Oh, how merciful, how merciful,
Blessed Lord, how merciful Thou art to me. Oh, how merciful, how merciful, Good morning. This morning, our pastor and
Janet are at the conference where our pastor is preaching in Louisville,
Arkansas, with our brother and Pastor Darwin Pruitt. Our Elder
Eric Floyd is preaching this morning at Kingsport Sovereign
Grace Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. Lord willing, Frank and Janet
will be back with us on Thursday, and Brother Eric will be preaching
here on Wednesday. So we pray that the Lord be with
them all as they travel, and of course with the message that
it's both blessed as it's being delivered and blessed to the
hearts and ears of those who are hearing. The word go forth, not
void. accomplish our Lord's purpose
today. We're thankful to have our, our brother Aaron with us
from, uh, from Todd's road, grace church and his family. I'm so
glad you guys could come today. Also, we're, uh, we're delighted
to have you. We thank you for making the trip
up and we look forward to hearing the message of the Lord's laid
on your heart. If y'all would open with me to Luke chapter
15. Luke chapter 15, we'll start
in verse 11. And he said, a certain man had
two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give
me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided
unto them his living. And not many days after the younger
son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country
and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when
he had spent all, There arose a mighty famine in that land,
and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself
to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into the fields
to feed swine. And he would have feigned filled
his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man
gave unto him. And when he came to himself,
he said, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough
and to spare? And I perished with hunger. I
will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father,
I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more
worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thine hired
servants. And he arose and came to his
father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed
him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called
thy son. The father said to his servants, bring forth the best
robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes
on his feet and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and
let us eat and be merry. For this, my son was dead and
is alive again. He was lost in his family and
they began to be married. Let's pray. Our Holy Heavenly Father, what
a privilege it is to be able to bow together and come before
you and call you Father, for Christ's sake. In ourselves,
we're no more worthy to be called son. We're no more worthy to
be called servant. Rather, in ourselves, we're worthy
to be cast out for Christ's sake. Adopted as sons, and though we
were dead, made alive yet again in Christ. We have much to be
thankful for. I pray that this morning be a
true time of worship, that we truly worship you in spirit and
in truth. And where you don't lead, Father,
don't let us follow. Don't let us go. But rather lead
us, both in this worship service and throughout the day. Be with
us and bless this time that we have together. Bless it for Christ's
sake. Bring honor that is rightfully yours to your name. Let this
time be a time of worship and a time of fellowship together,
that it accomplish your purpose. I pray that you continue to bring
sinners to the throne of mercy found only in Christ. The only
place where our helplessness, our sinfulness, our rebellion,
And we bring that before you and confess that before you that
our, our, our sinfulness, our, our dead works, our rebellion
or mercy can be found full, full covering in Christ's blood. Father,
we're, we're thankful for Christ and we're thankful that you've
seen fit to reveal him to us. I pray that you continue strengthen,
strengthen those that need strengthening undergoing whatever the trial
may be. Father, you know, give grace
in time of need. We pray for our children as they
listen, even right now, that you bless that word, bless it
to their hearts and in your time that you give them life and bring
them to a saving, saving knowledge of Christ, that you give them
life according to your will, according to your word. I pray
for our pastor and Janet, for Eric as they travel, that you
bless that time and bring them home safely to us according to
your will. Pray this thankfully in Christ's name and for his
sake. Again, I'm very glad to introduce our brother Aaron Greenleaf. We look forward to hearing the
message that the Lord's laid on your heart. Come preach to
us. It's good to be with you this
morning, as always. If you want to turn to your scriptures,
it's going to be Psalm 130. Looked up a bunch of commentary
on this psalm, trying to find out who the author was, because
it doesn't say it in the title. And most of the commentators
came up with the same answer, and it's David. And I suppose
if you're in the business of making commentaries and telling
them, that's probably a safe bet. Can't go wrong with David, because
David wrote most of them. But the real answer is we don't
know. We don't know who wrote it. But there's three things
that we can deduce about the author based on what he has to
say in this. And number one, he is in a greatly distressed
state. So look at verse one. It says,
out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Something's
got this man down. He's in a greatly distressed
state. He's in what he's calling the depths. That means he's touching
the bottom. Can't go any further. So he's in a greatly distressed
state, but also, in the middle of this, he's also going to proclaim
a great hope. If you think about it, that's
where the believer lives his life. This is the duality that
only exists in the believer. He is constantly distressed and
constantly hopeful all in the same bag. We're really the only
ones who can identify with this truly. He's greatly distressed. He's greatly hopeful. At the
end here, he sums it up. with this desire that his countrymen,
his fellow kinsmen, people who were in the same distressed state,
would share his same hope. And if there's a better definition
of preaching, I don't know what it would be. People in the same
boat, in the same distressed state, telling them where they
also can find hope. So here's what we're going to
do. We're going to take a walk. We're just going to walk through
Psalm 130 line by line. We're going to see what the author
has to say here. So pick up in verse 1 again.
