Would you open your Bibles to
the 130th Psalm? Psalm 130. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Jehovah, O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to
my cry for mercy. If you, O Jehovah, kept a record
of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness. Therefore, you are feared. I wait for the Lord, for Jehovah. My soul waits, and in His Word,
I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more
than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the
morning. Put your hope in Jehovah, for
with Jehovah is unfailing love, and with Him is full redemption. He Himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins. Now, as you were following along,
you'll notice I used the name Jehovah from On occasions I did
this because the psalmist goes back and forth between the name
Jehovah and the title Lord. And yet our English translations,
and as far as I know, all English translations, use the Lord in
all capitals to indicate the name of God or Jehovah. And I
wanted to be sure to distinguish because if the psalmist thought it significant
to alter between the name of God and the title of God, it's
good to recognize that. Now it's good for us to frequently
read the Psalms and preach from the Psalms and reflect on them. I'm aware of one through the
Bible in a Year reading program that would have you read a certain
amount in the Old Testament and a certain amount in the New Testament,
and then you read one psalm every day. Of course, the big ones like
Psalm 119, they split out over several days, but you end up
going through the Psalms twice in a year. And they also have
you read a chapter of the Proverbs once a day. And so you end up
going through the Proverbs about 12 times a year. It is good to
read the Psalms. I mean, I think there's something
special about them. When we do, when we read them,
We find our Lord Jesus walking among these verses as in times
past he walked in the Garden of Eden. If we'll go to these
Psalms looking for him, we'll find him. He will commune with
us here. And when we read the Psalms and
think about them, we will find ourselves also walking in these
pages. The popular songs of religion
often speak of victories, rapturous experiences, and glorious progress. But the psalms are much more
honest about the experience of the life of faith. When I hear the psalms that are
often sung, not all of them, and actually over the last 10
or 15 years, it seems they've improved a little bit. But what
comes under the category of contemporary Christian music is so self-centered,
so about me or us. And when they speak of me or
us or however, if they're talking about victories, and they're
talking about these glorious experiences and all that, and
I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not a complete stranger to
some of these feelings, but it's not common. How many dear saints are often
plunged in despair by reading or hearing the glowing testimonies
of those who have claimed to gain great heights? The stories
of ex-sinners, ex-drug addicts, ex-this, ex-that, who somehow
have been able to rise above their flesh, the world, and sin,
and live some triumphant life of godliness and righteousness. That hymn that we don't sing,
I'm pressing on the upward way, new heights I'm gaining every
day. Really? I'm pressing on, I'll say that.
Paul said that, I press on. But in the same passage where
he said, I press on, he says, it's not that I've attained.
It's not that I've got there. It's not that I have actually
laid hold of those things for which Christ laid hold of me.
And yet to hear some speak of their so-called Christian life
They are living a joy-filled, virtually tearless, successful
Christian life. I know why they do. They do because
preachers stand in the pulpit and tell them that's how they're
supposed to be, and they're pretending, lest someone think there's something
wrong with them. Of course, if they thought there's
something wrong with them, they'd be right. Nobody wants to admit
it. There was a somewhat popular
preacher among the churches that I grew up with. He was one of
these traveling ministers. And he was known as Charlie Tremendous
Jones, because no matter what you said to him, he'd go, tremendous.
And that was supposedly some kind of Christian virtue that
you could experience anything and still
go with this smile on your face as though that's okay. I didn't
think of it then, but now I kind of wonder if right after he had
said tremendous, somebody had popped him in the nose, I wonder
if he'd have said the same thing. No, that's not what the life
of faith is like. And to tell people that only
brings them into a state of depression, and guilt, because they're not
meeting the expectations. A preacher friend of mine, when
I lived in Owensboro, talked about, you know, that his desire
was that the people of his church would be holy and happy. I didn't
say this to him, but this is what I thought. If you knew them
like I knew them, you'd realize they're neither holy nor happy.
