Number 33, stand up and bless
the Lord. Let's all stand together. Stand up and bless the Lord,
ye people of his choice. Stand up and bless the Lord your
God with heart and soul and voice. O high above all praise, above
all blessing high, who would not fear his holy name, and laud
and magnify? O for the living flame, from
his own altar brought, to touch our lips, our minds inspire,
and wing to heaven our thought. God is our strength and song,
and His salvation ours. Then be His love in Christ proclaim,
with all our ransomed powers. Stand up and bless the Lord,
the Lord your God adore. Stand up and bless his glorious
name, henceforth forevermore. Please be seated. I like that line. wing to heaven
our thoughts. The Lord be pleased to do that.
Would you open your Bibles with me to Isaiah 64. Isaiah 64. We come here in hopes that the
Lord will wing our thoughts to heaven, enable us to see our
Savior where He is, seated at the right hand of the majesty
on high, making intercession for His church. Isaiah 64 verse 1, O that thou
would rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down at the
mountains And you remember the Lord said, if you have faith
as the mustard seed, you could say unto this mountain, be cast
into the sea and it would be removed. These mountains are
the barriers between us and God. What is, what is, what did we
learn Sunday from Isaiah 59? Your sin has separated you from
your God so that he will not hear you. So what did the Lord
come to do? He come to, he came to throw
the mountains into the depths of the sea. that the mountains might flow
down at thy presence. As when the melting fire burneth,
the fire causeth the waters to boil to make thy name known to
thine adversaries that the nations may tremble at thy presence. When thou didst terrible things
which we look not for. We weren't looking for God. Thou camest down, and the mountains
flowed down at Thy presence. All our sin cast into the depths
of the sea. For since the beginning of the
world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither
hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for
Him that waiteth for Him. Thou meetest Him, that rejoiceth
and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee and thy ways,
behold, thou art wroth, for we have sinned, and those is continuance."
Is that you? Can't do anything but sin. And we shall be saved. Those who see themselves as sinners are the ones that the Lord saves. But we are all as an unclean
thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We do all
fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.
For thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because
of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, thou art our
father, we are the clay, and thou art our potter, and we are
the work of thy hand. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
what great hope, what great comfort You give us from the clear, glorious
declaration of Thy Word in the successful work of Thy dear Son,
our Redeemer. Lord, we pray that You would
rend the heavens and that that you would enable us to look up
and to see that our redemption draweth nigh, to see the Lord
Jesus Christ successfully seated, having accomplished our salvation.
Lord, that you would give us the faith to rest all our hope
in Him. We thank you for the the burden
of sin that he bore on Calvary's cross and for how satisfied you
were with the agony that he experienced. And we pray, Lord, tonight that
you would enable us to believe on him for our satisfaction in
thy presence. For we ask it in Christ's name,
amen. Let's all stand together again.
We'll sing hymn number 300, 300, 300 from the hardback temple. More secure is no one ever than
the loved ones of the Savior, not yon star on high abiding,
nor the bird in home nest hiding. God His own doth tend and nourish,
In His holy courts they flourish, Like a father kind he spares
them, in his loving arms he bears them. Neither life nor death
can ever from the Lord his children sever, For His love and deep
compassion Comforts them in tribulation. Little flock, to joy then yield
thee, Jacob's God will ever shield thee. Rest secure with this defender,
At his will all foes surrender. ? What he takes or what he gives
us ? ? Shows the Father's love so precious ? ? We may trust
his purpose wholly ? ? To his children's welfare solely ? Please
be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Psalm 6. Psalm 6. I've titled this message,
How Sorry Do You Have to Be? How sorry do you have to be?
