Psalm 130. We'll be taking our
text from this psalm in just a moment. The apostle Peter, in his second
epistle, wrote these words addressed to those who had obtained like
precious faith, writing to believers And in the first chapter of his
second epistle, he wrote, Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put
you always in remembrance of these things, though you know
them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it
meet, be it proper, the right thing to do. As long as I am
in this tabernacle, in this body, long as I'm alive, to stir you
up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put
off this tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed
me. Moreover, I will endeavor that
ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in
remembrance." And those things that the faithful apostle, the
under-shepherd, was reminding them of were those blessed truths
that concern the Lord Jesus Christ. His majesty and his power and
his glory. Peter said, these things I'm
telling you about, reminding you of, they're not fables. They're not fairy tales. We saw him, we were with him
in the holy mount. Remember him, is what Peter was
saying. who he is, what he's done for
you. In doing so, he wrote, you'll
make your calling and election sure. Otherwise, there's a danger,
a real danger, that you may forget that you were purged from your
old sins. I need such stirring as that
that Peter spoke of. I need aroused. the more heartfelt
devotion, more dedication to him, to his cause, to his gospel,
to his people, more sincere worship. God help me, and I mean that,
because if he doesn't, I will. I will forget. God help me never
to forget what a debt of love I owe. I hate myself when I'm
just going through the motions of worship. Don't you? I hate
that. Just going through the motions.
No heart. God deliver me from that. And
as Peter told them, The way to avoid that, or to be rescued
from it, if I've fallen into it, is to remember. Remember. Remember. Paul wrote the same
thing, didn't he, to the church at Ephesus. He said, remember. Remember, at one time, you were
without God. Remember? You were without God. having no hope, without Christ,
without God in the world. Remember, Paul said, when the
Lord Jesus appeared to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos in
Revelation, he dictated seven letters to him, to the seven
churches throughout Asia Minor. And the first one was to the
church of Ephesus. Paul went to Ephesus, that wealthy
and wicked city, preaching the gospel, and God was pleased to
save multitudes of people. Multitudes. That was 40 years
before John wrote this. 40 years had passed since Paul's
journey there. And our Lord highly commends
this church, very highly, concerning eight specific things. He commends
them. But in verse 4 of Revelation
2, he says, nevertheless, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee.
I have somewhat against thee. What was it? What'd they do? Because thou hast left thy first
love. Thy first love. What's that mean,
thy first love? Well, I think it primarily, or
at least includes this, when we were first brought to
Christ, first learned that he's loved
me and gave himself for me, when he first spoke peace to our hearts. That first love was at time,
that honeymoon, when the experience of his mercy
and grace was still fresh in our minds and on our hearts.
You remember? That's first love. And we walked
around and just couldn't hardly get over it. Just overwhelmed
with the very fact of his mercy experience. That's sweetheart
love. Remember, we couldn't do enough.
Couldn't do enough. Couldn't hear his gospel too
much. Is that right? When he first came to where we
were, just a mass of sin, iniquity, a beggar before the throne with
doubts and fears, and he said, all your sins are forgiven. We
thought, oh, my soul. What a debt of love I owe. Couldn't do enough. Couldn't
hear his gospel enough. Couldn't commune with him enough.
If we didn't have private time, we would do it over the workbench
or at the kitchen sink. Wherever we were, our hearts
were ascending up to God. Oh, thank you. Thank you for
your marvelous mercy and your rich grace to this sinner. First
love caused us to happily confess Him in believer's baptism. And
in doing so, we were saying, I'm His and He's mine. By doing that, we were saying,
I identify with Christ and His people. I'll serve Him in this
place. I'm not ashamed of His gospel
or His people. I'll spend and be spent for Him. The church at Ephesus had declined
from that first love. William Cooper wrote a hymn,
and I suppose it sounds like he was experiencing some of that. He said, where is the blessedness
I knew when first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing
view of Jesus and his word? What peaceful hours I then enjoyed,
how sweet their memories still, but now I find an aching void
the world can never feel. What's the cure? What's the cure
for that, that declension from first love? What's the remedy?
