Now last week we saw in Psalm
78 how that the rebellious children in Israel did not believe in God, they
didn't trust in His salvation, and in every time the Lord brought
them to a place where they had a need, they rebelled, they turned
back. Well, He carried them into Israel,
I mean, into Canaan. And then it says there in Psalm
78, it says, verse 57, it says, But they turned
back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers. They were turned
aside like a deceitful bow. for they provoked him to anger
with their high places and moved him to jealousy with their graven
images. And when God heard, he was wroth
and he greatly abhorred Israel so that he forsook the tabernacle
of Shiloh and the tent which he placed among them and delivered
his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemy's hand. He gave his people over also
unto the sword and was wroth with his inheritance. And the
fire Consumed the so he turned them over to the enemy he let
the enemy come in now psalm 79 Picks up with that and this really
happened the rebellious in Israel angered God and God he took the
hedge down that was around the vineyard and he he sent the enemy
nations in to In wrath to come upon them The Lord did that. It says God did that. Well, here
we have a psalm and we hear the psalmist praying, but this one
that's praying is a child of God. And there were others amongst
those that were getting this wrath from the enemy. They were
children of God as well. And we hear the psalmist here,
he speaks about how the heathen have come in and how their saints
are being slain in the street and the temples being defiled.
Now that really happened in the psalmist's day. That happened
again in 70 AD because they rejected Christ. That the final judgment
will come one day upon the whole world. But what I want you to
see here is I want you to hear this prayer to God concerning
the miseries of the church, concerning the miseries of brethren that
they were going through in the midst of this. And this is the
true cry of a true repentant sinner who's crying out to God. He's crying for mercy. for himself
and for his brethren. Now listen to this, when he talked
about the heathen, he's talking about those that came in from
without and were taking over Jerusalem and the temple and
Israel. But when you hear him praying
to God here, I want you to notice how he includes himself as being
the sinner and his brethren, other true brethren, as being
the sinners. in need of mercy. He doesn't
pray about the rebellious being the sinner. He doesn't pray about
it being their fault. He prays and says he needs mercy
and his brethren need mercy because of their sin. Look here, Psalm
79, 8. He says, Oh, remember not against
us former iniquities. Let thy tender mercies speedily
prevent us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our
salvation, for the glory of thy name, and deliver us, and purge
away our sins for thy name's sake. Verse 11. Let the sighing
of the prisoner come before thee. According to the greatness of
thy power, preserve thou those that are appointed to die. Those
that are like sheep for the slaughter. The enemies appointed them to
die and they look like they are about to die. He says those were
just sheep for the slaughter. Hear us Lord. Verse 13. So we
thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks forever.
We will show forth thy praise to all generations. So our subject
is the true sinner's cry. Now this was, you know, when
we read other places in scripture, when the Lord began to do this
and sent this judgment upon Israel, we read in other places how some
of the leaders tried to make an allegiance with Egypt and
with the foreign lands and the foreign rulers. They trusted
in horses. We read how some forsook the
children of Israel and joined up with the enemy and all these
different things. But here you have a true believer. And this chastening to the believer
is chastening. It's not punishment because Christ
bore the wrath and He's the surety for them in that day. But for
the true believer, it comes and affectionately God puts repentance
in the heart so that the psalmist sees his sin and
he prays for his sin, he prays for mercy for his sin and for
the sin of his brethren. And this is the effect. It doesn't
have that effect that it had on the unregenerate, the rebellious
who rebel more and who look for an escape elsewhere and look
for refuge from the enemy. This is what God will bring his
children to do right here. This is the cry The true sinners
cry to God. Well, what do we cry? First of
all, a true penitent sinner cries to God for God not to remember
our sins. He says in verse 8, Oh, remember
not against us former iniquities. And the margin says, remember
not the sin of our fathers, and it was the fathers that sinned,
and then the next generation came and they sinned, and the
generation which the psalmist lived was sinning, and it was
for sin that God sent this judgment upon the whole nation. But this
is the cry of a needy sinner concerning himself, concerning
his own self, and concerning the iniquities of his brethren. You see there, oh remember not
against us, our former iniquities. God is all-knowing. God knows
everything. He knows the end from the beginning.