I can remember in religion defining repentance like this probably
preached a sermon with these three points. You must have a
sense of sin, you must have a sorrow for sin, and you must have a
separation from sin. I've come to understand that
we're not capable of having a sense of sin like God requires. of the sin that we're guilty
of, we are completely unconscious of it. How can we have a sense
of something that we're not even aware of? Sorrow? Well, that's what Psalm 6 is
all about. Now, God has given us in these
Psalms words that we're able to pray to the Father. And we do. But to feel the truth of these words, we're
not capable. These Psalms, the more I study
the Psalms, the more convinced I am. They are all the words
of Christ. They're all his words. We pray them and we look to him
as the fulfillment of them. But the truth is that God saw
the travail of his soul and was satisfied. Let me ask you a question. How do you judge the sincerity
of someone's apology? Someone who offends you and then
they come to you and ask for forgiveness. We've all had it
happen when we listened to the words of their apology and we
walked away thinking if we didn't say it, they didn't really mean
that. That was an insincere apology. What is it that we evaluate internally
to determine whether a person is sincere? We want to know that they empathize
with the pain that they caused us. That's what we want to know. And unless a person is a complete
psychopath, we've all been offended so that when we are sincere in
our apology, we genuinely identify with what we caused in that other
person's life. That's a sincere apology. And
we have a way of discerning whether or not a person is sincere based
on whether or not they can identify with the pain that they caused
us. Now that same thing's true in
apologizing to God. Now we're capable of identifying
with the pain that we cause one another because we're the same.
We've all been offended. We've all been wronged. We all know what it feels like.
And so when we wrong somebody, we can identify by personal experience. We are incapable of identifying
with the offense that a holy God has felt as a result of our
sin. All our apologies are insincere. All our apologies fall short
of what God requires for true sorrow. And that's exactly, you
see the Lord Jesus Christ bore not just our sins for justice
sake, But he bore the shame and the guilt of our sin in order
to satisfy what God required in order for that to be made
right. He owned our sins as his own. And the scripture says that God
saw the travail of His soul and was satisfied. You see, your
soul and my soul have never travailed over sin like it ought to. Why? Because we don't see sin
like it is. We're not capable of understanding
the full horrors and filth of our sin. We're so accustomed
to it. Sin is something that only God
can understand in terms of its full shame. Only He can understand it. We're
not capable. When Paul spoke of worldly sorrow
in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, which leadeth unto death, what he's
talking about is man's attempt to bring his repentant spirit
to God in hopes that the depths of his sorrow will somehow satisfy
what God requires for repentance. He's looking to his own sorrow. He's thinking that, well, if
I could just That's why people in religion are so engaged in
self-atonement. They're so engaged in trying
to punish themselves and trying to do good things in order to
show God how sincere they are. And God said to those goats that
came before Him on judgment day, who declared, Lord, we've done
many wonderful works in thy name. We've cast out demons. We preach,
we did so many good things for so many people. What were they
doing? You see, they were experiencing
worldly sorrow. All men have a conscience. All
men know that there is a God. And all men know that that God
is someone who must be satisfied. And what does the Lord Jesus
Christ say to them? Look with me in our text of Psalm
6 verse 8. Depart from me, all ye workers
of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. Does the Spirit of God give us
a sense of sorrow? For it certainly does. As soon
as we start looking to how sorrowful we are for the hope of our salvation,
for the hope of satisfying the demands of God's holy justice,
then we become at that point workers of iniquity. because our sorrow is iniquitous. It does not equal up to what
God requires. This psalm is all about Christ. These are words that we can say,
but to understand the full impact of them, only the Lord Jesus
Christ, when he took our sin upon himself and owned it for
himself, You see, He was holy, undefiled, separate from sinners. Only He was able to experience
the full guilt and shame in order to be able to identify with the
offense of our sin against the Father. He's the only one that
could offer up. Well, turn with me to Hebrews.
We looked at this last week. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
5. This will come to mean so much
more to you, understanding what we've just said. Hebrews 5, verse
7, Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers
and supplications with strong cryings and tears unto Him that
was able to save Him from death, and He was heard in that He feared. God heard the prayers of Christ. Now does God hear our prayers?