The author says, out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Now I want you to consider what
he says and what he doesn't say. He does not say, out of the depths
I'm crying to thee, O Lord, as if this was the first time he
had found himself in these depths, and this was the first time that
he was crying to the Lord. He says, almost with a sigh,
out of the depths, once again, have I cried unto thee, O Lord. This is obituary. These depths,
this bottom, this touching bottom, this is a familiar place for
the psalmist. This is where he lives his life. He is down at
the bottom, and he is crying unto the Lord, and this is where
he lives. This is where he stays. It's habitual. Now look at verse
two. When you read this, there should
be an urgency in your voice. It should come out like a violent
begging. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. Now, one
thing's clear by that statement there is that he is beyond human
intervention. There is no one who can help
him. There's no one he can turn to. There's no human motive or
mechanism he can turn to to get himself out of this distressed
state. There is one person, one entity
that can help this man. It's the Lord. And if he does
not bow down that ear of sovereignty and lend that attentive ear and
do something for this man, this man is going to remain down here
in the bottom. But he's beyond human intervention.
There's one person who can help him, and that's the Lord. Now,
here's my question. What has got this man so down?
Is he having family problems? Does he lose his job? What's
the issue? Look at verse 3. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? What's got him so worked
up? What's got him down in the bottoms?
It's his iniquity. It's his sin. Why is that such
a problem? Why does this have him so distressed?
Well, because he knows a few things. Here's the first thing
he knows. He knows that the Lord does mark iniquities. He is the
holy one with the perfect sense of justice, and he marks all
iniquities. Marks them down in a book. Man does wrong, it gets
marked there. And he's no crooked bookkeeper. He never misallocates. He never marks one in one column
and puts it somewhere else. He never scribbles anything out
of the book. That's exactly what it is. He marks all iniquities.
He is the holy one with the perfect sense of justice. When he opens
that book and he sees iniquity marked next to a man's name,
all he can do, all, is he can punish that man. That's it. That's
the only thing he can do with it. He is this one with a perfect
sense of justice. And when he sees sin, all he
can do is punish it. That's it. That's the first thing
this man knows. He's in the hands of this one who is both holy
and has this perfect sense of justice. And he does mark iniquities.
Here's the second thing he knows. He has both the right and the
power to mark iniquities. He is the omnipotent sovereign.
What that means is he is in absolute sovereign control of everyone
and everything at all times. If you will be saved, if I will
be saved, it will be completely up to his will, and he can't
be manipulated in any way, shape, or form. And he's omnipotent,
which means he has all power. And any entity that seems to
have any power, It is only because the Lord gave him that power
that anytime he wants, he can strip him of that power at any
time. He said on the Pharaoh, he said,
for this reason, I've raised you up. I've given you power so you
can stand against me simply so I can go and beat you back down
so everybody knows how powerful I am. This is the one who has
the right to mark iniquities and has the power to do it. Now,
if he was not that way, if he was not the omnipotent sovereign,
he would be no one to be feared. Yeah, he could make the rules,
he could try to hold men accountable, but if he could be manipulated,
if his will could be thwarted, he would be no one to be feared.
That's not the case. He is the one who makes the rules.
He has the right and the power to hold men accountable to the
rules, and he has the right and the power to punish men for breaking
the rules. Are we starting to see why the
psalmist is so distressed? He's a sinful man in the hands
of a sovereign and a holy God. Here's a third thing he knows.
He knows what Paul said in Romans 3. There is none righteous. No,
not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all going out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. You see why he's
so distressed? You and I should be in the same
distress state because this is where we stand. We're sinful
people. We're in the hands of a sovereign omnipotent and holy
God who demands perfection. And he has the right and the
power to deal with that poor man. Now, that was kind of a
downer, right? He's in a distressed state. He
should be. So should we. But there's great victory. Look
at verse four. But the gospel in three words,
right? But God, but there is forgiveness
with thee. Although he is this holy one
with this perfect sense of justice and he always marks iniquities,
never messes anything up, never misallocates, although he is
that way, he has found a way to be absolutely just and justify
sinful people like you and me. And the wisdom of all that is
found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is what happened. I
don't understand this. I don't. I believe it because it's in this book.
