It's good to see everybody this
morning. Happy New Year for all watching and listening. First
day of 2023. 2022 is a goner. Good to be here, be with everybody. Hopefully everybody's wide awake,
bushy-tailed like the squirrels out there playing in the front
yard there. Didn't stay up too late. Drink too much bubbly or anything.
Everybody's ready to go. Well, it is a true blessing to
have another year that the Lord's given us together and we're grateful
for that. We're grateful for the Lord,
what he's done this last year, you know, through all the troubles
and trials that we went through. We've had a lot of sickness.
We've had a lot of injuries. We've had hard times and good
times and all kinds of times but of the Lord and we're thankful
for His mercy and grace that He's given us. I'd like for you
to turn this morning, if you would, to Psalms 130. I couldn't
think of anything better to talk about as we kick off a new year
than to talk about the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't
think we could ever tire from that if we were His children. You know, I have a lot of fond
memories before I get into reading this. I just want to kind of
recapitulate a few things in the past. I have a lot of fond
memories of New Year's and New Year's Day. For a few years,
we used to go and fellowship over in Arkansas with a gentleman
and his family and some friends, Brother Jerry Maurer, and I think
you kids remember going over there, and Brother Jerry and
his wife, and I'm trying to remember now, Mike McGinnis used to come,
and Jerry, Richard McCrory used to come, Brother Stan Phillips
used to come, Anthony Frisbee, member of their
church over there, he would come. I'm not missing anybody else. There's some other gentlemen
that came and went. Those men usually was the ones.
Don Martin, I think, came a couple times. Anyway, we spent several New
Year's Eves and New Years with them, and what great memories
of fellowship that we had, sitting around and talking about the
Lord. And one of the verses that comes to mind, and it was really
a theme of those meetings that we would have together, but a
couple of verses that always come to mind when I'm thinking
about that, and thinking about the gospel, and thinking about
Christ, and just our gathering every week to proclaim the gospel,
comes out of Malachi 3.16. You don't have to turn there
if you don't want to. as we're going to be looking at Psalm
130. But in Malachi chapter 3 and verse 16, the Bible says, Then
they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the
Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was
written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought
upon his name. They that feared the Lord spake
often one to another. And I can tell you, every time
we fellowship together on those New Year's Eve's and We still
have fellowship with other churches as well and have friends that
we fellowship with. And you guys kind of are privy
to the conversations that me and my friend JC and other preachers,
you know, we often will sit into the wee hours of the night and
visit and everything like that. And it's just a rejoicing in
what Christ has done for us. And as it says here, we speak
often one to another. We speak of Christ. Another verse
that comes to mind and always rings true with what we said,
and it used to be one of Jerry's favorite verses, it's come to
be one of mine as well, is Isaiah 40. It says, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished and that her
iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand
double for all her sins. You know, whenever we speak often
one to another, we speak comfort. We talk about the Gospel. We
comfort each other in the Gospel. And we preached on that just
not too long ago, I guess. But we speak that Christ has
done all the things needed for us. And that His redemption for
us is complete. It's full. completely total in
all of its workings from the very beginning, from eternity
to the very ending, going on into eternity. And everything
that has to do in time is all brought by sovereign grace. It's
by God's work. It's by God's hand. It's by Christ's
doing. It's not anything that we do,
but it's what Christ has done. And so whenever we that fear
the Lord speak often one to another and we comfort each other, we
comfort each other with the words of it is finished, that your
redemption is there, that salvation is complete. Salvation is full,
but there is forgiveness with the Lord. And what beautiful
words those are. And I began thinking about that
yesterday as I was looking at memories on my phone. I started
seeing some pictures of days gone by where we fellowshiped.
Some came up of where we fellowshiped down at Mayhew Baptist Church,
Primitive Baptist Church with Brother Hatfield and their church
and some other brethren that had come in for their new church
dedication and that was a glorious time as well. All these pictures
coming back and flooding with memories and I think back over
the course of our life of all the great gospel conversations
that I've had with many brothers and sisters in the Lord and all
the joyous times that we've had and a lot of the sorrowful times
that we've had and unfortunately In some instances, some brothers
and sisters have chosen to not fellowship with us anymore because
of certain views that we might hold and how it breaks our heart
that we lose fellowship over things like that, especially
some things that may either be a misunderstanding or things
that we might not see as gospel fellowship. But the Lord has
brought us through all of it. And the Lord continues to bring
us through all of it. But at the center of everything
still lies the gospel of Jesus Christ. We all fellowship and
we all revolve and speak often one to another of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this morning, I would like
us to look at Psalm 130, because as I was reading through this
psalm, it just jumped out to me the experience of every child
of grace. and what the Lord has done in
their life, and how the Lord has done it in their life, and
you see the true experience of us here in this psalm. The psalmist
writes this particular psalm, these eight verses here, and
I believe, even though it's just a short little passage, I believe
that it really, at least I'll speak for myself, it exemplifies
the exact experience that God brought me through and bringing
me to understand my sin, the gospel, the wondrous works of
Christ, bringing me out of false religion, bringing me out of
false gospels, bringing me out of false church, bringing me
out of all the things that were false and showing me the truth
and showing me that in and of myself I can't do any good, that
in and of myself I cannot obtain a righteousness of myself. And
I see that in the psalms and I feel the angst, I feel the
heartache, I feel the depths of despair that comes out in
the psalms here, but I also feel now the joy and the overwhelming gladness and excitement that
we see as this song ends. I look at this song, I see that
it's basically broken up. I don't know, other people may
break it up a different way. I don't know. This is just kind
of my own thoughts on the thing. But to me, I see this thing broken
up in actually four different sections. And each four sections
deals with how God brings us into the knowledge and the enjoyment
of our salvation. How God brings us from darkness
to light. How God brings us from being
completely and totally opposite in running after our own righteousness
to bringing us to the place where we are resting in His righteousness
alone. And I believe it's broken up
in this. I see the first three verses as the place where we're
at, where God has given us life, has given us spiritual receptors,
eyes and ears and a heart that is spiritually now controlled,
that is now spiritually alive. And I see where having done that,
we now see the law and its conviction. and it's revelation and it's
manifesting of the sin that we are. So I see the first three
verses as God's law and conviction of sin upon us. I see verse four
