Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 42 from the Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnbook.
Let's all stand together. Number 42, let us praise the
name of Jesus. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Prophet, priest and sovereign king ? ? To him render adoration
? ? Laud and homage to him bring ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? God incarnate from above Came to save His chosen people
Sent by God in covenant love Let us praise the name of Jesus,
who upon Mount Calvary shed his blood and sealed our pardon,
died for sin to set us free. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
Risen, conquering, gracious friend, Advocate and mediator, All our
hopes on Him depend. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? For he brought us to his fold ? ? Come exalt his name
and worship ? ? May the Savior be extolled ? ? Let us praise
the name of Jesus ? ? Till we see Him face to face ? And throughout
the endless ages ? Praise Him for His love and grace Please
be seated. Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles together to Psalm 88. Psalm 88. Do something a little
bit different tonight. I want to read the psalm that I'll be preaching
from for our call to worship. That way we won't have to read
it again when we begin the message. Psalm 88, a song or psalm for
the sons of Korah. O Lord God of my salvation, I
have cried day and night before Thee. Let my prayer come before
Thee. Incline Thine ear unto my cry,
for my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto
the grave. I am counted with them that go
down into the pit. I am as a man that hath no strength. free among the dead, like the
slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more,
and they are cut off, and that word from, better understood
as by, they are cut off by thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the
lowest pit, in darkness and in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard
upon me, and thou hast afflicted me, with all thy waves, Selah. Thou hast put away my acquaintances
far from me. Thou hast made me an abomination
unto them. I am shut up. I cannot come forth. Mine eye mourneth by reason of
affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon
thee. I have stretched out my hands
unto thee. Wilt thou show wonders to the
dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy lovingkindness be declared
in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders
be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of
forgetfulness? But unto thee have I cried, O
Lord. And in the morning shall my prayer
come before thee. Lord, why casteth thou off my
soul? Why hidest thou thy face from
me? I am afflicted and ready to die
from my youth up. While I suffer thy terrors, I
am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. Thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily
like water. They can pass me about together.
Lover and friend have put far from me and mine acquaintances
into darkness. Armida is in the hospital at
Princeton. She got real dehydrated, they
put her in Monday, and she's getting better. Hopefully go
home by the end of the week. So, let's pray together. Oh, our merciful and gracious
heavenly father. We know that every good and perfect
gift comes from you, the father of lights with whom there is
no shadow of turning. Lord, we pray that we might experience
the fulfillment of that blessing tonight. We pray that you would
send your spirit in power that you would enable us to set our
affections on thy dear son. Our sin bearer, our substitute,
the one to whom this Psalm applies to best. Lord, we pray that we
would find our, our hope and our comfort in his accomplished
work of substitution and redemption. We pray for our sister, Armida.
We ask, Lord, that you would give the medical professionals
the knowledge that they need to treat her well and pray for
your hand of comfort to be upon her in strength. Give her hope
and grace in Christ. Oh, we ask it in his name. Amen. Let's all stand together once
again. We'll sing hymn 212 in the hardback. 212. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon, this I see, Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing, this my plea,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. O precious is the flow, That
makes me white as snow, No other fount I know, Nothing but the
blood of Jesus. Nothing can for sin atone, Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. not of good that I have done,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow, no other fount I know. Nothing but the
blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Please be seated. Still have your Bibles open to
Psalm 88. I want to call your attention
to the title of this psalm. A song or psalm for the sons
of Korah. You remember who Korah was? Korah
stood in rebellion against God, against Moses in the wilderness
and The Lord opened up the earth and swallowed Korah and all of
his followers into that earth. And these are his descendants
now that this psalm is written to. The descendants of a rebel. And I hope that we can understand
that for ourselves. That by nature, by nature, we
stand in rebellion against God. That's what sin is. Sin is rebellion
against God. And as sinners, we are by nature
the sons of Korah. And this psalm is for each child
of God who understands, at least in part, what their problem is. Our problem is a sin problem.
