solemn occasion brings us here
today to remember the Lord's death until He comes again. He told us to do so. He didn't
leave it up to us to design it, but He gave it. And the Apostle Paul reminded us of it in that which
the Lord taught him. The early church gathered to
remember his death till he comes again. And so that is the reason
that we come here. It is actually the reason we
come here every time we meet, I hope. because what else would
we come here for? We hope not to come to pat one
another on the back and say what a good job you did, but we hope
to always come together in order to exalt and magnify His name,
because His name alone is worthy of praise. We're looking in the
Psalms still, Psalm 130. It's Psalm 130, another of the
Songs of Degrees. It says, Out of the depths have
I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If thou,
Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul
doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the
Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than
they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord there is mercy. And with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Now this song, actually, it is
a song. All the Psalms are songs. We
don't know the tunes of them, and we don't know the manner
in which they were sung, but we do know that they were sung,
and the Lord had appointed men and women to sing unto the Lord. And so, the psalmist says, out of the
depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. And that is the place
from which the people of God have come unto the Lord, out
of the depths. And it's out of the depths that
the Lord has brought them because they had no way to get out of
the depths of themselves. Now, not everybody has been in
the depths. You know, the scripture, Brother
Al was speaking about there earlier about the contrast that the Lord
sets forth in his word. And one of those contrasts is
between the righteous and sinners. Now most people of a religious
nature would think that it's better to be numbered among the
righteous than it would be to not be numbered among the sinners.
And in some ways that would be true. But in the way in which
we understand that the Lord has brought His blessings to bear,
not upon the righteous, but upon sinners, then we desire to be
found in that state. Now there was, as I often bring
up, two men that went up to pray in the temple. One was a Pharisee,
a righteous man. I mean, if you'd have seen him,
you'd have said he was a righteous man. He wasn't, as far as men
could understand, there wasn't anything fake about him. I mean,
he was going about his religious duty. I mean, if you saw him,
wherever you saw him, he was pursuing that way. And he knew it. He said, Lord, I'm not like other
men. especially not like this publican
over here. Says, I give tithes of all that
I possess. I serve you, I do all these things,
I keep the law. And the scripture says he prayed
thus with himself. And so is the prayers of the
righteous. They pray with themselves because
they know themselves to be righteous. But the publican, didn't even
so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, but he smote upon his
breast, and he said, O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Now
the Lord said one of those men went down to his house justified,
and we know that it was not the righteous man, but it was the
sinner, the man who knew himself to be a sinner. And so that's
what the the Psalmist, he understands the place where he is. Now until
a man knows where he is, he can't possibly be rescued and helped. Because as long as a man thinks
everything's okay, he's doing all right, then he'll never be
helped. But it is when the Lord is pleased
to bring a man down to the place where he doesn't have anything,
And he knows himself to be unworthy of the least of the Lord's mercies
that the mercy of God is then visited upon him. And so he says,
out of the depths have I cried unto thee. I think about Jonah. He cried to the Lord out of the
depths, did he not? I think about Jeremiah as he
sank in the mire, in the dungeon where they had cast him. And
he cried out to the Lord out of the depths. He was in a place
he couldn't get out of. He was in trouble. He was like
Jonah. I mean, I don't know how much you think about Jonah. I
think about Jonah often. I mean, Jonah was in a bad situation. Now you and I have read the story
and we know how it turns out. But you have to understand that
Jonah didn't know how it was gonna turn out. In fact, he pretty
well figured it wasn't going to turn out. He figured he was
going to wind up just being fish food and that was going to be
it. And so out of the depth, see, he was in a place where
he could not escape. He was in a place where there
was nothing in the world he could do to help himself. Now, the
world says, well, that's just not true. A man can always help
himself. We need to help ourself. I mean,
you heard this, the Lord helps those that help themselves. Have
you heard that? Well, that's a bunch of baloney.
The Lord doesn't help those that help themselves. They don't need
any help. If a man can help himself, he doesn't need help, does he?
