Please be seated. For our call to worship this
morning, turn with me, if you would please, to Isaiah chapter
55. Isaiah chapter 55, start with
verse six and read down through verse 11. Seek you the Lord while he may
be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord,
and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and
the snow from heaven and returneth not thither, but watereth the
earth and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed
to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that
goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereinto I send it. That's good of the
Lord in prayer. Oh, Lord, our God, we've come
to you this morning to seek you, to hear from you, O Lord, to
seek Christ. O Lord God, we pray that you
will show us Jesus. We pray that you will meet with
us as you promised in your word where two or three are gathered
together, O Lord, that you would be in the midst. Father, we pray
that you would direct our service, that you would make our worship
acceptable unto you. We confess, O Lord, that we are
sinners. We pray for your mercy and your
grace, your abundant pardon. We ask your blessing, O Lord,
on the message today. Father, we ask your blessing
on our worship, that your word would not return into you void. but you would accomplish, O Lord,
your pleasure and prosper. We pray, O Lord, for all of your
servants as they get into the pulpit this morning, this day,
and preach Christ, Father, that you would be with them, that
your word might go forth. Father, these things we ask in
Christ Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand together once again
and sing hymn number eight from the Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn
book, number eight. our hearts and souls aspire to
lift up from this earthly mire. Oh, may we think of heavenly
things and know the joy thy presence brings. ? Let us see the Savior's face
? ? And let us taste of thy sweet grace ? ? May open ears thy glories
hear ? ? And may we smell thy fragrance here ? to open heaven's door and on
our heads thy blessings pour all wretched poor and needy free
where can we go if not to Thee Oh may this day be blessed the
most That Jesus Christ becomes the host To feed our souls with
living bread And with our souls in joy to wed Please be seated. Adam's going
to bring special music. It's M39. this is my father's world and to my listening ears all nature sings and round me
rings the music of This is my father's world. I rest me in the thought of rocks
and trees, of skies and seas. Let's head in the wonder's rock. This is my father's world, the
church their carols raise. The morning light, the lily white,
declare their maker's praise. This is my father's world, He
shines in all that's fair. In the rustling grass I hear
him pass. He speaks to me everywhere. This is my father's world. Oh, let me ne'er forget The more
that though the wrong seems all so strong God is the ruler, yes
This is my father's world The battle is not done, Jesus who
died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one. Thank you, Adam. Will you turn
with me in your Bibles to Psalm 119? Psalm 119, and I want us
to focus our attention this morning on verses 145 and 146. And I've
titled this message, and I want you to pay special attention
to the title. The title is Blessed to Cry.
Blessed to Cry. Notice the difference between
that and being blessed for crying. If we are able to cry, it is
because God has blessed us to do so. Verse 145 of Psalm 119, I cried
with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord, I will keep thy statutes. I cried unto thee, save me, and
I shall keep thy testimonies. Oftentimes people interpret the
Beatitudes in Matthew chapter five. as the blessings that God
will give you if you will do something. Say, well, you know,
the scripture says, blessed are the poor in spirit. By the way,
that word blessed means happy. You know, I made a statement
in the previous hour, I'm tired of people telling me they want
to be happy. Nine times out of 10, 99 times out of a hundred
when people tell me that, it means that they want to seek
their happiness somewhere else. And there is no happiness there. But the word blessed in Matthew
chapter 5 is the word happy. And the scripture says, blessed
are they that mourn, for they shall be confident. Blessed are
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. We don't
understand that as, well, God will give me the kingdom of God,
and he'll bless me if I can just be poor in spirit, or if I can
just mourn, or if I can be meek, I will be blessed with inheriting
the earth, or if I could just find a way to hunger and thirst
after righteousness, then I would be filled, or if I could be merciful,
then I would find mercy. You see, that's the way most
people read those, isn't it? The truth is that being poor
in spirit is the blessing. Mourning over one's sin is the
blessing. Being made meek, humble is the
blessing. Hungering and thirsting after
righteousness is the blessing. Being merciful. is the blessing
of having obtained mercy. And so it is here, blessed to
cry. David is telling us that he cried
unto the Lord for the Lord to save him. And the result of that cry is
that he would keep God's testimonies. Four questions I want to try
to answer very briefly. Who cries? Who is the one that's
been blessed to cry? And all right here in verse 46,
the answer to these questions, to whom do we cry? Third question is, for what do
we cry? And the last question is, what
is the result of our crying? The scriptures makes it clear,
lest you become as a little child, you should not enter the kingdom
of heaven. Suffer the little children to come unto me, for
such is the kingdom of heaven. Children cry, don't they? They
cry. They're not able to do much.