as the entrance of the gospel to that awakened soul. I see
verses five and six as the spirit granting repentance and faith
to the child of grace once that gospel is heard He grants that
person to repent of their false belief and to trust in Christ
alone. And then in verses seven and
eight, we see that continuous blessed hope that is given to
the child of grace to believe and continue to hope on Christ
alone until salvation is culminated in his coming. and the proclamation
of that gospel throughout that whole lifetime. So that's basically
how I see this passage broken down into those four areas, and
I think that's the experience, and I don't know, maybe you could
share with me in the comments if that was your experience as
well, how God has brought us to the place of knowing our sin. Let's go ahead and read it, and
we'll get into what I'm talking about here. Starting in verse
one, Psalms 130, it says, I cried unto thee, O Lord, Lord,
hear my voice, let thine ears be attended to the voice of my
supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquity, 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 waited for the
Lord more than they that watch for the morning. 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. Father, Lord, we just thank you
today for your grace and for your mercy for another year that
you've given to us, Lord, safely bringing us through, keeping
us in your faith, keeping us, Lord, in your word, keeping us,
Lord, together as a church, even though as small as we are, where
two or three are gathered, you've promised to be there with us.
And so we do not see ourselves as anything less than what you
are, and we never would want to make it any more than what
you've called us to be. And Father, we thank you for
this day that you've given to us together and to proclaim the
message of the gospel. We thank you for this passage
that's set before us this morning. Lord, I pray that you would help
me to reveal Christ in it. I pray that you would help me
encourage the brethren through it as the Spirit takes what is
here and as it teaches each and every one of us, Lord. It's not
by my power, not by my might or eloquence. It's not by my
configuring of outlines or preaching or It's not about my oratory
skills, but Lord, it's by the power of the Holy Spirit coming
and giving light to what is here, giving truth to the sinner, giving
us, Lord, encouragement and building us up in the most holy faith
and growing us in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So we depend upon you, Lord, for everything that we
need today. to rightly worship you in spirit
and in truth, to proclaim your name, to receive of it, Lord,
not only for our benefit, but that we might reciprocate that
in worship to you, Lord. We're so grateful for all that
you have done for us and for Christ Jesus. It's in his name
that we pray, amen. As I said, I believe this passage
here is a beautiful picture of the child of grace and how the
Lord exercises this conviction of sin and sorrow for sin. You
know, I think back, as I said, you know, of course I think back
on all the times of fellowship we had, but going back even further,
I think back on my own experience in here, and as I said, as I
read through this, I've seen myself in this passage. I see how I apologize if I get emotional
this morning because as I studied on some more of this this morning
and everything, it just overwhelms me, the goodness of God and how
for years I lived in a religious activity. I lived in what I thought
was establishing righteousness in my life and pleasing the Lord
and working for Christ Preaching is gospel. I grew up in church. I taught Bible classes. I preached, pastored, traveled,
and I sang. I preached in revivals. I gave money. I served wherever
was needed in church. I was always there whenever the
church was opened. I was always there. A lot of
times I would you know, help unlock the church, get everything
ready to go. Sometimes I would help clean
the church. The church needed things fixed, we helped that.
I mean, everything I could do. And I remember that there seemed
to be a sense of satisfaction in that as, you know, I'm carrying
on and doing the Lord's work and I'm, you know, I'm a good
little Christian boy. But, brethren, At the end of
the day, it never did really satisfy what was inside. I never really had the rest that
what I was doing was enough to satisfy the Lord. There never
seemed to be enough. I mean, I had a set time that
I would read the Bible for a set amount of time. I had a set time
that I would pray. You know, like I said, we came
to church at every instance, at everything. Anytime there
was extracurricular church type things that we would do, we'd
be part of it. We sang in the choir. I mean,
we did whatever there was to do. And I remember very vividly one afternoon,
Lori had went into town The kids was with her and I was by myself
at the house and I was looking at the scriptures and studying
the scriptures. And it's just as if the Lord
himself had pushed his hand right down on my chest and pressed
me down. And I began to realize that all
the religious activities, all the religious things that I was
doing, trying to be pleasing to the Lord and trying to obey
all of his laws and rules and commands and trying to do my
best and trying to follow the Scriptures and be a Christian
and be a good preacher, be a good pastor, to be a good father. All these things that I continued
to try to do was not filling the place in my mind and my heart
that I was accomplishing any kind of righteousness. I just
continued to feel that there was not enough there and that
the Lord was not pleasing to me And I only continued to see
how sinful I was, how sinful I was, how sinful I was. And
that afternoon, the Lord just pressed upon me that I was completely
undone and that there was no righteousness whatsoever in me
at all. That all of what I had been doing
was filthy rags. And everything that I had been
trying to accomplish was not going any further. It wasn't
moving me any further in anything. because it was just my works. It was me trying to be righteous
by doing Christian, quote unquote, Christian things. And that day
I was in complete and total despair. I remember the Lord overwhelming
my heart with how sinful I had been. Not just the fact that
I knew the secret sins that was in my heart, the lust of my mind,
the greed, the selfishness, the neglect of things here and there,
whatever the case might be. But the very fact that I was
trying to perform a righteousness that pleased the Lord, when all
along the scripture was clear that it was Christ's righteousness
that God required. And I thought that my righteousness
could be equal to His and doing all the things that I could do
that God would see that righteousness and say, OK, well, you Christ
is the standard and you're now living up to that standard. And
so I was comparing myself with Christ. And when I compared myself
with Christ, I was found wanting I was found in the minus category. And I just remember that day
I fell over in the floor and just completely spread out, my
hands, my legs spread out with my face to the carpet and I just
began to cry that I didn't know what else to do, I didn't know
where else to go, I didn't know how else to do and I just cried
that the Lord would somehow give me relief from this sorrow of
not being able to perform enough righteousness and that I would be saved, that He would
that He would show me what I needed. And He did that day. As I laid there on the carpet
and I cried, I wept for not only me, but for the church that I
was in because I believed that we were missing everything by
continuing in this lifestyle of trying to please the Lord
and be right with the Lord by doing things instead of resting
in what was already accomplished for us and proclaiming the very
sovereign grace of God that all of it was not by our choice,
not by our choosing him or deciding for him or accepting him, but
that he truly did save his people. And those people really did hear
and believe and rest. And the Lord just placed that.
