Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 2709 Rock Springs Road in Kingsport, Tennessee,
would like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
of their pastor, Gabe Stonica. For information and service times,
visit www.ksgc.church. And now, Gabe Stoniker. You know, the gospel is called
good news. The word gospel means good news. And I have some good news for
us today from Psalm 130. I believe this is the best news
that any man or woman on earth could ever hear. Psalm 130 will
be our text today. And verse four says, but there
is forgiveness with thee. But there is forgiveness with
thee. I believe that's the best news
that could ever be told. There is forgiveness. What if there was not? What if
there was not? God is a just God. He is a holy
God. He is a strict God. He said he
must punish sin. He said he will by no means clear
the guilty. What if that was it? Period.
Nothing else said. That would be horrible news. But listen to this. This is God's
own word. He says, there is forgiveness. There is forgiveness. Have you
ever needed forgiveness? You ever really needed forgiveness? Have you ever had to say to someone,
I beg of you to forgive me. I am so sorry. I need you to
forgive me. Well, how often do we have to
say that to God? Have you ever said that to God?
Lord, I am so sorry. I beg you to forgive me. I need
you to forgive me. I'm so sorry. Have you ever had
to say that? Do you know when a sinner will
truly cry that? Do you know when a person will
sincerely, not just with lip service, but will sincerely cry
that? The answer is when that sinner
is down in the depths, down in the depths, all the way down
in the depths. If you look at Psalm 130, verse
one says, out of the depths, out of the depths. Have you ever
been there? The depths is a place that God's
people get to know very well. And that's not just a figure
of speech. That's the reality of the life of a child of God. The depths is a place that God's
people get to know very well. It's a place that God's people
are constantly in. in the depths, in the depths. And you know it when you're there.
If you're there, you know it. David was there and he knew it. Verse one, he said, out of the
depths have I cried. Out of the depths have I cried.
Lord, that's where I am. That's where I'm crying to you
from, the depths. The depths of what? When we say
the depths, the depths of what? Well, the depths of fear. Think about this. The depths
of fear. I was talking to a very dear
brother in Christ of mine a while back, and he was going through
a great trial. He was going through a great
trial, and he said to me, And this is a grown man, a married
man, children, grown man. He said to me, I hate to admit
this, but I'm afraid. I hate to admit this, but I'm afraid.
And I said to him, that's okay. I would be too. If I was going
through what you're going through, I would be too. We know that
our God is sovereign over all things. We know that. We know
that our God is the controller of all things, the ruler of all
things, but sometimes we just can't help it. We're down in
the depths of fear and the depths of anxiety. You ever experienced
anxiety, anxiousness, the depths of worry? Just deep worry. Do you ever worry about things?
Have you ever worried about anything? Do you ever worry about things
so much you can't focus on anything else but that one thing you're
worried about? Has that ever happened to you? That happens
to me all the time. You get completely swallowed
up by fear and worry and sorrow. That's what fear and worry leads
to sorrow, deep sorrow, sadness. You ever been so far down in
the depths of sorrow, you would love to smile, but you just don't
even feel like your face muscles can make that happen. Have you
ever experienced that? I'm just too sad. When you're in that place, you're
in the depths of need. When you are in that place, you
are in the depths of need. Oh, I need you are in helpless,
hopeless need. And when you're down that low,
there's only one place to turn when you're down that low. there's
only one place to look. When you're at the bottom of
that pit, just completely surrounded by the walls of that pit, there's
only one place to look. There's only one person to cry
out to. Verse one, David said, out of
the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. O Lord. Verse two, he said, Lord, Hear my voice. Let thine ears
be attentive to the voice of my supplications. Lord, out of
the depths I'm crying to you. Hear me. Please hear me. Lord, would you please hear me? All the way down here at the
bottom. All the way down here at the
bottom. Psalm 61, if you look at, if you're following along
with me, I'm sorry, Psalm 69. Psalm 69 verse one says, save
me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. They've reached all the way to
my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. You
can't stand here, you're just gonna sink. I am come into deep
waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying. I've cried so much. I'm just,
I'm tired from crying. My throat is dried. Mine eyes
fail while I wait for my God. I'm just sitting here waiting,
crying, failing. That's deep need right there. That is deep need. Lord, please
hear me. Please, please. Do you know that
for his people, for his children, every single time he says to
them, I do hear you and I will hear you. And it may not be in
the very moment that the child wants his voice to come. It is
at his given time. But every single time, thank
God, every single time, he will say to his own, I hear you. In the day of your trouble, I
mean real trouble, deep trouble, I will hear you. I do hear you,
I will hear you. Years ago, our congregation,
Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, this congregation, we met in
a different building. And that particular building
had a nursery, like most churches do for our little babies, and
that nursery was below our auditorium. It was in the basement of that
building. and it was below the auditorium
and there wasn't a lot of insulation in the floor and you could hear
through it. We could hear those little babies down there sometimes
and they would be down there in the depths of the nursery. Those little bitty newborn babies
just Down there in the depths of their sorrow and the depths
of their fear, you know, that's their perspective of it They
had a very nice nursery and very loving caring Nursery workers
looking after them but to them they were down in the depths
of their agony and the day and then they would cry and we would
hear those little babies cry and They would cry, you know,
just in there what they're crying is crying to their mothers. You
know, Mama, please hear my cry. Please hear my cry. And their
mothers would hear those cries. We all heard their cries, but
the mother is the one who would get up. And go down. To the depths of the nursery. And would answer that cry. And
it was amazing to me, those mothers always knew the cry of their
baby. They knew that's my baby. I don't believe we ever had an
instance where a baby cried and the wrong mother went down. That
mother knew the cry of that baby. And that mother would answer
the cry of that baby. Knowing that's my little one.
