Psalm 130. Psalm 130. There is forgiveness with thee. Doesn't that sound beautiful?
That sounds sweeter. Now, my voice is I had my throat
stretched a few days ago, so it's irritated as could be. So,
but anyway, this sounds sweeter and sweeter to me. The older
I get and the closer I get to home. There's forgiveness. There's
real forgiveness. Does anybody here this evening,
and don't just answer this off the cuff, do you really need
forgiveness of your sins? Do you really need it? Well,
there is forgiveness. There is forgiveness with the
Lord that he may be feared. You can write out by that word
that he may be glorified. That he may be glorified, that's
what that means. Now God's children can identify
here with David in this psalm. I believe David wrote it, I don't
know. Pilgrim wrote it, I know that. It fits all of God's children,
we're all pilgrims, aren't we? We're all pilgrims in need of
mercy, in need of forgiveness. all the way home, all the way
home. If we cannot identify with David
in this psalm, if I cannot identify with David in this psalm, there's
a high probability I've never experienced salvation. If you've
never experienced a real need of forgiveness, You've never
experienced Holy Spirit conviction of sin. You've never experienced
real salvation because it starts right here. It starts here. There is real forgiveness in
the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, spiritual life starts
with faith and repentance, doesn't it? That's where it starts. We
are given life, but at the same time, we're given faith and repentance. You cannot have one without the
other, no more than you can have one side of a piece of paper
and not have the other side. They go together. Faith and repentance
are together. And they are gifts of God. It
is written in the book of Acts, that God granted to the Gentiles,
that God granted them repentance. God granted it to them. Have
you repented? Have you truly repented? God
granted that to you. He gave it to you. By the work
of the Holy Spirit, he brought you to faith and repentance in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the evidence of it is this.
One of the first evidence of it is crying for mercy, crying
for forgiveness. Lord, forgive me, forgive me. And here is also spiritual growth. A novice is not saying this in
this psalm. A novice didn't write this. I
think an old believer wrote this. A mature believer wrote this.
I believe David wrote it. And I see spiritual growth here.
Spiritual growth is a paradox when it comes to a believer.
You know, we naturally think of growth as moving up, don't
we? We think that as growth, but
in spiritual matters, it's going down. It's a higher estimation
of God and a lower estimation of myself. The more we grow in grace and
knowledge of Christ, the greater Christ becomes and the less we
become. He becomes all in all, we become
nothing at all. And a natural man won't do that.
A natural man wants to be, he wants to be all in all. And everything,
everyone else, nothing at all. That's what he wants. The spiritual
growth in a believer is a paradox. You become more humble. You become more gracious, more
kind, meek, lowly, like your Lord. You become more like him.
Now David is addressing the right person in the beginning of this
psalm. He's not addressing some earthly
priest in a booth. A priest cannot do anything for
you. You notice, I thought about this. In the Old Testament, a leper
would come to the priest and the priest would look him over.
He would undress and he would look him over. And if he saw
any leprosy, he would pronounce him unclean. If he saw no leprosy,
he would pronounce him clean. But the priest never made him
clean. The priest never made him unclean.
He can only pronounce what he saw. But a leper one day came
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. Not just pronounce me clean,
you can make me clean. And here, David goes to the one
who can make him clean, who can forgive him and cleanse him,
as it says in 1 John, of all unrighteousness, not just this
one deed. You know, we confess one sin,
but there's a thousand left unconfessed. We don't even know about it,
really. You know how many sins you had today? Well, how many
seconds are in a day? That's how many sins you've got
today. That's how many sins we sin every second. Paul said,
when I would do good, evil's present. I do that which I would
not, that which I would do, I don't do it. And he said, oh, wretched
man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ.
That's who, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he says here in verse one,
out of the depths I cried unto thee, O Lord." You know, the
Jewish rabbis say that out of the depths in this psalm means
from a low place, a place of humility. This is the king. Does it sound like the prayer
of a king? It's the prayer of a sinner. You see, grace is a
great leveler. It doesn't matter if you're a
king or if you're a pauper. When we come before God, we're
all on the same level, in need of mercy, in need of forgiveness. But they say that this means
it comes from a low place, a place of humility. You see, here we
see poor in spirit, blessed are the poor in spirit. We don't
come before the throne of grace with a haughty, proud spirit. I'm one of the elect. You know,
that's, when you understand that, by the grace of God, when you
understand that doctrine, that's one of the most humbling doctrines
you'll ever understand. God chose me. God chose me. I had nothing to do with it.
