Turn with me back to Psalm 130. Psalm 130. Verse one, let's read this again.
It 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. If thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But
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. 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 inequities. I am never interested in delivering
a sermon. Never. Every time I stand up, my desire
is to deliver a message. I only want to be the instrument
that carries God's word to God's people. That's all. without any involvement, any
opinion of my own. That's my desire. You know, I've
told you this before, and I think about the fact that it's hard
for younger people to understand this illustration, but when we
used to leave a message on a answering machine, now that answering machine
is a cell phone, and they can do a whole bunch of things. Cell
phones are, you know. But when you used to just leave
a message on an answering machine, or somebody, that answering machine
didn't add any words or any opinions to what you said. It only repeated what you said. The hearer only heard whatever
you left for the hearer to hear. That's it. And that's my desire
in preaching. That's all that a true preacher
does. That's all that a true preacher does. Somebody, you
know, was trying to, you know, put down a true preacher
one time and said, all you do is tell us what the word says.
Well, that's all we're trying to do. Just tell what God's word
says. I have no desire to deliver my
sermon to you. I only want to deliver the words
of God's message. And I believe in my heart, I
have a message for us today. I believe I do. And that message
is this. Verse four says, there is forgiveness. There is forgiveness. Today's message is for anybody
and everybody, and you will see why I say that come the end of
this message. There is forgiveness. Now, in this command to preach
the gospel, God's preachers are told to, number one, glorify
Christ. If any man glory, let him glory
in the Lord. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul said, we preach Christ crucified. That's what we preach. I'm determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So the calling of a true preacher
is number one, to glorify the cross of Jesus Christ. But the
calling of a true preacher is also to feed the sheep. Peter,
if you love me, feed my sheep. How do we do that? By glorifying
the cross of Jesus Christ. The calling is to comfort God's
people. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. How do we do that? Glorifying
the cross of Jesus Christ. The calling is to bind up the
brokenhearted. It is to strengthen the weak. It is to ply the, the balm of
Gilead to the sick and bruised. The message of the gospel is
supposed to be a help. This is what I'm getting at. The message of the gospel is
supposed to be a help. Supposed to be a help to people. Well, three words from God Almighty
will do every bit of that. These three words will glorify
the cross. They will be food to the hungry,
they'll be comfort to the fearful, they'll be a bandage to the sick.
It's these three words right here. There is forgiveness. Those three words go right alongside
of it is finished. There is forgiveness. Now, if I've ever been clear
in a message, my desire is to be clear today. I want to be
so clear today. This message has very heavily
burdened my mind and my heart, and I pray that every soul here
will hear this, not just with the mind, but with the heart. I pray that this message will
cause every soul here to do what David did. In verse 3, he acknowledged,
I'm a sinner. He said, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? I wouldn't stand. So in verse 5, he said, I will
wait for the Lord. I will wait for the Lord. I wish
I could convey what that means. I will wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait. That's what
he said. My soul doth wait. And in his
word do I hope. In his word. Verse seven, he
said, let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there
is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption. He said, I wait on
the Lord and I hope in his word because that's where mercy and
redemption is. Now in trying to be as clear
as I can on this subject of forgiveness, I want us to look at it from
all sides. I have tried to consider this
from every side so that when we walk out of here in just a
minute, we will understand how forgiveness can be had with God. Because there is forgiveness.
That's what I want to stress through this entire message.
There is forgiveness. There is. Forgiveness became
the need of all of humanity the moment Adam and Eve sinned in
the garden. From them, sin has passed to
every man and woman in this world. In Adam, all died. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Some will say, some will
think about that and they'll say, now wait a minute. Adam
sinned in the garden, not me. You ever thought that? I have. Hold on now. Adam sinned in the
garden, not me. I ought to have a chance just
like he did. He got a chance. Why can't I
have a chance? Every soul in this room did have
a chance. And all of us blew it. Every soul here did have a chance,
just like Adam did. And we failed. All of us were
born into this world crying out in anger. Have you ever seen
just a brand new infant cry? They're so sweet, aren't they?
They cry, feed me! Now! Change me! I'm tired of waiting. That's
what babies do. Where does that come from? Soon as we all started talking,
every one of us started speaking lies. Every person here. We ruined our chance the moment
we were born. But here's the thing about it.