Remember, our Lord When he said, you've left your first love,
he said, remember from where you've fallen. So let's do the
same thing. By God's grace, let's do that
very thing. Let's go back, go back, let's
remember. As Peter said, as Paul said,
as the Lord Jesus Christ himself said, remember, look back with
this prayer. that our first love might be
rekindled, revived. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
let's go back together to where we were when God found us. As the prophet said, you that
seek after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord, that follow
after righteousness, look back to the rock from whence ye were
hewn into the hole of the pit, from whence ye were digged. With
that in mind, look at Psalm 130. David cries, Out of the depths
have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attended to the voice of my supplications. If thou
shouldest mark iniquities, 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 which watch for the morning. I say more than
they that wait 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. Out of the
depths, verse 1. That's where we were. Out of
the depths. The depths. The symbolism is
that of being in a deep pit or very deep waters, sinking and
helpless to recover ourselves. Throughout the Psalms, you have
this. But in Psalm 69, you have the same symbolism used. Psalm 69, verses 1 and 2. Listen to this or read it with
me. Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. Verse 14, deliver me out of the
mire and let me not sink. Let me be delivered from them
that hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the water flood
overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not
the pit shut her mouth upon me. Oh, the depths, the depths to
which men can sink. We've known some in depths of
poverty, just eking out of existence, not living, not enjoying life. And there are people in such
depths as that. Their life is spent just wondering
from daylight to dark, where will I have enough to eat? There
are depths of sorrow and pain, suffering. I've known people
in depths of mental anguish and I wanted to help them but I just
seemed like I couldn't reach them because everything around
them was all black. It was all darkness anywhere
they looked. That's all they saw was blackness
and darkness without any hope whatsoever. There are various
depths in which men fall. But the depths that the psalmist
is speaking about are depths of sin and the conviction of
that sin. That's the worst of all. Do you
hear me? That's the worst depths a man
can be in. These other things that I've
mentioned, a man may be delivered from. He may deliver himself
or be delivered by the help of others. But these waters that
the psalmist speak of, these waves that's flowed over his
soul, this pit, he can't get out of. He can't do it. His prayers won't do it. His
reformations won't do it. His turning over new leaves won't
do it. I'm in the depths, oh God. And it seems like there's no
bottom, Joe. There's just no bottom. I just
keep sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into these depths. Man can never raise himself from
these, neither can any of his fellow men, because they're in
the same boat. None of them can deliver him.
Oh, the depths of sin. I know today sin is spoken of
as a light thing and people make jokes about it. It's not even
an issue in so-called gospel preaching in most places today. Sin's not mentioned. God wants
you healthy and God wants you wealthy and God wants you to
be happy and blah, blah, blah, blah. Nothing about the real
issue, sin. Sin is treason against the Most
High God. It's rebellion against your Maker,
He that created you. It's an I dare you. Your sin
and rebellion is an I dare you in the face of God Almighty. It's insanity. Insanity. He who
holds you in His hand, He whose will alone determines where you
spend eternity by your sin and constant rebellion, you're saying,
I dare you to do it. It's insanity. A bottomless pit. And that's
where we are by nature. Paul said, in Adam all die. There's no exceptions. There's
no exceptions. In Adam, all died. Adam, in the
day you eat thereof, you die. And he did. He died spiritually. He died spiritually. There's
no spiritual life in Adam. He can't believe. He can't repent. He doesn't even have a will to
come to God. He hears God's voice and he runs
and hides. He's so foolish, he thinks he
can hide from God. Oh, how far he had fallen. And
I fell in Him. It was a descent into sin, into
outer darkness. And except for the grace of God,
it'll be a descent into hell. Out of the depths, the psalmist
said. But here's the difference. That's where we all are by nature.
But here's the difference. This man knew it. He knew it. He knew he was in the depths.
He's like a man waking out of a deep sleep. Before, he wasn't
aware of the state that he was in. He wasn't aware of the depths
into which his sin had plunged him. Like Jonah. Remember Jonah? When he tried to flee from God?
He finds his ship and gets on it. And at first, he lays asleep
on board the ship. But when he was cast overboard
into the belly of the whale, that whale carrying him down,
down, further and further down, then we read, Jonah prayed unto
the Lord his God. Then he knew. Then he knew. This is the condition that the
psalmist is in. That's the second thing I want
us to consider. Out of the depths, that's where
he was, what did he do? What did he do? Have I cried
unto thee, O Lord? Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. He's like
a beggar before God. A beggar before God. Nothing
more. Nothing more do you say to yourself,
I don't like that description. I don't like being called a beggar.
I don't like being called a bankrupt, poverty-stricken sinner. I don't
like being told that all of my righteousness is absolutely filthy
rags before the throne of God. I don't want to hear. that all
my prayers and all my giving and all my preaching and all
my praying, all of that means nothing before God? That doesn't
merit me acceptance before the throne of God? I don't want to
hear that. Then you're not a beggar. You've not been made to realize
what the psalmist speaks about. And as long as you remain in
that condition, you'll never cry out. You don't know you're
in the depths. Oh, but this man did. You can
tell by his very words, his prayer, God help me. God had his attention. God's got his attention now.
Does he have yours? Does God have yours? Oh, the attention that that poor,
helpless leper gave to the Lord Jesus Went on that dusty road,
he fell before Him and said, if you will, you don't have to. This whole religious generation
thinks God is obligated to save them. Most people think that.