Christ said to his disciples, and he says to all his disciples,
you didn't choose me, I chose you. I chose you. This should be in all our prayers,
when we consider who we are praying to and what we are asking for,
forgive me. Forgiveness, forgive me for what? For sinning against you. You
know, I see, I do see sin in a little different light now
than I did when I first believed. When I first believed, a lot
of things that I did bothered me. But now I see this, as David
said, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil
in thy sight. I've sinned against light, I've
sinned against love, I've sinned right in God's face. And I have
believed for nearly 50 years and I still do that. I still
do that. And that's heartbreaking. That's
awful to sin against such love. That's heartbreaking. Lord, forgive
me for what I've done to you. I've sinned against you, and
I may have done something to hurt you, but really I hurt the
body of Christ. The Lord said to Paul, why persecutest
thou me? That's why David said, my sin
is against you. He had Uriah murdered. He had
an adulterous affair with Bathsheba. And he said, Lord, forgive me
for what I did to Uriah. Lord, forgive me for what I did
with Bathsheba. No, he said, Lord, forgive me
for what I've done against you. That's secondary. I mean, it's
sad, but it's secondary. But my sin is really against
God. That's who it's against. And
he's the only one who can forgive me because all sin, all sin is
against God. That's who it's against. And
he's the only one who can forgive me and put it away. Isn't that
what Nathan said to David? He said, David, thou art a man,
but the Lord has put away your sin. And they did not go out
and get a lamb at that time and sacrifice it. No, his sin was
put away in God's land. Christ, the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. Believers, listen, believers
find themselves in many deep places. They find themselves deep in
sin, deep in soul trouble. And that's not just when they
first believe. You'll find yourself in that all the way home. You'll find yourself in and out
of that all the way home. You'll find yourself in deep
soul trouble, deep in trouble. Listen here, and I tell you this,
there's no trouble like soul trouble, is there? There's nothing
like a broken spirit and a broken heart. I tell you, it's far worse
than a broken leg. Only God can heal a broken heart.
I can go to the hospital and they can put a cast on it and
my leg will heal, but only God can heal a broken heart. Only
God. Luke 18, 13, and the publican
standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven. Unlike the Pharisee who said,
God, I thank you, I'm not like the other man. And it says he
prayed thus with himself. He didn't pray to God, God didn't
hear him, because he went down to his house unjustified. But
here's a sinner, here's a sinner who could not lift up his eyes
to heaven. His sin was so heavy on him,
he couldn't lift his head up, he couldn't look up. Sin is heavy. There's nothing heavy, nothing
in this world, the earth itself is not as heavy as guilt. Ain't
nothing heavier than guilt. If God has ever made you to understand
your guilt before him, there's nothing heavier than guilt. The
guilt of sin. And he said here, listen, he
said he couldn't lift up his eyes to heaven, but smote upon
his breast. He was, I mean, he was hitting himself in the chest. He was just smiting upon his
breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, as if he were
the only one in the world. That's what that means. As if he were the only one existing. There's nobody, there's nobody
bad as me. There's nobody on this earth
as bad as I am. You ever been there? When I hear somebody downing
somebody, I thought, you ain't been there, brother. You ain't
been there. You ain't been to the cross.
You ain't been laid in the dust. And I know sometimes we can get
a little carried away, but if it's on a regular basis, you've
never been there. He smote upon his breast and
I'm the only, there ain't nobody like me. There's nobody like
me. Chief of sinners. You know one
thing I can say that when it comes to the Lord's people and
the saving of sinners, that's one tribe where everybody's chief.
Everybody's chief of sinners in that tribe. And in this psalm,
the sinner, he's crying out, of a deep conviction of sin. This is a deep conviction of
sin. I've sinned against God. As you'll
notice there in verse three, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? So I know that he's crying
out of the depths here, out of the depths of despair, out of
the depths of sin, he's crying out over his sin, because he
mentions it in verse three. Lord, if you should mark iniquities,
who nobody could stand. Nobody stand. He's crying from
a deep conviction of sin. You know conviction of sin is
real and that's missing. I believe this is one of the
things that's missing throughout the religious world is this real
conviction of sin. You ever watch some of these
back years ago, and I know you probably didn't sit and watch
him, but you may have. I watched some of them. He's
Billy Graham, so, you know, listen to what he had to say. And he'd
get all this crowd coming down, and the camera would be on him,
and they looked like they was going to a picnic. How in the
world can you be coming to God and you're just laughing and
joking, or just laughing and talking with each other like
you're going to a picnic? Conviction of sin and needing
forgiveness is not a picnic. It's doing business with God.
