Psalm 88 this evening. This psalm is 18 verses, but
they're not long verses, so let's read it. It won't take but a
minute to read it. I want you to see And let me just say this right
at the outset. This is the most depressing song
I've ever had to speak about before. It's very, very down and it never turns.
It never changes. It begins in trouble and ends with trouble.
Many of David's songs begin with great despair and trouble. Usually
there's a turning point somewhere and often they end on a high
note Psalm 22 is a good example of that But this song ends as
solemnly as it begins. It appears. It's not a song of
David But This man Heman But let's look at it Oh Lord
God of my salvation I've cried day and night before thee I 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 from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the
lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lies hard upon
me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance
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? Shall thy love and kindness 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
prevent thee. Lord, why castest thou off my
soul? Why hidest thou thy face from
me? I'm 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 compassed me
about together. Lover and friend hast thou put
far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness. There's no let
up, there's no relief from the horrors that are described here. And this in itself is a lesson
for us. Not every song in this world
can be a happy one. We know that our case will end
with happiness, but we can't always even see that now. There
are times when we can't even see that. What are we to do? Sing unto
the Lord anyway. Sing unto the Lord. Whether He
saves me from every trouble or not, I can still sing this, O Lord,
You're the God of my salvation. I don't see it. I don't see any
evidence of it. I don't feel real saved right
now. I feel like I'm in the pit. But I know who you are. Though
I cannot rejoice in his salvation, I still know who he is. Wasn't
that true of Job? He was on the ash heap, but he
would not deny his God. This is a very important lesson
now. We're not saved because we feel saved. We're not saved because God always gives us a sense of that.
We're saved because God is the God of our salvation. We're saved
because of who he is. Our experience didn't have a
whole lot to do with our salvation. We're not justified because we
don't feel guilty. We're justified because it is
God that justifies, Paul said. Who is he that condemneth? It
is God that justifies. We're not cleansed because we
feel clean. We're cleansed because it is
Christ that died, yea rather than is risen again. It was even
at the right hand of God. We're not blessed because we
feel blessed. We're blessed because God hath
made with us an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things ensured. And that's all of our salvation.
That is not what I feel, not what I'm going through, not what
I experience. And even though this psalmist here, he can't
find anything at the time to rejoice in. Not a thing. He knows who he has believed. Thou art the God of my salvation. God hadn't changed. My feelings
come and they go, but God is still my God, my Savior. And people who are in trouble,
who have a God who is a true Savior, they cry to Him. He said,
I cried day and night. Day and night. Have you ever
heard a parent Say, or maybe a friend, say, don't come crying
to me. Because, usually because you
got yourself in the trouble. It's your own dadgum fault, so
don't come crying to me. I told you, but don't come crying
to me. Well, you can always come crying to the God of your salvation.
He knows it's your fault. Of course it's your fault. I cry day and night to him. Anyway. He's gracious and kind to hear
us always. And notice in verses one and
two, the words before the. I come before the my prayers. Before the. And may it come before
the. I'm crying before the I take
my place before the. As I cry, but may it actually
come before thee. Think about this. The only way
to have our case heard, reviewed, and a verdict
rendered one way or the other, and that's what we need. Lord,
decide the doubtful case, John Newton wrote. Thou who art thy
people's son, shine upon thy work of grace, if it be indeed
begun. If we're to have our case reviewed, we need it decided, don't we?
We need a decision. It's got to come before the one
with the authority to do something about it. I can tell my friends,
I may get some earthly comfort from that. I can tell those that
love me my problems, but I need my case to come before the one
that can do something about it. If the judge won't hear your
case and there can never be any resolution. This is what our
Lord Jesus Christ, our great mediator does for us. One of
the many things he does for us. He brings our case before God
and we are heard. Do you have any idea the importance
of that? Let my cry come before thee. Do you know how that happens?
You have to have a mediator. Because you don't come before
God on your own. But of course, he does much more
than that. We're not only heard, our case
is not only heard by the judge himself, but Christ is also our
substitute and our justifier. Our case is not pled based upon
our own merits, but his. But our text reminds us here
that God must at least hear our case. He must hear it. It's got to come before the bar
of his justice. And he does so and he hears it
favorably. The verdict is going to be a
favorable one for us because of Christ, because of who he
is to us and who he is for us. He is our advocate. We have,
if we sin, and we do, we have, we will, we have an advocate
with the father. That's how my cry is going to
come before him. You say, well, God always hears
his children's cry. because we're his children. Yeah,
that's right. And that's because of Christ.