And so I see myself here in verse one, it says, out of the depths,
I have cried unto thee, O Lord. And I just think back to that
day that I truly felt that I was in the depths of despair. I didn't
know where else to go. I felt that I was a failure as
a husband, as a father, I felt that I was a failure as a worker. I felt I was a failure as a pastor
and a preacher and a singer, evangelist, whatever you want
to call it. And God, you begin to rearrange
my whole entire thought process that day. And I mean, this isn't
a testimony of service about me, but I'm just saying, if you
can relate to this or have that same experience, and I believe
that every child of grace has come through, something similar
to this, there was a point where finally the law of God was not
something that I was trying to keep, but the law of God was
something that finally crushed and revealed how sinful I was.
And this is what I believe the psalmist is feeling. He says,
out of the depths have I cried unto thee. What is he talking
about there? He's talking about the depths of his despair of
how sinful he knows that he truly is. Out of how deep in sin and
how deep in transgressions that he is against the Lord. He says,
out of the depths have I cried unto thee. And listen, brethren,
I can tell you whenever the Lord begins to reveal how sinful you
are and how missing the mark you are of His righteousness,
it truly is a cry from the heart. Now, it's a blessed thing that
the Lord gives us even the understanding that we're in this way. At this
point, we become a sinner. Not that we just now started
being a sinner or started sinning. What I mean by that is in our
minds, the Lord has finally revealed to us That we are a sinner and
we finally, by the Spirit's teaching and by the Spirit's convicting,
we finally are convicted of sin in us. That we are sin. That's
all we are, is sin. See, whenever Jesus said that
I've not come to call the righteous, but I've come to call the sinner,
well isn't everybody a sinner? Everybody's a sinner. For all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What was Jesus
saying? Because there is none righteous, no not one. What was
Jesus saying when he said, I didn't come to call the righteous, but
the sinner he was calling, he was meaning, I've come to call
those who have been given to know that they are sinners. See,
the righteous person don't need Christ. They think that, as I
did, that what they were doing was righteousness. I'm preaching,
I'm singing, I'm giving money, I'm doing being a good father,
I'm being a good husband, I'm being whatever, you know, good
work, all the things that I was doing, that I am doing righteousness,
therefore I'm doing good with God, I'm on a right standing
with God, I'm keeping myself in a right standing with God,
I'm persevering, I'm pressing on the upper way, new heights
I'm gaining every day. That's what my mentality was.
But whenever the Lord comes and gives us spiritual understanding,
We don't see ourselves as that, we see ourselves as in the dirt,
that I'm an unprofitable servant, that woe is me for I am undone. The Lord gives us the sight that
we are sinners. We see God's law not as something
that we can obtain and complete or do, but we see it as something
that is condemning and convicting because we are all sin. whenever
the Pharisee came and prayed and he said, Lord, I thank you
that I'm not like this sinner. But that sinner over there, he
said, Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner. See, that's what Jesus
was saying. I've not come to call the righteous.
Why? Because the righteous doesn't
have no need for me. They think that they have the righteousness
of their own. Now, they're going to find out different later.
But the one who is a sinner, I have come to call the sinner. Why? Because they've been made
to know that I'm without hope. That if I'm looking at being
accepted of God by what I do, all I can see is that I'm a sinner.
God's law has condemned me and I am condemned to die by His
law. Out of the depths I have cried
unto thee, O Lord. The Lord brings us to the place
where we cry out in desperation in the depths of our sin. Look
at verse 2. He says, Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attended to
the voice of my supplications. What does he say in there? He
said, Lord, please just hear my voice. We know that the Bible
teaches us that the Lord doesn't hear the prayers of the wicked. He hears the prayers of his saints,
but he doesn't hear the prayers of the wicked. And so the one
who is in the depths of despair and the depths of their sins,
they cry out to the Lord and all they can do is cry. They
can't demand. They surely aren't going to demand
the Lord. Lord, I want you to forgive me of my sins. I want
you to accept me as your child. No, there ain't no demanding.