He purposed the end from the beginning. He brings it all to
pass. So there are things that God
never forgets. There are some things God will
never forget. Things he's going to always remember.
God always remembers his covenant of grace in Christ toward his
people. He always remembers that. We
saw not long ago in Isaiah 54, he said, the mountain shall depart,
the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from
thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith
the Lord that hath mercy on thee. God remembers his covenant. We
love that his covenant's called an everlasting covenant. We love
that it's called a covenant of grace and a covenant of peace.
We love that it's ordered in all things and sure in Christ. As Christ said, this is the new
covenant in my blood. It's sealed in his blood, written
in his blood. That means it's sure. He'll always
remember his covenant. Christ established that a covenant
for God and for His people in His blood. And so He's going
to always remember His elect. God's going to always remember
those He chose. Each of you who believe on God
by His grace, God will never forget you. He's never going
to forget those He chose in Christ. And you know the familiar passage
in Isaiah 49, 15. He said, can a woman forget her
sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? Sadly, yes. They may forget,
yet will I not forget thee, God said. I will not forget thee.
Christ says, behold, I've graven thee upon the palms of my hands.
Thy walls are continually before me. He will not forget you, who
are his. But God, this all-knowing God,
can he remember not our former iniquities? Can he forget our
sins? Turn over to Hebrews 8. This
is in fact the covenant He makes in the heart when He writes His
covenant on our heart. Hebrews 8 and verse... Well, let's just read verse 6. Now hath He obtained, Christ
has obtained a more excellent ministry by how much also He
is the mediator of a better covenant. which is established upon better
promises. For if that first covenant had
been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the
second. For finding fault with them, he said, behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, the day that Christ came. finish this
work, the day when I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Jacob, not according to the
covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they
continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith
the Lord." That's why this trouble's coming upon Israel in the time
when our psalmist wrote this. They didn't continue in that
covenant. Aren't you thankful God doesn't save by covenant
of works? But watch this, this is the covenant I will make with
the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will
put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts and
I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people. And
they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his
brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me from the
least to the great. He gonna effectually teach his
children in the heart from the least to the greatest. Now watch,
for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. And their sins
and their iniquities will I remember no more. I'll be merciful to
their unrighteousness. That's from beginning to end,
brethren. And their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. The psalmist prays here for our
iniquities not to be remembered. Christ removed every sin by His
precious blood. His blood was propitiating. It made atonement. It made satisfaction. It was that which brought all
his people back into peace with God because he totally, thoroughly
put away our sin forever. God does not remember our iniquities
because our iniquities are no more. It's not because there's
not iniquity. In us, it's because Christ put
away our iniquity by His blood. Before God, they're put away.
In those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none, and
the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found. For I will pardon
them whom I reserve. But God's going to bring each
of His children to repentance. And when we sin, He's going to
bring us to repentance, and He's going to keep us coming to Him
confessing our sin. If we say we have no sin, that's
what we are, that's our nature. We deceive ourselves and the
truth's not in us. If we say we have no sins, plural,
that come from our sin nature, we deceive ourselves. But he
that confesses his sins to the Lord, he's faithful and just
to forgive us our sin and cleanse us, our defiled feet, from all
unrighteousness. And this is because, how can
he do that? Why doesn't he pour out wrath on us like he did right
here on Israel? He chastens us, but why not in
wrath like this? Because He says, I remember your
sin no more. I remember it no more. But He
has us to ask, Lord, remember not our former iniquities. And
then look at this, the true sinner is going to cry to God for mercies.
for mercies. He says there in the second part
of verse 8, let thy tender mercies speedily go before us for we
are brought very low. God's mercies are his own. He says let thy mercies. God said I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy. No sinner deserves mercy. No
sinner deserves mercy. It wouldn't be mercy if we deserved
it. No sinner deserves mercy. When
we come and confess we need mercy, we're saying we don't deserve
mercy. We're saying we're sinners. We
have sinned. We need mercy. And that's God's
prerogative to have mercy on whom He will. That's why He says
here, let thy mercies. Let thy mercies. It's like the ones that would
come to our Lord and say, Lord, if Thou will, let Thy mercies
save me. Let Thy mercies go before me.