If our slate was wiped clean right now, what if right now
it was all wiped clean? We would ruin that slate again
before we walk out of those doors. And the reason is because sin
is not just what we do. You say, well, I'm gonna sit
here and not do anything. Sin is not just what we do. Sin is
what we are. We are sin. And sin cannot dwell in the presence
of God. Does that register? It's not
like, well, you just can't do any bad things in the presence
of God. We are sin. And sin cannot dwell in the presence
of God. God is holy. That's something
that has become lost with men and women today. God is holy,
and what that means is above everything, and I do mean above
everything, he must be just. Above everything, He must be
just. What that means is, just like
a judge in a courtroom, every ruling must be according to the
law. The fact that God is holy means
He must bring justice to the law. His justice comes first. The story of Ruth tells us that,
and every other story in Scripture. He cannot be gracious. You know,
we talk about the grace of God. Oh, God is so gracious. He cannot be gracious outside
of His justice. Our God is a merciful God. He
cannot show mercy outside of His justice. He cannot forgive. This is what
he said, I will by no means clear the guilty. He never has. He cannot forgive if it goes
against his justice. God can only justify his people
if he is just in justifying his people. He cannot have two murderers
standing in front of him. Get this picture in your mind.
Two murderers, okay? He cannot have two murderers
standing in front of him and tell one of them, you're going
to prison. And then tell the other one,
you know what? Hurry, I'm going to turn my head like that. You
just hurry and go. It'll be fine. I'm going to lose
your paperwork. All those charges against you, Somebody bring me a broom, I'll
just sweep all that under the rug. He cannot do that, which
is what many people believe He does, you know. He cannot do
that. If God did that, He would no
longer be the Holy God. He would no longer be the Holy
God. So every man and woman has sinned,
and therefore it's condemnation and death for every man and woman, But God chose to redeem, and
what that means is God chose to pay for, He chose to pay the
sin debt for some of His fallen creatures. Before the foundation
of the world, God the Father selected particular sinners to
redeem. And He put those sinners in the
hands of God the Son to redeem them. And the only way that the Son
of God could redeem them according to justice was He had to become
them. Christ literally was made to
be His people. When the scripture says, He was
made sin, what that means is He was made His people. Because
that's what they were. Sin was not just what they had
done. That's what they were. To say that Christ was made to
be the substitute for his people, that does not mean that he and
his people had a tag team relationship and they couldn't do it. So they
tagged him and he came in and did it for them. That's not what
that means. Hebrews 7.26 says He became us. I am guilty. He is innocent. And the only way that God the
Father could justly forsake Him was if He was made to be the
guilty one and I was made to be the innocent one. That's the only way that forgiveness
can justly come to the child of God. It's by the substitute
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way. Christ secured
forgiveness for every single soul that the father gave to
him. That collective particular people, they are called the bride
of Christ. God the Father chose a bride
for God the Son to redeem. Christ redeemed them. That work
is done for every particular member of that remnant, it's
done. All right, now, that's my intro. I'm almost finished, but that's
my intro. The question is always asked, why didn't God the Father choose
everybody? Why didn't Christ redeem everybody? Why isn't everybody the bride
of Christ? If it's a number no man can number, why isn't everybody
the bride of Christ? Why did God choose the particular
bride that He chose? And to that, the only thing I
know to say is, I don't know. Why did any of us choose the
particular bride that we chose? There are women all over this
world. I can look around this room and
say, why her? Why her? Why her? Why her? Why her? Why her? Why her? That's what it pleased you to
do, isn't it? Well, how could you choose one
over another? That's what it pleased you to
do, isn't it? We have a little dog in our house,
Ellie Mae. We prepared a place for her. We have provided for
her. We have adopted her into our
family. We have given her our name, Ellie Mae Stoniker. Hannah and I went to pound after
pound and we didn't find the dog that we felt was right for
us. So we didn't adopt any of those
dogs. We walked into the pound, we
turned around and walked out of the pound. Well, what gives
us the right to do that? If we're going to adopt one dog,
don't we have to adopt all the dogs? Don't we have to go in
and clear out the pound? No. We have the right to choose the
one that we want or as many as we want. When we finally did select Ellie
Mae, we went to a woman's house who her dog had had a litter
of puppies, and I have a picture of me holding Ellie Mae. She
was about this big. Ellie Mae and her sister. There's
a picture of me holding two dogs, Ellie Mae and her sister, side
by side. They were identical. They were
identical. We chose Ellie Mae and passed
by her sister. Why would we do that? That's what it pleased us to
do. Do we have the right to do that? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. You know, the reality is most
people don't question your right to select a particular dog to
adopt into your family. You tell somebody that you went
to the pound or wherever and you adopted a dog, most people
just say, oh, how sweet. How loving that was. That was
so loving. That was so kind. We men and women naturally don't
have a problem with our sovereign right in matters. But it's completely against the
nature of our flesh to ascribe that sovereign right to God,
who is the only one worthy of that right, because He is the
owner and creator of everything. I was doing some woodworking
in my garage recently. And I made something and I wasn't
happy with it. So I cast it aside and I made
another one. Do I have the right to do that? Yes, I do. I was the owner. I was the creator. It was mine. Can I not do what I will with
my own? Can you not do what you will
with your own? If you want to keep something,
sell it in a yard sale or throw it in the trash. Can you not
do what you want with your own? We have no problem ascribing
sovereign right to man, but it is against the nature of man
to ascribe sovereign right to God, who is the only one who
actually has sovereign right. Because everything and everyone
is in his hands. We'll teach our children to say,
he's got the whole world in his hands, but we don't believe it
by nature. I'm in his hands. You're in his
hands. God chose and redeemed a particular people and it is
finished. It is done. It is set in stone. It is complete. All right now. Here's the heart of the message. Intros done. Whatever that next
session section was is done. Here's the heart of the matter.