Whenever we've been given to see our sinfulness and our uselessness,
whenever we begin to see how low that we truly are, that we
are just of the dust, all we can do is just cry out. And whenever
we do cry out, we pray that the Lord would hear our voice. Is His ear inclined to hear? He says, let thine ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications, to the things that I'm coming
to you with and asking. It says, verse three, if thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? What is the psalmist saying here?
What is the child of grace who has been given to know their
sins, saying, If thou, Lord, mark iniquity, who shall stand? Meaning that whenever we see
how holy God is and the standard of righteousness is, and we see
how sinful we are, we can only say, I know that there is no
way. If you are keeping track of sin,
There's no way that we're going to be able to stand because we're
all sinners. Isaiah said the same exact same thing. I just
kind of quoted it there a minute ago, but in Isaiah chapter six
and verses three, it said, in one cry, whenever the vision
of Christ in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord
sitting on the throne high and lifted up and his train filled
the temple and above it, stood the seraphims, each one having
six wings. With twain he covered his face,
and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
And one cried unto another, and he said, what was it that he
was saying? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Whenever
we see a vision and a view of God through the spiritual eyes,
we see that He is holy, and we're not holy. It says, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory. And the Bible says that the post
of the door moved, and the voice of him that cried, and the house
was filled with smoke. And what happened with Isaiah?
Look at verse 5, he says, Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone,
because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts. See, that's our attitude whenever
we see God. We see him as holy and we as
unclean. We realize we're all unclean
and none of us are going to stand. But look, he uses that word iniquities.
The Bible speaks a lot about this, but listen, the Lord is
not going to pardon iniquity. Look at verse, look with me at
some verses here. Look at Psalms while we're here
at Psalms. Go back to chapter one, Psalms chapter one. Brethren, I don't think that
I can scare anybody into heaven. You can't scare people into heaven.
I know a lot of preachers that like to preach like that. They
like to preach fiery messages so that you might scare people,
try to scare people into getting saved. I don't believe that that
works. Nobody can get saved, for one.
They either are saved or they aren't saved. Either Christ has
saved them by His shed blood, or they're not saved at all.
I don't believe you can scare anybody into the kingdom of God,
scare anybody into heaven. And so that's not my intent here.
My intent here is to show the facts of scripture and what the
child of grace learns and sees as the weight of the law comes
in. The purpose of the law is to
reveal sin. The purpose of the law is to
manifest our sin, to shed light on our sin. That's why the law
is there. It's not to make us holy or acceptable
to God. It's to show us that we are not
worthy. And so this is not to scare people
into heaven, but it's to show the truth of the scriptures of
what God says about our iniquity and about our holy God. Look
at Psalms verse one, and it says, in verse five, it says, therefore
the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the
congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way
of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish."
When God reveals Himself to us, we know that we are not going
to stand before His righteousness, but that we will perish. If you
would, turn to Nahum, the prophet Nahum. It's a little short book. If you get to Micah, keep going.
If you get to Habakkuk, go backwards. But look at Nahum 1, verse 6.
It says, Who can stand before His indignation? And who can
abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out
like fire and the rocks are thrown down by Him. in His holiness, in His judgment, in His righteousness,
in His glory. It is a fierce righteousness. It is a fierce thing. And listen, the unrighteous are
not going to stand before His indignation. They're not going
to proudly stand up and say, Well, what about this? Well,
what about that? Well, how come you did this?
Or how come you did this? Or why didn't you choose me?
They're not going to stand up. The Bible says that he is the
potter and we are the clay. Hath not the potter power over
the clay to make one vessel unto honor and one vessel unto Nobody's
going to be able to stand before the Lord and say, why hast thou
made me this way? Why did you make me this way?
Why was I this way? No, we're going to stand before
the Lord and we're either going to stand in our iniquities and be
punished for them, or we're going to stand in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ that by grace was given to us out of the love
of God. We're either going to be in one
of those two camps. There's not going to be an in-between. There's
not going to be no negotiation. And nobody's going to be standing
there saying, well, I was gypped. I was duped. I was treated unfair. No, even the wicked themselves,
when they stand before God, are going to know that they cannot
stand before the indignation of God because they know that
in themselves, they are wicked because they are going to be
before the holiness of God. And their judgment is going to
be right. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 2. Jeremiah chapter 2. Look with me if you would, verse
22. It says, For though thou wash thee
with niter, a nitrate. I don't know if you know what
that was. I'll be honest with you, I didn't
know what it was. I had to look it up. But what nitrate is, is
potash. It's a mineral that they would
take and they would pour vinegar on it and it would kind of make
a bubbly efferescence, kind of like peroxide or something like
that, you know. It would kind of bubble whenever
vinegar would be poured on it. And they use that sometimes to
wash clothing and things like that. So it would kind of be
like OxiClean, you know, or OxiClean. Take that powder, put it in water
and it kind of bubbles a little bit, something like that. Well,
this is what this is. It says, for though thou wash
thee with neither, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity
is marked before me, saith the Lord God. See, people think that
they can hide their sin from God. They think that they can pull one over on God, that God's
not paying attention. There's so many other people
out there that sin way worse than I am. Listen, God marks
every iniquity. It says right here, yet thine
iniquity is marked before me. Every iniquity, every sin has
been marked. God knows it all. God isn't dumb
to what we do. God isn't dumb to our sin. He
knows and marks iniquity. Look back into Psalms, if you
would. Psalms chapter 40. Look at verse 12. It says, For
innumerable evils have compassed me about, mine iniquities have
taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are
more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me.