I'm talking about babies. That's what that, when that,
those two verses I quoted is a reference to a baby. And, um,
they're not able to do anything for themselves. Can't feed themselves. Can't walk, can't talk, can't
understand what's going on around them. Uh, basically all they're
able to do is mess themselves up and cry. And the Lord say
to me and you, lest you becomes a little child. How am I gonna
be a little child? Well, Lord's gonna have to make
me to be a sinner first of all, so that I can see the mess I've
made, at least in part. And then I'll find myself crying
out for mercy. Now, before we answer these four
questions, I want you to look with me at verse 145, and I want
to make a couple of statements that I hope will be an encouragement
to you. Verse 145 says, I cried with
my whole heart, with my whole heart. And when the Holy Spirit
blesses us with the ability to cry for mercy, It is a sincere
cry. You know the difference between
a feigned cry and a genuine cry from your own children. You may
not, you may not show much concern when they're whimpering just
for the purpose of sympathy, but when they cry out with a
sincere cry, you know, and you drop everything and go to there. When God gives you the grace
to cry, it's not a feigned cry. It's not pretended. It's sincere. It doesn't come from feigned
faith. It doesn't come from false humility.
It's not pretended piety. It's a genuine work of grace
in the heart, causing us to say, Lord, you've got to help me.
You've got to help me. You've got to save me. Now that
having been said, you and I have never ever in our whole life
done anything with our whole heart. You've never done anything with
your whole heart. The heart is wicked and deceitful,
desperately wicked. Who could know it? The imaginations
of our heart are only evil and that continues. See, we bear
in our hearts these, you know, we say, well, check your motives.
Don't check them too closely because you're going to find
out your motives are never pure. They're never pure. A lawyer came to the Lord and
asked him, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? And the Lord said, well, what
does the law say? You know the law, you know what the scripture
says. And the lawyer quoted from Deuteronomy chapter six, when
he said, well, the law says that we're to love the Lord your God
with all of your heart and with all of your mind and with all
of your soul and your love your neighbor as yourself. You know
what the Lord said to that lawyer? Go do that and you'll live. You see, there's only one, there's
only one who's ever cried with his whole heart. There's only one that's ever
done anything with a pure motive, with perfect intentions and perfect
righteousness. And he loved the Lord God. You
see, the Lord said, that's the summary of the law, loving the
Lord God with all of your heart and all of your mind and all
of your soul, all of the time, and love your neighbor as yourself.
You know what that lawyer said? He said, well, Lord, who's my
neighbor? Justifying himself. You and I have never loved anybody
as much as we love ourselves. And we've never loved the Lord
with all our heart. But we have one who did. We have an advocate with the
father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. We have one who felt the
full shame and sorrow for sin when he bore them in his body
on the cross and cried to his father, my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Father into thy hands, I commend
my spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed
with all of his heart and all of his soul and all of his, what
am I saying to you, brethren? Yes, ask the Lord to give you
the grace to cry. But don't look too closely at
how sincere you are in that cry. Because if you're honest with
yourself, you're gonna find some insincerity. You see, crying to the Lord is
looking to the one who perfectly cried to God for all your righteousness. You see, what I'm trying to say
to you, don't try to establish a righteousness with God by the
sincerity of your cry or by the depth of your feelings or by
the sorrow of your sin. You're never gonna get there.