Not holy in the sense he was talking about. That they were struggling. And
the smiles that they saw, the smiles that he saw on Sunday,
and their appearance of being godly churchgoers was something
they put on on Sunday because that's what he was telling them
he expected and what they should expect. So they're pretending.
I like the Psalms because they can allow us to lay aside pretense
about what we are. I cannot find such glorious,
successful people among believers of the gospel that we embrace.
They, just like the Psalmist, speak of depths, not heights,
sinfulness, not righteousness, trouble, not peace. Whenever
you read of good things in the book of Psalms, or hear of good
things from the mouths of God's people, it's always in reference
to Christ. When they are full of joy, it's
the joy of the Lord. It is rejoicing in the King.
When they speak of victory, they're talking about a victory that
has been handed to them by free grace in Christ Jesus. They're
not talking about their achievements. As I was preparing this, I thought,
what would be a good scripture to back up that statement? And
I didn't come up with anything. And then by God's providence,
our brother stood up here and read Psalm 145. Statement after
statement of glorious things, every one of them about God,
none of them about us. The only good thing we have to
talk about is our God, isn't it? We don't have anything good
to say about ourselves. Early on in this church's history,
one of the members was told by someone in the community, well,
you don't have any good people going there. And I think his
response is, well, you got that right. You got that right. We don't have good people here.
We have sinners saved by the grace of God. We don't have victorious
people here. We've got people struggling,
crying out from the depths. seeking God's mercy, having no
hope but Him. Now that doesn't mean we go around
with a hangdog expression. We are on the one hand in the
depths, we are on the other hand on the heights with Christ. It's
a dual experience in the life of a believer. But if he pauses for a minute,
and thinks about himself just as himself. He never finds anything
in which to boast, nothing to take joy in. I must confess that I cannot
find much in common with super-Christians that I've often heard of, but
I find myself echoed in the words of the psalmists as they pour
out their souls in a lament as they pour out their sorrows,
express their stricken conscience, and their hope in God alone. Now that's someone I can listen
to, I can identify with. This psalm should sound very
familiar to the people of God. For there can be little doubt
that its words and sentiments are often found in their own
hearts. Out of the depths, I cry to you,
O Jehovah. The one who cannot hear his own
voice in these words is likely a stranger to the grace of God.
And the only reason I add the word likely is because you might
not understand what I mean by the one who cannot hear his own
voice in these words. And I don't want someone to think
that I'm passing judgment on their hearts simply because they
have misunderstood me. But I'll say this, if you cannot
in some way identify with what the psalmist is saying, then
I'm quite certain you're a stranger to the grace of God. Out of the depths, he says. Often
it's only when we are in the depths that we are moved to cry
out to God. We are easily led astray by what
Paul calls the deceitfulness of riches. Now maybe in the context
in which Paul was speaking, he was speaking of riches in the
normal sense, money, wealth. And that is deceitful, isn't
it? We have a bunch of it. And let's face it, let's confess
it as Americans, we have a lot of it compared to nearly everyone
else in the world. But particularly if we have a
good bit of it by American standards, we begin to feel satisfied, safe,
or like that fella that our Lord spoke of, who there was a good
harvest and his barns were full, and so he said, my soul, take
thine ease. Take thine ease. And it was said, you fool, this
day shall your soul be required of you. Were you the wealthiest man in
the world? And it's unimaginable the amount of money that the
people that live in that category or the amount of wealth they
have, we can't even begin to fathom that. If we started counting
out one dollar bill at a time, I don't know how long it'd probably
take us more than the rest of our lives to try to get all of
that money counted. But you have all of that. What
do you have? What will they have the moment
they die? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It is written, I came into this
world with nothing and it's certain, or came into this world naked
and that's certain, that's how I'm gonna leave, with nothing. Nothing. And if we come with
nothing and leave with nothing, we shouldn't put much stock in
what we gather between that time. I'm not up here pretending Like
I'm not glad and thankful that I live in the country I live,
where prosperity is relatively easy. I'm not trying to give you the
impression that if all at once, half of what I own was taken
from me, that that wouldn't upset me. I'm not pretending that.