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me, O Lord, make haste to help
me. Let them be ashamed. That's as far as I need to go
there. So whenever the child of grace sees their iniquities
and they know that those iniquities are marked out and they know
that God knows. I knew that God knew. I knew
that God knew I was trying to be righteous, but I also began
to see and know, as God revealed it to me that day, God also knows
that all my doing wasn't good enough. I truly was trying. I was trying hard. I was doing
my best. But at the end of the day, the
Bible says that anybody who doesn't keep the whole law has broken
all the law. And those who break the law have
transgressed the holiness of God and that by that transgression,
the Bible says the wages of that sin is death. That God will not
acquit the wicked, that God will not pardon iniquity. And that day, my iniquity fell
on me as hard as it could have ever fallen. Now, I'm still convicted. I'm thankful that the Spirit
still convicts me of sin. I still am thankful that the
Spirit reveals sin to me, and what is sin, that I might confess
that sin before the Lord. I'm thankful that He still does
that. But, brethren, listen. As the
psalmist here, and not only the one that we've read, but just
now the one that we're reading, we see the innumerable evils
that are about me. How my iniquities have taken
hold of me to the place where I don't even feel like I'm able
to, can the Lord even hear me? That's what our passage said,
right? Is the Lord's ear even listening to me? Can he hear
my cry? I'm crying to God and can he
hear me? And that day, listen, I cried
to the Lord when my face was in the carpet, You couldn't hardly
hear me, but I was praying the Lord could. Can the Lord hear
me? Have I neglected God so long
in thinking that I could do a righteousness that He even hear me? Now, some
people think, well, that's stupid. Yeah, God can hear. Even the
wicked, He actually hears them. I'm not talking about can God
audibly hear what I'm saying. I think God hears everything
that goes on because God knows everything that goes on. What
my heart was crying out is, oh Lord, do you hear me in the hearing? Like when Jesus said, let him
that has an ear to hear, let him hear. Is it an effectual
hearing? Is it a hearing with spiritual
effects? Does God hear what I am saying
to the point where God hears? Because God has, by his purpose,
intended on giving me Salvation. Does he hear my cry because I
am one of his children? Because God hears his children.
Does he hear my cry because the shepherd hears the lost sheep
baaing over in the bush and can't get out? Here's the sheep that's
gone astray, that is lost. The shepherd goes and finds that
sheep. And we know his voice But does
he know ours? But the Bible says, I know my
sheep. And I call my sheep out, and they follow me. And so the
cry of the psalmist is, my iniquities are so great, does he even hear
me? Look at Job, verse 10. What an exercise Job went through
by God and knowing his sin, just at the point that Job would rejoice
a little bit, God would bring him back low. He'd bring him
to the heights and then he'd bring him back low. And Job and
all this, God showed Job his sinfulness and his desire. And
at the very end, listen, Job knew, hey, at the end of the
day, God is sovereign and I can't do anything to change anything
that God does. And what he does is right. But
look here in Job chapter 10 verse 14 what Job says as he begins
to despair again. He says, If I sin, then thou
markest me, and thou wilt not acquit me for mine iniquity. If I be wicked, woe unto me.
And if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full
of confusion. Therefore see thou my affliction.
for it increases. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion,
and again, thou showest thyself marvelous upon me." So we see
here that the depths that we can get to, and we know that
our sin is before the Lord. He counts our iniquity. Back
in Psalms, chapter 1 again, we just read it a minute ago. Verse
6, he said, Psalm chapter 1 verse 6, For
the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the
ungodly shall perish. Another good verse is Malachi, last book in the Old Testament.
Malachi chapter 3 verse 2, It says, but who may abide the
day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth?
For He is like a refiner's fire and like a fuller soap. Probably one of the best that
we can see is back in Revelation chapter 6. Revelation chapter 6. Look with
me at verse 15. You know, I mentioned a while
ago that we can't hide our sins from God. And I'm not just talking
about the plain people. I'm talking about every person.
I don't care if you're a governor, or if you're a state senator,
or if you're a police officer, or a military person, a king,
a president, a prince, a billionaire, a gazillionaire. I don't care
who you are. The Lord knows. Look at verse 15, it says, and
the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men,
and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman,
and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and the rocks of
the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on
us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne,
and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath
is come, and who shall be able to stand? whenever God's judgment
came on these people. Listen, it didn't matter what
their status was. They was crying, hide us from
this judge. Hide us from the one who sits
on the throne. Why? Because they knew their
iniquities are not going to stand before the Lord. Brethren, back to Psalm 130. The psalmist says, Out of the
depths I have cried unto thee, O Lord. Hear my voice, let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou
shouldst mark my iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? You've
told me, you've showed me that I can't stand in my iniquities
in front of you. But brethren, we come to the
next part of the experience of grace that each child of grace
goes through in verse 4. Whenever the law comes in and
convicts us and shows us our sin, what is needed? Well, in Galatians we found that
the Judaizers was coming in and when the law of conviction was
coming in, they were saying, you better get after keeping
that law, otherwise you're not saved or you won't stay saved.
But what did Paul say? That's another gospel. That's
not the gospel. When the law comes in, and convicts
us of sin, the child of grace who's been given spiritual eyes
and ears and a heart, they know their sin. They know their sinfulness,
and they know the futility of trying to keep the law for righteousness
because they only know my iniquities are going to be seen for what
they are, and I cannot stand before the Lord. So what's the
gospel? What's the good news to the child
of grace who the law has crushed and condemned, there is forgiveness
with thee that the Lord, that thou mayest be feared." Brethren,
the child of grace receives the gospel when the law has crushed
and condemned and shown their shortness, their failing, the
gospel comes in as good news. There's forgiveness for that.
