She told him all the truth. We
come before God, just tell him all the truth. Tell him everything. And then you won't have touched
the hem of his garment. You won't have scratched the
surface. You won't have seen but the tip of the iceberg if
you tell him everything you know. What he knows is much more than
that. When the Lord rose from the dead,
he told Mary, he said, he said, go tell the disciples and Peter
that I'm alive. Oh, Peter said, I go fishing.
I've messed it up. Peter was just living in such
horrible shame and guilt and fear. I've ruined it. No way I can be saved now. And the Lord went to the sea
of Peter, lovest thou me? Lovest thou me, Peter? Feed my
sheep. And the third time, the scripture
says that Peter was grieved because the Lord asked him the third
time, lovest thou me? And Peter said, Lord, you know
my heart. You know everything about me. And that's my comfort and that's
my hope that you know me. You know me. You don't know yourself, and we don't know each other,
but God knows us perfectly. Oh, blind Bartimaeus. I can just see blind Bartimaeus.
He never made a scene in his life. He was a poor, blind beggar
who sat in the shadows and humbly begged for alms. And the scripture
says that the Lord was leaving Jericho. That's what it says.
He was leaving Jericho. He had already been in Jericho
and he was departing the city. And blind Bartimaeus knew this
is my only chance. This is my only chance. And he
made a scene and he cried out. The scripture says, well, all
of his voice, Jesus, son of David, have mercy upon me. And what
did the crowd do? Bartimaeus get back in your place.
Get back in your place. Look at you. You're a filthy,
dirty, blind beggar. Get back in your place. And he
cried all the louder. Why? Because he knew that that
was the son of God. And that man knows everything
about me. And if I have any hope of seeing
and being healed, he's going to have to do it. Have mercy
upon me. Have mercy upon me. David spent about at least nine
months in shame and fear and guilt over what he had done with
Bathsheba and most especially with Uriah. Adultery, murder. Try to cover it up, try to hide
it. Until Nathan came to him. Oh, David, God knows everything
about you. David, you're the man. And you
read Psalm 51. Oh, God have mercy upon me. Wash
me thoroughly from my sins. Isaiah chapter 32, and we'll
close with this. Turn with me to Isaiah 32, please. Verse 1, behold, a king shall
reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment, and a
man, and a man, shall be as a hiding place from
the wind, and as a covert from the tempest, as the rivers of
water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land. And the eyes of them that see
shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. Oh, why do you make Your covenant
with death, Isaiah 28, your hiding place. Why do you make the law
your hiding place? Why do you make your guilty conscience
your hiding place? And your penance your hiding
place? Why do you make the things of
this world, a man shall be your hiding place. And that's what
the Lord's saying. I'm the covert from the storm.
Come ye sinners. Come you sinners, poor and wretched,
weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus stands ready to save you,
full of pity, full of pity, joined with power. Amen.