As I've told you many times, I preach far beyond my reach. I preach about things I have
not attained to, but if I didn't, there would be very little to
preach. Oh, for the grace to look at
all that is in this world and just say, well, I'll enjoy
it while I got it, not going to worry about it if I don't.
I'll take whatever the Lord is pleased to give me and count
the rest to be nothing but vanity and lies. We are easily led astray
by the deceitfulness of riches, whether that pertains to wealth
or riches in anything else. Whenever we have things easy, we tend to come up short on praying. We are quick to pray for wealth,
health, prosperity for our children, for our churches to grow, for
crops to bear well. When I came here, I joined with
the Ministerial Association for a while, and you know I came
in this area in 87 and we had several years of drought conditions. And every year, somewhere in
July or August, people start to wring their hands thinking
there wasn't gonna be a good harvest. And there'd be these
community-wide prayer meetings. I don't think I ever said it
in the ministerial group, maybe I should have. But why was it the only thing
they'd get this community together to pray? was the threat of the
loss of wealth. Because when they were praying
for rain, that's what they were praying for. Nobody in the United
States has to go hungry. So we weren't praying for food
to survive. The community was getting together
to pray in order that they might have continued excess over what
they need to live. Now once again, I'm not trying
to pretend that I'm any different. I just, that observation came
to mind. I never heard anyone suggest
that we have a community-wide prayer for repentance. A community-wide prayer for the
grace of God to be poured out upon us. stir us up from our
religious lethargy. I guess they figured they had
that all taken care of. Think of it, when are you most
likely to pray? Should we be surprised the Lord
does not answer our prayers when they are full of fleshly requests?
If he did, we quit praying. Is it not a common pattern with
us? The better things are, the less we are inclined to pray.
And I use the word better in the worldly sense of the word.
We pray more when we're sick than when we're healthy. We pray
more when we're poor, or think we are, than when we're wealthy. Let one of our children let their
lives be threatened, and we're on our knees in a heartbeat. And yet they grow up, some of
them, show no interest in the gospel, go on with their lives, unconfronted
by God, and we're not nearly so broken by that. as if we were
to receive news from the doctor they had a deadly disease. I'm
not disputing the seriousness of the natural things in this
life that bother us, but compared to the spiritual values The reason that Paul refers to
the deceitfulness of riches is that riches make us think
that things are good when they're not. What debts do we experience?
Well, there's sickness, and I'll say this. so that you won't misunderstand. Are you sick? Pray. Ain't nothing
wrong with asking God to heal your illnesses. Sickness, failure. The discouragement that comes
from our expectations being disappointed. These are natural things. I don't
deny their reality, I don't deny the pain they cause. Loss, depression,
sin. Oh, sin brings us down, doesn't
it? Brings me down. Maybe not as it should. And I
guess I gotta give thanks for that. If I had proper emotions
with regard to my sin all the time, I'd never have a happy
day in my life. But what we fail to recognize
is that our entire life is lived in the depths. Out of the depths
I cry unto you. That's why it's the deceitfulness
of riches. Riches make us think we're not
in the depths. We are. You and I are not on
our way to the valley of the shadow of death. We were born
there and we live our entire lives in the shadow of death. Now that doesn't mean we have
to fear evil. But the only reason we don't fear evil in this valley
of the shadow of death called natural life, the only reason
we don't fear is because the Lord is our shepherd. But if we didn't have him as
our shepherd, what a miserable existence that would be. Since this life is all we know,
we think that parts of it are good and others are bad. But
when we are with Christ and made to be like Christ, we shall learn
that none of this life was worth clinging to like we do. I said when we're with him and
like him. I'm not saying shame on us that we don't think that
way now. We know that that's the truth.