Yes, but only as we offer them in and through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Only as we understand that His
sorrow and His fear and His faith is the only thing that God's
pleased with. How sacrificial does your love
have to be? How sincere does your sorrow have to be? How true
does your faith have to be? You see, and these are the things
that men, they look to themselves to try to evaluate their salvation
based on the depth of their commitment. Salvation is found in trusting
the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. trusting his sacrifice, trusting
his sincerity, trusting his fear. Lord, he satisfied you. I can't,
I can't come up with enough faith. I can't feel enough sorrow. I can't, I can't redeem myself. But God heard him and heard his
crying and heard his supplications as strong as they were and saved him from death. Saved him from death. We'll see
that in Psalm 6. Though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered and being made How sorry do you have to be for
your sin? You have to be perfectly sorry. You have to be, you have to see
your sin like God sees it. You have to grieve over your
sin the way God grieves over it. You see, you're not capable,
are you? You're not capable. The closest
we come to understanding the horrors of our sin is to look
at what it took God to put them away. To look in faith to the Lord
Jesus Christ and the pouring out of His soul. That's what
my sin caused. You see, we mourn after Him whom
we have pierced as one mourneth after his own son. Lord, I can't feel adequately
shameful. As I said last Sunday, the thing
that bothers us most about our sin is how little it bothers
us. Well, God requires perfect sorrow. He requires perfect sorrow. And being made perfect, He became
the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him. What is it to obey Him? It's
to believe on Him. It's to trust Him. It's to look to Him. And that passage in 2 Corinthians
chapter 7 when Paul talks about worldly sorrow that leadeth unto
death, you see that's man's attempt to feel like, well, if I can
just be sorrowful enough, God will take notice of how sorry
I am and he'll forgive me. And then he talks about godly
sorrow, which leadeth to repentance, leadeth to repentance, change
of mind. You see what God requires from
me. is that I trust the Lord Jesus Christ for my sorrow. Because spiritually speaking,
I am a psychopath. I'm incapable of empathizing
with what God feels over my sin. I'm not capable. So how sorry do you have to be? perfectly sorry. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
bore our sins in his body upon that tree, he was offering to
God a sorrow. Turn with me to Psalm 31. Psalm
31. These people who say that Christ
did not become sin, you can't feel the shame of something
unless you own it for yourself. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. He, God made him sin. Who knew no sin? Yeah, it wasn't
sin that he, but he took our sin and owned it for himself
and felt the full shame and the full sorrow and the full guilt
before God for that sin. These Psalms are all about Him.
Look what He says in Psalm 31 at verse 9. Have mercy upon me,
O Lord, for I am in trouble. Mine eye is consumed with grief. Yea, my soul and my belly for
my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing, my
strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed. That's what God requires. Now in Psalm 6, Dave is talking
about weeping before God all night and soaking his pillow
with tears of sorrow. You know, we get ourselves in
trouble and we have some sleepless nights, don't we? But we've never
felt that kind of conviction, that kind of sorrow. The Lord Jesus Christ did. Look
at Psalm 38. Psalm 38. A Psalm of David. These are the
words of Christ. God gives them to us to pray.
But as we pray them, as we always pray, we conclude our prayers
with, we come before the throne of grace in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In other words, we're looking
to Christ as the fulfillment of these of these truths. Psalm
38 verse 1, Oh Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten
me in thy hot displeasure, for thine arrows stick fast in me
and thy hand presses me sore. This is the conviction of the
Spirit of God There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine
anger. Neither is there any rest in
my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities have gone
over my head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. My
wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. I
am troubled. I am bowed down greatly. I go
mourning all the day long. And those who have worldly sorrow,
they pretend to have that kind of sorrow. And they present a
pretense before God. Oh, I'm just gonna, I'm just
gonna show God how sorrowful I am, and he'll know my apology's
sincere. Remember, how do we judge sincerity? When someone apologizes to us,
We want to know that that person identifies with the pain that
they caused us. And when they convince us that
they do, we accept their apology. You can't identify with the pain
that you caused God for your sin. You can't do it. All you can
do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and know that He did.