Only the Lord Jesus did that. Does that mean that we're not
sincere when we cry or that we have feigned faith or pretended
piety? No, when God the Holy Spirit
gives us a cry of faith, it's real, it's real. You and I will never know how how ugly our sin is. Never know
it. We would not be able to show
ourselves in public if we had the knowledge of our sin. David
said, my sin is there before me. And he felt sorrow for his
sin as every child of God does. That's the conviction of the
Holy Spirit. We can't justify our sin. We can't find comfort
in our sin. Not if we have the Spirit of
God. But if the Lord showed us what Christ knew on Calvary's
cross, we would crawl in a hole and stay there until somebody,
until the Lord came to get us out. Somebody said to me, well,
you don't know how bad my sin is. Neither do you. It's a whole
lot worse than you think it is. See, only God can see our sin
for what it is and Christ bore the full burden of it. And he
cried to the Lord with all of his heart. And when we cry, when
we cry, we're crying out for him to save us and to stand in
our stead before God and to satisfy God's righteousness and be all
the forgiveness of our sin. That's what we're crying for. So verse 145 has to be understood
in order for us to understand verse 146. I cried with my whole
heart, hear me, oh Lord, I will keep thy statutes. The father
heard his son. He saw the travail of his soul. And the father was satisfied.
Christ offered himself up to his father as an offering for
sin. And the father accepted that
offer and put away all the sins of his people because he kept
all God's statutes. He was obedient. You see, the
same principle applies to obedience, doesn't it? We want to be obedient.
The Spirit of God makes us want to follow after Christ. I said
in the previous hour, if we could, we'd never sin again. And the
Spirit of God doesn't allow us to find comfort in our sin. And yet we know we can't be without
it. It infects everything we do. So verse 146, the first question
I have to ask is who does the crying? Who does the crying? And the simple answer to that
is sinners cry. Babies cry. Those who have messed
themselves up cry. They cry, Lord, I can't save
myself. I can't fix this problem. I can't
put away my sin. I can't establish a righteousness
before you. I can't justify myself or look
at me. Look at the mess that I'm in. Sinners cry. And here's the good
news. Here's the faithful saying, Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Paul called himself the chief
of sinners. And what does that say about someone who says, well,
you know, I don't come to church because there's too many hypocrites
there. What is the sin that doth so
easily beset us? You know, every child of God struggles with things in their
lives that seem like they never go away. Seem like they never go away.
They just, you know, we just keep confronting the same old
sin, don't we? And we keep being brought by
the spirit of God to look to Christ for the forgiveness of
that sin. And yet the polluted fountain
that springs forth all sin, the sin that all does so easily beset
us is the sin of unbelief. We're just not capable of believing
God as we ought. We say with that man who the
disciples couldn't heal his son, Lord, I believe. Remember he
said, Lord, if you can help me, if you can do it, here's what
he said. If you can do anything, help
me. And what did the Lord say? If
you can believe, all things are possible to them that believe.
How am I going to believe? God, you're going to have to,
Lord, what'd he say? Lord, I do believe. Help thou
mine unbelief. You see, when we come broken
by the spirit of God, the broken heart, the broken and contrite
heart, that's it. That's of the Lord. That's why
he doesn't despise it. David said in Psalm 51, If it
was sacrifices you want, I would make them. But the sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. That he will
not despise. Why does he despise it? Because
he gave it to you. It's the blessing that God gives us to cry. It's him making us a sinner. Causing us to acknowledge our
complete dependence upon Christ for all our righteousness. Lord, that's my problem. I just,
I'm just full of unbelief. The Lord Jesus Christ cried with
all of his heart because he believed God with all of his heart. All
the time. He was anointed with the oil
of gladness. The scripture says above his fellows without measure. He was the Christ, the anointed
one. He is God. He came in the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. And he cried with all of his
heart because he believed God. Why don't we cry more than we
do? Simple reason, don't believe God. Don't believe God. Oh, if we believed God, we'd
be, well, we'd pray without ceasing, wouldn't we? If we just believe
God. It's the sin that does so easily
beside us. And we're real good at the blame
game, aren't we? It goes all the way back to our first father.
Adam, where art thou? Why are you covering yourself
with fig leaves, Adam? Cause I was naked and I was afraid.
