I realize that God deals with
different people in different ways. Though all who are saved
are saved by the same grace, we do not all experience grace
in the same way. I'll give you some examples.
Lydia did not have the same experience of grace as the Philippian Jew
did. Lydia sat in the house of God
It was just a gathering of believers by the seashore, by the clearing,
by the waters. And those people gathered there,
worshipping God as best they knew how, studying the scriptures,
seeking to understand the scriptures. And as the Apostle Paul opened
the scriptures, if you're looking at the Word, God spoke. Opened the door. Nothing climactic,
nothing a tremendous emotion, no shaking, earth-moving experience
insofar as any outward demonstration is concerned. God just opened
her heart, and she believed those things that were spoken by the
Apostle. The Philippian jailer in that same chapter, a few verses
later, he came in before the Apostle Paul in silence, trembling
and And Christ said, what must I do to be saved? And the apostle
said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
And that man believed God. And he brought the apostle Paul
and Silas up into his house and his wife and his daughters ministered
to them and washed their wounds and cared for them. And his household
believed as well. And so there was a tremendous,
tremendous change brought in that man's life and in his soul. Sometimes believers are snatched
like firebrands out of the very jaws of hell. Some of us have
had traumatic, traumatic, earth-shaking experience of God's grace. Climatic
things. An experience of grace that just
radically altered everything about us in our lives, in our
outward conduct, as well as in our inward behavior. It radically
altered us. Others, like Lydia, just heard
the word, and little by little, time came when God opened your
heart. Yes, I see that. I see that. Now, all of us who
are saved are saved by grace. Saved from the decavity of our
hearts, saved by God's free grace in Jesus Christ alone. But we
don't all experience that grace the same way. Let me show you
another illustration. Turn over to Mark chapter 8.
Mark the 8th chapter. I think perhaps this will say
what I'm wanting you to understand better than I can say. Our Lord Jesus came to Bethsaida
and they brought a blind man to him and besought him to touch
him. And in verse 23, he took the blind man by the hand and
led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes
and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw anything.
And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking. After that,
he put his hands upon his eyes and made him look up. And he
was restored and saw every man clearly. Now some of you can
relate to that. God opened your eyes to see a
little, then a little more, a little more. And finally, he graciously
gave you the eyes to see the gospel of his grace clearly and
distinctly. He gave you clear faith in Christ.
But for you, it was a gradual process. Over in chapter 10,
there is another illustration of a man who was also blind,
who was healed and cured of his blindness by the same Savior,
by the same grace. He experienced the same thing,
but he experienced it in a climactic way. Look at it now. This man
Bartimaeus was crying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy
upon me. And the Lord Jesus stood still and commanded him, and
called him to be brought to him. And in verse 51, Jesus answered
and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?
And the blind man said unto him, Lord, that I may receive my sight. Well, the Lord's going to take
him by the hand, lead him out of town, put some spit and clay,
mix it together, put it on his eyes, and give him a little sight,
and then give him a little more. No, no, he's going to do something
altogether different, but just the same. Jesus said unto him,
Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he
received his sight, followed Jesus in the way. Now I stress
this fact with good reason. Many of God's saints, I've talked
to many in various parts of the country, I've talked to many
over the years, constantly question their relationship with God.
They constantly question their experience of grace. They constantly
question whether or not they're truly born again because they
hear men talk about deep experiences of conviction, long struggles
with sin, great difficulties coming to faith in Christ. And
they look back at their experience and they say, well, I didn't
experience things that way. I didn't have those same long, hard struggles. I didn't have those same deep
emotional experiences these folks testified that they had. And
so they compare themselves with one another and begin to question
whether or not they really have experienced God's free grace
in Christ. We ought never to do that. Regrettably,
there are preachers, some who profess to preach the gospel
of God's free grace. who teach a sort of preparatory
work of grace. Not a preparatory work of God
the Holy Spirit, but a preparatory work in that you must prepare
yourself to receive grace, and so they make grace conditional.
They say before you can believe on Christ, you've got to experience
deep, deep You've got to experience deep, deep awareness of your
guilt and depravity. You've got to feel your sin.
You've got to mourn your sin. You've got to mourn over your
sin. And then after you've done that for a sufficient amount
of time, you maybe can come to Christ and believe on Him. That's
totally contrary to Scripture. That makes you to do something
to prepare yourself for the grace of God. Now listen to me carefully. We are commanded by God to believe
on his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not tell us to wait until
we feel this way or that. He does not tell us to wait until
we experience one thing or the other. But he tells us to believe. Now that's your responsibility
and mine. So that if I have a sense that
I don't properly feel my sin, I'm still to believe God. If
I have a sense that I don't have a deep enough conviction of sin,
I'm still to believe God. If I think, well, I don't have
dependence enough, that's right, I don't. But I come to Christ
in secret, then it's from Him. I don't have faith enough, but
I come to Christ and seek faith from Him. It's our responsibility
to come to Christ, to believe Him, and this is God's promise. Him that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. Now this is what it says. You
come to You believe it. You look to him right where you
are. We sang it a little bit ago. Just as I am without one
plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst
me come to thee. O Lamb of God, I come. That's
the ground on which we come. He commands us to come. He commands
us to believe him. You may say, well, I don't know
if I can or not. If he spoke and said, believe, you can. If
he calls you, you can believe. And he commands you in the gospel
to believe on your side. Now, I stress that because I
want you to understand that it is our responsibility to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ without any evidences, without any previous
experiences, without any preparatory work, but simply to believe him. And as you believe him, As you
look to Him, you will be given repentance, and you will be given
greater faith, and you'll be given greater understanding.