He did. He was able to identify with
God over the horrors of our sin and God saw the travail of His
soul and God was satisfied. Look at verse 18 in Psalm 38. For I will declare mine iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. That's Christ speaking for us. I'll be sorry. Turn to me in Isaiah 53. It's hard to find Isaiah 53 and
Psalm 53. Isaiah 53 verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see His seed,
He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in His hand. He, the Father, shall see the
travail of His soul." What was the Lord Jesus Christ
pleading? Sorrow. Sorrow for the sin that
He bore. And God saw the travail of his
soul, and God was satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Now turn with me to Matthew 26. This is so liberating. There's such freedom and joy. in knowing that when we confess
our sin, we are agreeing with God that we are nothing but sin. And that we are incapable of
feeling the full, well, not even close to the full. We're just
not capable of it. Lord, I'm so dull, I'm so cold,
I'm so indifferent. I know my sin's horrible. I know
that if you should mark iniquity, I'd not be able to stand in your
presence. I know if you judge me based on the very best thing
I've ever done in my whole life, I'd go to hell for it. I believe
that. But I've got to look to Christ.
for you to be satisfied with him. You see, faith is being
satisfied with the one that God's satisfied with, isn't it? It's
just being satisfied with Christ. Look at Matthew 26 at verse,
we'll begin reading in verse 36. Then cometh Jesus with them
unto a place called Gethsemane and saith unto his disciples,
sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him
Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and began to
be sorrowful and very heavy. Then say he unto them, my soul
is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, tarry ye here and
watch with me. Now that's what God required.
My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. even unto death. Why? Because he had already begun
to bear the guilt of our sin. And sweating drops of blood,
drinking from that bitter cup, he was crying out to the Father to satisfy what God required
from us that we were not capable of giving. Psalm 6. In Psalm 69 verse 20 it says,
Reproach hath broken my heart, I am full of heaviness. Oh we have a priest, a high priest He's able to be touched with
the feelings of our infirmities. Psalm six, O Lord, rebuke me
not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for
I am weak. We don't know how weak we are. We don't. Not before God or I've got no
strength. We've got no power. These are
words that we can say and we ought to say them and we believe
them best we can. But to understand the full power
of them, only the Lord Jesus Christ could do that. Oh, Lord,
heal me for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed for
thou, oh, Lord, how long? Now, this is just another way
of saying, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The Lord Jesus Christ crying
out to the Father because that eternal fellowship that he had
in a holy union with his Heavenly Father was severed as a result
of sin. We can go minutes, hours, get
wrapped up in something, not give much thought to God. And when we do, we're not capable
of having a holy thought. The Lord Jesus Christ thought
of the father in perfect holiness all the time until he bore our
sin. Now he's beginning to feel the
burden of sin. Why? Because Psalm Isaiah 59,
your sins have separated you from me so that I will not hear
you. That's exactly what happened
on Calvary's cross. Our sins, which he owned as his
own, separated him from the Father. And now he's crying out, oh God,
how long are you going to leave me this way? Return, oh Lord, and deliver
my soul. Oh, save me for thy mercy's sake. deliver my soul and save me." I had somebody tell me that I
ought not to call on men to come to Christ and that believers
ought never to call on God to save them. And his reasoning for that was
that, you know, we're already saved, so why would we call on
God to save us again? And those whom God's chosen in
the covenant of grace are already elected unto salvation anyway,
so don't worry about telling people to come to Christ. God's
going to... You see, they took the precious
truths of God's sovereignty and salvation and took them to the
logical conclusion, but in doing so, they denied everything scripture
teaches. Here the Lord Jesus Christ is
crying out for God to save him. Save me, save me for thy mercy
sake. You see, I cannot bring, now
the Lord Jesus Christ was able to bring the travail of his soul
to the father. His works went before him and
he goes before us as our advocate with the father, doesn't he?