And look at this, His mercies are tender. You know, in the
way God treats His people, His character is shown. It's known
by how He treats His people. His mercies are tender. They're
tender mercies. from a heart of love and a heart
of compassion. Tender mercies, because God delights
to show mercy. He delights to show mercy. And
God remembers what we are. That's why they're tender. He
says in Psalm 103.14, He knoweth our frame, He remembereth. We're
dust. We're dust. And then God's mercies are mercies.
Their mercy is their abundant, plentiful, never-ending mercies. Never-ending mercies. David cried
and he said, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness,
according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Jeremiah
said, they are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. His
mercies are new every morning. Why would God have to show new
mercies every morning? Why does He do that? It says
something about us, don't it? It says something about you and
me who He shows tender mercies. The true sinner cries for mercy
from a dire need. There's some urgency when you're
crying out for mercy. He says, let thy tender mercy
speedily prevent us. Let them speedily go before us.
When God makes us know we are sin, makes us behold our sins,
there's going to be some urgency. There's going to be a dire, dire
need for mercy. We need God's mercies desperately. We need them urgently. We need
them speedily. God just laid His little finger
on us. That's a heavy finger. We need
His mercies speedily. And we need His mercies to go
before us. Let Thy tender mercies speedily
go before us to prevent our ruin. to stop us from perishing, to
stop us from just fading and wilting away and just expiring
under God's chastening hand. That's why they're tender mercies. He remembers we're done. We can't
hold up. Who's going to pray like that?
Who is it He brings to cry to Him for tender mercies? He says
we are brought very low. Only the sinner that God has
brought very low, very low, from the height of our pride, very
low, down to the dust, that's the sinner that's going to cry
for mercy. Let thy tender mercies speedily
go before us. It's not sins that keep us from
the Lord. It's not our sins that keep us
from Him. It's thinking we're righteous apart from Christ that
keeps us from Him. Sin, when He makes us know our
sin, our sins make us cry to Him. Our Lord said, The Pharisees
saw Him and they said to His disciples, Why eateth your Master
with publicans and sinners? They thought that was a great
insult to our Lord. It's not a great insult to a
publican and a sinner that He eats with publicans and sinners.
But when Jesus heard, He said to them, They that behold need
not a physician. Is there ever a time we're whole
in ourselves? Not in ourselves, only in Christ. The whole don't need a physician,
but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that
meaneth. I will have mercy, not sacrifice. I'm not come to call the righteous,
but sinners, true, bona fide, face down in the dust, sinners.
That's who He says He came to call to repentance. Lord, let
Thy tender mercies speedily go before us. We're brought very
low. Well, who's this that the sinner
is going to cry to? Who are we crying this unto?
Psalm 79 and verse 9. Help us O God of our salvation. That's a true cry right there. Help us. Help us. Lord, I don't know what I need.
I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what you're going
to do. But I know this. I need help. We need your help. Help, Lord. Remember, that's what Peter cried
when he was sinking. Help us, oh God of our salvation. Why is God called the God of
our salvation? Because everything about salvation
is of Him. Beginning to end and every second
in between. He is the God who purposed who
would do the saving by choosing His Son. He purposed it and He
chose His Son to do the saving. He is the God of salvation because
He chose who He would save. He chose who He would. He is
the God of salvation because He came and worked out the salvation
for His people. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world of His elect unto Himself. That was God in Christ. That
was God in Christ, not imputing our trespasses to us. Why? For He made Him. Sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. He came and made His people the righteousness of God
in Him. That's why He's the God of salvation.
