OK, open your Bibles now to Psalm
38. Psalm 38. I have preached from this psalm
more than any other, I believe. I know of at least two other
times I spoke from this here in this congregation. It is a psalm like unto Psalm
51 and other psalms of repentance and prayer. I thought about Psalm 46, verse
1. It says, God is our refuge. and strength, a very present
help in trouble. We get into trouble a lot, time
and again, for various reasons. Job said man that is born of
woman is a few days and full of trouble, just full of trouble. I know it's so with me, and I'm
certain it is with every believer, that our biggest source of trouble
is our own sin. I'm talking to believers. That
song we sung just a moment ago, only a believer could sing that
from the heart. Ah, mine iniquity. That which
troubles the believer most is his sin, and sin is against God. Ultimately, every sin is against
God Almighty. That's the reason the scripture
from Psalm 46, verse 1, is so blessed, yet ironic. It says, God is a refuge, God
is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. See, we sin against God in a
sense we get in trouble with God. Just like a wayward child
does with his parent when he rebels or does something, he's
in trouble with his parent. So we sin against God, we get
in trouble with God, yet he says, I'm a very present help in trouble.
The one you get in trouble with is the one that says, you come
right back to me. You come right back to me, even
though you've sinned against me, just come right back. And
that present help, I will remind you, that present help he's talking
about is this word. It's a very present, ever-present
help in time of trouble. Our brother quoted what I had
written down here in his prayer. He said, worship, Lord, enable
us to worship. Several times it speaks in the
New Testament of men and women coming and falling before the
Lord Jesus Christ and worshiping him. It says the leper came down
from the mountain and fell at his feet and worshiped him. It
says the ladies that were at the tomb, when they beheld him,
they fell and grabbed hold of his feet. and worshipped him,
held him by the feet, it says, and worshipped him. And that
word worship, best definition I've ever heard. If you look
it up, the word worship means to kiss, to kiss like a dog licking
his master's hand. That's what it means, true worship. Like an old slotted that's been
into everything, there's no good, no count, that deserves a good
beating, like an old sorry dog like that that comes back to
the master with his head hanging and his tail between his legs.
And a good master, a kind master, will always have kind words to
say to that old dog, won't he? You're a sorry dog, but it's
okay. You're my dog. You're my old
dog. And this is the way we've got
to come to God in worship every time. Every time. He said true worshipers
worship the Father in spirit, that is, inside, not on the outside. He said, I'm sick of that. He
said, your new moons, your Sabbaths, your solemn feasts, your oblations,
all these things you bring, I'm sick of it because it's not from
the heart. He said, there's a lot of people drawn near with their
lips, their good words and fair speeches and their presence.
But he said, their heart is far from it. It's another place.
The songs we sing, in vain we tomb our formal songs. God says, I'm sick of that. I'm
looking for somebody to worship from the heart and spirit and
truth. True worship is a beggar. coming before the throne asking
for a handout. That's worship. It's a dog licking
his master's feet, an unworthy, no-good dog that deserves a beating,
coming to the feet of his master just for a kind word, a handout.
Some crumbs. You remember when that woman,
that Syrophoenician woman, When the Lord denied her at one
time, he didn't answer, and she asked him again, Lord, please.
And he said, it's not neat for me to give the children's bread
to dogs. And she said, that's true, Lord,
I am a dog. I'm a dog. But I'm your dog. Even dogs get
some crumbs from the Master's table, and he marveled. He marveled
at her faith. One of the few times he marveled,
he said, I've not found faith like this. No, not in all Israel. That's faith. So true worship
has something to do with repentance, coming like an old, no-good dog,
and faith, believing that he'll speak to you kindly anyway and
receive you anyway. We've got to come every time
like that. This is how the Father seeketh such to worship him. He sees all through our facade
of religion, doesn't he? He sees all through this. Thou,
Lord, seest us. That's the reason we can't enter
into the gospel like we should every time. That's the reason
we can't enter into the singing, can't enter into the preaching
of the Word, because we're just not bona fide sinners every time.