That's because of Christ. Only Christ. He is the only man
who can come before God. Only one man has ever come into
the very presence of God Almighty And he comes for us. Those are
key words in the scripture. Oh, it's for us. This is my blood,
which is shed for you. My body, which is broken for
you. Listen to this passage of scripture, Hebrews 9, 24. For
Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands.
The man could do that. That pictured him, which are
the figures of the true, but into heaven itself. Now to appear
in the presence of God, There's our two words for us. He appears in the presence of
God for us. My prayer reaches the ear of
God. It comes before him because my savior came before him for
me. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest enters into the holy place every
year with the blood of others. For then must he have often suffered
since the foundation of the world. The picture breaks down there,
Paul said. It's not like it in that sense.
What the high priest did is exactly like what Christ did, except
in these things here. He didn't shed his blood often
every year. But now once in the end of the
world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. That's how my supplications come
before God. That's how the cry of my heart
for mercy comes before him. Our cries for mercy and salvation
come before God. How many times has David sound
so awestruck that he said, my plea has entered into your ears,
even into your ears. Never take this for granted.
It's because of that precious blood that you're able to speak
to God and he hear you. And God responds to those cries.
They can't wait because Christ came before God for us. He hears
us and he responds to those Christ favorably because of Christ's
sin atoning sacrifice for us. We read both of those things
right there in Hebrews. So when we come before God before
God before the he said before the I come before the let my
cry come before the. When we do that, Remember that
we are able to do so only because Christ did so and he did so with
somewhat to offer His own precious blood It is his precious blood
that has purchased us access to God the veil is rented to
because the bloody shit and we come boldly before the throne
of grace why to obtain mercy and and grace to help in time
of need. This song sounds like time of
need, doesn't it? So the psalmist says, Lord, I'm
coming before you. How are you going to do that?
We have access by the precious blood of our Savior. That's how.
I'm going to have a quick word of prayer. No. No, I'm going to come before
God. And God Almighty is going to
hear my cry. And he's going to hear it. He's
going to hear it because my Savior came before him as my representative
and offered his precious blood as the atonement for my sin. And we never take that for granted
or neglect it. Else our cries would never reach
the clouds, much less the throne of heaven. His precious blood. And notice also in verse two,
it is a cry. It doesn't come from the head,
it comes from the heart. Where does a cry come from? The apostle Peter didn't have
to think about it much to say, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. He didn't have to think about
it. I'm not saying the Lord bypasses
our head. We must learn of Him. We must
hear His truth and we must, even with our natural faculties, we
must, that's why we use great plainness of speech. Because
if you're going to believe on Him, you've got to get a hold
of the truth concerning Him. But the cry doesn't come from
our head. It comes from our heart now.
If you have a book on how to pray, throw it away. If you need to learn how to pray,
what you need is to know Him. You see what I'm saying here?
This is a cry. This is a cry. This is not an
argument. This is not a debate. This is not us making the case.
He does that. We just cry. And a cry is as
natural as the wind and the rain. It's the first thing you do.
The first thing you ever did was cry. You don't have to know a whole
lot in order to cry. You can't pray eloquently good. Because it would most likely
just be a bunch of hot air anyway. A baby can cry. A baby who can't
do anything else can cry. And what will get, let me ask
you this, what gets a more desirable response from a loving father
or mother? The cry of a baby or the argument
of a teenager? Either way, the parent is devoted
to the happiness of his child. But the point is this, there's
nothing more effective than just a simple cry. I need you. I need you. I need you. And verse three teaches us a
couple of things. He said, I'm full. I'm full of
troubles. I've got nothing but trouble.
There's no room for anything in me but trouble. I'm full.
And he said this, I'm going to die. Have you ever said that
before? I'm going to die. And I don't
mean to laugh about that. We've all been there. Soul trouble
is real trouble now. It's dire trouble. But also, it's rarely what we
imagine it to be. Usually when we say we have nothing
but trouble, we have a whole lot more than trouble. We just
can't see anything but trouble. We're just able to see only What's breaking our hearts? And when we're sure we're convinced
that we're going to die of a broken heart or from some exterior threat. I know this, we're not going
to die until God says so. We feel like we're going to die.