That's really what it is, isn't it? Everything stems from that.
That's the sin that doth so easily beset us. The root of all other
sins is our rebellion against God. It's our inability to bow
in perfect faith to him. I've titled this message A Cry
of Faith. a cry of faith. And if there's
any light in this whole psalm, it's only found in verse 1. It's
only found in verse 1. Oh Lord God of my salvation. Better read, Oh Lord the God
of my salvation. So here's a Here's a cry for
help without any evidence. Oftentimes in the Psalms, towards
the end, there'll be an answer to the prayer. This Psalm ends
with no answer. It's just a continual cry. But
it begins with this confession of faith. Oh Lord, I'm addressing
this cry to you. You are the God of my salvation. And in spite of all the afflictions
and trials and troubles, most of which I bring upon myself,
those which I suffer in this world, and those which I suffer
by the good hand of your providence, your love and your goodness towards
me, in spite of all of that, I believe that you are the God
of my salvation. I believe that salvation is of
the Lord. I believe that the only hope that I have to be right
with God is for him to choose me in the covenant of grace before
the foundation of the world. I believe that in election you
are the God of my salvation. I believe that in redemption
you are the God of my salvation. that there's no way that I can
put away my own sin. There's no way that I can satisfy
your holy justice or fulfill your law. I am dependent upon
what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me on Calvary's tree when
he went before you as my sin bearer and as my substitute. I believe, oh Lord, the God of
my salvation. I believe that in regeneration,
I would not have come. I would not have believed. I
would not have bowed. I would not have cried out for
mercy had you not taken out my heart of stone and put in a heart
of flesh. Had you not unilaterally regenerated me, breathed life
into my dead heart, I never would have come. You made me willing.
You made me willing and you sent your spirit. You gave me eyes
to see. You gave me ears to hear. You gave me a heart to believe.
Oh Lord, the God of my salvation. I believe the only reason that
I have any interest in the gospel right now, the only reason I
have any understanding right now is because of your continual
work of grace in my heart that causes me to keep looking to
Christ and keep bringing me back. And I believe that the only way
that I'm going to enter into your presence and be acceptable
in your sight is because the Lord Jesus Christ went before
me as my forerunner, and that you're going to keep me and present
me faultless before your throne with great joy. You are the God
of my salvation. And in spite of all these troubles
that I'm suffering in this life, I believe that you are the God
of my salvation. And that's my hope. That's my
hope. I believe, I believe what Paul
said. I'm confident, I am persuaded
that you are able to keep that which I've committed unto you
against that day. And I believe that in all the
trials and troubles of this life that your hand is the first cause
of them, the first cause. Oftentimes, we get frustrated
at the second causes, don't we? I was listening to a message
today that Charles Spurgeon preached back in 1874, I think. And he used the illustration
of a man hitting a dog with a stick. And he said, you hit a dog with
a stick, and the dog will go after the stick, thinking that
the stick's the problem. Not knowing this, the hand of
the man that's holding the stick. And, uh, isn't that the way we
are? We bite at the secondary causes, not knowing that it's
the hand of God that holds the stick of correction. That, that,
and Lord, I know, I know that all things work together for
good for them that love you and those that are the called according
to your purpose. This Psalm is about affliction.
It's a dark Psalm. It's about death, it's about
dying, it's about troubles. What did David say about affliction?