But there are times when we get down and low, and that's the
times, I believe, when we start to worship. What about all we
can say? The times we really pray, I believe,
are the times when we get down and all we can say is, Have mercy,
have mercy, have mercy. Not our fair speeches and Calvinistic
sayings. We're going to take three psalms
here tonight. and look at them. Three out of
three. Forty-some verses. I'm just going to browse through
them and climax with one verse in the last of these three psalms. Psalm 38. Let's just look down
through here and make a few comments. Oh, Lord, Psalm 38, verse 1. Oh, Lord, rebuke me not. I need it, Lord, but don't do it in your wrath. Don't
give me what I really deserve. I need rebuke. And in thy anger,
Lord, don't do it in your anger. Don't chase me in your hot displeasure. Be easy on me. I need your anger. I deserve your wrath, your judgment.
Hell, it's Sabbath. Just go easy on me. Verse 2,
For thine arrows stick fast in me. The Word of God, he said,
is sharper than a two-edged sword. It pierces. It pierces, dividing
it asunder, the joints and the marrow of it. It pierces, the
Word of God. There are times when the Word
of God speaks to you, and it really pierces you. It convicts
you, doesn't it? It ought to. If it doesn't, you
didn't hear the Word, did you? If the Word doesn't effectually
accomplish conviction of sin, those three things that the Lord
talked about the Holy Spirit would do, sin, righteousness
and judgment. We didn't hear it, did we? We
heard it, we came in vain. We were under the sound of the
word in vain, right? If the word of God doesn't pierce
us, Lord, your errors stick fast in me. I need a few errors, don't
you? A few pointed errors, a few barbs. A fellow says something to you
and you think, that has a barb on it. But the word of God, we
need a few of those. We need them. By hand presses
me sore. Verse 3, there is no soundness
in my flesh because of your anger. The word of God exposes everything
about us, doesn't it? From head to toe, like Isaiah
1, he said, from the top of our head to the bottom of our feet
to the top of our head, and there is no soundness in us. The word
of God exposes everything about us, doesn't it? Thought, word,
deed, actions, motive, everything. Exposed. Lays us naked, lays
us open, and it shows us there is no soundness in us, nothing
good in us. No, in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. How did you learn that? From
the word of God. From that barb striking my heart. knew there
was no rest in my bones because of my sin. No rest. Verse 4, mine iniquities had
gone over my head. That's what we sung about, wasn't
it? They'd gone over my head, or in other words, I seemed to
be going down, sinking down under this weight of sin. It's a heavy burden, it's too
heavy for me, he said. I'm going down, I'm going down
in the pit of corruption. That's what David said in another
place. He said, If you don't save me, I'm going to be like
them that go down into the pit. Lord, I don't see much difference
in myself and the rest of this sinful generation. As a matter
of fact, I'm worse. When I sin, I sin against love.
I sin against light, gospel light. I sin against you. Against thee
and thee only, David said, have I sinned. And I'm going down
in the pit. Over my head, it's too heavy,
this burden of sin. Verse 5, my wounds stink. My
wounds stink, and I corrupt the word of God and wounds a man.
It lays him open. It's like a position in the hands
of the great physician. It wounds and heals. It first
wounds, doesn't it? It cuts you. It cuts you. To do any good, you have to get
to the root of the problem, don't you? You have to cut, and it
hurts. It lays you open. He says, My wounds stink or are
corrupt because of my foolishness. He said in one place, your wounds
are like wounds that haven't been bound up or mollified with
ointment. Sin is bad enough, but when we
go on and water in it, because of my foolishness, he says, seek the balm of Gilead and do
something about it, it begins to really fester and stink, doesn't
it? Something is not done about that
womb. Verse 6, I'm troubled, he says. I'm troubled, I'm bowed
down greatly. I go mourning all the day long,
mourning, because I'm always sinning. That's why I'm mourning
all the time. Verse 7, because I'm diseased. All my loins are filled with
a loathsome disease. that this terrible disease I
inherited, it's genetic, got it from my daddy Adam. It's called
sin. There's no soundness in my flesh.
Verse 8, I'm feeble and sore, broken. I've roared by reason
of the disquietness of my heart. I'm roaring it. Have you ever,
the Lord giving you a sense of your own wickedness and sinfulness
and something comes to mind and you just moan out loud? And your wife or your husband
says, what's wrong? You say, oh, nothing. Huh? Have you? Just walking along,
or just in your house, and your sin comes to mind, and you do
that, and they say, what's wrong? Something wrong? Yeah, everything's
wrong. What have I done? What have I
done? Nothing. It's just me. You ever been that way? That's
what David, that's the situation here. If you haven't been there,
if you're a believer, you'll get there. Verse 9, Lord, all
my desire is before thee. Lord, you know what I need. My
groaning is not hid from thee. You know what I need. You know
what I want. Sometimes I don't even know what
I need or what I want, but you know what things I have need
of before I ask. Verse 10, my heart is the problem. My heart panteth. My heart My
strength faileth me. As for the light of mine eyes,
what little bit of understanding I thought I had, sometimes I
lose that. The light of mine eyes, it's
gone from me. Sometimes I act like I don't
have any sense at all. You been there, Joe? Sometimes
I lose, I think I have a little bit of sense, and I lose that.