The Father made the Lord Jesus Christ the sin of his people.
So much so that he punished him, and it fit in his sense of justice.
He punished him to the point of satisfaction for those sins.
Every member of the elect are made in the very righteousness
of God in Christ. And you know what? All that fits
in his perfect sense of justice. This is what he did. And now,
the Father, because of what the Lord Jesus Christ did, because
of that, now when he opens the book and he looks at every member
of the elect, you know what he sees? He sees nothing. There is no iniquity marked in
that book, and never has been, because the Lord Jesus Christ
is a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He never wants
anything done in the court because there's nothing there. And now
the Father can forgive the sins of the elect because there really
is nothing there to forgive. They're gone. When he shed his
precious blood, he put them away, and it's gone as far as the east
is from the west. Now here's a question for you.
Why would the Lord Jesus Christ do this for his people? Why would
he do this? Well, the first answer is easy.
The answer is love. Because of this eternal union, every member
of the elect shares with the Lord Jesus Christ. When he is
loving his bride, he is loving himself. And being unwilling
to deny himself, he went to the cross to ransom his bride. When
he was dying on that cross, it was out of love for his people.
But when he was loving his bride, he was loving himself. And he
was dying for himself. I'll give you a scripture here.
1 John 4.10, here in his love, Not that we loved God, but that
he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our
sins. Not that we loved God, not that
he was responding for our love to him, but because in his eternal
purpose, he loved us. Here's the first answer, love.
Here's the second reason, because he promised his father he would.
In the covenant of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ went to his
father. He said, these, these that are mine, these that are
yours, You're going to come to me for everything you require.
Everything you require. You require righteousness. You
require a sin payment. Everything you require, you're
going to look to me for. You're not going to look to them, and
you're going to look to me. I promise you I'm going to bear
their burden. I'm going to do this. I'm going
to bring them back to you without a scratch on them. He promised
his father he would. And being unable to lie and unable
to fail, he did exactly what he said he was going to do. But
there's a third reason here. but I hadn't considered this
before. Look back at verse four. But there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared. Now, what was going on on that
cross? What the Lord Jesus Christ was
doing on that cross, he was doing for his people, no doubt. He
was ransoming us back to his father, no doubt. But first and
foremost, what he was doing on that cross is he was glorifying
his father. What he was doing, he was doing for his father.
At the cross, all the wonderful attributes of God, his character
is completely known right there at the cross. Right there, you
can see the perfect justice of God. And when sin is found on
his only begotten son, he doesn't pass him by. He doesn't sweep
it under the cover. What he says is, you must die.
And that's his son. There's the perfect justice of
God right there. You see the mercy and the graciousness and
the love of God The people that he is dying for right then are
the same ones who are shouting, crucify him, crucify him. We
will not have this man to rule over us. That's the mercy and
the grace of God right there, that he would die for people
who hated him by nature. You see the sovereignty of God.
Everything that's happening right then, it's all happening according
to scriptures. It was like they opened the book and they said,
okay, what do we do next? Somebody put vinegar in his mouth. That's
what verse six says. It's all happening according to the way
he said it was going to go. All the attributes of God are seen
right there at the cross. And what he was doing, first
and foremost, when he was bringing the elect back to his father,
safe and sound, he was ensuring worshippers, people who are going
to fear God for all of eternity. Now, I was at a conference in
Danville recently, and Chris Cunningham, the pastor down at
College Grove, he made this statement. He said, what is, or he asked
this question, what is our role in salvation? What's our role? We need it. That's a great statement
right there. But eternally, what's our role
going to be? What are we going to do? We're going to worship
God. That's our purpose. Now, we do
that in part here. When the Lord meets with us for
a little while, we're unable to worship God. One day, we're
going to do it perfectly. But that's what the Lord Jesus Christ
was doing when he was bringing us back to his Father. He was
ensuring worshipers for his Father at the end of time, that thou
mayest be feared. Look over at verse 5. Knowing
this distress, but having this great hope, how is the psalmist
going to live out his days? How is he going to sojourn through
this world? Verse 5 says, I wait for the
Lord. My soul doth wait, and in his
word do I hope. How's he going to spend his time
in this world? Waiting and hoping. Now, hope
has everything to do with rightly expecting what you have not yet
experienced. I'll say that again. Hope has
everything to do with rightly expecting what you have not yet
experienced. And the hope is only good, is
only valid, if the thing you are hoping in, no doubt, will
come to pass. Now, I'll give you an example
of this. I can hope that I'll win a million dollars off a scratch-off
ticket that I buy from the gas station. I go down there. My
hope is I'm going to win this million dollars. But I better
not buy a million-dollar house based on that scratch-off ticket,
because the likeliness of me winning that money is very little,
right? Here's what I mean, though, in spiritual terms. I have a
hope that the Lord Jesus Christ really does stand as my surety
right now. I have a hope that that righteousness
He worked out when He walked below on this earth, that I walk
the paths of righteousness, too, in Him. It really is my righteousness.