Why? Who told you you were naked? And then he, the woman that you
gave me, she did give me the fruits and I did eat. He wasn't
blaming Eve, he was blaming God. And that's really what we, anytime
we complain or blame, we're blaming God. That's how, that's how wicked
we are. We blame God. We blame every
single one of us blame God for something every day. How wicked
is that? Lord save me, Lord. And what's
the spirit of God do? He blesses us with the ability
to cry. He, he puts, as I said in the
previous hour, the sin right at our doorstep. He sends a prophet
like, like Daniel. I mean, like, um, um, David,
the prophet that came to David, I'm sorry, Nathan. And he says to David, there was
a man who had a whole flock of sheep and a stranger came to
visit him. And rather than killing one of
his own sheep, he stole the one ewe lamb of his neighbor. And David was enraged. He'd been
justifying himself for better part of a year. He'd been hiding
his sin and trying to cover it up and trying to make sacrifice
for his sin. And Nathan was telling him, David, you're the man. Thou art the man. Is that what convicted David?
Is that what really broke his heart? Is that what caused him
to say in Psalm 51, Oh Lord, have mercy upon me. No, it's
when Nathan said, you're the man and the Lord has forgiven
you. That's what broke his heart.
And that's what will break your heart. It's the goodness of God
that leads to repentance. It's not just being ashamed. It's being loved. It's being loved. It's the love
of Christ that constrain us. That's what breaks the heart.
That's what causes us to cry out. It's being loved, not just
not being shamed, not being made guilty. It's being told, yeah,
you're the man. But you know what? The Lord's
forgiven you. He's put away your sin. Isaiah said, we have sinned and
in those is continuance. And he has forgiven us. He's
forgiven us. It's the forgiveness of God.
It's the goodness of God. It's the love of God. It's the
grace of God that causes us to cry. The publican. Wasn't like that
Pharisee. They were praying, they were
crying, but the publican was crying out to God and the Pharisee
was praying unto himself. What'd the Pharisee say? Oh God,
I thank you that I'm not like other men. I'm not an extortioner. I fast three times a week. I'm not an adulterer and I'm
certainly not like that publican over there in the corner that
won't even look up. Oh, the self-righteousness. And the publican, the scripture
says, would not so much as even look up, but smote himself upon
the breast and cried, God have mercy upon me, the sinner, the
sinner. That's grace. And the Lord said,
which of those two went home justified? You see the Lord blessed
the publican. He blessed him to cry. He caused
him to see his need for grace and mercy. The Pharisee was left to himself. As your pastor, I want to make
a confession to you this morning. There's one thing that scares
me more than anything else in this whole world. And that's
that God would leave me or this church to ourselves. That scares
me. That causes me to cry too. because
I've watched it happen. And churches don't know when
God writes Ichabod over the door, the glory of the Lord has departed.
They don't know it. It's like the frog in the kettle.
You know, it just, it gradually happens until everybody gets
comfortable and you don't even know you're being boiled alive. And then before you know it,
God's not even there. They're still carrying on. They're
still having their religious ceremonies. They're still preaching. They're still praying. They're
still doing all the right stuff. And God's not there. That scares
me. Y'all scare one of us. Lord,
don't leave me to myself. We blame God. He corrects us pretty quick,
doesn't He? I'm so thankful. I'm thankful that the Holy Spirit
will not allow us to point our finger very long before he brings
it right home. What a blessing. What a blessing
it is to be made a sinner. You don't have to pretend anymore. The whole world's full of pretenders.
Everybody's pretending to be something they're not. One of
the glorious, wonderful experiences that we have together as believers
is that we all know what we are. We don't have to pretend. We
don't have to present ourselves as something better than we are.
We just, yeah. Logan came up to me and said,
hey, hypocrite, how are you, brother? during the break between
the services. We're all a bunch of hypocrites.
We're all a bunch of sinners. And how much freedom there is. How much freedom there is in
not having to pretend. That's the blessing. There's no greater bondage than
when a pretender believes his own pretending. You know, they believe themselves
to be somebody. And we all would be there if
the Lord did not bless us to be a sinner. If he did not bless
us to cry. If he did not show us the glory
of Christ and reveal to us that there is absolutely nothing in
me like him. If he did not show us the difference
between verse 145 and verse 146, when the Lord said, I cried with
my whole heart and I have kept thy testimonies. And we say,
Lord, I can't say that. I've never done anything with
my whole heart. Now, I've certainly not been
able to keep God's testimonies. And then the Lord said, I cried.