All light, all understanding. All good sense is gone. Verse
11, my lovers and friends, this is what I was just talking about,
my wife and friends stand aloof from my problem, my kinsmen stand
afar off. I can't tell them about it. They
go through the same thing, but yet I don't want to burden them
about it. Verse 12, they also that seek
after my life lay snares for me. I believe the day here is
the evil one and his cohorts, the devil and his demons, and
all of our enemies. We wrestle not with flesh and
blood, but with principalities and powers. That's the day here,
our chief enemies. They lay snares for me, and it
seems like I'm always getting in them. Snares here and there,
and I'm always sitting in them. How about you? You'd think an
old fox or a deer or something ever got in one would learn to
look for him, wouldn't he? But he just gets right back into
them. An old hound dog. And they that seek my heart speak
mischievous things, imagine deceits all the day long. I am sifted
as wheat, I am accused by the accuser. Verse 13, But I as a
deaf man heard not. I refused to hear, as a dumb
man that opened not his mouth. Thus I was, as a man that heareth
not. I heard what he was saying, yet
I didn't want to hear it." Everything he's saying about me, everything
the accuser says about me, Terry, everything the devil accuses
me of, I'm guilty of it. Right? You haven't left God,
or you haven't done anything to show that you're a Christian. How could you call yourself?
Everything he says is true. Right? What kind of faith? You don't have faith. You don't
have any faith. Where's your faith? You don't love the Lord, do you?
You act like you love the Lord. Everything he says is true, but
I don't want to hear it. Believe me, that's what David's saying
here. I was a man that didn't hear, and whose mouth had no
reproof, so I can't say anything back about it. I can't answer
what he said, but I don't want to hear it. You understand where
I'm coming from? If you've been there, you'll
understand where I'm coming from. I hear what he's saying, but I don't
want to hear it. I'm not going to hear it. Why?
Because look at verse 15. For in thee, O Lord, do I hope. In thee do I hope. I hope in
your love, in your mercy, in your grace, in your longsuffering,
in your forbearance, in your forgiveness, in your gentleness,
in your kindness. Thou who art merciful, ready
to forgive, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, in thee,
like Mary who was possessed with seven demons, came to you, Lord,
and she found forgiveness. In thee, O Lord, I come to you,
wiping your feet with the tears of my eyes and the hair of my
head, I come to you like that woman caught in the very act
of adultery. Lord, I'm brought before you to see what you're
going to say." I hear what they say, and it's true what they're
saying. It's true of me. I'm guilty, but I don't care
what you say, Lord. You say it. If you call me guilty,
then I'm guilty. If you say your sins I remember
no more, then I'm going to go out here smiling. See that? Indeed do I hope. Like that old leper that came
down from the mountain and worshiped him. Lord, if you will, you don't
have to. I'm an old leper. You don't need
me. You can cast me out of your sight, say I'm clean, get out
of here. But Lord, if you will, you can. Look at verse 15. Thou wilt hear,
O Lord. My God. O Lord Jesus Christ. My God. Thou wilt hear. Thou wilt hear. He will hear
every case like that. Charles, he takes every case
like this. The great righteous judge, the
only cases he takes are those that are guilty. Another thing
is that I was framed. I was framed. I'm not getting what I deserve. I've been wronged. You won't
take one of those. You'll give them justice, every
one. But everybody that's guilty and
comes to him, he'll hear their case. He'll hear it. This great advocate. If any man
sin, Scripture says, we have an advocate. Every sinner has
an advocate, and he'll hear their case. He'll do more than that.