I have a hope that when he went to the cross, he went to the
cross bearing my sins, bearing me, that I have already died.
I've already been punished in Christ. I have a hope that when
his father raised him from the dead because of justification,
that's when I was justified. I have a hope that on judgment
day, the father is going to look at me and say, well done, thou
good and faithful servant, not because I've been good or faithful,
because he's looking at Christ and he says, you're his goodness
and you're his faithfulness. And I have every right to expect
that. because I fit the description
of the one to whom the promise is made. For this is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all expectation, that Jesus Christ came into this
world to save sinners. And if you fit that description,
you get to take that promise home with you, and you get to
rightly hope that that's exactly what has been done for you, or
will be done for you. Look at verse 6. Verse 6 describes
our walk through this world, what it looks like. My soul waited for the Lord more
than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they
that watch for the morning. So let's talk about the night
for a second. Everyone here in this room has an understanding
of what it's like to be sick, right? Anybody notice that sickness
always gets worse at night. So I'm going to share a story
with you, and it's kind of grotesque, but you're going to have to deal with it. So once
a year, we have a stomach bug that comes through our family,
right? And so it starts with one of the kids getting it, the
other kid gets it, and then Jamie gets it, then I get it, right?
So I know when the first kid gets it, I've got about two to three
days, and I'm toast, right? It's going to happen. So once
the first kid gets it, I know two, three days, it's going to
happen. So the second or third night, I wake up, pit in my stomach,
and I know what's going to happen, right? I'm going to throw up
every hour on the hour, all night long. in our old house, so our
couch in the living room would face the hill. And so, when I'm
not in the bathroom throwing up, I'm sitting on that couch
as the night goes on, right? And I'm staring at that hill
because I know this, right? I know exactly when I'm going to stop
being sick. It's when I can see the sun coming up over the top
of that hill. Every single time, that's the truth. I know when
I'm going to stop being sick. It's when I can see the sun pop
over that hill. Now, in this world, we walk through a valley
of the shadow of death. There are trials and tribulations.
There are pitfalls, and they're absolutely necessary. They're
all what we need. They are the fire that consumes
the dross. It exposes faith. It galvanizes
it. It teaches us not to hold on
too tight to this world, because we would. This world is not our
home, but we're just strangers and pilgrims here. And this world
is often uncomfortable. It's not fun. But at the end
of the day, this vapor of a life is going to be over just like
that, whether you're old, whether you're young, just like that.
And at the end, there's light. We're going to meet our Savior
face-to-face, and we're going to be perfectly conformed to
His image, and we're going to worship Him perfectly for all
of eternity. So, whatever may be going on
right now, number one, it's going to be over like that. Number
two, there's a great light at the end of the tunnel. That's
Christ. Number seven. Told you before, this man is
very interested in having his fellow people who are greatly
distressed to know his same hope. He says, 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 when he's talking about Israel,
what is he talking about? Talking about the nation. It's
typical language, right? What did Israel represent in
the Old Testament? Who did they represent? The elect
of God. God does not love all men. Christ
did not die for all men. God loves Israel. He loves his
elect. Christ died for his elect. But
who are these people? It's a very simple analogy. Back
in the Old Testament, there were two nations. There was Israel
and there was Egypt, right? One of them the Lord rained plagues
down on and drowned most of them in the sea. One of them, he led
to safety. He was for one people. He was
not for the other. David and Goliath, two men met
on a battlefield. One man slew the other man. The
Lord was for one people. He was not for the other. It's
very simple. Now, here the psalmist says, he shall redeem Israel. That means there's nothing for
Israel to do. That means there's nothing for Israel to worry about.
Israel's salvation has already been accomplished and taken care
of. So my question is, am I Israel? Are you Israel? That is really
the question we need to ask ourselves. I want to show you something.