That's why I could write it in my notes to say that. We know
it's true. We don't feel it. But we will. Out of the depths, O, I cry to
you, Jehovah, O Lord, Master, Hear my voice, let your ears
be attentive to my cry for mercy. Now why would the psalmist make
this appeal? He says, I cry out to you, hear me. Hear me. Might it be that he had already
cried out many times and felt that he had not been heard? Ever
been there? Oh, I pray for the same things
over and over and over and over. And do not receive them. I cry out for things that I think
are good, things that it would seem from the scriptures would
be appropriate to pray for, and yet even those I do not find
given to me. Maybe they have been, and I just
can't even recognize them. I'm too spiritually dull to see
that they are in my possession. Nonetheless, it seems to me that
most of my prayers go unheard. Let me emphasize the word seems.
I know the Lord hears all. I know he has such a heart, he
hears. But the psalmist meant something
more than that. When he said, let your ears be
attentive. He doesn't just hear us in that
sense of he knows what we said, he knows that we said it. That's
not all the psalmist is praying for. He wants God to hear his
words and answer them. Answer them in the positive.
Give him what he seeks. But often, for reasons, and I'm
sure they're wise and good ones, But for reasons known to God,
He doesn't reveal these things to us. We pray for things, we
pray for relief, we pray for spiritual endurance, we pray
for all these things. And yet, it doesn't feel like
we have them. In Psalm 77, I believe it is,
the psalmist asks some questions that you'd think would never
come out of the mouth of a believer. And one of them is, has the Lord
forgotten how to be merciful? Wow. Sometimes believers think that,
because that's the way it seems. He made this plea. He asked God
to hear him, because maybe he realized What a great blessing it was
to have the ear of God and that we should never presume that
we actually do have the ear of God. We rightly pray to hear
from Him, but we should be just as anxious to be heard by Him
in our prayers. We ask him in one fashion or
another, virtually every time we meet like this, you know,
meet with us, speak to us, touch our hearts. But maybe it would also do well
if we follow the pattern of the psalmist here and ask him to
listen to us for a minute, to give attention to what we say.
Not that we think we have a right, but precisely because we recognize
that in ourselves we have no right for God to listen to us. People get upset with God because
He lets people get sick. He lets people die. He lets people
be poor. He lets the wicked prosper. And
they get mad as though they think God is obligated to Make life
good for us. Brethren, we ought to be glad
we've got air to breathe. We ought to be glad. We ought
to give God thanks. We're not in hell yet. Anything this side of hell is
a mercy from God. Can we get an audience with the
president? I doubt it. Not that I want one. More and more. I don't care who
it is up there. I'm really not interested in going to see. They are about different things
than what I'm about. But if you can't get an audience
with the President of the United States, why do you think you'd
ever get an audience with God? He is infinitely more important
than the President of the United States. Why do we think we can so easily
get God's attention? I would not discourage any of
the children of God from seeking the ear of their father with
confidence that he'll hear. But have you ever considered
for a moment the awesome blessing that we have? That we can come
into God's throne room of grace and there ask for mercy to help
us in time of need, knowing that we have a great high priest who
is not untouched by the feelings of our infirmities, but was tried
in every point like we are. We are praying to God through
one who knows what it is to be like us. He knows what it is
to live here in these depths, to pass through this valley of
the shadow of death. In fact, I could go through this
psalm, and may do it someday, from the perspective of Christ
speaking these words, because indeed they apply. He didn't
have any sins of his own. But he certainly had sins when
God laid on him the iniquity of us all. And was there any
depths like those depths? Has anyone ever been in depths
like the Lord Jesus was? Certainly applies to him. He
understands where we're coming from. He says, listen to my cry for
mercy. Another reason it may be that
we so often feel as though God is not listening or doesn't care
is we're going to Him praying for things that He never promised
He would give. I love that word, mercy. Boy,
what power it has in the ears of God. The Pharisees stood up to pray,
God, I thank You I'm not like other men. I was about to say that got no
reaction from the Lord. Actually, it did, but not the
one the fellow thought it would. The Lord is not interested in
your list of virtues, for they are all lies. The Lord is not
interested at all in you reciting for Him what you've done for
Him, because you haven't done anything for Him. He may have
done some things through you, but you didn't do anything for
Him. What can you do for God? But as He passed between older
Jericho and newer Jericho, and there was Bartimaeus there by
the wayside, and then think of it, people are surrounding our
Lord, and He's healing this one and this one, and people are
out saying, you know, heal me, and this, and just a cacophony. of noises, Bartimaeus said, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. And that word mercy cut
through the crowd. Even the disciples heard it.