And we'll see that in a minute. Thou wilt hear, O Lord my God,
for I said," verse 16, "'Hear me, lest otherwise they should
rejoice over me. When my foot slips, they magnify
themselves against me. I am ready to quit.'" Boy, this
is a picture of the believer out in the world, and as I already
said before, the accuser. There's nothing the world would
like more than to see you fall. There's nothing they'd like more.
than to see you fall into sin and laugh at you. Nothing they'd
like more. And at times we think we're going
down like that, like our foot is, one foot's in the grave and
the other one's on a banana peel in the pit. My foot slips. They're magnifying themselves
against me. They've seen me. They've heard me. They've caught
me in my lowest times. They've caught me, Lord. And
I'm about ready to quit myself. I'm ready to halt. My sorrow
is continually before me. Verse 18, I'm sorry, Lord. I declare my iniquity. What else
am I going to do? Back to our message Sunday night.
No sense in lying about it. God sees us. No sense in trying
to cover it up. You need to cover it in the blood.
The only way it's going to be covered is if it's exposed. Bring
it. I'll declare my iniquity then.
I'll be sorry for my sin. I'm sorry, Lord, forgive me.
Verse 19. But mine are enemies. Mine are enemies. Lord, I can't
say it won't happen again. How often have you done that? Lord, I'm sorry, it will not
happen again. Yes, it will. Lord, I'm sorry, but I can't
say with an absolute certainty that it won't happen again. Why?
My enemies are strong. My spirit is willing, but my
flesh is so weak. And I'm wrestling with principalities
and powers and principalities of the darkness, spiritual rulers
in high places. They're strong. They're lively.
They're strong. They that hate me wrongfully
are multiplied. There's a lot of them, too. They
also that render evil for good are my adversaries. Just because
I believe Christ, just because I trust Christ to follow the
thing that's good is, if I was in religion, they'd leave me
alone. I've told you that illustration
so many times, you can quote it backwards, but I'll tell it
to you again. John Bunyan said, The devil will
take a man who is trusting in his self-righteousness, trusting in a false refuge. And
he'll leave that man alone. He won't bother him. He won't
give him tempting thoughts and troubles and lustful thoughts
and this and that. He'll leave him alone. Leave
him in that pious, self-righteous state. He has no trouble. His sins don't bother him because
he doesn't have any. He doesn't think he does. But to the point where he thinks
he's so good, he has to be saved. Well, I'm just so good. I've
got victory over sin. Like that man that came in one
day and said, Woman, behold, I've overcome my pride. He thinks
he's done with sin. He doesn't have any problem with
it. The devil leaves him alone, got him right where he wants
him. But he'll take that old boy or that old gal who's distrusted
and looking to Christ alone for salvation and just bombard them
on every hand with the most evil and wicked and terrible thoughts
and troubles of the flesh, just bombard them on every hand, accuse
them of everything, and that person who is trusting Christ
comes to this conclusion, I'm too mad to be saved. Verse 21, Forsake me not, O Lord,
forsake me not. O Lord my God, be not far from
me. Hurry, I'm going down. Oh, Lord, my salvation. Hurry,
Lord. If you don't need this message
now, you will. Psalm 39. So David gets down. But he comes
to the point, like we all do, we try to rely
on our arm of the flesh, the strength of the flesh. And we
make our resolves, we make our vows, and so forth. You say,
well, I'm just going to do better. I'm determined. I'm going to
do better. Look at verse 1, Psalm 39. He
says, I said, I will take heed of my ways, that I sin not with
my tongue. James said, if any man doesn't
offend with his tongue, He's got a mace. That tongue is that
bridle, or that oar, or that thing that controls the ship.
He said, I'm going to take heed in my ways. I'm going to straighten
out my ways, and I'm going to shut up my mouth. I'm not going
to sin in action or word. I keep my mouth with a bridle
while the wicked is before me." I'm not going to cuss, I'm not
going to say anything, I'm just going to shut up. Verse 2, Well, I was done with
silence for a while, and I held my peace. I bit my tongue. I bit my lip, even from good,
while the wicked were before me. My sorrow was stirred. Verse
3, my heart started burning then. They were saying some things
and doing some things and I was getting mad and they did me wrong
and my heart started getting mad and then I opened my mouth
and here it came again. The venom spewed out. I tried
my best, but I failed miserably. And I believe he's saying this, Verse 4, Make me to know mine
end, and measure my days what it is, that I may know how frail
I am. In other words, I think he said, Lord, life's too short
for me to remain a fool all the days. Am I going to be a fool
all the rest of my day? Am I going to be a wicked, no-good,
rotten sinner all my day? Lord, life's too short. Make
me realize that, that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou
hast made my days as a handbreadth, a vapor," James said. Was your
life but a vapor, a handbreadth? Not very much, is it? They measure
horses by how many hands high they are. A one-hand high horse
wouldn't be very big. But that's our life, he said,
a handbreadth. A handbreadth. Not very long, is it, the measure
of it. It's not very high. age is as nothing before thee,
the infinite God with seventy years. Verily, every man," verse
5, every man, at his best state. Do you have a marginal reference
there? I've never seen this, never thought about it. It says,
Verily, every man at his best state, or it says, at his settled
state, is altogether vanity. What is
the state in which a man should be his best at? How old are you, Charles? Sixty-nine. You're almost seventy. You ought
to be the best man in here. He's the oldest. He's his most
settled. He ought to be his most mature.