But you see, the man that needs help is the one whom the Lord
helps. The man that doesn't have any
help. The man that can't do anything for himself. The man that knows
himself to be a sinner. The man that knows that he should
believe, but he can't. Well, now that doesn't make sense
to the natural man, does it? To the religious man, well, he
just said, well, just believe, it's easy. That's what he used
to tell me. Oh, it's just easy. Well, you know, one day the Lord
brought me to a place where I realized, you know, this ain't easy. Lord,
I need some help, and I'm supposed to believe. Lord, I want to believe,
but I can't believe. You see, when a man is in such
a state as that, he's in the depths. He's in a place that
he can't get out of. And all the little religious
platitudes and the formulas and things that men come up with
and say, oh, well, you just need to do this. Go fill out this
card. Write your name. Come down to
the front. Kneel down at the altar, and everything will be
great. No, you see the psalmist understood what he was by nature
and he knew that he had no help in himself and out of the depths
he cried unto the Lord, Lord help me. But we would be remiss
if we thought on the depths from which Jonah cried how great they
were and the depths from which Jeremiah cried, sinking in the
mire, in the cesspool. You see, that's what the dungeon
was. It wasn't just a nice hole down
in the ground where it was all furnished in ice. It was the
place where all the refuse was put. It was the septic tank And
that's where he was. He was in a mess and he couldn't
get out. But I tell you, if we think about
them and out of the depths, how they cried unto the Lord. No one has ever been in a deeper
place than the Lord Jesus Christ was for our sake. Because you see, he was in a
position as the spotless lamb of God who came into the world
to do his father's will. And he had every desire, every
fiber of his being was to walk in the way of God and to do the
will of God and to satisfy his father, to be pleasing in his
father's sight. But you see, he was brought to
a place where the weight and the mire of the sin of his people
was laid upon him. And in the depths, out of the
depths, he cried, Father, if it be possible, remove this cup
from me. Because you see, it wasn't the
prospect of suffering on the cross That caused him to cry
out. But it was the prospect of becoming
a curse in the sight of the one whom he desired more than anything
in all the world to please. And yet the only way he could
please the Father was by being that curse. What a dilemma. I mean, what a place. Out of the depths, he cried. But you see, He did bear that
for us. He did not escape the depths.
You see, you and I, we think of the relief that we have because
We have hope as those who've been awakened by the Spirit of
God and given a hope in Christ. When we know ourselves to be
in the depths, we're not in total despair, are we? No, because
we know we must flee to Christ. And we know that Christ is the
Savior of sinners. And it is in Christ that we have
hope. But you see, the Lord Jesus Christ
had no hope. He was bearing that which was
ours. You see, you and I shouldn't have any hope. If left to ourselves
and without the grace of God to awaken us and show us what
we are, we would die without any hope, without any knowledge,
without any understanding. But Christ bore that for us.
Out of the depths He cried unto thee. And as the psalmist says,
out of the depths I have cried unto thee, O Lord. Now it's interesting,
you look in this psalm, there's three words that are translated
as Lord. Two of them are in all capital
letters and one of them is not. If you notice that, I don't know
if you notice such things as that, but in the scripture when
you see the word Lord, all in caps letters, that means it's
been translated from one of two words, Yah or Yahweh, which is
Jah or Jehovah, as we have come to understand what they are.
Now, when you see those words translated in the scriptures,
they're always translated in capital letters. And so he says
here in In verse 3, he says, if thou,
Lord, being JAH or YAH, if thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities. He's saying unto the word y'all,
when you see that in the scripture, and of course you wouldn't know
that unless you went back and looked in a dictionary or you
looked in a concordance or something that showed you what word was
used there. Of course, most Bible programs
and computers, you can get the words translated in there and
it shows you what those are. But he's speaking to the most
high God. And he's saying, oh Jah, if thou
should mark iniquities, who shall stand? Now most people don't
have much of, I say most people by nature don't have much of
that understanding of God as an absolute God who hates iniquity. An extreme God. See, there is
no higher consideration of God than this. He is that one whom
scripture says will by no means clear the guilty. He will not
at all acquit the wicked. Now that's, you know, if you
were going before a judge, they used to in all the old cowboy
movies, they'd call them the hanging judge. But you knew if
you got before Him, you was going to hang probably because He wasn't
going to cut you no slack. Well, that's in a measure what
the viewpoint is here. Oh Lord, Most High God. You see, Paul speaks about the Lord. He says, He only hath immortality. dwelling in the light to which
no man can approach. Now that's the one whom he is
addressing here. The one who can't be approached.