He said, Lord, before I was afflicted, I had gone astray. But now, but
now I've kept thy word. Lord, your merciful, gracious,
loving hand of affliction has caused me to see my need for
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what this psalm's
about. It's a cry of faith on the part of every child of God,
asking the Lord to deliver them in their time of trouble. I looked at several messages
that were preached from this passage of scripture. One of
them was titled, The Cry of Depression. Another one was titled, The Saddest
and Darkest of Psalms, and it is. It's a very sad and dark
psalm. A Song for a Sorrowful Believer. And one of them was
titled, What to Do in Tough Times. And it has a lot to do with those
sort of things. This is about discouragement
and depression and weight that's on our soul that's too heavy
for us to bear. I've I've chosen to call it a
cry of faith. Because it is a believers call
out to God. To deliver him in his time of
trouble, but more so than that. More so than that, it is the
prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. Being offered to the father. On our behalf. You see, the truth is that we
have no real understanding as to what our spiritual condition
really is. Um, if we did, we would pray
like this heartfelt all the time. But since we don't. And since
we can't fully understand the weight of our sin, we needed
the Lord Jesus Christ to offer up this prayer for us. And when
he prayed it, he understood and felt the sorrow of every word
and offered it up. You know, we talk about the Lord
Jesus Christ being our intercessor, and He is. We have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He intercedes
on our behalf. He prayed that prayer for us
that's so high, that high, high priestly prayer that we have
recorded in John chapter 17, where the Lord goes before the
Father and He says, Father, I pray for them which Thou hast given
me out of the world. I pray not for the world. But for them which
thou has given me any intercedes and I mean he says father keep
them keep them. They believed me. And he's and
he's interceding asking the father to send his spirit in power to
keep us from the world. And we need that. We need we
need the Lord to to to to send his spirit in power to enable
us to believe. We need Christ Jesus, not only
to satisfy divine justice, but we also need for him to express
for us the sincere sorrow that we're not able to express. You
know, we, we ought to walk in perfect fellowship with God all
the time. We ought to feel the full burden of the wickedness
of our sin. We ought to. We ought to believe
God with a perfect faith. But we don't. And we can't. Not as long as we're in this
world. And so here we have our Lord as our substitute, satisfying
what God requires in terms of the expressions of sorrow and
faith on the part of this people. Christ is interceding for us.
He's praying this prayer for us. Truth is the only time we
ever feel this way Mostly is when we suffer the consequences
of our sin. Or when we're in the midst of
some sort of physical trial or trouble in this world. We feel
some of what's being expressed here. But in terms of feeling
the real burden of our sin as we ought, we don't. We don't. I have to, I have to agree with
what I heard one brother say, the thing that bothers me most
about my sin is how little it bothers me. And that's, and that's
the truth. We, we, but the Lord Jesus Christ,
these Psalms are, are, are prayers that he's offering to the father
on our behalf, expressing to the father as the head of the
body. and for the body and for the
church, all the things that we're unable to express with the kind
of depths and sincerity that God requires. And that gives
me so much hope. Turn to me to the book of Lamentations.
You remember Jeremiah and then Lamentations chapter one. Look at the last part of verse
9. hath magnified himself. The adversary
has spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things, for
she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom
thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. All her people sigh, they seek
bread, They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve
the soul. See, O Lord, and consider, for
I am become vile." Now, Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, again, is
expressing to the Lord What Christ expresses for us is, Lord, look
at your sanctuary. Look at how defiled they've made
it. And they're not concerned about it. And now he says, I
have become vile. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did when he went to Calvary's cross. When he bore
our sins in his body upon the tree, he became vile. before God. He became sin. God made him who knew no sin
to be sin for us. And so he's expressing, look,
verse 12, Is it nothing to you all that pass by? Behold and
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done
unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his
fierce anger. Can anyone express sorrow like
me? You know, we think, well, you
know, if I could just be sorry enough, that would somehow atone.
No, it won't. No, it won't. We can't feel the
sorrow for our sin that we ought to feel. We certainly can't feel
the sorrow that he felt. Has any man known sorrow like
me? I'm the one that's become vile.
They pass by and they don't even understand how much they need
me to express their sorrow to God for them. And so he says that God has afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger. And that's exactly what God did
to the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross when he pierced him with
the sword of his own justice. It pleads God to bruise him.
