Sometimes, when preparing a message,
things flow so freely that I can hardly write my thoughts down
fast enough. Not often, but sometimes. And
then sometimes, no matter how good the subject, no matter how
rich the text, no matter how diligent You are in seeking and
preparing the message that God would have for the hour. It's
kind of like trying to swim with concrete shoes on. You just can't
rise. You can't get to the surface.
It's kind of like trying to run through deep mud. You strive
hard, but you're not going to go anywhere. No matter how much
effort you put forth. And that's sort of how things
were with me today. I went to bed last night, early this morning,
with Hebrews 11, 33 and 34 on my mind, planning to preach to
you on some of the attainments of faith in Christ. And the text
is a great, constructive text, but my heart wasn't in it. I
came over here this morning and started working on it, and my
heart wasn't in it. get up and come back to it a
little bit. Maybe have some fresh thoughts. But it wasn't to be. I probably
will come back to it again in a week or two if the Lord gives
me some direction. But when I decided to take a
break, earlier this afternoon, I checked my mail. And the first
letter that I opened was from a friend. a dear friend. I'd been hoping
to receive it for years. The last letter I received from
him, he said to me, if you have nothing else to say to me but
this, don't ever contact me again, just leave me alone. And I have,
for years. But I haven't ceased to love
it, and I haven't ceased to pray for But I had just about given
up all hope of ever hearing from him. He caught in the snare of
Satan. Willingly, perhaps, but caught
nonetheless. Lost everything dear to him.
Everything. But the Lord Jesus says concerning
his own as he did to Ephraim, how shall I give thee up? And when I read his letter, immediately
I started to go over in my mind a text from this evening. And
I turned to Psalm 130 and read it and read it again and read
it again and read it several more times and lifted my heart
in praise to our God. for this fact, rejoicing to echo
his praise in the words of David found in this psalm, there is
forgiveness with thee. And I couldn't hardly put my
thoughts down fast enough. I have a message for you. And
it's this, there is forgiveness with our God. And you know what? I can't think
of anything harder to believe. Because the fact is, in reality,
there's none with us. Not really. Free, total forgiveness. So that the issue is never brought
up again. I'd like to be able to forgive
like that, wouldn't you? but our God does. There is forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be filled. Let's look at this psalm together.
I want to just go through these eight verses. I'll obviously
pause when I get to the middle of it, but let's look at the
psalm together. It's called, if you have the
titles of the psalms in your Bible, at the head of each psalm,
there's a title usually given. This is called a psalm of degrees.
It's found in the middle of a good many psalms of degrees. These
psalms of degrees, if you want to sit down and read them at
your leisure all at one time, would be a blessing, I'm certain.
I have no question about it. I know it is. They usually begin
very low, but they end real high. They usually begin in a deep,
deep, dark valley, but they end on the mountaintop of light.
and glory. They begin in humiliation and
end in exaltation. They begin with mourning and
bitterness. They end with sweetness and exaltation. In verses 1 and 2, we see here
a sinner in the depths of desperate need. David said, Out of the
depths have I cried unto thee, O And I reckon that's the only
time we ever will cry hurt when we're in desperate need,
in deep need. It ought not be that way. Maybe
it's not that way with you, but I seldom find any real intensity
in my heart before God until God brings me into some depths
of destiny. Lord, hear my voice. You could almost translate that
this way. Lord, hear my pain. Lord, hear the ache of my heart. Lord, hear my groans. Lord, hear the need that I can't
express. Let thine ears be attentive,
take close attention to the voice of my supplication. In all probability this psalm
was written after that horrible affair with Bathsheba and Uriah. Probably one of the Psalms that
were inspired by the word of Nathan, the prophet of God, to
David. Turn back to 2 Samuel 12, if
you will, and I'll show you. This is one of the many penitential
psalms. That is, a psalm arising from
a penitent heart before God. A psalm in which David teaches
us, in which God the Holy Spirit teaches us, how sinners approach
God. You remember the story, David
had done that, which is displeasing to God. He had taken Bathsheba. He had Uriah slaughtered to cover
his sin. It's been a long time now, been
a long time. Sometimes we say the most foolish
things. I don't see how a fellow could
do that and be a believer. Been a long time now. and God sends Nathan, David. I don't know whether I would
have gone or not. Nathan, you go tell David, the
king of Israel, that man who just sends a little post-it note
and has Uriah slaughtered at will, that man who has absolute
power in the nation, you go tell David, he's sinned against me,
against Israel, against Uriah, against Bathsheba, and against
his own soul. Lord, would you repeat that?