That's the one I love. That's the one I gave. Life too? Birth too? That's a beautiful thing, isn't
it? That's a beautiful thing. Lord, as a father pitieth his
children, as Psalm 103 says, as a mother comes running to
the cry, hear my voice. Lord, hear my voice. Back here
in Psalm 130, David said, Now here is the arresting truth
that comes to all of God's people. Here is the arresting truth,
here's the realization that all of God's people will receive.
Verse three, David said, If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,
that means sin, O Lord, who shall stand? If thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, if you were to mark iniquities to that, all
of God's people will say, what do you mean? If, if he marks
iniquities, he does, he does mark iniquities over in Psalm
90. Verse 8 says, Thou hast set our
iniquities before Thee. You've set all of our sins out
right in front of you. Thou hast set our iniquities
before Thee, our secret sins, in the light of Thy countenance. David said the things we know
about, the things we don't know about, the sins that are even
secret to us. He has marked, He has recorded,
He has looked upon, He has remembered every sin that we have ever committed. Every one of them, all sins,
secret sins. Over in Psalm 139, Psalm 139
verse one, David said, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known
me. Thou knowest my down-sitting
and my up-rising. You know every time I sit down,
every time I stand up. Thou understandest my thought
afar off. You know what I'm thinking. You
know, you can read my mind. Thou compassest my path and my
lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. All my ways. He said, for there is not a word
in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it all together. Every sinful word that comes
out of my mouth, He said, you know everything I'm saying. He
knows everything about us. He knows everything about me.
He knows everything about you. Everything. Every sin we have
committed, He knows every one of them. We spend so much effort
trying to hide our sins and hide what we've done. God sees them
all. And doesn't that make you want
to say, Lord, I'm sorry. Knowing he sees them all, Lord,
I'm so sorry. I beg of you to forgive me, Lord,
please forgive me. You know, David cried in Psalm
51. I love Psalm 51 so much. He said,
have mercy on me, forgive me. Forgive my transgressions, forgive
my sin. He said, according to your loving
kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, forgive
me. When the Spirit of God Almighty
speaks the gospel to one of His broken, hurting, down-in-the-depth
sinners, when the message of the gospel comes and the Spirit
of God applies it to the heart of the child of God, do you know
what He says? Do you know what that message
says? Do you know what the Spirit of God says to a sinner? There
is forgiveness with me. There is forgiveness with me."
A sinner who's truly hurting, truly crying, truly sorry, truly
begging. The Spirit of God brings the
message of God and it says, there is forgiveness with me. There
is a place, there is a way of peace and forgiveness. Does that sound good to you?
That sounds good to me. There is a way of peace and forgiveness,
and that way is in the blood that was shed for your sin. That way is in the blood that
was shed for my sin. In the blood of Jesus Christ,
there is forgiveness. There's one place. What can wash
away my sins? Nothing but the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is forgiveness. Now, the
word of God tells us there is forgiveness for the worst, most
vile sinners that have ever walked this earth. There is forgiveness
for the worst, most vile sins that have ever been committed.
There is forgiveness. In Psalm 86, verse one says,
bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me for I am poor and needy. Preserve
my soul for I am one whom thou favorest. It says I'm holy and
that means one who you have set your favor on, your love on.
O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee. Be merciful
unto me, O Lord, for I cry to thee daily. Rejoice the soul
of thy servant, for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive and plenteous
in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. That's good news. That right there is good news.