He afflicted him in the day of his fierce, fierce anger. The full fury of God's wrath
was poured out on the Lord Jesus Christ. And now in Psalm 88,
we have that. Well, let me show you one other
passage. We've looked at this several times, but I want you
to see it again. Hebrews chapter five. Hebrews chapter five. Verse 5, so also Christ glorified
not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto
him, thou art my son, today I have begotten thee. So the father
is the one who set up the Lord Jesus Christ as our high priest.
For he saith also in another place, thou art a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. who in the days of his flesh,
when he offered up prayers and supplications with strong cries
and tears unto him that is able to save him from death and was
heard in that he feared." If there were any words that the
Lord Jesus Christ spoke from scripture in his heart to the
father while he hung there on Calvary's tree, Psalm 88 are
the words that he's crying. He's facing death, he's experiencing
the fierce anger of God's wrath for the sins of his people. And he's crying with tears unto
him that is able to save him. Though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered. We learn obedience by the things
which we suffer. We just don't learn very well.
And we don't learn very long. And we have to be taught again,
don't we? And again, and again, and again. And being made perfect,
he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
believe on him, that obey him, that look to him, that rest in
him. So here we have God saying, Christ
is not only your sin bearer, he not only satisfied my justice,
he not only is your righteousness, he not only fulfilled my law,
but he is the one that you look to, to express your sorrow to
God. You know, the child of God is
ashamed of how little they're concerned about their sin. They're
ashamed of how hard their hearts are and how worldly they are
and how difficult it is for them to feel what the Lord Jesus Christ
felt. The situation's desperate. We're
just not. We're not. The Lord Jesus Christ
understood the full desperation of the problem and felt it and
was desperate and expressed for us the things that we're not
able to pray, the things that we're not able to feel, the things
that we're not able to experience as we ought, as we ought. What comfort, what hope. That's why we say Christ is all. He's everything that God requires
of me, He provides. He's maturity. He didn't just
fulfill the law. He didn't just put away my sin.
He's not just interceding to keep me. He's expressing to God
the things that I cannot express. The sorrow that I ought to have,
the faith that I ought to have, the love for God that I ought
to have that I don't have. He's expressing that to God for
me. That's a Savior that saves to
the uttermost. He's doing everything. You know,
how often times, child of God, we think, oh, if I could just
be more sincere in my prayers, and we ought to be more sincere
in our prayers, if I could just feel more burdened for my sin,
if I could just be more detached from this world, and all those
things are true and good, and we ought to be. But we're never
going to achieve the level of requirement that God has for
any of those things that He achieved. He achieved. He became perfect.
He, through his crying and tears, was heard. And when we do pray
for God to forgive us and we pray for Him to deliver us and
we pray for Him to help us and we pray these kind of prayers
that are expressed here in Psalm 88, what do we do? We pray them in Jesus' name.
We understand how How shallow our prayers are. How unable we
are to, to, to express ourselves to God in a way that, that would
be satisfactory to him. Now, affliction is part of the
believer's life. The Lord's hand of providence
often stirs trouble in our lives. He's the hand behind the stick. Don't bite at the stick. You
know, we get angry at people, but those people are the secondary
causes. The heart of the king is in the
hand of the Lord, and he directs it like the watercourse, whithersoever
he wills. If an individual causes us trouble,
God sent them to cause us that trouble. You know, we bite the stick and
we forget that it's the hand of God that works all these things
together for our good. And to believe that, to believe
that our God is absolutely sovereign, that takes away all the, but
we do, don't we? We lose sight of that. But the truth is that our God
sends afflictions and he sends troubles. But the Lord has never,
never let one of his Abrahams be put into a deep sleep without
waking them to the light of his covenant graces and mercies. He's never allowed one of his
Jonas to go down into the pit. to put them in the bottom of
the sea and the belly of the whale without bringing them forth
through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ onto dry ground. He has a purpose, he has a cause
in his afflictions. He's never allowed one of his
Job's to be afflicted without revealing to them the more full
glory of his nature. What did Job say? Oh Lord, I
had heard of thee by the hearing of mine ear, but now mine eyes
have seen thee and I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.