You want me to tell who what? And David is confronted by Nathan. He gives him a parable. And David
in his haughty, self-righteous, arrogance, in his pomp, in that
hardness of heart that's comes from being left to yourself for
so long. In that hardness of heart that
comes from being unable and unwilling to worship God for so long, David
said, you find me that man and I'll kill him. And Nathan said,
you're the man. Verse 13, David said to Nathan, oh, here's
a man after God's own heart. I have sinned against the Lord. And look at Nathan's response.
And Nathan said to David, the Lord also hath. It was done before you ever asked.
The Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. In response to this, David writes
our psalm. He wrote in Psalm 32, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. And in verse 24
here, 2 Samuel 12, David heard God's word and he believed God. And after his child was killed
because of his sin, David comforted Bathsheba, his wife. and went
in unto her, and lay with her, and she bare a son, and he called
his name Solomon. And the Lord loved David. Now
reading that and stopping there, it would appear that the Lord
loved Solomon. But I think those words refer
to David, not Solomon. The Lord loved David, and Solomon
too. See that next verse. And he sent
by the hand of Nathan, the prophet, and he called his name Jedidiah,
beloved of the Lord, because of the Lord. Now, in this 130th
Psalm, we see David in the depths, in the deep, deep throes, dark, mournful, bitter conviction. Holy Spirit conviction, how do
you describe it? It is a horrible, deep pit wherein
we are made to see, to experience, and to taste the bitterness of
our sin. It's a dung pit by which God
makes us to know the foulness of our iniquities. Conviction
brings sinners into an awareness of their deep poverty, their
beggarly condition, their desperate need, brings them into a dungeon
of just condemnation, so that in their consciences they are
made to know they are justly condemned before God. This depth,
David speaks of, is the depth of bitter bondage. Here David learned something
of the deep sense of his sin that brought him very low. And
being sensible of his sin, he cries out to God. Before Nathan
came to him, he was haughty, arrogant, hard, self-righteous,
self-sufficient. But now he sees himself contemptible,
helpless, in debt, shut up, as it were, before God. Has he been there? Are you there now? But that's
not all there is to Holy Spirit conviction. Holy Spirit conviction
is conviction that causes sinners to have hope. Turn to Zechariah
chapter 9 for a minute. Let me show you this. You see,
the law can put you in prison. And the law can condemn you.
And the law can make you somewhat aware of your sins. But when
the Holy Spirit comes by gospel conviction, and he makes you
aware of your sin because of the accomplishments of Christ
the Redeemer, then he makes you to be a prisoner of hope. I'm
a prisoner! Shut up! Shut up, though, to
him who gives me hope. Look here in Zechariah 9, verse
9. The Lord says, Greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem, how come, behold, thy king cometh unto thee? He
is just, having salvation. What a word of grace. He has
salvation, but it's a salvation that can't be questioned, for
it's a salvation that comes from him who is just and always does
right. Look at it now. He comes lowly
and riding upon an ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. He
says, I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from
Jerusalem and the barrow bow shall be cut off and he shall
speak peace to the heathen and his dominion shall be from sea
to sea and from river even unto the ends of the earth as for
thee also by the blood of thy covenant. What covenant? Covenant you've made with somebody?
Covenant you've made with God? Oh, no! By the blood of your
covenant, which He made with God for you. By the blood of
the everlasting covenant, He says, I have set forth thy prisoners
out of the pit wherein is no water. Turn you to the stronghold,
ye prisoners of hope. Even today do I declare that
I will render double unto thee. She shall receive of the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. Oh, how great is his goodness.
How great is the beauty of his salvation. Holy Spirit conviction,
you see, causes sinners in the depths of hell. As Jonah in the
belly of hell. Oh, blessed is that man God brings
down to hell so that he never brings him down to hell. When a man has been cast by the
hand of God into the depths of hell, then he lifts his eyes
up from his deep pit and cries out, salvations of the Lord.
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. And he's in
dead earnest about it. He says, Lord, hear the voice
of my Hear my voice, let thine ears be attended to the voice
of my supplication. Now then, look at verse three. Here's the revelation of God's
glory. I don't know how to explain this
in such a way that folks understand it. But it is not the conviction
of sin that causes a man to see the glory of God. That causes
us to perceive it better, but that's not what causes us to
sin. It is the revelation of God's glory that brings the conviction
of sin. These penitential psalms, every
one of them, were written after David heard the word of grace
from Nathan the prophet. Every one of them came after
the Lord said to David, the Lord's forgiven your sins. You'll not
die. And then he writes these psalms
of penitence. You see, that which we read here in verses 1 and
2 arises from the revelation given here in verses 3 and 4.