You're doing business with God. You're not turning over a new
leaf. You're dying. You realize that God oughta cast
you into hell, that's real. He oughta do so. You're hoping
he shows mercy, but you know the wages of sin is death. We
earned that. Everybody in hell, as I wrote
an article in the bulletin, everybody in hell earned it. Nobody there
didn't earn it. They earned every bit of it.
Every stroke, every torment they get, they earned, earned it,
not one bit more. So this conviction of sin, it's
real and it's brought on by the Holy Spirit and it's in the soul. That's why he said, my soul.
He speaks of his soul. This is something that happens
in the soul of the very core of your being. You're convicted
of sin. And this conviction of sin, once
it starts, once the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, righteousness,
and judgment, once it starts, it does not end until the grave. We experience it in varying degrees. Now, let's not compare ourselves
to one another, but it lasts throughout the life of a believer
on this earth in varying degrees. But it lasts all the way to the
grave. It lasts all the way to the grave. Because he says here,
he says, I have cried. This is not the first time. This is not the first time have
I cried unto thee. He's done this many times before.
You go over to Psalm 51. That's David. That's Psalm of Repentance. Concerning his sin with Bathsheba.
Go to Psalm 32. It's not the first time. You
know, you cry for mercy. You and I cry for mercy. We cry
forgiveness. But we'll do so again tomorrow. And if need be, the Holy Spirit
will convict us. Like here, I've cried out of
the depths of our crime. See, in the deep, deep matter.
However, though, here, conviction of sin without finding rest in
Christ only leads to despair. He doesn't convict us of sin
and leave us there. He doesn't leave us there, as
my aunt said to me years ago. She said, I have tried. She said,
I've asked God to forgive me, and I've asked him, and I've
tried, but I find no, she said, I just can't find any peace or
any rest. I said, well, her name was Frida. I said, Frida, it says repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I said, you're
missing Christ. That's what you're doing. You're
missing the rest. You're missing the rest. Listen, listen, Matthew
5, 4, I think I mentioned this Sunday. Blessed are they that
are born, for they shall be comforted. They shall find rest. Don't stop at mourning, stop
at Christ. We stop at Christ. Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. He's
the end of everything we need. Rest, he's the end of rest. We
find him, we find rest. That's what we find. And once
a sinner finds out, listen, once a sinner finds out who and what
he is, He will find himself in a deep pit of corruption. Job
said at the end of this trial, he said, oh, he said, I abhor
myself. I abhor myself in sackcloth and
ashes. This is the one God said he's
a perfect man. Perfect in Christ. You are perfect
in Christ. You who believe, you are absolutely
perfect in Christ. But in this life, we don't experience
that perfection because of sin. There's still so much sin. We
still have that old nature. We still have it. But listen, only God, only God
can reach into that pit and bring us out of it. It doesn't matter
if it's that pit I found myself in, almost 50 years ago, or a
pit I find myself in now. You know, we find ourselves sinning
against God, and it bothers us, and only He can bring us out
of it. Only He can do it. All the way home. All the way
home. Psalm 40, verse 2, He brought
me up also out of an horrible pit. Out of the miry clay, that's
what I was, I was miry clay. I was in a horrible pit. But it doesn't stop there. Thank
God for the rest of the verses. And set my feet upon a rock and
established my goings. He brought me up out of a horrible
pit. out of the mirey clay. But he set my feet upon the rock
Christ Jesus and he established my goings in Christ. Christ is
my going, my way. And it's only by the Lord Jesus
Christ coming into this pit that I was
in and bringing me out of it. I
don't think we appreciate that as much as we ought to. This ought to just make us stand
in awe, this scripture right here. This ought to make us just, for he hath made him to be sin
for us, 2 Corinthians 5.21. God the Father made God the Son
to be sin for us. who knew no sin, the perfect
holy son of God who knew no sin was made to be sin for us that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. In reading that
verse, you have to see and understand that God did it all. God did
it. God the Father made God the Son
to be sent for us, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. And I didn't do that. He did
that too. He did that also. Listen to what our, listen to
our Lord. He was made to be sent for us. He came into this world,
this pit of corruption. He came where I am. You know,
when the Lord was walked on this earth, He healed the blind man. He walked past him. That man
that was laying by the pool of Bethesda, he walked up to him. He goes to the woman at the well. He's sitting there, leaning on
that well, waiting on her. He's waiting on her. She doesn't
have a clue that God Almighty is sitting on that well waiting
for her, this one who had five husbands. I'm sure all the other wives
in town hated that one. But he's sitting there waiting
on her. And she walks up and clueless, clueless as to who
he is. And he made himself known to
her. He came to where I was and to where I am. He does that to
every one of his sheep. And he brings them up out of
the pit. And he does so by himself. He purged us from our sins, how?