There's forgiveness with the Lord. And so I remember that
day that I was crushed on the carpet. And as I cry, I lifted
my head and I've said this and mentioned this before in a pool
of snot and cry from the carpet, I lifted my head and all I could
hear was, it is finished. That's all the Lord could bring
to my mind is it is finished. I have forgiven you. Yes, I know
your inequities. Yes, I have heard your voice.
Yes, I have known all the travail you have tried to do in trying
to please me and to be what you thought should be and what you
have tried so desperately to establish in your own work. I
know that you have done it. I know that you have failed.
And guess what? I know that you will continue
to fail every time you try to do it. But I forgive you. I forgive you for trying to replace
your righteousness with mine. I have given you a righteousness,
but every time you try to put up a righteousness for yourself,
I will forgive you. I will forgive you. Brethren,
that's good news. That's gospel. The Lord has given us forgiveness. There is forgiveness with thee. And then we move to
the third portion or the third part of the exercising of God's
work in us. Whenever the gospel comes in
and it tells us this good news, that you've tried to establish
your own righteousness, but it always fails. No matter how diligent
you try, no matter how zealous you are, no matter how faithful
you are to establish that, you always miss the mark. But I forgive
you. I have forgiven you of every
one of those sins. Not only all the ones that you
have done, but all the ones that you will do until you die. So when the gospel comes in,
the Holy Spirit grants to the child of grace repentance and
faith. Repentance is to turn about,
to change directions, a change of mind, to turn from. So the Holy Spirit gives us or
grants us repentance. See, we can't repent in ourselves. We can't turn from ourselves.
Now, whenever I say repentance, I'm not saying that I want to
turn around and quit doing sin, because I'm going to continue
to sin. I will continue to sin until the day I die. I will continue
to miss the mark of keeping God's law 100%. Now, remember, There isn't a partial keeping.
God isn't keeping partial track. Okay, well 80% you did good,
20% you did bad, so therefore I'm pleased with you 80% of the
time, I'm not happy with you 20% of the time. 80% good job, 20% thumbs down. That's not how God works. It's
God says here's the standard, it's perfection, here's you,
not perfection. But God, I've done all this,
I've done all this, I've done all this. No, no, no, no, no.
Perfection is all this, 100%, every bit of it, all the time,
never missing once. Did you do it? Have you done
it? Are you gonna do it? No, you're not gonna do it. You
can't do it. Why can't you do it? Because
the flesh is just flesh, and it cannot please God. And you,
apart from Christ, and you are just flesh, and you can't please
God. But Christ who is in you, He's perfect. And there is no
need for law because He has kept the law. We have the law written
in our hearts. We love the law of God in the
inward man, after the inward man. And we keep the law of God
after the inward man. Because it's Christ. But this
flesh can't keep it. It doesn't keep it. It never
will keep it. Therefore, there needs to be forgiveness of sin,
not just for past sins, for present sins, and for future sins, because
we are going to continue to not be this standard in the flesh. That's why the flesh must die. That's why the flesh will just
deteriorate, go away, because there is no more ability, or
there never was any ability, to keep righteousness in the
flesh. And so God grants us repentance from turning and thinking that
we can achieve this or even this and be pleasing to God. No, repentance
is saying, I know that in me dwells no good thing. And then
turn over here and say that we are the righteousness of God
in Christ. Our righteousness is in Christ. not in myself or in my attempts
to be righteous, in my attempts to be obedient. No, it's in Christ's
obedience. So we have repentance to turn
from thinking we can gain righteousness on our own and turn and we have
now faith in Christ's righteousness alone as our hope of salvation. It was Christ's righteousness.
It was Christ's faith that God counted It was Christ's obedience
that God counted. It was Christ's sacrifice on
the cross that God counted as the payment for my sin. So I
have now turned from thinking I should be going in this direction
and trying to keep God's law so that I might be right with
Him, to turning and now seeing Christ alone is my righteousness,
so I'm going to trust in Him, and I'm going to turn away from
I'm going to stop and discontinue dead works of zealous religious
work activity. And I'm going to turn it on.
I'm going to just trust Christ alone as my righteousness. I'm
going to trust the Holy Spirit to work in me, to willing to
do His good pleasure. I'm not going to trust in my
own flesh. I'm not going to lean on my own
arm of understanding, as Paul said. I'm not going to lean on
the arm of flesh. I don't trust in the arm of flesh.
I trust in the Spirit of God. The law convicts us. The Gospel
tells us the good news. And the Spirit grants us repentance
and faith to trust in Christ. Look what he says there. I wait
for the Lord. My soul doth wait. In His Word do I hope. Who do
we hope in? Not in ourselves. We hope in
the Word of Christ Jesus. The Word of God is Christ Jesus. We hope in Him. It's not talking
about we hope in the word. Now we can count on this word
because it's the truth of God. It's God's words. He spoke them. It's truth. God cannot lie. This
right here is truth. But brethren, that's not what
we're hoping in. We are hoping in the one who
this talks about, which is Christ. That's faith. God has given us
faith. Repentance and faith come hand
in hand. To have faith in Christ means
we've turned away from ourselves. To have faith in Christ means
we've turned away from establishing righteousness by works and law-keeping. And by looking to Christ and
saying, it was finished. He did do it all. That's what faith is all about.
Look what he says in verse 6. He says, My soul waiteth for the
Lord more than they that watch for the morning. What is he speaking
about with that watch for the morning? Watch for the morning. Well, there used to be people
that took turns, they were called watchmen, and they would watch
and they had, you know, there'd be a day shift and there'd be
a night shift. And, you know, during the day, you can kind
of see everything that's going around. And what would they do?