I cried unto the Lord. What a blessing, what liberty,
what freedom there is. Paul said in Galatians chapter
five, he said, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
has made you free and be not entangled again with the yoke
of bondage. Don't go back to Egypt. Don't pretend that you're
keeping the law when you know you're not. Stand fast in the
liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. And then he goes
on in that same passage, he says, now don't use your liberty as
an excuse for sin, but you're free. You're free. And Job said, behold, I am vile. I am vile. In me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. What'd that Saraphenesian woman
say? Truth, Lord. I'm a dog. Would you feed me with some of
the crumbs that fall from the master's table? The answer to the first question,
who cries? Who has been blessed to cry? Those who have been blessed to
be made a sinner. That's who cries. And until God
makes you to be a sinner, you're not gonna cry. You're not gonna
cry. You may pretend to be religious
and spiritual and have some sort of some pretended piety and feigned
faith, but you're not gonna cry until God makes you be. So you
see this blessing to cry begins with God blessing you to become
a sinner. Got no place else to go. Look
at the second question, verse 146. Now I cried unto thee. To
whom do we cry? Now, I don't want to discourage
anybody from seeking genuine counsel and asking for advice. But I'm going to tell you that
my experience has been that most of the time when people go around
asking for advice, they're not looking for advice. They're looking
for affirmation. That's what they're looking for.
What am I saying to you? There's not a man that can help
you. Don't go about with your problems
crying out to men. They can't help you. You're just
there and it's as much mess as you're in. I cried unto thee. Save me, O
Lord. But see, we substitute men for
God. You know, because it's easier
to talk with another man than it is to go before God. That's
a blessing from the Holy Spirit to be able to go into the presence
of God and cry out to Him. He's the only one that can help
us. As I said, we ought to encourage
one another and pray for one another. You got a sincere question
about something in the scripture, you know, ask me, I'll try to
give you the right answer, but don't be bringing all your personal
problems and dirty laundry to other believers. Cause generally
speaking, that's when people are just looking for support
and affirmation, not for the truth. You want to know the truth,
go to God. He will speak the truth to you.
They will. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
Psalm 62, Psalm 62. Look at verse four. They only consult to cast him
down from his excellency. They delight in lies. They bless
with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. But my soul, he's talking
about men, but my soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation
is from Him." Don't you love that? My expectation is from
Him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be moved. In God is my salvation and my
glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, ye
people. Pour out your heart before Him.
God is a refuge for us. That takes faith, doesn't it?
And that is the blessing. Doesn't take a blessing to go
seek advice from another man. It takes a blessing to enter
into the presence of a holy God and pour your heart out to him. Trust in him at all times. Ye
people, pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge. Verse 9,
Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree
are alive. You see, it doesn't matter how
much education a man's got. It doesn't matter how much possession
he's got. None or a bunch. He can't help you. He can't help you. You know, everybody's going for therapy
and the council Go to God. He's the only one that can help
you. You're wasting your time with all this other stuff. The
person you're going to seeking counsel and advice and therapy
is just as messed up as you are, more so. And you take a profession
that's got some major, major personal problems, you just take
the psychologist of this world, psychiatry. Yeah, I probably offended somebody
with that. I'm sorry, it's true. It's true. To be laid in the balance, they
are altogether lighter than vanity. How do you get lighter than vanity?
They are nothing. They can't help you. Trust not in oppression. Don't
think that because you've got control, that's oppression. I'm
going to trust in the fact that I'm in control of these circumstances
when you're not in control of anything. Trust not in control or oppression. And become not vain in robbery,
thinking, well, if I just gain more than I'll be happy. If riches increase, set not your
heart upon them. God hath spoken once, twice have
I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord,
belongeth mercy, for thou renders to every man according to his
word. To whom do we cry? All you that labor and are heavy
laden, come unto me. Learn of me. I will give you rest for your
soul. My burden is light. Why is the
burden of the Lord light? Because he bore it all on Calvary's
cross. You see, The problem is our sin,
isn't it? It's our inability to trust God
as we ought. And the Lord said, come to me,
my burden's light, my yoke is easy. Why? Because I've already
bore all that unbelief. I've already put it away. I'll
give you rest for your soul. You're not gonna find it anywhere
else. Turn me to Psalm 142 quickly,
Psalm 142. This is so important. The Lord
saying come to me. Come to me. The woman that had an issue of
blood. She had spent all that she had on physicians and she
was worse off than to begin with. And that's what happens when
we go to man trying to solve a spiritual problem. We're worse
off. We got all this advice now. You're
all these opinions of men now, and we've not heard from God.