By himself. It's not a cooperative effort
between me and him. He did it by himself. You go
read Psalm 22 tonight. But listen here, Psalm 22, verse
two. Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not. And in the night season, and
I am not silent, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He
cried that out. They heard him cry that out.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In the garden of
Gethsemane, Matthew 26, 39, and he went a little further and
fell on his face. He fell on his face and prayed,
saying, oh, my father, If it be possible, let this cup pass
from me. Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as thou wilt. You know how painful that was
for him to be made sin? Pure, holy, son of God, be made
sin. You know, we ought to ask God
in prayer, and I have this, and we ought to ask God in prayer
to impress this upon us, to really make us to have some understanding
of what that means, that he was made to be sin, that we might
be made to be his righteousness. And then verse two, Lord, hear
my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplications. The word here, supplications,
is my humble begging. Here is a king, King David, begging. Begging. Our Lord in the Garden
of Gethsemane, begging. And on the cross, begging. And
here the sinner, hear my voice. Hear my humble begging. You know,
there's a voice in prayer that the Lord hears. When he says,
hear my voice, it's evident it's not lip service. Hear my voice. It's a voice of sincerity. You
know, God knows whether we're serious or not when we pray.
That's one of the things that strikes me when I pray, is that
the Lord hears me. It's not, well, I need to pray
or I ought to pray. The Lord hears me. Spurgeon said
we ought to sit down and give real thought before we start
to pray of the one we're about to pray to, what we're about
to pray about, what we are about to ask for in the name of Christ. It's a voice of sincerity. It's
a distressed voice. as a voice crying for forgiveness. Psalm 22, 24. For he hath not
despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath
he hid his face from him. But when he cried unto him, he
heard, he heard. God hears the voice of his children.
He hears the voice of a sinner crying for mercy. He hears. And note his reverence in prayer. Our prayers are to be reverent.
Notice something here. Verse one, oh Lord. Verse two,
Lord. Verse three, Lord. Verse five,
Lord. Verse six, Lord. Verse seven,
Lord twice. Seven times in eight verses.
He uses the name Lord. That's who we are seeking forgiveness
from. Lord, and he's the one who has
the right and the power to forgive sins, and the only one, no one
else. And he's not telling God what
to do or how to do, but to hear his voice. You see, the answer
belongs to God. We can't demand forgiveness.
The answer belongs to him. And he makes a humble confession
here. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, inequities,
that's what iniquities are, they are inequities. And we're full
of them. Oh, Lord, who shall stand? Here's
the heart of the sinner's prayer, his own sins. And he recognizes
this. If you mark iniquities, who shall
stand? Here's a fact. If God marked
only one inequity, who shall stand? Not counting all the rest,
which are innumerable. He can number them, but I can't.
And God does mark inequities. He marks every one. Every one,
right down to the thought. And that shows me how much I
need Jesus Christ, who can put them all away. I don't even know
them all. I don't know all of my inequities,
but he can put them all away. And here's the good news, though.
Here's the good news. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
inequities, O Lord, who shall stand but, aren't you glad for
that, but? But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, but God, but there
is forgiveness, there is propitiation, that's what that means, with
thee, that thou mayest be feared or glorified. There's forgiveness
with the Lord for the vilest of sins. I don't know. You know, I think that murder
would have to be right up there with the violence of sins. Adultery. You know, you used to be stoned
for that. Now it's, now it's nothing in this country. It's
still something to God. It's still something to Him.