Now most people's mindset about God's not like that, is it? I
mean, he's like a big buddy and he's always willing and ready
and able to help us any time we get ready to call on him. I mean, that's just how people
think. Is it not? I mean, if a man's in a foxhole
and a bullet is flying over his head and he figures any minute
he might get one of them and he's crying out to God, he's
not thinking of God in that light, is he? No, he's thinking of him
as somebody who's willing to help him, or he's hoping he is
willing to help him. But you see, when the psalmist
says here, if thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, who should stand? Now, the reality is that if the
Lord did not, in his mercy, provide a
means whereby sin might be expiated and taken care of, the answer
to the question is we would perish. But he says this, Lord, if thou,
Jaws, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, now notice that that's
not capitalized. And the word there is Adonai.
And the understanding of that word is my God, that one who
is my friend, that one who is my helper, that one who is my
deliverer. And so he says, oh Jah, if our
church mark iniquities, I don't have any hope. But oh Lord, you
are that one in whom I'm trusting. Now, we know that the Lord our
God is one Lord. Yet he has revealed himself in
the scriptures in a multiplicity of ways. And one is, as we spoke
about there, the fact that he dwells in the light to which
no man can approach. He's a holy God. He's that one
whom Isaiah saw in the year that King Uzziah died. I saw the Lord
high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. And those heavenly creatures
surrounded his throne and they ceased not day and night to say,
holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. Now that which is holy is set
apart. And that God whom Isaiah was
given the privilege to glimpse at is set apart. It's impossible to come into
his place. He's that one before whom Daniel fell down on his
face, and he said, all my comeliness, he says, all of the beauty that
I thought was in myself was turned into corruption when I saw him,
and I fell at his feet as dead. He said, I fell on my face. That's
this one whom he speaks of here. Same one that John, when John
was given his vision in the heavens. The heavens were opened and he
saw the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on the throne. What does he say
he did? He fell at his feet as dead.
In the mercy of God, in his mercy, he reached out his hand and he
raised him up. Because you see, he understood
then that this same one, the same one, Who is that one who causes men
to fall on their faces before him and tremble is the same one
whose mercy is everlasting, Adonai, my Lord. You see, that one whose
kindness is exhibited to us in the pages of this book. But how
could we know that? You see, a man cannot appreciate
the mercy of God until he first understands that God has no obligation
to show mercy. See, mercy is simply a thing.
The Lord said, I'll show mercy to whom I will show mercy. Now
that makes men mad, doesn't it? You know, if you read that to
somebody, And they got this view of that, you know, you see on
all the bumper stickers and stuff, God loves everybody. And you
tell them, well, God said He'd show mercy to whom He would show
mercy. You see, mercy is sovereignly
dispensed. It belongs to Him. He's not under
any obligation to show it, and there's nothing that a man can
do to gain it. But by the grace of God, you
see, we're caused to hope in Him. He is our hope. And we believe that though he's
one in the same with this one, as we see in John's vision, the
same one that causes a man to fall on his face is dead, is
the same one whose mercy is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.
Because you see, the only way that a man could ever know who
God is, You can't know this one who said,
I am. You cannot know him. You can't
come into his presence. I mean, you'd be obliterated
in his presence. You couldn't come into his presence.
You fall on your faces. Then the heavens and the earth
shall flee away at the presence of the Lord. Who shall not fear
thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? But the Lord in mercy has revealed
Himself. See, He has shown us Himself. He walked among us, and He bore
our sin, and He carried our sorrow. And He's no less than that one
who's seated upon that throne eternally, that one who's immortal
and invisible, but yet in His mercy, He's revealed himself
to us that we might see him and know him. And how else could
we? The Lord Jesus said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. What'd he mean? Well, he meant
he was the only access to the Father, but he meant he's the
only one whereby a man could even have any understanding of
God. See, when men talk about serving the Lord, but not serving
Jesus Christ, they're speaking out of ignorance. You see, a
man can't serve God and not fall on his face and worship the Son,
because the Son is the one who's revealed the Father. The Lord
said as much to the Pharisees, He says, if you'd known me, you'd
know my Father. But He said, because you don't
know the Father, you can't know me. And by the grace of God,
you see, we have been given the gift of grace to behold Him and
to see what He's done for sinners. Oh, what a glorious thing it
is. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could
stand? Who shall stand? No one should.