Turn to Philippians 3. Paul is going to deal with this
thing. Am I Israel? Philippians 3 and verse 3. Paul
says, for we are the circumcision. How can you tell an Israelite?
Circumcised. For we are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. Now there he gives three markers
of spiritual Israel, the people of God, the elect of God. And
here's the first one, which worship God in the spirit. What in the
world does that mean? You're asked something like,
what does it mean to worship God? That is a big word. What
does it mean? Let's turn to scripture. Turn
to Matthew 8. You're very familiar with this
passage of scripture. This is the leper that came to
Christ. And I've always looked at this story as a type and a
picture of a man coming to Christ for mercy. and faith. And it
is. But look at what's said here.
Look at verse two. And behold, there came a leper
and what's the next word? Worship. This is what worship
looks like. This is a man worshiping God.
And behold, there came a leper and worshiped him, saying, Lord,
if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Now, there's three
things I see here in reference to worship. Number one, this
man had an all-inspired reverence for the Lord's character with
no knowledge of whether the Lord was going to do anything for
him or not. Now, if you read Luke's account of this, what
Luke says is before any words are exchanged, before anything
happens, what it says is this man fell down on his face. Before
he said anything to the Lord, the Lord said anything to him,
he got down on his face and he took his rightful place before
God, which is down at the bottom. He had an awe-inspired revere
for the Lord's character outside of what the Lord was going to
do for him or not. Why would we have that? I think, number
one, it begins here. You will only worship a sovereign.
If you're dealing with a God that you can manipulate, a God
whose will can be thwarted, that you have to make a decision to
make his will work for you, you'll never worship to that God. Until
you find out you're in the hands of a sovereign who can do with
you as he sees fit, write whatever he does, that's when you'll hit
the dirt. Also this, it's because he is
nothing like you and me. This is part of where this awe-inspired
reverence comes from. He is not like you and me. This
one has never been jealous of his brother's prosperity. He's never given a backhanded
compliment. He's never said something nice
and wished ill on that same person he just said something nice to.
He is good or bad. He's in control or not. This
is one who is absolutely nothing like me. He's ready to worship. Two, this man took sides with
the Lord, whatever his decision was. He said, Lord, if you're
willing. This man wasn't owed anything. Lord, I'm a leper,
and really, that's not your concern. This is my problem, right? I'm
a sinner. You know whose problem that is?
That's my problem. Who did the sitting? That's me.
This is my problem. He took sides. Lord, if you're
willing, but you know what? You don't owe me anything. You
absolutely don't owe me anything. I'm taking sides with you. You're
great, whatever it is you do. But this, he was in complete
dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ to do something for him.
There was nowhere else he could turn. There was no one else he
could turn to. Lord, you're great, whatever
your decision is. I take sides with you, whatever it is you
do, but you know what? You're the only one who can heal him. That's
what worship looks like. An all-inspired reverence, taking
sides with the Lord, whatever the decision is, but completely
dependent on him to heal you. That's worshiping God in the
Spirit. The second marker Paul gives is this. We rejoice in
Christ Jesus. Well, what does that mean? We
rejoice in his attributes, his person. We rejoice in this, it's
how He saves sinners, which is by grace, for He does all the
work. Now we rejoice it is that way,
because if it was not, we would be lost. But I greatly joy in
the fact that my salvation, the salvation of all His people,
He does all the work. Now, that in and of itself, you
know, we say a lot, and I think it gets said a lot, that the
natural man hates grace, salvation by grace. That's true. That's
true. Not for the reasons we think,
though. The idea of grace actually appeals to the natural man's
sense of laziness very well. He's like, well, I don't have
to do anything? Sign me up. Sounds great. Love it. This issue,
though, this will be the one issue that will get him every
time and gets the natural man every time. It's the issue of
glory. Rejoice in the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ gets all
the glory in our salvation because he's deserving of it. Don't you
rejoice in that? That he gets all the glory in
your salvation is he not worthy of it? But also this, if he does
not get all the glory in my salvation, you know what that means? That
means some of it's due me. And that means there's something
I have to do. And that robbed me of my hope. Worship God in
the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus. The last one's real easy,
and we have no confidence in the flesh. Here's what Paul said.
Paul said, I know that is in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth
no good. So folks, this. If you worship
God in spirit and you rejoice in Christ Jesus and you have
no confidence in the flesh, I want you to know something. You're
Israel. You're the elect of God. You
are the very people that the Lord Jesus Christ came to this
world and died for and saved. And we have this promise in verse
8. He shall redeem Israel. It's already done. No worries.
I'll leave you there.