And we cry, Lord, save me. Not because I'm able to feel
the full sorrow of my sin, not because I'm able to have perfect
faith, not because I'm able to, but Lord, for your mercy's sake. All I can be is a mercy beggar.
Mercy and grace. Grace is the giving of that which
we don't deserve and mercy is the withholding of that which
we do deserve. I grew up with two brothers.
We used to wrestle and if we got pinned in a really bad position,
we had an agreement that we could cry mercy and the other one had
to let you go. And that was it. Don't give me, you've got me
in a headlock, you're going to hurt me. Don't give me what I
deserve. Have mercy on me. Withhold from
me. Deliver me. Let me go. Save me. For in death there is no remembrance
of thee. In the grave, who shall give
thee thanks? You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
is saying, don't leave me in the grave. And what we just read,
He saved him from death. Oh, he died a real death. But
God would not allow His Holy One to see corruption, the resurrection. This is the Lord praying for
the Father to raise Him from the dead. I am weary with my groaning. All the night make I my bed to
swim. I water my couch with my tears. You see, the self-righteous will
read this, Lord, burden me for my sin. Give me godly sorrow.
It leads to repentance. Cause me to hate my sin. But
if you think you're going to soak your bed with your tears
to the point to where God's going to see it and He'll be satisfied
with your sorrow, He misunderstood it. This is Christ's tears. These
are those tears of blood that he shed in the garden. Mine eye is consumed because
of grief. It waxeth old because of mine
enemies. who's his enemy? Everything and
every person that robs from him his glory. And what man's thinking is, if
I can have enough sorrow, if I can just have enough faith,
if I can just produce enough good work, if I can do something
to obligate God to save me based on something I've done, He robbed
Christ of his glory, the enemy of the Lord. And that's why the
next verse is the verse that the Lord quoted. When he said,
when he separates the goat, he wasn't talking about those people
that were engaged in all sorts of horrible licentious things
in the world. He's talking about good religious
folk. People that spend their whole
lives trying to redeem themselves by their good works. Thinking
that I've felt sorrow for my sin. I had a sense of sin. I had a sorrow for sin. I've
separated myself from sin. And so God therefore is obligated
to save me. Now they don't say it that way,
but that's what they believe. And what'd the Lord say? Depart
from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. You've robbed
me of my glory. God's satisfied with my sorrow.
God satisfied with my suffering. Verse 9, the Lord hath heard
my supplications, the Lord will receive my prayer. Oh, and if you ask anything according
to my will, you come to God in Christ. And he hears the prayers of his
children because of Christ. The Lord's heard the supplication
of my prayers. Lord Jesus, I need you to intercede
for me. I need you to plead my case.
I need you to present your sorrow on my behalf. I need you to deliver
your righteousness on my behalf. I need you to satisfy the Father
for me. I'm not capable. Let all mine enemies be ashamed,
verse 10, and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed
suddenly. Lord, I am ashamed. I am ashamed
that I ever thought and continue to think that somehow I can present
something that will satisfy you. other than thy dear son." In closing, turn with me to Hebrews
chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 17. Wherefore, in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful
and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered
being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." He suffered the shame and the
sorrow of the sins of his people. And as our high priest, he went
before the presence of God, bearing our sins. And God saw the travail
of his soul. And God was satisfied. How sorry do you have to be?
Sorry enough to know that you're not capable of being sorry enough. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for the revelation of the faithful intercession of our Savior. We pray for your Holy Spirit
to give us hope in Him. For it's in His name we ask it.
Amen. Number 126, let's stand together,
126. Rock of ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flowed be of sin the double pure. Save from wrath and make me pure. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no longer know? These for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. In my hand no price I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold thee on thy throne, Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let
me hide myself in thee. Thank you.