He ought to be at his most—do you feel that way? You feel more
rotten now than ever, don't you? Altogether at his most settled,
most mature state. See, you think when you get old
you'd learn something, wouldn't you, Joe? Huh? Aren't you supposed
to learn something? Why do we make the same mistakes
over and over again? Because every man at his most
subtle state is altogether vanity. Altogether vanity. Surely they
are disquieted in vain. He heapeth up riches, and knoweth
not who shall gather them. The scripture says in another
place, Every man walketh in a vain show. That's what this drama is we're
acting out. That's what I call this drama
that we're acting out, and it's right. The vain show. The vain show. Starring the Chief
of Sinners. Me. Starring the King of Fools. Me. Vain show. All his life. Keeping up this
and that for what? So my foolish son is just like
me. Ten blowers. I worked all my
life. So this fool can blow it. That's
what he's saying. It says it in another place. Verse 7. Now, Lord, what wait
I for? What am I waiting for? What am
I looking for? What am I hoping for? What am I doing? Where am
I going? Eh? Where am I looking to find
happiness? Eh? Where am I looking to find
contentment? What am I doing? How am I spending my time? Huh?
What am I waiting for? What am I looking for? Well,
my hope is in thee. That's where it ought to be.
Verse 7. My hope is in thee. Verse 8. Deliver me, dear Lord,
from all my transgression. Deliver me, O Deliverer, deliver
me from all my transgression. Make me not to reproach the foolish.
God doesn't make us that way, but if he leaves us to ourselves,
we become that way, don't we? A reproach. A reproach to him,
a reproach to ourselves, a reproach to our family. Lord, don't let
me expose myself. Do you ever pray that, Lord,
don't expose me? Huh? Do you? Come on, am I boring you? Do you ever cry that, Lord, don't
expose me? I'm a hypocrite, I'm a fake,
I'm a rotten, no-good sinner. Lord, if you expose me, I'll
get exactly what I deserve. If you leave me to myself, I'll
get exactly what I deserve. To be the laughingstock, be a
reproach. If you leave me to myself, Lord,
don't make me a reproach." The Word comes. I just spoke
that to you and you kind of looked at me. So when I heard you speak, I
hear this, I hear what you're saying, and it shuts my old mouth. I've got nothing to answer. When
your Word comes, either through the preaching of the Word or
the reading of the Word, it shuts my mouth. That's what the Word
is meant to do. The first thing the Word is meant
to do is shut our vile mouths. Be still, that all the earth
keep silence before this holy God. Don't be hasty to utter
anything before this holy God, especially hypocritical, idle
words, if they're not from the heart. Don't utter a thing if
it's not from the heart. Better a heart without words
than words without heart. And when the word comes, I was
dumb, it struck me dumb. You ever been guilty of something,
you've been caught red-handed or something, and somebody says, you've got nothing to say. I was done. I opened up my mouth,
closed my mouth. You did it. You did it. Verse 10, remove thy stroke away
from me. Remove thy stroke away from me,
I am consumed by the blow of thy hand. That many rebukes and
corrections, when thou wilt rebuke this correct man for iniquity,
thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth. Surely every man is vanity, no
doubt about it. Our beauty is like cheap make-up,
you know that? Our beauty is like cheap mascara. It won't take much to make it
run. It won't take much to make it fade. Then after it's gone,
after our little cheap make-up face is gone, we look in the
mirror and we see that same old ugly face all over again. Right? We come before the Word, he makes
our beauty. There are times when we get to
feeling pretty good about ourselves, don't we? Pretty pious, thinking
we're something. Come away on a Sunday or Wednesday
thinking we're feeling pretty good. And it doesn't take long
until that makeup comes off of us. And we see what we really are.