David had seen the revelation of God's glory in the face of
Christ, and this is it. He says, If thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Now, here's a fact we must face,
acknowledge, and confess. We are sinners. You and me. No one will ever know forgiveness
until he's been made to know his sin. No man, no woman will
ever seek mercy until he's been made to know his need of mercy.
We are sinners by imputation. You can learn that in your noggin
and learn it pretty good. It's revealed plain enough in
scripture. It's good theology. And you've got to understand
that. You've got to know that. We were made sinners, not by
something we did, but by something our father Adam did, as far as
the race of man is concerned. We are all sinners by birth and
by nature. In sin did my mother conceive
me, David said. He said the wicked are estranged
and go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. We are
every one of us sinners by incubation, sinners by birth and nature.
But we are, every one of us, centered by deliberate willful
choice and habitual deliberate willful practice. Every one of
us. How abominable and filthy is
man who drinks iniquity like water? The mouth of the wicked devours
iniquity. You see, The fact is we are sinners
at heart. In the very core and essence
of our being, sin is what we are. It's not just what we do. Deeper problem than that, it's
what we are. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperate. Martin Luther once said, I am
more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals.
What did God teach us today? Sin is not just an offensive
deed that needs forgiving. It is not just a debt that needs
paying. Sin is the pollution of the heart
that needs cleansing. Sin is man's inward, defiant,
heart declaration of independence from God. Sin is God's would-be
murderer. Sin is man's heart's enmity,
the hatred of his heart against God Almighty. John Bunyan described
it in better words than I possibly could come up with. He said sin is the dare of God's
justice. of his mercy, the jeer of his
patience, the slight of his power, and the contempt of his love. And that's what we are. You and
I are a constant mass of iniquity. We have sinned, we do sin, we
are sinning, and as long as we live in this world we will yet
sin in all that we do. I can't tell you how I wish that
weren't so. And I can't tell you how anxious
I am for that time when that shall be so no longer. But that's
just so. Blessed is the man who in his
heart had been made to acknowledge and confess his sin. Come back
to Psalm 32. Look at this other penitential
Psalm of David. Blessed is the man whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, transgression, his willful breach
of the law, sin, his very nature, iniquity, his inequity, his failure
to measure up. David says in verse 3, when I
kept silence, when I refused to acknowledge my sin, when I
refused to confess what I am and what I've done, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the
drought of summer. When I refuse to acknowledge
what I am and what I've done, my soul withered up to utter
lifelessness within me. Now you stop and think about
that. You stop and think about that. My old buddy Harry Graham,
who's with the Lord, I remember him telling me when I was just
a kid, we were discussing something. I don't even remember what the
specifics were. He said, God, sometimes the way
God deals with his people in loving chastisement is he fixes
it so they have to live with what they thought they wanted. They never try you. All right,
look at this. Verse five, I acknowledged my
sin. I ripped open my heart before
God and I said, this is what I am. I acknowledge my sin unto thee.
Mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess the transgressions,
my transgressions, unto the Lord. And thou forgavest the iniquity
of my sin. Oh, think about that. Look at verse three again. That
man who knows and confesses his sin, justifies God. Always does. Always does. If thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, we're going to hell. Lord, if you, if you
spot the holy Lord God, righteous, justice, and truth, if you, O
Lord, should mark against me one transgression, who shall stand? Who's going to stand before the
holy Lord God? Now look at verse four, but, but there is, can you in your heart and in
your mind underscore that, put it in bold capital letters? there
is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared what a
word of grace let me read some scripture to you I've charted
these down you don't have to turn to it you can just put down
the reference and look at it later listen to what God says
listen to what God says I even I am he that blotteth out thy
transgressions for mine own sake, and will not
remember thy sins. Blotteth out. There they are. I just blotted them out. Just blotted them out. God stretches
words. There he stretches words. He
stretches words to make us understand He forgives. I brought out your
transgressions and your iniquities I will not remember anymore. They're not in my mind. They're
not on the record books. They're not in my heart. They'll
never come up again. I'll remember them no more. How
can that be? Because Christ put them away. They're gone. that
call Isaiah 44 verse 22 I have blotted out as a thick cloud
thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins return to me return to me for
I have redeemed you I have done it He says, I am he that blotteth
out thy sins. And then he says, I have blotted
out your sins. This was done from eternity in
covenant grace that will not be altered. I have blotted out
your sins. Return to me. I have redeemed
you. Isaiah 55 verse 7. Now preacher,
you haven't, you haven't gotten anything that sticks to me yet.