What a glorious, gracious God we have. He doesn't send these
things willy-nilly. He doesn't send them without
a purpose. He has a purpose in every one of them. And he's the
first cause behind all of them. He never lets one of his poor
daughters of Jerusalem suffer with an issue of blood without
allowing them to touch the hem of his garment and be made whole. He never lets any son of Jacob
wrestle with Him all night long without changing their name,
confirming His grace to them by letting them know that they're
not the supplanter, they're the prince. And with that, he touches
the hollow of their thigh and causes them to limp the rest
of their lives, showing them their complete weakness and dependence
upon him. That's why Paul said, I glory
in my afflictions. Why? Because when I'm weak, then
I'm strong. His strength is made perfect
in my weakness. This is what Psalm 88 is all
about. Solomon said, the house of mourning
is better than the house of feasting. The house of affliction and the
house of mourning is better than the house of feasting. How easy
it is for us to lose sight of our God and lose our dependence
upon Him when all things are well. Turn with me to James chapter
5. James chapter 5. This Psalm 88 has two messages
for us. This is the prayer of the afflicted
soul when suffering the heavy hand of God's difficult providence. And it begins with the hope of
light. I am praying to the Lord, the
God of my salvation. And secondly, it is the prayer
of the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly offered to the Father on our
behalf because of the dullness of our own hearts and the, well, just the, our inability
to feel our sin as we ought. If you have your Bibles open
to James 5, look at verse 7. Be patient, therefore, brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. Here's your hope, child of God. The Lord's coming. And his nearness
is at hand. It's a lot sooner than we think
it is. And the Lord's going to keep us, but here's our, here's
our, who's he coming for? He's coming for those that are
watching and waiting. Coming for those that are, so
the Lord's encouraging us. He said, well, in Thessalonians,
or yes, in Thessalonians, he said, comfort ye one another
with these words. What words? That the Lord is
going to come, the trump of God is going to sound, the dead in
Christ are going to be raised and those of us which are alive
will be caught up together with them in the air and so shall
we ever be with the Lord. Comfort ye one another with these
words. And here he's saying, be patient therefore brethren
unto the coming of the Lord. Wait, wait, the Lord's coming. And all these afflictions and
all these troubles and all these trials that we suffer in this
world and in this flesh, they don't exist on the other side
of the river. We're eating from the tree of
life on this side of the river. We're going to cross through
that river. And in my other side of the river, there's no more
tears, no more dying, no more death, no more sorrow. Be patient,
therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the
husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long
patience for it until he received the early and latter rain. The early rain is election. The latter rain is glorification.
And so what he's saying, he's talking about the farmer. Now
he said, the husbandman, the farmer, he waits patiently. He
plants a seed, waits for the first rain to come. And now for
the fruit to be harvested, the latter rain has to come. And
he's using that as, wait, the latter rain's coming. It's coming. Be also patient. Establish your
hearts. For the coming of the Lord draweth
nigh. It's soon, it's sooner than you
think. Grudge not one against another,
brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before
the door. Take my brethren, the prophets,
who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering
and affliction and impatience. What are we talking about all
those Old Testament saints from Hebrews chapter 11? And Hebrews chapter 12 starts
out with, seeing that we are compassed about with such a great
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside the weight and the sin
that does so easily beset us and let us look and wait with
patience. The Lord's coming, the Lord's
coming. Take my brethren the prophets,
verse 10, who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example
of suffering and affliction and impatience. Behold, we count
them happy which endure. You have heard of the patience
of Job and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is
very pitiful and of tender mercy. Oh, the glory that shall be revealed
in us, Paul said in Romans, cannot be compared to the sufferings
of this present life. Cannot be compared. So the Lord
saying, you remember how the story of Job ended up? He's a
whole lot better off at the end than he was at the beginning,