Surely every man is vain, especially this man. Right? Selah. Think about it. Selah. Selah. He's reduced again, verse 12.
Hear my prayer, O Lord. Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord,
give ear unto my cry, hold not thy peace at my tear. I am a
stranger with thee, and your stranger, sojourner, is all my
fault. O spare me, spare me, that I
may recover strength before I go hence and be no more. Spare me,
Lord, help me. Help me, Lord, before I fall
and don't get up again. Save me, Lord, or I perish. Save
me." or I perish, I'm waiting, Lord, I'm just going to wait
on thee. I'm going to wait for an answer. This is where I am,
as low as I can go, rock bottom. I'm waiting. Give me an answer. And it's through two songs like
that. Where else am I going to turn? What wait I on thee? My hope
is in you. I'm waiting on an answer, Lord.
You don't have to, but would you believe? Hear my prayer.
Psalm 40, verse 1. I wait patiently on the Lord.
And he inclined unto me. And he heard my cry. The title of this message is Blessed
Inclination. You know, all I'm inclined to
do is sin. How about you? My inclination is to sin. His inclination is to save. That's why he came. He inclined unto me, and those
just like me. The blessed Lord Jesus is inclined
toward sinners. An old sinner, this is good news. If you were hanging your head
down and dirty just a moment ago when you heard that, it should
have put a smile on your face. If not, let's go back again to
Psalm 38, verse 1, and try it again. See, if the blessed Holy Spirit
won't convict us and show us what we are, we need to see it. When the Comforter has come,
the first thing he does is convict. And there is no comfort or blessedness
or pleasantness and consolation and sweetness in this gospel
word unless there is a conviction of sin. The blessed Lord Jesus is inclined
toward sinners. Those old Pharisees said this
in mocking derision of him, while this man was still the sinner.
It was like he was surprised. Is
that right? Mother Magdalene said, Is that
right? Is that true? Yeah. Whoopee. Why? The Pharisees said it again.
They said, this man is a friend of publicans, and said, what? A friend? He ain't eateth with
them. He eateth with them. He sups with them. Not ashamed
to be called their brother, or called them brother. Sinner.
Sinner. Is that good news to you, old
sinner? My, my, he inclined unto me."
What a blessed inclination, what a glorious condescension, incarnation,
a holy and righteous God inclined unto sinners. That's why he came
down. This man received a sinner. His
very lineage, we saw that in Matthew 1, didn't we? His lineage
shows that he was inclined to sinners. he chose to be numbered with,
to call his family. And heard my cry. He heard my
cry. The Lord Jesus hears the cry
of every single sinner. Do you know that? Every single
sinner. The Lord Jesus hears the cry
of every single sinner. He doesn't hear the cry of everybody
that gets in trouble. He said in Proverbs 1, there's
going to be some people who, when I called, they rejected
it. What's that? It's the gospel. They didn't
receive the love of the truth. When I called and said, I'm the
Lord and there's none else, they said, No, I don't believe that.