Let's see if this will get you. The wicked. Isn't that a good
way for God to speak to sinners? Calling for sinners to come in?
But I don't qualify. Do you qualify for wicked? Do
you qualify for that, Bob? Wicked. Wicked. Let the wicked
forsake his way. His way. His way. His way. Your way? Your way is trying to clean yourself
up. Your way is trying to make yourself fit for God. Your way
is trying to make yourself acceptable to God. Your way is trying to
do something to mean yourself. Your way is trying somehow to
take and wash up your filth to make you smell good before God
so God will accept you without you having to deal with yourself.
That's your way. All right, forsake your way and
the unrighteous man, his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. Now look at this. And he will have mercy on him. And to our God. For he will abundantly pardon. Jeremiah 31, 34. They shall teach
no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord. Oh no, not when God comes in saving mercy and
grace. Not when God comes to you. For they shall all know
me, from the least of them to the greatest, saith the Lord.
How come? Because I'll forgive them. They'll
know forgiveness. I'll forgive their iniquity and
remember their sins no more. Hebrews 8 verse 12. I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. How often he says it? Hebrews
chapter 10 verse 17. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now I've read these passages
to you, laying stress upon God's declaration of forgiveness, because
there's nothing in the world more difficult for an awakened,
guilty sinner to believe than that God forgives sinners. Spurgeon put it this way. He
said, no revealed truth is more generally doubted and disbelieved
than this, the plainest of all revelations, that the Lord is
gracious and full of compassion and ready to pass by the iniquities
of his people. Nothing more difficult for the
sinner coming to Christ initially to believe. Nothing. And nothing
more difficult for the fallen saint to believe. Nothing. When
your sin is set before you in the light of God's holiness,
your first instinct is to fear that it just can't be forgiven.
First instinct. I can't tell you how often through
the years I've had folks call me up and ask me, If maybe they committed unpardonable
sin. Some of you have. Good many of
you have. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing? When a fella is cussing God with
every breath he has. When a fella spends his life
shooting up or getting drunk or whatever. A fella spends his
life in adultery and fornication. Just spends his life in any kind
of debauchery he wants to. Just spends his life in it. The
thought never comes to his mind. Never, never gives a thought
to it. But just as soon as God begins to take his word and stick
it in your heart, the first thing Satan says, you can't be saved.
You've committed unpardonable sin. First thing he says. A fellow
who's broken God's law willfully all his life, when he first begins
to have some concern for God's glory and the truth of God, first
thing Satan says, The law says you can't be saved, your sin
can't be forgiven. And your conscience snaps quickly
to attention and says that's right, can't be done, can't be
done. Bunyan describes Satan as he
was attacking the city of man's soul, sending Captain Past and
Mr. Despair with hurling accusations,
with the roar of the tyrant's drum beating loudly, especially
in the dark hours of the night. So the men of Mansoul could hear
nothing but hellfire, hellfire, hellfire, hellfire, and thus
the devil held them in bondage. Oh my God, I know what that is. I know what that is. No prison ever held a man so
strongly. No whip ever tormented a man
so cruelly as the guilty fears of a conscience under conviction. And therefore the Lord God shows
us repeatedly that he delights in mercy. He delights who forgives
him. Pastor, how can you be sure?
How can you just be absolutely sure that's so? How can you be certain what David
says here is true? There is forgiveness within.
Let me tell you how. The very first sinner, the very
first sinner, the very first sinner, I'm talking about the
first one, the very first sinner, went out hiding from God and
God sought him out. He said, Adam, where are you? He never attempted to hide from
God until sin. And then this man thought somehow
He could hide behind the bush from the omniscient, omnipresent
God. And he got hiding. And God made
him aware you can't hide from Him. And then God preached the
first gospel sermon to him. He said, I want to send a man.