They would stand on the wall and they would watch in case
any enemies would come and attack. Well, at night, it's hard to
see, especially back when this was written when they didn't
have giant flashlights that could light up half a block, you know? So they would have watchmen that
would be around the wall and they would keep eye on everything
and they would alert anybody of any dangers that was coming.
And so they would be watching and waiting. And through the
night, all the anticipation and all the nervousness of not being able
to see very good in the dark. Well, when the morning comes,
Not only is our shift over, but we can see again. We can see
what's going on. And he's saying, I'm waiting
on the Lord like that, in anticipation. I'm waiting on Him because I
know my only hope is Him. And so I am waiting for the culmination
of all this, that all my activity of sin will be put down and all
that will be seen will be Christ Jesus. That'll be whenever He
comes again. But lastly, brethren, we see verses 7 and 8, which
I believe is the fourth section in the experience of the child
of grace. We see verse 7 and 8 talks about the hope that we
have given in Christ and the gospel proclamation. We've been
given a hope and we declare it. We profess it. We confess it. We preach it. Look what he says
there, look at verse 7. He goes from turning from himself
and his despair under the law to seeing that there is forgiveness,
good news, gospel. There's good news, there's forgiveness
for my sin and iniquities. The iniquities that God has marked
out and has kept track of He is kept track of, but praise
the Lord, Jesus has paid the price for every one of those
that he kept track of. Therefore, there is forgiveness.
And he said that God has granted him repentance in the face of
now. He waits on the Lord and his hope is in the Word of God. His hope is in Christ Jesus,
not in himself. His hope isn't in God accepting
him or overlooking his iniquities. His hope is in Christ and the
forgiveness that comes to his iniquities because Christ paid
the price for those iniquities. Repentance and faith has been
given. But now he turns outwardly and he says, let Israel. Now
he begins to tell everybody else. This was for me. This has been
my experience. I came from the depths of despair
to the heights of joy because I've learned the gospel. And
now, in turn, what is he doing? He's turning around and calling
out to all of the other children of grace. To all the other children
of Israel, if you would. Let Israel hope in the Lord.
Let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy,
and with Him is plenteous redemption. Now I just want to harbor here
just a little bit, I know it's about time. I just want to harbor
here just a little bit on this. He says, let Israel hope, let
the people of God hope in the Lord. Turn away from this law
keeping. Now if you remember, this is
back during the time where the law had been given to them for them
to continue in the law, right? But as we look at these through
the spiritual aspect, the spiritual eyes, what is being preached
here? Let Israel hope in the Lord. Let our hope not be in
the law keeping that we try to accomplish. Because every year
they had to continue in that law, and every year they kept
breaking the law, therefore they had to keep making the sacrifices.
Which was a continual reminder that they keep breaking the law. And as long as God allowed the
priesthood to be there to sacrifice those sins, there was a covering
of sin, but not a taking away of sin. It wasn't until Christ
came that He took away the iniquities of us all. But it says here, it says, Let
Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy,
and with Him is plenteous redemption. That word plenteous redemption
there is really one thing that kind of struck me, especially
this morning. Let's read a few verses about
that, because whenever I think plenteous redemption, I'm thinking
an overabundance of redemption. Listen, whenever I was on my
face before the Lord and my iniquities were being brought to my mind
and how sinful I was, the thought process is, is there enough forgiveness
from the Lord? Yeah, the gospel comes in and
says, hey, there's forgiveness with me. The very thought in
the mind can say, yeah, and you may have even heard people say
this before. Well, I might understand that, but I don't know if the
Lord can save me. I'm too far gone. I'm too far in the depths. I've done too much. I've done,
if you only knew what all I've done, you'd know the Lord probably
couldn't save me. The Lord probably couldn't overlook
all this. Too many to count. Well, he's
saying right here, there's plenty of redemption. So not only is
it enough to cover your sin, but listen, it's enough to cover
everyone in Israel. Spiritual Israel, that is. It's
enough to cover all their sins. It's plenty in us and it's Efficaciousness
is plenty enough in its application. It's plenteous in the efficiency
of it. It's plenteous in all of that.
It covers everyone for who it was intended, and it provides
everything for everyone it was intended for. They have no need. They're complete because of Christ
Jesus, because there is plenteous redemption. Look with me if you
would. to Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah 55. Look at verse 1, it says, Ho
everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that
hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and
milk without money, and without price. See, there's enough there. If
Walmart today would say, today and today only, we're removing
every price sticker on every item in the store. And you're free to come buy whatever
you want without money. Just come. No price. It's free. What do you think is going to happen?
It's going to be a madhouse. Why? Everyone's going there to
get it. Why? Because it's free. There's
no price. So you can imagine the crowd
of people that will respond to that and go to that. Why? Because it isn't costing them
anything. They're getting it for free. It's something that
they want or something that they need. In either case, it's not
costing them anything. But what's going to happen at
the end of the day? Everything's going to be gone. It's all going
to be done. There ain't going to be nothing
left. But here, God is saying that He has plenteous redemption. There is enough for everyone
who comes. There is enough for everyone
who comes to get it for free. If you're coming to get it with
money, there's not enough because it's not for sale. Everyone who is coming to get
it for free, why does he say buy without money? Because if
you buy it, it's not free. If it's not free, then you earned
it because you paid for it. And grace is free. Salvation
is free. God's gift of mercy is free. We come to Him for mercy, and
there's plenty of it. We come to Him for forgiveness,
and there's plenty of it. We come to Him for love. There's
plenty of it. We come to Him for grace. There's
plenty of it. We come to Him for help. There's
plenty of it. We come to Him for righteousness.