No one could. But listen to this. But there
is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. Now that
doesn't seem like to the natural man that such things go hand
in hand. But you see, when a man is brought to the place of knowing
himself to be a sinner, and then he finds out that God forgives
sinners in Jesus Christ, that causes him to fear, does it not? Because he realizes that were
it not so, he would perish. Because the natural man doesn't
really think he's gonna perish, does he? I mean, Adam didn't figure he
would. Did he? I mean, the Lord said
he would. The Lord of glory said to Adam,
in the day you eat this, you are going to perish. What'd Adam do? You'd think,
I mean, anybody with one and a half cents, you'd say, would
have ran the other way when Eve said, well, come on, eat this.
No, he said, I don't believe that. Says, I'm gonna eat it,
because I'd rather have the knowledge of good and evil than I had.
But he didn't really think he would perish, you see. He was
surprised, was he not, at what happened. The Lord wasn't surprised,
but he was. But there's forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared. Now that's totally foreign, because
the natural man, we don't like to forgive people, do we? That's
just not in our nature. I mean, we might forgive somebody,
but it's hard for us to forget it. You know, we say that, you
know, it's not a thing we delight to do. I mean, if somebody wrongs
us, what do we want? Satisfaction. I mean, what did
the Lord say? If a man sues you, the Lord will
take away your coat, give him your cloak also. He said, if
he smites you on the right cheek, turn to him the left. How foreign
is that from the way we think? Now you're telling a lie if you
think the first thing that you do when somebody does something
wrong to you is you say, oh, I hope that everything goes well
with you. I'm going to pray for you. No,
you don't do that. That's just not in our nature,
is it? But you see, the Lord Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness within.
How do we see? We see it illustrated time and
time again, but we see it when the woman taking in adultery.
So she knew she was a sinner, did she not? I mean, she didn't
have much place to, she didn't have much excuse. She couldn't
really say a whole lot, could she? Just like the woman at the
well, when the Lord told her all that she'd ever done. I mean,
wasn't any reason to be sitting around saying, well, you know,
this reason or that reason. But what did the Lord say to
the woman taken in adultery? Neither do I condemn thee. Oh, what a glorious word that
is, dear brother. There's forgiveness with thee,
that thou mayest be feared. But only, only as a man is taught
to fear the Lord can he rejoice in that forgiveness. Because
otherwise he just thinks, well, he ought to forgive us. I mean,
most people think the Lord will forgive you. I mean, I hear people
say it all the time. Well, you know, the Lord, He
knows we're doing the best we can. You know, He'll take that
into account. I think when I stand before the
Lord, He'll look over my life and He'll say, you know, buddy,
you did a pretty good job. Oh, how foolish. No. You see, when a man is taught
to fear God, Then and then only can he rejoice in the forgiveness
that is in Jesus Christ. And that's that which we come
here to remember today. I wait for the Lord, my soul
does wait, and in his word do I hope. See, we hope in his word. We're not hoping for, we're not
hoping so. We're not hoping that the word
of God's real, are we? Boy, I sure hope the Bible's
true. Well, you know, that's a poor place
to be. That's not to have hope in the Word of God. See, our
hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness,
and where else do we find out about that? Except in the Word
of God. So we hope in the Word of God.
We're not hoping it's true. But it's that upon which our
hope is built. As Job said, though he slay me,
yet will I trust in him. You know, I can't tell you why
I believe the Bible's true. I don't believe the Bible's true
because somebody proved it to me. It just can't anybody prove that
it is not. You know, the Spirit of God bears
witness of His truth, and He bears it and burns it upon the
heart of men, and when they hear the Word of God, they believe
it. How shall they hear without a
preacher? You know, how shall they believe except they hear? But when they hear, They believe,
do they not? I mean, when the Lord gives a
man a hearing ear, he believes it. I didn't ever have to have
anybody to tell me, well now, you know this Bible's true, don't
you? I mean, when they told me, when
I realized that Christ was the Savior of sinners, that was good
enough for me. I mean, I don't know why I believe
that, but I believe it's true. Because God in his mercy shows
his people the truth. He said, my sheep hear my voice.