wasn't he? Well, that's a picture of redemption. And now the Lord's
bringing out, you've heard how Job waited. And how God blessed
him and, and that same blessing. I'm not saying that that blessing
is going to come in this life. Although when the affliction
has accomplished its purpose, the Lord's going to remove it
and he'll give us some reprieve. And then he'll send another one
money. You'll send another one. All your brethren that have gone
before you. have suffered exactly the same thing, exactly the same
thing. All right, go back with me to
Psalm 88. Hebrews chapter 12 is the passage
that talks about being disciplined by our loving heavenly father. And that if you're not disciplined,
you don't belong to God. And and that's that's the discipline
of of trials and troubles, but it's the discipline of of spiritual
correction too. It's the it's the. It's the discipline
of his of his grace and mercy in our hearts for our for our
for our sin. Psalm 88. Oh Lord. The God of my salvation I have
cried day and night before thee. And who's the only one that could
say that? Do you cry day and night before God? You pray without
ceasing. You pray like you ought. You
want to, don't you? And by God's grace, you can't
get away from him. You think about him all the time,
but, but to be in a state of prayer constantly, this is, this
is our Lord offering that on our behalf. Let my prayer come before thee,
incline thine ear unto my cry. For my soul is full of troubles
and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. Oh, if we only, believers are
the only ones that understand the consequences of death. We
really do. We're sober about death. We're humbled about death. We
don't make light of it. We understand what's at stake. And so we're constantly, Lord,
whatever troubles I have in this life, they're all gonna go away
the moment I draw my last breath. And the biggest need that I have
is to be able to stand in thy presence, accept it. And if that's
gonna happen, Christ is gonna have to offer a prayer of contrition. That'd be another good title
for this psalm would be a prayer of contrition. When have we ever
been contrite? When have we ever had a humble
and contrite heart as we ought? The Lord has. And the Lord's
done that for us. And our humility and contriteness
before God is the recognition of our inability to be as contrite
as we ought. And our, and our, our dependence
upon him for our contrition. My soul is full of troubles.
My life draw it nigh into the grave. We really are dead man. We're dying men. We're moving
every day and every moment closer and closer to that, to that grave,
that moment of truth. I am counted with them that go
down into the pit. I am as man that hath no strength.
When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.
Lord, I'm going to the pit. I'm headed to the grave. There's
coming a moment in time where this life will be no more. I've
got to have you to save me. The consequences of death is
heaven and hell. That's it. There's no purgatory.
There's no in between. You can see how our Lord would
have offered these exact words in his heart to the Father from
the cross. Free among the dead, like the
slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more,
and they are cut off by thy hand. It is appointed by God unto man
once to die. God has a date on the calendar
with your name on it and my name on it. And then nothing you're
gonna do gonna change that. It's already been appointed by
God. He's the first cause. And oh Lord, I need for that
moment in time to be the moment you call me home. You call me
home Lord, I don't want to be in in fear of wrath and judgment. I've got to have hope that Christ
went into the pit for me. That he satisfied your justice. That he fulfilled your law. Lord. Let me let me rest in him. For thou hast laid me in the
lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath layeth hard
upon me, for thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Oh yeah, that's the way affliction
is oftentimes, wave after wave after, Lord, when's this gonna
quit? You get through one and there's some calm between the
wave and another wave comes. But here's the Lord Jesus Christ
saying, Lord, you've afflicted me with all your waves, all your
waves. The waves of your wrath have
crashed upon me. Thou hast put away my acquaintances
far from me. Thou hast made me an abomination
unto them. I am shut up. I cannot come forth. That's what the grave does. It
shuts us up. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
praying to the Father saying, Lord, you're gonna have to bring
me forth out of the grave. When I mourn it by reason of
affliction, Lord, I have called daily upon thee. I have stretched
out my hands unto thee. We do pray. Prayer is the breath
of faith. And, and we, we, the Lord, the
Lord causes us to pray. But we don't pray as we ought.
We often pray amiss that we may consume it upon our own lust.