When I called and said, you're dead, he said, no, I don't believe
that. When I called and said, Christ is your only hope, him
alone, his righteousness, his shed blood, he said, no, I don't
believe that. They received not the love of
the truth. When I called, they rejected it. So he says, there's
going to come a day when they're going to get in trouble and call
on me to help them out of it. Everybody calls on the Lord when
they get in a mess, get in a bind. He doesn't answer every one of
those cries. As a matter of fact, he said, when they call, I'm
not going to hear them. But bless God, every sinner that calls
on him in the time of trouble. What kind of trouble? Sin trouble. Did you hear me? Every sinner. You hear that same part? Every
time you get down and dirty in sin, and you call on this merciful
Lord, he'll cure you every time. My, my, my. Lord, forgive me. Every time, as soon as we repent
of our sin, the blessed word comes, forgive me. I love that
passage where Nathan came to David, and he told him that story
of the man who was the neighbor of a fellow who had a lamb, and
so forth. And the man evilly treated him
and did all this to that poor man. And David said, We ought
to kill him. That man deserved death. And
Nathan was alluding to David's sin. He said, Thou art the man,
David. That's when the word of God comes
from his prophet. The word of God comes in conviction. David didn't argue, did he? He
didn't say, What are you talking to me for? There are plenty of
people down there. No, he didn't do that, did he? He said, Oh,
I sinned against the Lord. Nathan said to the Lord, Put
away your sin. They said, I've sinned against
the Lord. He said, Lord, put away your
sin. He's ready to forgive, the scripture
said. Quick? Oh, my. It's not the way with man. As
the psalm says, is it this way with man? No. It says he's plenteous
in mercy, delights to show mercy, ready to, quick to forgive. He heard my cry and hears it
all the time. He brought me up also out of
a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet on a rock,
established my goings." Those going down into that pit,
he says he reaches down. That's the reason I believe most
of us like that song, when he reached down for me. Down in
the muck and the mire and gutter, he said, down in a cesspool like
a man losing Something that belongs to him down in an old cesspool. Down in an old septic tank. Had been there for years. And
he just climbs right down in that mud. Oh my, can you imagine? Climbs on down there and reaches
down. Where? Halfway? No. Keeps reaching. and feels down there until he
finds it down in the dirty, filthy, rotten wreck and draws it out
and washes it and cleans it out of the murky mire and puts his
feet, sits on a rock. What's that? That's Christ, that
immovable rock, and establishes my goings. He sends it once again
in your head. You see, we get down in that
pit. He took us out of that pit, didn't he? He took us out of
it to begin with, and what do we do? Like an old dog, sometimes
we go right back to the vomit, don't we? Go right back to that
pit and get right down in it. What's the Lord do? Well, he'll
stay there. No, he comes back and pulls us
out again, again, and again, and again, and pulls us out. And he establishes my goings.
He says, you're not meant for that. This is not where you're
supposed to be. And turn your eyes one more time.
That's where you're headed. He turns and establishes your
goings. You're not going, you're coming
with me. You see that? Establishes my
goings. You're going, you're looking
for another city whose builder and maker is God, and you're
going with me. He establishes our goings. Aren't you glad?
If he left me to go on my own, I'd turn around again and head
the other way. Establishes my goings. He says
he's put a new song in my mouth, from pining to praising, sighing
to singing. Verse 4, "'Blessed is that man
that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud,
or such as turn aside the lie. O many, O Lord, blessed is the
man that trusts in hope and his mercy, and believes in such a
one as this.'" Such a merciful God as this. There's no other
one to trust in, people. Why would you trust in any God
that couldn't save you? Blessed is the man that trusts
in the Lord, God, our Savior. Verse 5, Many, O Lord, my God,
all my soul. We ought to sit here and ponder
this for about an hour, shouldn't we? Many, O Lord, my God, all
our wonderful works which thou hast done, and our thoughts which
are unto us. Shouldn't we be able to watch
another hour and tell what great things the Lord has done for
us? Many! How many? Your sin is more than
you can number, the blessings are more than that. Many are the Lord. Our thoughts,
his thoughts to us, he says, my thoughts are as high above
your thoughts as the heavens are to the earth. That's how
great his mercy is toward them that fear him, the scripture
says. I'm just talking about his high and holy thoughts, but
his thoughts of mercy, full of mercy, and it can do
this forever. Then he wrote a letter that I
thought, so it cannot be reckoned up in order under these, if I
would declare and speak with it more than I can number. And if you don't like this, this
whole message was in vain. He says, sacrifice an offering
you didn't desire. The Lord doesn't come to you
and say, well, this is what I require of you before I forgive you.
You're going to have to make amends. You're going to have
to go through so many months of penance. You've got a long
time of grieving over your sin. You're going to have to prove
something to me before I do something for you. He doesn't require us to do anything,
does he? Sacrifice and offering, now this
is our, mine ears. I heard what you said, Lord,
all you said was, look. I heard that. You opened my ears
to hear that. Learn offering and sin, offering
hast thou not required. Remember when the Lord quoted
that? He said, you've got to learn
what this means. If we'd learn what this means, it would give
us Joy that no man can take from
us, that no legalist, nobody, the accuser can't take from us.
Joy unspeakable. You go and learn what this means.
I'll have mercy and not sacrifice. Go home and learn. If you didn't
hear anything that said that, go home and learn what that means. Go and teach me what that means.
Sacrifice and offering, I would as not. Now, it's not desire. You open
my ears. You open my ears. Nothing required me. And this
is what you said. You said, Call on me. I quoted it at the beginning.