Most people's been told that. Most preachers around us tell
them that. God's obligated, God wants to, God's trying to, it's
all up to you. And you know what that produces.
You know what that... plants in the heart of a rebel,
absolutely no fear at all. Well, if it's all up to me, I'll
just live my life, and when I come down to die, I'll say, God saved
me, and he's got to do it if I've been told the truth. Not
so. Not so. The beggar knew that, didn't
he? That leper knew it. Lord, if you will, if you will,
can you see him? Can you see him? Can you identify
with him? Remember? Do you remember? The law said, guilty. And the soul that sinneth must
die. And I'd sinned all my life. I
lived and breathed, drank it up like water. And the law said,
you're guilty. My own conscience said, you're
guilty. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. The psalmist was serious, wasn't
he? He was serious. Turn, if you
will, to the book of Jonah. We mentioned it a minute ago,
but let's look at it here. Jonah chapter 2. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly. God's got his attention now.
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord,
and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell I cried,
and thou heardest my voice. For thou hast cast me into the
deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods come past me about,
and thy billows and waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast
out of thy sight, Yet, yet, will I look again toward thy holy
temple. The waters come past me about
even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with
her bars was about me forever. Yet, has thou brought up my life
from corruption? O Lord, my God, when my soul
fainted with the inmate, I remembered. I remembered. the Lord. Peter heard the cock crow the
second time just after denying his Lord the third time. And
Luke tells us Peter remembered. Peter remembered. And he runs
out into the darkness weeping. Oh, he thought. I promised him I'd die with him. I gave him my word that after all he'd done for
me, I'd do anything for him. And now I won't even admit I
know him. Peter remembered. Jonah remembered the Lord and
my prayer came unto thee into thy holy temple. Some believe that this Psalm
130 is another psalm like the one we read, Psalm 51. When Nathan, the faithful prophet
of God, came in to David after his horrible sin that he thought
he had covered up, his sin against God, and he cries now for God's
mercy with all of his heart. You're the man, David. Look at verse 3. If thou, Lord,
shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Who shall stand? O now God's grace, as Newton
said, t'was grace that taught my heart to fear. Remember? In the light of God's pure holiness. I never was aware of it before.
Didn't have a clue, didn't have an inkling, but now for some
reason, the High and Holy One that inhabits
eternity. There is God. He's absolutely pure holiness
and I'm nothing but sinfulness. Who shall stand? Who shall stand
in His presence? When a man is first made aware
of his sin, a man or a woman, He knows he has no claim, no
reason God should hear him. He's overwhelmed, overwhelmed. And I think it's common in that state of mind
to think, how can God save me? John, did you think that when
God got you lost? I did. How can God save me? My sin seems too deep. It's too
black for mercy to come to me. Like the psalmist, his sense
of what he is makes him doubt God's willingness to save him.
I did too. I feared that God would not hear
me. He would not have mercy on me.
Who shall stand? Who shall stand in his presence? The Lord Jesus taught there were
people that laid claim to much more than I could that he said,
depart from me. They stood and said, Lord, we've
done many marvels, miracles in your name, did it all for you.
I couldn't claim that. And he told them to depart from
me. There were a lot of great men in the world, famous men,
kings. that saw him in his majesty,
his glory, they couldn't stand. They ran into the mountain and
said, follow on us, hide us from the face of him that sits upon
the throne. Who shall stand? They cried. Remember, remember, I'm asking you, but I'm also
asking myself. Larry Crist, do you remember? Jeremiah spoke about his affliction. Listen to this. He was shot up
in prison. In Lamentations chapter 3, he
said, I am the man that have seen affliction by the rod of
his wrath. He had led me and brought me
into darkness and not into light. And surely against me as He turned,
He turneth His hand against me all the day. And thou has covered my soul
far off, or rather thou has removed my soul far off from peace. I
forgot prosperity and I said my strength and my hope is perished
from the Lord. Remembering mine affliction and
my misery, I remember their warm wood and the gall. My soul have
them still in remembrance, and is humbled with me." Oh, and we cry out, depth of
mercy, can they be? Does God's mercy reach down to
such depths as this? To such a sinner as myself? Glory to His name. Yes. Yes, it does. And yes, it did. His grace my
fears relieved. Look what the psalmist says in
verse 4. But, oh, blessed little word, but
there is forgiveness with thee. But, listen, listen, could it
be? Is it possible there's forgiveness
with thee? David, thou art a man. I've sinned
against God. David said, my sin's ever before
me. But the Lord has put away your
sin, David. There is forgiveness with thee