If everything that I just told you is so, and we considered
it in that way, if all that's so, here's the question. What
are we doing here? What are we doing here? If all
of that is so, honestly, why preach the gospel? If what I'm saying is so, why
even preach the gospel? If it's all set in stone, What's the point? If God's elect have been chosen
and redeemed and none of them will be lost. And outside of
that election and outside of that redemption, none of them
will be saved. What's the point of this? What
are we doing here? I'll tell you what we're doing
here. By the command of God Almighty, we are calling out His sheep. By the preaching of the gospel,
we are declaring that God, in His sovereign will and purpose,
chose a particular people to fully, completely redeem them
from sin in the blood of Jesus Christ. And by His blood, there
is forgiveness. When His elect hear that Word,
it's going to spark hope in them. That's what's going to happen.
God's elect are going to hear, they're going to hear His voice
by His Spirit through His Word, and they're going to hear, there
is forgiveness, and it's going to spark hope in them. And it will be a savor of life
to every soul that God has made alive. By hearing, hearing the Word
of God, the Spirit of God in His tongue, He will send faith
to every one of His people, and that faith will cause them to
believe and say, I see that God is sovereign, and that He chose
a particular people to save, and that He saved them by the
blood of Jesus Christ. And I see that it was all mercy,
and I see it was all grace, it was all love. It was all kindness
on His part, because not one soul deserved it. And I see that the only hope
I have is if I'm included in the forgiveness of His blood.
Because my sin has brought me so far down into the depths of
ruin. And because of that, out of the
depths, I cry unto thee. Out of the depths, I'm crying
to you. I need this election. Lord, I need election. I need
this election. I need this adoption. I need
this sovereign forgiveness. Lord, I'm a sinner in need of
forgiveness. I need forgiveness. And I see
that it's only of you. It's only in you. It's only by
you. So Lord, I wait for thee. I wait for you. I cry and I wait. I hope in thee. I hope in the
word that you've given to sinners just like me, I know and I see
and I believe that whatever you do with me, you're just in it.
That's what David said in Psalm 51. Against thee have I sinned
and done this evil in thy sight and whatever you do with me,
you're just. But he said, I know that if you
wash me in your blood, I'll be whiter than snow. That's my hope. All my hope is in you. All my
hope is in you. It's not in me. It's not in my
will. It's not in my decision. It's not in my work. It's not
in my anything. All of my hope is in the Lord. I'm just hoping that I was one
of the ones that he chose before the foundation of the world. I hope in the Lord, I bow to
the will and the way of the Lord, I bow to the way of the Lord.
Lord, I bow to your terms. You've declared your terms. And
I bow to him and I'll just sit here and wait to hear the verdict
of the Lord concerning me. That's the heart of faith that
God gives to all of his elect. It's a heart that condemns self
and bows to Christ and trusts His Word. It's a heart of patience
that waits and a heart of hope that looks and a heart of faith
that believes that He shall do exactly what He promised to do
for His people. And if God has put that heart
in you, you are one of His elect. If God has put that heart in
you, you are one of his elect. I've told you so many times that
it took me a long time to be able to say that. How can I say
to somebody, how do I know? His word. If God has put that heart in
you, you are one of his elect and there is forgiveness for
you. there is forgiveness for you. If any soul in this room
has been given a heart to bow to and to believe on the terms
of God Almighty, there is forgiveness for you. Faith that comes to
Christ empty, freely, out of great need is the evidence of
the fact that there is forgiveness for you. If you need forgiveness,
you come to Jesus Christ on his terms. which is His will, His
work, His blood, His credit, His glory, His everything. If
God gives you the ability to wait on Him, look to Him, hope
in Him, there is forgiveness for you. And verse 7 says, let
Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there's mercy,
and with him is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from
all of his iniquities. Amen.