Call on me and I'll deliver you. I'm a very present help in time
of trouble. So I called, and this is what
you said. Verse 7, Lo, I come. Like that poor, pitiful leper
sitting over by the side of the road, of all the thousands of
people. the worthy dignitaries, the high-muckety-muck
people, people that were somebody. Here's
this old rotten leper sitting over the side of the road, and
he said, Jesus! He can't even cry, he's so full
of it. Jesus! His throat cracked and
his lips melted together. Jesus, thou son! Somebody called
me. Why, Lord, somebody touched me. Why, Lord, somebody called me. And I'll come all the way from
heaven for that one. Huh? Lo, I come. Lord have mercy. Lo, I come. And keep coming. You keep coming, Barbara. He
says, Lo, I come. Huh? Get down and dirty by the
calling of him again. He's an ever-present helper in
times of trouble. Oh, he's not going to hear you
again. Yeah, he will. Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it's
written of me. Look at it. Look at the cases all the way
through from the beginning. The most rotten, wretched, defiled,
wicked sinners ever born of mankind. The Lord kept that mercy. Kept
that mercy. How long are you going to bear
with us, Lord? As long as it takes. As long as it takes. Lo, I come to do thy will, O
God, to establish righteousness, satisfy justice, live, die, and
now ever live and make intercession for you, those that come unto
God by me. And every time you sin, the blood's right there. That's a good move, isn't it?
Every time you sin, the blood makes propitiation for our sins
on the mercy seat. It's right there. He ever lives
to make intercession for us. Ever lives. He said, Every time
you sin, the blood is there. Every time you cry, I'll answer.
And I'll say, I'm here. I'm here to represent you. Lo,
I come. I come. In the volume of the
book, it's written of me. To do God's will for you, you
helpless sinner, to receive and someday I'm coming again, Lord,
I come to receive you again unto myself, that where I am you may
be also. Lord, I come to put away your
sin once and for all. Isn't that good news? Lord, I
come to get you, coming to get you in that infinite inclination. Listen to this poem, and I'll
quit. John Newton, there's a man who
knew something about sin. He said, I asked the Lord that
I might grow in faith. Listen to me now. I might
not let you go. Don't get comfortable. I asked the Lord that I might
grow. in faith and love and every grace. I might more of his salvation
know and seek more earnestly his faith. It was he who taught
me thus to pray, and he, I trust, has answered my prayer. But it has been in such a way
as almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in some favored
hour, at once he'd answer my request, and by his love's constraining
power, subdue my sins and give me rest. Instead of this, he
made me feel the hidden evils of my heart, and let the angry
powers of hell assault my soul in every part. more, with his own hand it seemed,"
isn't that what David said? Your hand. You did this. "'Yea, more, with his own hand
he seemed, intent to aggravate my woe. Crossed all fair designs
I schemed, blasted my gourds, and laid me low.'" Oh, go ahead,
Jonah. "'Lord, why is this?' I trembled
and cried. "'Wilt thou pursue this wine
to death?' "'Tis in this way,' the Lord replied. I answer prayer
for grace and faith. These inward trials I employ
from self and pride to set you free." and break your schemes
of earthly joy, that thou mayest seek thine own
in me." Isn't that good? Lord, help, all right? I'll make
you know what a rotten sinner you are. Oh, Lord, that's not what I asked
for. You came back calling on me,
didn't you? The one being needful? You see, and it's like a message
like Sunday night, meant to, intended to make us guilty before
God, because that's what we are. Let's throw in a word, safety.
The law of safety. Safety is in the name of the
law. With every mountain we stop and all the world become what?
Guilty before God. Why? Why do we need to be guilty? Don't let a guilty receive mercy.
Don't ever rise above your sin. would say, or you cease to need
a Savior. But for a good old sinner, oh,
I started to say good old sinners. That's bad terminology. For bad
old sinners, and we're not making light of it, we're not making
excuses for it and we're sorry for it, but I tell you, sinners,
here's the good news. It's the faith to save. Christ
came to save sinners the first time, and he's coming back again
for sinners. Not for the righteous, he said,
I didn't come to call the righteous. He's not coming to call the righteous
again, except for the righteous in Christ. He's coming to call
on sinners. Nor have I gotten what I received. Grace hath bestowed it, since
I have believed. In this message of sovereign
grace, pride our base, I am only a sinner, saved by grace. What is that? What is it? Verse 1 and verse 4. Stand
with me. What do you have if you have
not received?