that thou mayest be feared. I will blot out thy transgressions
as a thick cloud. I will remember thy sins no more
forever. I'll carry them away He that was made sin bore the
sins of his people away forever and the Lord said in that day,
they shall be sought for and they shall not be found but there
is forgiveness with thee. Oh yes, grace, his glorious grace
my fears relieved but God. But there is forgiveness. Oh
what a sweet, sweet sound. But Oh, what a relief that must
have been to the leper when the Lord Jesus said, I will, and
touched him and he was made clean. Or Bartimaeus. I can only imagine. What a relief
it must have been to that thief on the cross. Remember? Not that one who just wanted
out of the mess he was in, but that one who was truly Sorry,
with a godly sorrow, God had opened his eyes and prayed, Lord,
remember me. He was moments away from falling
into an eternal hell, just a few minutes away from being cast
into everlasting darkness. But God... But God said, deliver his soul. from going
down to the pit, I found the ransom. The ransom was right
next to him. It was to the ransom that he
said, remember me. And he said to that, the day
thou shalt be with me in paradise. Yes, there is forgiveness with
thee. Remember, remember. We didn't read it in Jonah 2,
but he said, Lord, if you'll bring me out, if you'll reach
down your hand for me, I'll teach, as David said, you'll
never hear the end of it. I'll proclaim to my dying day
salvation of the Lord. I did the same thing. made the same promise. Lord, please save me. I'm so deep in this pit. I've sinned so long And so much,
please save me. Please forgive me. Please have
mercy on me. Don't send me to hell. Please don't give me what I deserve. Don't send me to hell. Forgive
me. And I'll never quit thanking
you. There's nothing I won't do for you. Yeah, I remember making that
promise. And even now, oh, how little
that I've actually done it. I got an email from The church
that Bruce Crabtree pastors last night, he told the story in one
of the bulletins. I made a copy. I wanted to share
it with you. They go preach at a nursing home,
or Bruce does, and some of the folks go with him once a month.
They're in Newcastle. And Bruce told the story about
an old woman who he had tried to talk to, but, oh, just let
me share it with you. Her name was Susan. He said,
the first time I talked with Susan, she told me she believed
she had been such a great sinner against the Lord that He would
not save her. Her sins were too many and too great to be forgiven. I have never in my whole life
witnessed such despair. This woman was in. I poured out
my heart to that poor thing and told her every scripture I could
think of. How that God was satisfied with the sufferings of his dear
son on behalf of sinners and that he would never refuse one
who came to him for Christ's sake. That for Jesus' sake all
manner of sin would be forgiven. I told her of the goodness and
gentleness of Jesus Christ to all who come to him in their
misery. He said, I left Susan that day
knowing that Satan had driven her to despair. And if the Lord
in his sovereign mercy didn't rebuke him and send the light
of his free forgiveness into her heart, she would die an awful
death. At last Monday night's worship
service, she confessed to one of our people, one of our members,
that the Lord had saved her. I was so thrilled with the news
that I went back the next morning to speak with her, and I found
her physically weak and very ill, but she sat up in her bed
to tell me that the Lord had saved her, and she said, I went
to Him and told Him how bad I was and what bad sins I had done
against Him, and He forgave me. And she told me she was so surprised
by that. I was, too. So surprised. that God would
have mercy on a sinner like me. Bruce says, the awful despair
that had tormented her was gone, and her whole attitude had changed.
She told me that she was praying that when she died, God would
receive her into heaven. Bruce said, bless her heart,
she was dying then. I found out today that Susan
died a short time after I talked to her, and I believe the Lord
Jesus received her spirit into heaven. how frustrated Satan
must be. Here it was a poor lady who had
lived her whole life in sin, and just about the time Satan
was convinced that she was ready for the burning, the savior of
sinners rebukes him and snatches the poor soul, as it were, out
of the fire and takes her to heaven forever, a trophy of his
grace. In Zechariah, there's a verse
to that effect, is there not? And the Lord said unto Satan,
The Lord rebuketh thee, Satan, Even the Lord that hath chosen
Jerusalem rebuked thee. Is not this a bran plucked out
of the fire?" Yes. I was a bran plucked out of the
fire. I was sinking, as the old hymn
writer said, deep in sin. Far from the peaceful shore,
very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. And he left me. Out of the depths,
I cried unto thee, O Lord. There is forgiveness with thee.
There is forgiveness with thee. Let me read one more verse and
I'll close. Psalm 40. Psalm 40. This is what God's done by his
wonderful grace. I waited patiently for the Lord
and He inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also
out of a horrible pit, out of the Murray clay, and set my feet
upon a rock and established my goings. My, what mercy! What glorious mercy and grace! O Lord, restore unto me the joy
of your salvation. and that first love for Christ's
sake. Amen.