There's plenty of it. But we come to Him with open
hands, empty pockets, no billfolds, because when we come to Him,
it's free. He will not be paid. because
He gives it by grace. Look at verse 5. Isaiah 55, verse 5. It says, Behold, thou shalt call
a nation that thou knowest not in nations, that knew not thee shall run
unto thee because of the Lord thy God for I think I might have
got that wrong. Not 5, I'm sorry. Verse 7. Let
the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts
and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him
and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. There is abundant pardon. Again, Jeremiah chapter 2 and
verse 22. I'm sorry. I keep getting off
on the wrong verses here on the list of verses that I've got
down here. Psalm 25, verse 22. Forgive me for the weakness in
my flesh here. Psalm 25, verse 22. It says,
Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. Not some of his troubles, not
just the past troubles, not just the present troubles, but all
his troubles. We are redeemed from all of them.
Look at chapter 88, or 86, verse 5. Psalm 86, verse 5. For Thou, O Lord, art good and
ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them." Plenteous
in mercy. There's that word again. Plenteous
in mercy. "...to all them that will answer
Thee." As a matter of fact, if you look
right there in verse 6, they call upon me. Look at verse 6.
Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer, and attend to the voice of my
supplications." He's saying the same thing. He said, 130. Lord,
will you hear my voice? Will you hear my supplication? The 103rd Psalm. Psalm 103. Look
at verse 3. We'll start with verse 1. It
says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth
all thine iniquity, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth
thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness
and tender mercies. He forgiveth of all thy iniquities. From all our iniquities. He forgives us from all our iniquities. In verse 8 of our passage, he
says, He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Sounds a lot like a verse that
we just read last week, right? Sounds like Matthew chapter 1,
verse 21. What does Matthew 1, 21 say? It says, And she shall bring
forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. And we wouldn't be wrong in saying,
from all their sins. Because the Bible backs that
up. All our iniquities. In Titus 2.14, this will be the
last verse we read. In Titus 2.14, Titus 2.14, Scripture says, starting
verse 13, it says, 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 for good works.
These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority
and let no man despise thee." So it all goes back at the end
of the day as the experience of the child of grace, as I mentioned,
begins with being crushed by the law of God and seeing the inability to produce righteousness. The gospel comes in and tells
us of forgiveness of the sin that God has given or that we
have done before God. And the Spirit grants us a turning
from trying to resting in Christ Jesus. And then in turn, what
do we do? We turn around and we share that
with other people. We declare that to the rest of
Israel. We speak often one to another
and hearken. And the Lord will hearken and
hear it And a book of remembrance will be written before him of
them that feared the Lord, that thought upon his name. We will
comfort each other. We will speak comfortably to
Jerusalem, to Israel and tell her that her warfare is accomplished
and that her iniquity, all her iniquity, every iniquity has
been found with plenteous redemption. that all her iniquity is pardoned
because she has received from the Lord's hand double for all
her sins. Brethren, I am so thankful to
the Lord that He had brought me out of religion, that He brought
me out of false Christianity, that He's brought me out of false
Gospels, and He continues to clear my mind The flesh just
continues to bombard us with these things, but He continues
to give light to us, that He continues to grow us in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and continues to build
up our hope in Christ and to make us less and less dependent upon our flesh. looking
to our flesh. And so with the psalmist here,
we are crying aloud to all that are in Israel. There's plenteous
of mercy. There's plenteous redemption.
There is plenteous grace because God's salvation is finished. And so I pray that's been an
encouragement to you. I pray that it's been your experience.
Surely has been mine. And I pray that if you today,
the Lord has brought you to a place to know your sinfulness, and
you hear that there is forgiveness with the Lord Jesus Christ, that
He grants you grace and faith and repentance to believe it,
to confess it, profess it. One of the ways that we confess
that is through baptism. If you believe that Christ has
saved you and is your salvation and is your hope, you should
be baptized. show that forth. So I pray the
Spirit would lead you in that as well, that we might continue
to speak often one to another of this great and gracious mercy
of God. All right, does anyone have any
comments or anything you'd like to say or share or corrections or reviews? Lord, once again, we come to
you this morning so grateful for the Lord Jesus Christ and
grateful for your word. We thank you for the revelation
of your Savior and your salvation to the children of God. Father,
we know that this message today is for your children, is for
your sheep, wherever they may be. And so, Lord, we pray that
whether by physical gathering here today, through the internet,
through radio, through whatever means that this thing goes out.
Lord, we pray that it might be a comfort to your people, that
it might be food for the soul, Lord, that it might be edifying
to them. Lord, I pray that you just might
bring your sheep back to yourself, Lord, that you gather them in.
And Lord, we just pray for our church and we ask, Lord, that
you would continue to keep us in the faith of Christ Jesus
and that we might be a testimony of the gospel here in Joplin,
that if there are others of your sheep in this town, Lord, that
you have saved, we pray, Lord, that you would bring us into
their acquaintance, that we might gather together and worship together,
Lord, that we might feed off of your word and fellowship one
with another. And so, Lord, we are so grateful
for all that you do for us, and we're thankful for Christ Jesus
and the salvation that's in and through him and the Spirit that
comes. And it gives us understanding and it grows us grace and knowledge
that convicts us of that sin and that it works in us to will
and to do our good pleasure. We're grateful for you and all
that you do for your people. And it's a precious thing that
we pray. Amen.