I know them and they follow me. He calls his sheep by name, dear
brethren. There is forgiveness that thou
mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul
does wait in his word. Do I hope I can't do anything
else? See, you don't have any options. When the Lord Jesus
Christ awakens a man from the deadness of his sin and causes
him to believe that Christ is the Savior of sinners, he doesn't
have any other options. The Lord said, believe on me
and thou shalt be saved. He's not looking for anything
else, is he? But I think, wait a minute, I'm
gonna weigh this out. I'm gonna try something else
out. No, he's not interested in anything
else. When the Lord is pleased to show
a man the truth of that, he wants that, desires it with all of
his heart. My soul waited for the Lord more
than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they
that watch for the morning. Most young people wouldn't ever
even understand what this is. But when you get a little older,
and sometimes you wake up in the bed, And you think, well,
you know, it's about time to get up. And you look over at
the clock, and you've been asleep about an hour. And then you can't
go back to sleep. And you're sitting there wondering,
well, I wonder when the morning's going to come. You know, more
than they that watch for the morning, that is those that can't
sleep. I mean, something's got their mind all. I remember, of
course, as a kid, a kid can kind of enter into this something.
Sometimes my daddy would say, well, we're going fishing in
the morning. And, you know, I'd go to sleep and I'd wake up and
I'd think, you know, maybe it's time to go, but it wasn't quite
time to go. And so I was anxious to go. I was waiting for the
morning. I wanted it to be there. He said, my soul waited for the
Lord more than they that watch for the morning. In other words,
it's a desire within our heart. The Lord said that The violent seek the kingdom
of God. In other words, they seek it. They desire it. It's a thing
that burns within their heart. They can't be satisfied just
with some little trite comment or message or getting a little
dose of religion once or twice a week. No, they need the Lord. They desire his presence. They
want what he has. Let Israel hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord there is mercy. With him is plenteous redemption. See, that's the message of the
gospel. This one who will not forgive
sin, he will not clear the guilty, he will by no means acquit the
wicked. This same one is he who is plenteous
in mercy. Because he made provision for
his people in Christ. See, the Lord doesn't just make
out like sin never happened. The wages of sin is death. It was necessary that Christ
die to pay for the sins of his people. And he has done that. Let Israel hope, for with the
Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
Oh, man need not fear if the Lord will save him. Because if
the Lord awakens a man to desire forgiveness in Jesus Christ,
he can be sure, according to what this Word says, that the
Lord will. Give him such things as he desires. How do I know that? Because he
calls his own sheep. He said, my sheep hear my voice.
I know them, and they follow me. With the Lord's plenteous
redemption, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy
laden, and I'll give you rest. Hark the gospel trumpet sounding,
sinners hear the call, come. Christ did partly love about
thee, now invites the weary home. Though your crimes have reached
to heaven, and of deepest dire appear, ask and they shall be
forgiven. Seek and ye shall find him near. Plenteous redemption. He shall
redeem Israel from all its iniquities. Not part of them, but all of
them. And such we come today to celebrate
that which Christ has done in a most solemn fashion as we remember
the death of Christ. We're coming up on a time of
the year when a lot of people get all excited about remembering
the birth of Christ. And surely we remember the birth
of Christ because he was born of a virgin. That's a glorious
story when we read about it in the scriptures. But you don't
know where in the scriptures are we ever told to remember
the birth of Christ. But we are told to remember his
death till he comes again. May the Lord give us grace this
day that we might remember his death till he comes again. Because it's by his death that
we have life. It's in his death that we have
hope. because of that which he has
done and the fact that he rose from the dead. Because how else
could we remember his death till he comes if he did not rise again? You see, this is a picture of
the resurrection of Christ as well as his death because it's
temporary. It's not something that will
be done forever, only for a short season. The Lord said, to remember his death in this
fashion. And so we come seeking that the Lord would give
us a mind and heart to take this in a proper fashion. And the
proper fashion in which it is taken is with a mind to what
it represents. If you take it with any other
consideration, then it is an abomination. It's not a thing
that's useful. If you do it out of habit or
you do it because everybody else is doing it or whatever you think.
But to take this cup worthily is to receive it for what it
is, a representation of the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus
Christ.