And we're worse off now than we were to begin with. By the
way, when the scripture says there's wisdom in the counsel
of many, that doesn't mean that you go around getting a bunch
of advice and then you get a consensus. No, that means that there's the
wisdom of God when everybody says the same thing. When everybody
says the same thing, and what they say is in agreement with
what God says, that's where wisdom is. You have your Bibles open, Psalm
142, look at this. I cried unto the Lord with my voice. With
my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplications. I poured out
my complaint before him. I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed
within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I
walked have they privately laid a snare for me. I looked at my
right hand and beheld. But there was no man that could
know me. Refuge failed me. No man cared
for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord, I
said, thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the
living. Attend unto my cry, for I am
brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are stronger than I am. Bring my soul out of prison,
that I may praise thy name. The righteous shall come past
me about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me. You cannot pray that prayer. Be blessed of God to pray that
prayer and God not hear it. But men won't do it. They won't
cry out to Him. They'll keep looking to the right
hand and to the left hand, hoping to find a man that'll help them. We see that in religion, Every
religion in the world practices priestcraft. I don't care if
they're the reformed Calvinists with a bunch of elders that you've
got to submit to their authority, or whether it's the Catholic
church with the Pope sitting up there acting like he's, every
religion, or whether it's Hinduism, we've got friends in India now
that we know that, that you become a believer in India,
you are obligated to register with the federal government as
a Christian, which makes up 2% of the population in India. And
India is a total socialistic economy. All your education,
all your healthcare, when you identify as a Christian in the
government of India, right now, today, I'm telling you of a conversation
I had with Gilbert just a few days ago, You lose all subsidies,
all support from the government. You're left to fend for yourself. And they want to know when you
became a Christian and why you became a Christian. And if you
tell them, well, I became a Christian two years ago, you got to pay
back taxes. Whatever you receive from the
government, this is going on right now. We get all concerned
about, you know, what's happening in this country. These are your
brothers and sisters who are having to pay the price
for naming the name of Christ. And by the way, when I say 2%
of Indians, they declare themselves as Christian. Gilbert says 0.0001%
of that 2% are really believers. But nevertheless, you have to
identify yourself with the government and you lose everything. Where am I gonna look? I look
to the government to help me out? They can't. Hinduism, I was talking about
priestcraft. Hinduism, they've got their priest. Islam, they've got their priest. Everybody's got a man that you
can go to in order to get to God. Why? Because the Gospel's
not being preached. The Spirit of God's not been
poured out. They've not been blessed to become sinners. And
so they have no access to God. So they have to substitute God
with a man. And I'm saying to you, on the authority of God's Word
and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, come to Christ. Trust Him. Rest your soul in
Him. and you will find acceptance
with God in the beloved. And you can come boldly before
the throne of grace to find help in your time of need. Oh, I'm running out of time.
The third question. Who's been blessed to cry? Sinners
have been blessed to cry. To whom do we cry? We cry to
the Lord. What do we cry for? Look at our
text. I cried unto thee, save me. Save me. Now the self-righteous
religionist who is looking back to an experience that they had
when they prayed the prayer, walked the aisle and got baptized
and joined the church, or their They're looking to, you know,
a date on a calendar where they nailed it down. They will say
in response to this, well, I've already been saved. I've got
saved already. I don't have to ask God to save
me again. But to the one who's resting their
hope in Christ, and in so doing find themselves
every day looking away from him, being distracted by the things
of this world, being tempted by Satan, being caught up in
the sins of their own flesh. They cry every day, Lord, save
me. Save me. Save me from myself. Save me from my sin, save me
from Satan. Lord, look at this, this turbulent
sea. When Peter got out of the boat
and walked on the water and he took his eyes off of Christ,
the scripture's clear on that. And he looked to the waves and
the wind and he began to drown. And as he's going down, he cried,
Lord, save me. And immediately the Lord reached
out his hand and caught him and put him back in the boat. That's the world we live in,
isn't it? That's the mess we make of ourselves, isn't it?