Or we, or we are more concerned about temporal matters than we
are spiritual matters. We, we just, we just don't have
the ability to, to understand that the condition as it really
is. And here our Lord is saying,
Lord, I, I suffered your, your affliction and I've come to you
daily. Without show wonders to the dead
verse 10, shall the dead rise and praise thee. Now that's our
argument. Lord, I, if you, if you let me
lead me down in the pit and go into the lowest pit, there's
not going to be any praise for you there. Lord, I, my hope,
my hope. is to see you as you are and
be made like you. My hope is that Christ went into
the grave for me, that he conquered death, that he put away my sin,
and that he is now expressing to you what I'm not capable of
expressing. Shall thy lovingkindness be declared
in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders
be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of
forgetfulness? Now the Lord Jesus Christ is making his argument
to the father, saying, father, you, the glory of God's going
to be dependent upon my resurrection. You're going to have to bring
me forth out of the grave in order for you to be glorified. But unto thee have I cried, O
Lord, in the morning. in the morning shall my prayer,
and I told you this last week I think, that word prevent means
to go before. Lord, I wake up in the morning
and we have the account in the New Testament of the Lord Jesus
Christ getting up before anybody else and going off to him by
himself and being in prayer with his father. And we think, boy,
I should be that way. Yeah, we should. And we all pray
more than we do. But you're not gonna ever be
able to pray in such a way as to have that prayer earn you
any merit with God. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed
those prayers for us. In the morning I've gone and
my prayers went before me. His work went before him. And our work goes before us.
in him. He's our forerunner who has gone
before the Father. Lord, why castest thou off my
soul? Why hidest thou face from me?
What is this? My God, my God, why'st thou forsaken
me? Here's our Lord crying to his
Father for mercy from the cross. I am afflicted. and ready to
die from my youth up while I suffer thy terrors, I'm distracted. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered
the terrors of God, the terrors of hell, the terrors of wrath
that you and I would not have to suffer those terrors. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. Thy terrors have cut me off.
The fierce wrath of God. We don't have to worry about
that, brethren. Lord, Father, look to the pouring out of your
wrath on Christ for me. They come round about me daily
like water. They come past me about together. All the day long the terrors
of wrath have come against me like water. Lover and friend
hast thou put far from me. Who was it that put it in the
hearts of the disciples? Who was it that purposed Let
me put it that way. Who was it that purposed? Before
it ever happened. The forsaking of the Lord Jesus
Christ by his friends. God, he was the first cause of
that. And that's what he's saying that you put my friends from
me. You left me all by myself. The Lord Jesus Christ had to
do what he did alone. Now here's my final word of encouragement,
brethren. We get this idea that somehow
we can add to what Christ has done. If we can just pray more
and read more and be more merciful and more gracious and more sorrowful,
we can somehow improve His work. And that's exactly what this
psalm is all about. No, no, no. Oughtn't we pray more? Yeah.
Oughtn't we love more? Yeah. Oughtn't we be more patient?
Yeah. Oughtn't we trust God and believe He is sovereign over
our circumstances? Yes. Can we add One iota to what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done, not only in satisfying justice and
fulfilling the law, but expressing our sorrow to God, our spirituality
to God. Can we can we add to that? No. He did it all. All his friends
left him. Where is friends? Leave him in the sense that let
leave him to do it by himself. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for your word and we're thankful. For the hope of salvation that
you've given to us and the perfect faith. Of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, that you would
look to him on our behalf. And we ask it in his name. Amen. 127, let's stand together. ? Man of sorrows, what a name ?
For the Son of God who came ? Ruined sinners to reclaim ? Hallelujah,
what a Savior Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place condemned
he stood, Sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah! What a Savior! Guilty, vile, and helpless we,
Spotless Lamb of God was He, Full atonement can it be? Hallelujah, what a Savior! Lifted up was he to die, It is
finished was his cry, Now in heaven exalted high, Hallelujah,
what a Savior! When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring, Then anew this song we'll sing,
Hallelujah, what a Savior!