He's going to crush the serpent's head and everything will be all
right. And then the Lord said, let me show you how he's going
to do it. And he took two lambs. And he sacrificed those innocent
lambs. in the place of Adam and Eve because of their sin. And
he took the skins off of those lambs and he put them on Adam
and Eve. Oh yeah, God forgives sin. His name, His name. Moses said, Lord, show me your
glory. And God said, I'll pay what I do. I'll pass by you and
I'll proclaim my name before you. And he said, this is it,
the Lord, the Lord God, forgiving, iniquity, transgression, and
sin. Rex, this is why God sent his
son into the world. There's no way God could forgive
sin except for the sacrifice of his son. Behold yonder the
Christ hanging on the cursed tree, suffering all the horror
of God's terrible wrath when he's made to be sin for us. Why? Because if righteousness could
come by the law, then he died in vain. There's no other way
for God to be just and justify the guilty. How do you know that
there's forgiveness with God? I'll tell you how I know. I'm forgiven. Oh, there is a multitude which
no man can number around the throne of God and of the Lamb
who have been forgiven. But they can't speak to you anymore.
They're gone. If they could speak to you, they'd
tell you. The Lord God has, through the blood of his darling son,
graciously put away our sins. He has, through the blood and
righteousness of his darling son, so fully, so perfectly,
so absolutely, so everlastingly put away our sins. You know,
since we've been here, we've never heard him talk about it.
He never mentioned it. Look at these crowns he's given
us, we've cast before his feet. He gave them us because he sees
us perfect as his son is perfect. He gave them us because he has
robed us in the righteousness of his son. And he declares we
stand before him as chaste virgins. Us, who were whoremongers and
adulterers. Us, who were the offscouring
of the earth. He's forgiven our sins, but they
can't talk to you anymore. Listen to me. There was a time when my conscience
would not let me last. Oh, there was a time when it
was perfect peace, delightful peace. It never bothered me.
It didn't bother me a bit. Oh, once in a while, I'll have
a little twinge here and there, but I get over that quick enough.
But there came a time when it gave me no rest. Neither by day
nor by night it gave me no rest. And I did everything I could
think to do to try to find rest. I'd try to believe on Christ
and read my Bible. I'd try to believe on Christ
and say my prayers. I'd try to believe on Christ
and I'd sit down and write out my sins so I wouldn't forget
them. And I'd repeat them over to him. And I tried to believe
on Christ and turn over a new leaf. I tried to believe on Christ
and quit doing the things I once did. Tried to believe on Christ
and become a little more moral, a little more respectable. But my conscience kept saying
that's not enough. God won't have it. God won't
have it. God won't have it. And I heard Him speak to my soul. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath everlasting life. Look unto me, and be ye saved."
And I looked out of myself to him, and I've been looking to him
now for a good long while. And Lindsay Campbell, the guilt
is gone. But preach, aren't you? Aren't
you aware of your sin? Oh, yeah, but God's not. That's
the only thing that counts. Don't you remember your sin? Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. But he doesn't. He doesn't. He
can't. For my conscience agrees with
what he says. He looks on the sacrifice of
his soul. He says that's enough. And I want to tell you something. God Almighty God Almighty cannot
in justice charge me with sin. He charged my sins on his son.
Well, Pastor, how do you know? Because you gave me faith in
him. I believe him. That's all. That's all. Now then, look at verse five.
I'll just wrap this up quickly. Here's a sinner waiting for hope.
are waiting in hope. I wait for the Lord. My soul does wait. And in his word do I hope. That's the only place where any
hope found. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that
watch for the morning. I say more than they that watch
for the morning. Oh, God give us grace to do so.
Wait for the Lord, wait hoping in his word. Wait with all the
anticipation of your needy soul for the sun rising, the S-O-N
rising. When Christ the son of righteousness
shall arise with healing in his ways. Look at verse 7. Here's the delightful declaration
of sure mercy and grace. Let Israel hope in the Lord. Israel? Who's that? Jacob. Who's that? Cunning, tricky, sly, deceiving,
unstable as water. Let Israel. Let sinners who have
nothing wait on God. Let Israel hope in the Lord.
How come? For with the Lord there is mercy. He delights in mercy. With him
is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. He shall deliver his people from
all... I can't tell you how hard it
is for me to believe that and I believe it. From all his iniquity. All of it. All of it. He delivers from the guilt of
it as you look to Christ and believe in him. He delivers from
the curse of it by the sacrifice of his own. And blessed be his
name soon, he shall deliver us from all the evil consequences
of all our sins in everlasting glory. Oh God, make this forgiveness
yours for Christ's sake. sleep.