He's the God of salvation because He's the one that brings the
good news to His child and gives us a heart to believe it, and
the faith to receive it, and the willingness to cast it all
into His hand. He comes. The wind blows where
it will, the Lord said. So does everyone that's born
of the Spirit of God. He's the God of salvation because
Christ said, I'll carry them in my bosom. I'll lead them that
are with young. I'll go before him, I'll come
behind him, I'll hedge him about, your walls will be continually
before me. And he is the wall, he is the
salvation. He's continually going before
and behind. He's that great shepherd, and
we're the sheep of his pasture, and he's not going to let one
of his sheep fall away. He's gonna keep every one of
us and bring us to glory. That's why He's called the God
of salvation. He does all the saving, every
bit of the saving. He's the sole author, the sole
giver, and the sole finisher of our salvation. That's Him. Here's why. Verse 9, He says,
Help us, O God, for the glory of thy name. and deliver us and
purge away our sins for Thy name's sake. You know, salvation, first
and foremost, is not for those He saves. Salvation, preeminently,
is not for you and me who God saves. Salvation is for His own
name, for His own glory. That's why He did it. That's
why He made this world. That's why He created Adam. He
ordained for Adam to fall, that's why He made him a type of the
last Adam, Christ. That's why He sent Christ. That's
why He saves us, for the glory of His name. We saw in Isaiah
43, 7, He said, everyone that's called by My name, I have created
him for My glory. I formed him, I made him. It's
to the praise of the glory of His grace. where He has made
us accepted and abloved. God's name is manifest in Christ,
that's where we see His name. And it's manifest preeminently
at the cross. That's what we were shown when
we saw Moses said, show me thy glory and God put him in the
cleft of the rock. Let's go see it, Exodus 33. Exodus
33. Verse 18, Moses said, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I'll make all my
goodness pass before thee. And I'll proclaim the name of
the Lord before thee. There he is, all my goodness
and my name. Christ is God's namesake. I'll proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said, Thou
canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.
And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt
stand upon a rock. That's where we're going to see
God's glory, Christ the Rock. And I'll take away my hand, and
thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen.
Look at chapter 34 and verse 6. And the Lord descended in the
cloud and stood, I'm sorry, the Lord passed by before him and
proclaimed the Lord. Here's his name. This is who
we see in Christ. He's the Lord. He's Jehovah. The Lord God. The covenant God.
Merciful. and gracious, long-suffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children and the children's children, and the third and the
fourth generation. That's why He's the God of salvation.
It's for His namesake. That's why Christ went to the
cross. There's His name manifest. There's His glory manifest. All
these glorious attributes of our God and how He saves sinners
is manifest in Christ on the cross. That's where He's merciful
and gracious. That's where we see the Lord
God, the Covenant God. That's where we see God putting
away the sin of His people, Jehovah Himself. That's where we see
mercy and truth meeting together, His long-suffering, His faithfulness. Everything about God is seen
right there on the cross. That's why He's the God of our
salvation, for His glory, for His namesake. And Christ manifested. And what happened when Moses
saw it? When Moses saw Him, what happened? It says, And Moses
made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. That's where the sinner always
goes when he sees Christ's glory. He goes to the dust. And he goes
praying to God. O God of our salvation, for the
glory of Thy name, deliver us. That's what Christ did on the
cross. He delivered each sinner the Father gave to Him for the
glory of God's name. He says, and purge away our sins
for Thy name's sake. And Christ purged away our sins
for the glory of God's name. The word purged is atonement.
The Hebrew word that's used here, the Greek is atonement. He purged
our sin. He made atonement by putting
away the sin of His people. He has, He is, and He shall yet
deliver His people. He will deliver us out of the
hands of all our enemies. This enemy we carry around He's
called the body of death. He delivers us out of His hand.
He's going to deliver us out of the hand of every other enemy.