But the Lord, listen, the Lord has provided a way for sinners
to be forgiven and for God to be a just God in forgiving them,
and that way is Jesus Christ. That way is Christ. Acts 531, him hath God exalted
with his right hand to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Many. Ephesians 1, 7, in whom we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of his grace. We'll never appreciate that this
side of heaven, not like we will when we seem worthy as the lamb. We're too cold now, we're too
full of sin now to really appreciate it, to really get a hold of it. Someday we will. Herein is love,
not that we love God, but he loved us and his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. That thou mayest be feared and
glorified. See and listen here. Seeing that
there is forgiveness with the Lord, I wait for the Lord. Listen, here is an expression
of real faith. I wait for the Lord. See, there's forgiveness with
him. I wait for the Lord. Don't let someone else give you
a false peace. Don't let someone else talk,
and I know many of you here believe, You believe the gospel, but there's
others out here hearing this. You know, there was 2,000 or
3,000 last month listening to this. So there's more in this
crowd right here. But don't let someone give you
a false peace and a false rest and a false hope. I told a young
man this not too long ago. He was talking to me, called
me, talking to me. And I could tell in our conversation,
he was looking for some peace and some rest. And I said, I
pray the Lord give that to you, not me. One time, one time when
I was a young man, when I heard the gospel from Henry, I was
22, 23, and I sat there and I became miserable. And at one point,
at one point, I wanted to ask Henry if he thought I was lost
or saved. I didn't because I knew better,
I did. I wanted to say, look, Henry,
you think I'm lost or saved? I don't know. I'm so messed up. I was. I was tore up. But I thank God. I thank God
that Christ gave me peace. I found peace and rest in him,
not because someone I held in high esteem said, yeah, I think
you're saved. You're all right. I don't know
if you're all right or not. God knows that, and you settle
that with God. You settle that with Him. I wait for the Lord, my soul,
my soul, this is a, listen, this is not lip service, this is soul
service. My soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope. Here is
one of the reasons why I use so much scripture anymore, more
than I ever did before in preaching. In thy word do I hope. I can't
give you hope, but God the Holy Spirit can take the word of God
and take it and apply it to you in power, and you'll find you
can stand on his word. That's why I wanted to sing Standing
on the Promises. Our position is to wait. True faith produces real hope
in the mercy of the Lord, and we wait. Hope waits, hope waits. And the foundation of that hope
is the word of God. Psalm 27, 14, wait on the Lord,
be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I
say, on the Lord. Psalm 41, I waited patiently
for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. If
your cry is sincere, He will hear it and in his time, he'll
give you peace and he'll give you rest if you really want it. I may not be able to sense his
presence. I may not be able to even sense
forgiveness right now, but I can read his word and stand on it.
I can stand on his word. One of the things that I have
learned as the years have gone by, and that's don't pay too
much attention to your feelings, because they'll change. God's
word never changes. I tell you, the best way you
can pray is to take God's word to him. Lord, you say it. Take a promise to him. Take a
promise to him. God's good for his work. He's
good for his work. And now he speaks to God's people. I'm gonna wind this down here.
He said, let Israel hope in the Lord. See, he's found hope, he's
found forgiveness, he's found acceptance, and now he turns
to God's people and he says, let Israel, all of you who believe,
hope in the Lord. But with the Lord, there's mercy.
He delights to show mercy. And with him is plenteous. I
love this. Plenteous redemption. Let Israel hope in the Lord.
You see, you know, if you've, if you've, uh, If you've tasted
that the Lord is gracious, you're going to tell somebody else.
You're not going to keep that to yourself. You're going to
become a flaming witness of Christ. If you haven't found the Lord
to be gracious, you're not going to talk to anybody about Christ.
You don't know him. But boy, if you have tasted that,
the Lord is gracious. And we've done this so many times,
we're at a restaurant, Vic, you'll taste something, order something
different, man, taste it. Mm, this is good, taste this,
taste this. And I'm usually saying, no, no,
I don't want, you know, taste it. Taste it. If you've tasted that, the Lord
is gracious, you're gonna tell somebody else about it. I promise
you, you are, you can't keep shut. You can't do it, you can't
shut up. If you find forgiveness, you're
gonna tell somebody else where you found it. And with him is
plenty of redemption. Where there's redemption, there's
forgiveness. And God's people have a Redeemer, and they've
been redeemed. You've been bought by the blood
of Christ. You've been redeemed, listen,
from the guilt of sin. You don't need to carry that
guilt around. Take it to the Lord and leave it there. You've been redeemed from the
punishment of sin. You've been redeemed from the
power of sin. You've been redeemed. You are
a purchased people. You belong to him. And then David makes
an emphatic statement here, and I close. And he said, wait a
minute, in verse eight, and he shall redeem Israel from all
his iniquities. Here's the efficacy of the redemption
of Christ. Here's the efficacy, the power
of his blood, of his work, of his person. He shall redeem Israel
from all, all his inequities, all his inequities. All for whom Christ died shall
be saved. All Israel, you know all Israel
shall be saved. That's what the word of God says.
All Israel, God's Israel, spiritual Israel shall be saved. every
one of them, not one will perish. He shall redeem Israel from all
his iniquities. And I close with this in Titus
2, 11 through 14. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously,
godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem
us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works." Does anybody here or anybody
listening, do you really need forgiveness? I do. I do. There's forgiveness with the
Lord that he may be glorified. All right.