When we're going to die is when God says so. Only the Lord Jesus Christ could
truly say what the psalmist says here. full of troubles. I got nothing but troubles. Look at the language in the next
several verses, in fact, beginning with verse three, as it applies
to our Savior. Several things here. My soul
is full of troubles. The word troubles there means
bad or evil. And though our Lord Jesus Christ
had no sin of his own. And this is why troubles come
now. We know that specific troubles don't necessarily come because
of specific sin. But generally speaking, no sin,
no trouble. Okay. And it means bad or evil. Our
Lord Jesus Christ had no sin of his own and so would have
no trouble that he deserved and yet he was full of the bad of
all of his people. And only he could really say
that. We say I'm full of trouble, I got nothing but trouble. That's
not ever true. That's not ever true of us. We
got a whole lot more than trouble. We got blessings that we don't
even seek. But he, as he bore our sins in his own body on the
tree, He was full of it, full of trouble, full of evil, full
of bad. He bore all of our bad in his
own body. On the tree, 1 Peter 2, 24, that
we being dead to sin should live under righteousness by whose
stripes you were healed. And as the psalmist in verse
three cries that because of his trouble, he said, my life draws
nigh unto the grave. So my Savior, when he bore the
weight of my sin, he cried, my soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death. And he wasn't just whistling
Dixie when he said that. The weight of my sin was about
to kill him. Verse four, he said, I am counted
with them that go down into the pit. Do you know who goes down
into the pit? Those that deserve to go down
into the pit, that's who. and him who was counted as he
that goes down into the pit. Those that deserve to go, go.
But he said, I'm counted as one of them. Listen to Mark 15, 27.
With him, they crucified two thieves, the one on his right
hand and the other on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled,
which saith, he was numbered with the transgressors. I'm counted
As one of them that goes down into the pit, that one thief
said, we're getting what we deserve. We're going to go into the pit
because we richly deserve to go into the pit, but not him. But he was numbered with the
transgressors because he bore the sins of many. In verse five, you'll notice
the words cut off. Because our Lord Jesus Christ
did bear our sins in His own body, and because God the Father
cannot even look upon sin, all He can do is punish it. Pour out His wrath upon the sin
bearer. It is said of our Lord in Isaiah
53, 8, He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall
declare His generation? For He was cut off. We talk about
being cut off, and we don't even know what we're talking about.
Our Lord was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people
was he stricken. Verse six, listen to verses six
and seven together. Thou hast laid me in the lowest
pit. We don't even know where the
lowest pit is. But our Lord does. He's been
there. He knows where it is. In darkness, in the deeps. That wrath lies hard upon me. We have never felt the wrath
of God. Not one time. And we never will. Praise His
name. We never will. Now, I suffolk to you to hear
this now with all thy ways. All of them. I don't even know
what I'm talking about, and you don't either. But we know Him. And by His grace, we know something
of what He suffered in our place. We know why he did it. He did
it for me. He did it for you. If you're his. Have you ever heard somebody
say? Of someone who is notoriously
evil, or maybe even just ingest, you know? Saying the lowest bit
of hell is reserved for you. That lowest of all pits was reserved
for our Savior. who bore all the sins of all
of his people. And you think about this. When
you say that, when you say, well, he's going to go into the lowest
pit of hell because of what he, you're saying that because of
his evil. And the scriptures do seem to
teach that there are varying degrees of punishment for sin,
do they not? It shall be more tolerable in
the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you, he
said to Sodom. Seems to teach there are varying degrees Whose
sins did our Savior bear? The worst, most wretched, foul
criminals against God that ever walked this earth. That's it. That's the hell he went to. The
one who bore the sins of those for
whom the very lowest pit of hell was indeed, would have indeed
been reserved. had we borne our sins. If there are degrees of punishment
for sinners in hell, then surely the people of God would have
deserved worse than all of those who do suffer in hell. Is that
not right? Whatever hell they're suffering,
if we had gone, our sins, We're the most base and vile God's
people now. And that's what our Savior bore,
those sins. We're in deep, we're in over
our head, but let's just say that no one will ever suffer
like my Lord suffered, nobody. Not the most vile, wretched worm
in hell will never suffer like he suffered, nobody. He said, thy wrath lieth hard
on me. Thou hast afflicted me with all
thy ways. Everything God had for his enemies,
he held nothing back, nothing back. God the Father held nothing
back. There was not one terror in the
arsenal of God that was not inflicted upon his son. Not one. Not one arrow left in the quiver
of God's wrath that didn't sink into his heart. Every wave of sorrow and pain
in the whole ocean of hell crashed against his soul until there
was not one left. And all of that was mine. That's
what I deserve. And he took it in my place. That's
why we still praise him. And we're not ever going to quit
by his grace. And there's a vital truth that's