Lord, he said, this is why I'm crying to you. This is why I'm
begging and pleading. It's because you have said, we
know by your word, you are good. You're ready to forgive. And
you're plenteous in mercy to all that call upon thee. David said, I'm crying to thee
for forgiveness. And it's because you're so ready
to forgive. ready to give. That's beautiful. That's beautiful to me to a soul
who desperately needs forgiveness. That's a beautiful thing. Beautiful
forgiveness. Lord, according to your word,
according to your mercy, according to your grace, according to your
blood, because of who you are and what you are willing to do
for centers against you. There's forgiveness. There's
forgiveness. Thank God. Thank God he is a
God who is ready to forgive. I hope this is as good of news
to you as it is to me. Ready to forgive. Over in Jeremiah
31, Jeremiah 31, verse 31 says, And this is the Lord speaking,
the Lord God speaking, Jeremiah 31 verse 31. It says, Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not
according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in
the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the
land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, they broke it, although
I was in husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those
days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts
and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they
shall be my people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord. And that's what we preachers
are doing right now. We stand up in pulpits and preach
to congregations and we get on TV and we tell everybody, Know
the Lord. You need to know the Lord. You
need to know who the true and living God is, not the one man's
made up in his mind. You need to know the Lord. He
said the day is coming when that's over. Verse 34, they shall teach
no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
know the Lord, for they shall all know me. I'm gonna put this
right mind in them, this truth in their hearts. They're gonna
know me, I'm gonna have a union with them. They're gonna all
know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith
the Lord, for, and listen to this, he said, I will forgive
their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." That's the
reason why. Our Lord said, there is so much
forgiveness for sin with me, I won't even remember it anymore. So much forgiveness, I won't
even remember it anymore. How? How, Lord? If you mark iniquities,
if you write them down, if you see all of it, if you see all
of our sins that we know about, even all the sins we don't know
about, our secret sins, how can you remember them no more? The
God that knows everything, the God that knows the end from the
beginning, the God that sees everything, how? How can you remember him no more?
It's because the blood of the Lamb of God has washed them away,
washed them gone, put them completely away. In Christ, they're all
taken away, removed. You know what that means? Not
there. Not there. In Christ, they're
all not there. You say, but I have a whole past,
a whole history of a sinful life. Not in Christ, you don't. In
Christ, it's not there. In Christ, a complete change
of record took place. You say, but I did all these
things. Look at the life of Jesus Christ. He walked this earth
for 33 years, okay? Was there one sin in it? No, sin is not there. You know what Christ did on the
cross of Calvary? He said, your life is now my life and my life
is now your life. And Jesus Christ took my life,
that sinful, I've lived a sinful life. Gabe Stoniker has lived
a sinful life. Gabe Stoniker is a sinner against
God. Jesus Christ said, that's mine. And he went to the cross
and God poured out his wrath and judgment on Gabe Stoniker
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God punished me and
I died in Him because of my sin. And when Christ took my life
and made it His own, He took His life and made it my own.
And my whole history of life is the record of Jesus Christ.
And in Him, there is no sin. There is no sin. Now I'm telling
you that transaction is forgiveness. Christ wrought forgiveness for
his people. Christ removed the sin from his
people, bore the judgment for his people, endured the wrath
and the condemnation and the punishment, satisfied God for
his people. That is forgiveness. That's what
you call beautiful forgiveness. Beautiful forgiveness. Over in
1 John 1, it says, just before Revelation, 1 John 1, this is
what verses 5 to 9 say. This then is the message which
we have heard of him and declare unto you, that God is light and
in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth
us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just, faithful and just, faithful with His blood,
just with His blood to forgive our sins. His faithful blood
demands the forgiveness of our sins because His faithful blood
paid the price in full, paid it in full. There is forgiveness
with Him in the blood of the Son of God. That's the only place,
in the blood of the Son of God. Now, I'll close with this. Psalm
130 says, Out of the depths have I cried
unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. That's the
cry. All right, here's the fear. Verse
three says, If thou, Lord, shouldest spark iniquities, O Lord, who
shall stand? Here's the hope. Verse 4 says,
There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I
wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord
more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than
they that watch for the morning. And here's the assurance. Let
Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy,
and with Him is plenteous redemption, and He shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Amen. You have been listening
to a message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign
Grace Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message, or to hear other messages of sovereign grace, you can call
or write to the number and address on your screen, or visit www.ksgc.church. Tune in at this same time next
week for another message of God's free and sovereign grace.