They heard it and they said, be quiet. Can't you see he's busy? You
know what? The Lord unbusied himself when
he heard that word mercy. He stopped. And he looked at the man, and
he said, what do you want? He cried out for mercy. And you
say mercy, and I mean you say it from your heart. That'll get
the ear of God. He delights in mercy. If you, O Lord, kept a record
of sins, O Lord, who could stand. But with you there is forgiveness,
therefore you are feared. Now this scripture has often
been a comfort to me. I don't know about you, but my
mind keeps a pretty good record of my sins. And I got a sin pencil
that writes a lot and there's not an eraser on the other end. And I'm reminded of them over
and over and over again. What if the Lord was doing that? What if every time you did something
wrong, the Lord wrote it down? So the next time you came in
His presence, He could bring it up. He'd be pretty busy writing,
wouldn't He? But why would he put it right
there? Why would the psalmist bring up his sin right there?
Maybe, and see if this doesn't fit you, maybe because just as
he was trying to earnestly get into prayer, that accuser of
the brethren came into his conscience and dredged up his sins before
his eyes and said, who do you think you are coming into the
presence of God? You know what you did, you think
he's gonna give you what you want? Do you think he's gonna
hear the prayer of a sinner like you? That ever go through your
mind when you try to pray? The remembrance of your sin. I can see then why this fellow
said that, Lord, if you kept a record of sin, who could stand? If what this accuser is pressing
upon my conscience, if it were on record with you, I could never
come before you and neither could anybody else. Oh, what a blessed thought, my
friends. Now think upon this. Our sin does not shut the door
to God's throne of grace. That's why it's called a throne
of grace. The only ones who can't get in
that room are the ones who won't go in that room because they
don't think they need what's in that room. Grace, mercy, compassion. There are those who won't go
in that room because they don't think they're worthy of grace,
compassion, and mercy. But that's just a humanly humble
version of the self-righteous attitude that they think they
don't need it. Because you see, the ones who
think they are too sinful To qualify for grace, have a hope
within themselves that sometimes they will qualify for grace.
Brethren, grace is not something you can qualify for. If it was,
it wouldn't be grace, would it? Mercy cannot be earned, or it's
no longer mercy. It's just a payment for services
rendered. Oh, thank God. His throne is
a throne of grace. His throne is a throne made for
people like you and me. who are in the depths, who know there's nothing good
in them. People say, oh, I'm too sinful
for God to save me. And my response, if they'd ever
say that to my face, is no, you're not. You don't even think you're too
sinful for God to save you because you're trying to show off your
humility to God right now. Someone convinced of their absolute
sinfulness will throw themselves upon the mercy of God. They will. Those who do not throw themselves
on the sheer mercy of God are yet holding out some hope. that
someday they'll be good enough for God. The moment you know you're not, then you'll go to Him. And you'll say, let your ears
be attentive to my cry for mercy, for mercy is the only plea I
got. With you there's forgiveness.