inherent in this language now. He actually suffered for my sin. The Lord Jesus Christ actually
bore my hell. There's nothing potential here
in this. If God poured out his wrath for my sin upon his son,
then where is any wrath left for me? If every wave crashed
upon him, then what wave is there for me? How can he and I both
pay for the same sin? God is not so unjust as this. It is man who is unjust in saying
so, to say that he died for the sins of everyone that ever lived. That's unjust. That's false. That's blasphemous. God's not
unjust. If he pours out his wrath upon
my Savior for my sin, and our Lord Jesus Christ, he pictured
this so beautifully in the Garden of Gethsemane when he said, if
you seek me, let these go their way. You're not taking me and
them. You can have me. They're going
free. That's my Savior. There's so much more in this
song. We don't have time tonight to look at every phrase But he
said my acquaintance is gone We know that happened to our
Savior in verse 8. It says that even those he died
for forsook him Even his friends forsook him and fled He cried
father forgive them while they were forsaking him The shepherd
was smitten and the sheep were scattered Is there any sorrow
Is there any grief? Is there any pain? That my Lord
did not suffer to the fullest. And the fullness of the suffering
had something to do with who he is, too. And don't miss in all the verses
here. Look at this, especially verses
6 through 8. Look at the language. Thou hast laid me. in the lowest
pit. You did it. You did it. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me. Thou hast afflicted me with all
thy ways. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance
from me. You did it, Lord. God forsook
God. God punished God. God poured
out his wrath upon God. It wasn't Pontius Pilate. He
said, you couldn't have any power over me at all, except it was
given you by my father. It was God that did this. And when we're in trouble, when
you're in trouble, when I'm in trouble, may we have the grace
to say, the grace from God to say, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good.
Oh, how light our affliction is. Our Savior could say from
his heart, all of your ways have crashed upon me. In verses 10 through 12, this
is interesting because the language it would seem on the surface,
listen, will thou show thy wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise
and praise thee? Shall thy loving kindness be
declared in the grave? It sounds as though he's skeptical
of the resurrection. No, he's arguing for it. He's
saying, Lord, you can't leave me in the grave, else who's going
to praise you? You see that? I never had seen that like I
did, looking at this. That's what he's saying here.
He's not skeptical of the resurrection. They knew. Job said, before this
was ever written, I know that my Redeemer liveth. And in my
flesh, I'm gonna see God. After the worms destroy this
body, in my flesh, I'm gonna see my God. He's gonna raise
me. David spoke of the resurrection,
prophesied on it. They knew who they were dealing
with. They knew a whole lot more than
without near as much revelation from God, way more than this
generation knows. He's saying, Lord, I'm dying. I'm going down to the grave here. But I can't praise you in the
grave. You're going to have to take
me out of there. He's saying I'm a goner, but if I stay dead,
I can't praise you. In the context of verses 10 through
12 there, we see the glorious truth in verse 13. Listen to
it, it's subtle now. But you listen, you read it with
verses 10 through 12. The dead, shall the dead praise
you? And look, look, and he says,
but. And the implication is, the answer to the rhetorical
question is, no. If God left us in the grave there
wouldn't be anybody to praise him the angels of course, but
no sinner And then so then he says but The dead can't praise you but
unto the have I cried past tense and in the morning I'm going down to the ground.
I'm a goner But I have praised you and in
the morning when I wake when I rise My prayer is going to
still come before you you see that Prevent means to come before
my prayer shall come before thee He speaks in verses 10 through
12 as one who does not expect to live through the night and
yet whether he does or not He vows to pray unto God still in
the morning Lord, I've gone to the grave crying unto thee, and
when I wake up and come out of the grave, I'm going to pray
unto you. Though I make my bed in hell,
behold, thou art there. You and I, likewise, will cry
unto God throughout this life. We will. It's our lot. He said
in this world, you're going to have tribulation. And even on
the day that we die, we'll be crying unto him if he's gracious
to us. And we have a mind to do so. But we know this sorrow
may endure for the night, but joy is coming. When? In the morning. We're going to
wake up praising him. And in verse 18, we see that
our Lord Jesus Christ, he died alone. He died alone. No one, no one could help him. No one
would even stand with him. Peter boasted that he had died
with him, but where's Peter now? All of my friends, my acquaintances,
those that say they love me, where are they now? But the thing is, our Lord Jesus
Christ died alone. But as he was going to do that,
knowing he was gonna do that, knowing that where he's going,
nobody can come. He said that, didn't he? He said,
you can't come where I'm going until later. But he went alone
so that we could come later. He died without a friend. so that he could say with authority,
Father, I will, that those that thou hast given me be with me
where I am. We weren't with him the day he
died, but we will be afterwards. He died with no friends so that
we might be with him forever. What a Savior. Great.