A turbulent sea. Lots of wind. We find ourselves
looking at our circumstances rather than looking to Christ.
And the child of God never gets beyond, Lord, save me. Save me. Save me again. Again. Again. Lord, keep me. Save me to the end. Satan's stronger than I am. What'd
the Lord say to Peter? Peter, Satan has asked to sift
you. But when you are converted, when
you are saved, when your heart and mind have been changed, and
when did that happen? When the Lord looked at him with
that compassionate look of mercy and love, and Peter's heart was
broken, Then teach the brethren. Peter, I have prayed for you
that your faith fail not." That's our fear, isn't it, Lord? Is
my faith faint? Have I been faking it? Lord,
I can fake a lot of stuff. Lord, save me. And finally, what is the result
of our crying? Go back with me to our text. I cried, who cries? The sinner
cries. Unto thee, to whom do we cry?
We cry unto the Lord. What do we cry for? Lord, save
me. Lord, put my sin under the blood of Christ. Separate them
as far from me as the east is from the west. Lord, remember
them no more. Lord, enable me to rest my hope on Christ. Lord,
I've got to be saved. I've got to be saved. And I shall keep thy testimonies. That's the result of crying.
That's the result. To be found in Him. so that as He is, so are we. Lord, with all my sin and all
my unbelief and all my crying, all my failures and all my faults,
Lord, if I could be found in Christ, I will have kept Thy testimonies. If Christ is my life, then all
that He did is for me. His righteousness is my righteousness. He's called Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord our righteousness, and she shall be called the Lord
our righteousness. So by virtue of our union with
Christ, we have kept the testimonies of God so that we can say there
is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
The law has nothing to say to me. Sin's been put away. This is where the rejoicing comes.
The result of crying is rejoicing in the Lord. For those who walk not after
the flesh, but after the spirit, we're looking spiritually to
the finished work of Christ for all the hope of our salvation. Also, we have the blessing of the Holy
Spirit. who convicts us of our sin and
will not let us rest in it. I will keep thy testimonies.
And I will, Lord, this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in
my heart. As I said earlier, we keep going back to the same
thing, but the Lord won't let us stay there. He won't let us
rest there. He won't let us find any comfort there. He won't let
us find any happiness there. The Spirit of God convicts us
of our sin and causes us to look again and again and again and
again to the Lord Jesus Christ for all our righteousness. What
a blessing. You see, the unbeliever can indulge
themselves in all the things of this world and be fat and
happy. You can't, can you? You can't
do it. Why? Well, if you have the Spirit
of God, you see the vanity of it all. You can't find rest for
your soul. You can't find hope for salvation,
except in Christ. Blessed to cry. Blessed to cry. Oh, it's a blessing. God gives the grace to cry out
as a sinner to Christ to be saved and shows us our union with Christ
and convicts us daily of our sin. Oh, that's a blessing. There's no greater blessing than
that, is there? Our merciful heavenly Father,
bless your word to our hearts. We ask in Christ's name, amen. 168 in the hardback 10. Well, let's
stand together. 168. 168. Lord, I hear of showers of blessing,
thou art scattering, full and free. ? Showers of thirsty land
refreshing ? ? Let some drops now fall on me ? ? Even me, even
me ? ? Let thy blessing fall on me ? ? Pass me not, O tender
Savior ? ? Let me love and cling to thee ? ? I am longing for
thy favor ? ? Whilst thou art calling, O call me ? ? Even me,
even me ? ? Let thy blessing fall on me ? Pass me not, O mighty
spirit, thou canst make the blind to see. Witnesser of Jesus' merit,
speak the word of power to me. ? Eve and me, Eve and me ? ?
Let thy blessing fall on me ? ? Love of God so pure and changeless
? ? Blood of Christ so rich and free ? ? Grace of God so strong
and boundless ? ? Magnify them all in me ? ? Even me, even me
? ? Let thy blessing fall on me ? ? Pass me not thy lost one
bringing ? ? Bind my heart, O Lord, to thee ? ? While the streams
of life are springing ? ? Blessing others, O bless me ? ? Even me,
even me ? ? Let thy blessing fall on me ? Do you think I have everything?
No.