There isn't with anybody else. You won't find real forgiveness
in this world. You won't find real forgiveness
in the various versions of God and the various versions of Jesus
that's most often preached up. Because that forgiveness is always
conditional. That forgiveness operates according
to our natural conscience. Okay, this time I'll forgive
you, but don't you do that again. They deny our Lord's promise,
for I will forgive their sins and their iniquities. I will
remember no more. I remember one time feeling so
cast down over sin, a sin that seems to beset my life. And I was about to say, Lord,
I've done it again. And that scripture came to my
mind. There's sins I will remember no more. And I thought, well,
if I say I've done it again, he'd say, what? What have you done
again? There is no again with God. It's all gone. Every time you confess a sin,
you may think I've done this 10,000 times. When you confess
it to God, that's the first time He's heard about it. If you understand
how I'm speaking here. Why? Because the last time you
did and confessed it, it's all forgiven and forgotten. Put away,
not part of the equation that determines your relationship
with Him. Sins don't build up with God
if we're in Christ. Our sins may abound, but His
grace abounds all the more. And we are in a constant state
of innocence in His sight. Well, think of that for a minute. Oh, I wait for the Lord, my soul
waits, and in His word I put my hope. My soul waits more than
the watchman wait for the morning. Now, he waited for the Lord because
he knew that the Lord was the only one who could provide what
he needed. He couldn't get what he needed elsewhere. There are
people who, under a sense of guilt, try to go to upbeat religious
services because they're the psychological manipulation of
the musical program and the way the preacher speaks and all that
makes them feel better. Now, I hope that when you come
here, that you leave feeling better than you did when you
came, but not because we have some fantastic musical program
or because I'm some fancy preacher that has the skill to manipulate
you psychologically. I'd be tickled to death if you
left here full of the joy of the Lord, your heart strengthened
with the knowledge of His grace and mercy. But I don't want to
make you just feel good. I want you, if you're in Christ,
I want you to know that all things are good with you. It's not just
a feeling. And no matter how you feel about
it, they're still good. You may feel under a tremendous
sense of guilt, but understand this, there is no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus. There is no guilt. Wait for Him. Say, oh, but I
cannot bear this guilt. I know. I cannot bear this pain. I know. And when you've felt it long
enough, He will come. Wait for Him. Because if you
get relief from some other quarter, Whatever relief that is, it's
poison. Wait for Him. Oh Israel, verse
seven, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing
love, and with Him is full redemption. Everything else is just partial.
Everything else fails. Oh, I did such and such. I better
go do this now to make up for doing that. Well, you're going
to fail at that, too. Well, I'll go back to church.
The people there, they're just so nice and welcoming. They'll
fail you, too. Sooner or later, you'll do something
that their love for you is going to fail. Unfailing love. That's the only kind of love
that'll work with me. Because if it were a love that
could fail, I'd have made it fail by now. Wouldn't you? I like it that the Lord says,
I've loved you with an everlasting love. We talk about something
that lasts, we mean it endures under trouble. You know, you
get a set of tires. How long will these last? 30,000
miles. Well, why do you ask how long
they last? Because tires are put through it pretty bad. rolling
that heavy car along the road, and they're on a rough road,
and they'll last 30,000 miles. I really don't even know how
they get them to last that long. You know, you think it did rub
the tread off pretty quick. You see, we're putting God's
love to the test all the time. We're like a very rough road,
but the tread never wears out. God's love lasts. It endures. Put your hope in the Lord for
redemption. He didn't say, all right, I'm
paying for all your sins that you've done up to now. Anymore,
we're gonna have to discuss that. I like what Donnie Bell says.
He comes from a background that kind of believed that. God forgives
you of your past sins, not your future ones. He said, when Christ
died for me, all my sins were future. and he died for all of
them. Oh, Israel. Verse eight, he himself will
redeem Israel from all their sins. Are you in the depths? Don't
bring a price in your hand. Don't come before God and say,
I don't have much, but I'll let you have what I got. Now, you've
got too much if you've got anything. You can't even boast of empty
hands. You come, you pray, you seek for pure,
unadulterated mercy. The kind of mercy that is given
to people who can't even do so much as make themselves suitable
candidates for mercy. out of the depths. All that we
learn, that's where we live. And from that we would learn
to pray. That we learn the things to pray for. And that we would
come into our Father's throne room. On the one hand, beaten
down. On the other hand, strong in
the knowledge of His grace and mercy. Father, bless your word. It's in the name of your Son
we pray, amen.