He's going to deliver us from our own sins. He's going to deliver
us out of whatever low state we're in. How so? He's going to bring us to cry
just like the psalmist is crying right here. To Him. And those
who know Him ask God to save us for His name's sake. And He
continues to show us mercy for His name's sake, for Christ's
sake. He forgives us for Christ's sake. He has mercy on us for
Christ's sake. He said in Isaiah 48.11, for
mine own sake, even for my own sake will I do it. For how should
my name be polluted? I will not give my glory to another. And we ask Him to hear us. We
make all these petitions that we see in here, But we ask Him
to hear us. He says here in verse 11, Let
the sighing of the prisoner come before thee. According to the
greatness of thy power, preserve thou those that are appointed
to thy. Sin imprisons us. Sin brings
us into bondage. He had to come to us in the beginning
and open that prison and free us from it. When He tells us
sin will not have dominion over you, it's not that you're not
going to be imprisoned in sin again. You can be. But He's not going to let those
bars be shut on you and the prison be shut up. He's going to continue
to deliver. Because why? Because He satisfied
justice. You're not under the law, you're
under His grace. You're under His grace. Our sins
bring us into bondage, and we can't break free. A prisoner's
not somebody that can free himself. When you're in a prison and unable
to free ourselves, the only thing we can do is sigh. I mean, when it's true, the burden
is heavy, the bars are strong, you can just sigh. Let the sighing of the prisoner
come before thee. Can't even speak. The only thing
he can do is just sigh. God hears that. God hears it. I was talking to some brother,
Larry Brown. I was talking to him this week
and I asked him, I started the conversation off and I said,
how you doing? And his answer was, a sigh. When you're one appointed to
die. That's what Paul meant in Romans 8 when he said we're like
sheep accounted for the slaughter. Sheep just accounted for death.
He hears and he knows the need of even the sigh of the prisoners. Exodus 2.23, remember this, the
children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage and they
cried and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
Psalm 69.33 says, The Lord heareth the poor and despiseth not his
prisoners. There he is. Only God in power
can deliver. He says there in verse 12, According
to the greatness of thy power, preserve thou those that are
appointed to die. Psalm 12, verse 5, The Lord said,
For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy,
now will I arise, saith the Lord, I will set him in safety from
him that puffeth at him. This is our Lord. Psalm 102,
19, He hath looked down from the height of His sanctuary,
from heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning
of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed to death,
to declare the name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem. And that is what His child will
do when He has set you free, when He has brought you out by
His mighty great power. You are going to praise His name,
you are going to glory in Him. And that's what he says here,
verse 13, Psalm 79, 13. So we, thy people, and sheep
of thy pasture, will give thee thanks forever. We will show
forth thy praise to all generations. We don't have anybody else to
thank but our Lord. Salvation is of our Lord. He's
the God of salvation. And His grace, we can say, Lord,
we're thankful You've made us Thy people. We're the sheep of
Your pasture. Christ is the Great Shepherd.
He's leading us exactly how we should be led. And we're going
to show forth His praise to all generations. What is our cry
to God? Not unto us. Not unto us, O Lord, but unto
thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. That's
the true sinner's cry. I pray the Lord will bless that. Father, Lord, remember not our former
iniquities. Lord, we ask You, according to
the multitude of Your tender mercies, that You'd come and
cleanse us and purge us. Lord, by the strength of Your
hand, we ask You to free Your people who are sighing. Ask You
to hear us and free us, Lord. We ask You to To do it for Your namesake. Do
it for Your glory. Lord, how we need to continually
be saved by You. Thank You, Lord, that You make
this effectual to us, that You make us cry to You and really
cry to You. Thank You, Lord, that You keep
our religion being real to us. Lord, we thank you. Thankful
that we are your people and the sheep of your pasture. Lord,
keep us ever under your eye, ever in your hand, ever in your
embrace. And we thank you, Lord, for all
these things. We pray your will be done. In
Christ's name, amen.