But don't look for repentance, and don't look for absolute confidence,
and don't look for greater understanding until you believe Him. Let me
show you a scripture. Turn to Zachariah chapter 12.
Zachariah chapter 12. Without question, men can place
far too much importance upon setting the order of things properly.
And there's a lot of debate on whether repentance comes first
or faith comes first. In actuality, in the experience
of things, it's insignificant. It's insignificant. But I want
you to look here. According to this word from the
God in Zechariah chapter 12, the basis of repentance is looking
to Christ. Don't try to work up repentance
apart from him. Any repentance apart from looking
to Christ is just legal repentance. Look at what it says now. I will
pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
That is, I'll pour upon my kingdom and my people the spirit of grace. I'll pour upon them the spirit
of grace. And that's how faith comes. You
cannot believe, I cannot believe, unless God pours out the Spirit
of grace upon us. We must believe that if we do,
it's because he's poured out the Spirit of grace, but we can't
do it apart from him. Now then, here's the result.
And they shall look upon me. When the Lord Jesus pours out
his Spirit upon you, you'll look. You'll look. And looking upon
me whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him. as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one
that is in bitterness for his firstborn." So repentance comes
from looking to Christ. Repentance comes as you turn
to Christ and believe on Christ. God gives you repentance. Don't
try to work it up in the forehead, but simply believe Him. Some
of you are here without Christ. You say, Pastor, what must I
do to be saved? Look to the Lamb of God. Look unto me, and be ye saved
all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and beside me there
is none else." That's what he says. Then when C. H. Spurgeon was just about your
age, he came into a church building, a little chapel just about like
this one, sat down just where you're sitting. Back in back
there on the right-hand side, there's a column sitting beside
it. I've seen pictures of it. I've never been there. It was
snowing hard. He couldn't get to the place
where he normally went. January 9th, I believe it was. He came
in and there was a deacon who just stepped into the pulpit,
and there wasn't but just half a dozen people there. And he
began to open up the scripture in Isaiah 45, 22. He read the
passage. And after giving some simple
comments on the text, he looked at Mr. Spurgeon, never seen him
before, a 16-year-old boy. He said, young man looks to me
like you need to look to the Savior, look to Christ. And just
that quickly. Spurgeon said, I looked at the
Lamb of God and immediately I received His grace, His mercy in Jesus
Christ. Now I'm telling you, look to
Christ right now. And right now you receive grace
and mercy and the pardon of sin and everlasting salvation. God
helped you to look. God helped you to look. Now,
having said that, I want you to turn tonight to Isaiah 64. Now, there are no prerequisites
to faith, you understand that? No conditions to be met by you
before you can come to Christ. Yet, in this passage of Scripture,
and in many others like it, it is clear that there are certain
things that all saved men and women know, acknowledge, and
confess before God. certain things that they are
taught by the Spirit of God from the Word of God and know in their
hearts. Now, this is what I want you
to say. If you are born of God's Spirit, if you are a man, a woman,
a person who has been awakened and taught, enlightened, and
instructed by the Spirit of God so that you now believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, I'm telling you, here are seven things that
you know and seven things that you confess. I want to speak
to you this evening about seven things every believer knows and
confesses. Seven things every awakened sinner
knows and confesses from his heart before God Almighty. All
God's prophet says in these verses, he says not only from his own
heart and from his own experience for himself, but he says by way
of inspiration as the spokesman for God's Let's read the passage
together, Isaiah 64 and verse 6. This is what the prophet Isaiah
says, and he's speaking as the representative of all beliefs. But we are all as an unclean
thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all
do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. For thou hast hid thy face from
us, and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. But now, O
Lord, thou art our Father. We are the clay, and thou our
potter. We are all the work of thy hand."
First, understand this. Every truly enlightened acknowledges
and confesses the sinfulness and utter depravity of his own
heart. The scripture says here we are
all as an unclean thing. Now I am convinced that there
is nothing on this earth more contrary to human nature and
more impossible for a person to do than to acknowledge and
confess his sin. Nothing more contrary to human
nature. Nothing more utterly impossible. Now, it's easy enough
to talk about sins. That's easy enough. It's not
too difficult for a man who's committed adultery to say, I
committed adultery. It's not too difficult for a
man who's been a drunk to say, I've been a drunk. It's not too
difficult for a man who's been a thief to acknowledge, I've
been a thief. It's not too difficult for a
person who has done any outward act of sin, once he's caught
at least, to say, okay, I did it. That's not too hard. But,
buddy, to acknowledge what we are. Uh-oh. No, that won't happen. That won't
happen. Not by nature. Not apart from
the grace of God. Not apart from the awakening
of God's spirit. We'll deny our sin. We'll excuse our evil thoughts
and our evil deeds. We'll do everything under the
sun to justify ourselves. We'll compare ourselves to other
folks and say, now I know I'm not perfect, but I'm not like
this stuff. I'm a long ways from being a saint, but at least I'm
not a devil. We'll cover up our sin with a cloak of self-righteousness,
a cloak of morality, a cloak of religion, but we will not
acknowledge and confess our sin. Now you listen to me. There is
no possibility of salvation apart from the honest acknowledgment
and confession of sin. Look in 1 John chapter 1 and
verse 9. 1 John chapter 1 and verse 9. If we confess our sins, what
we are and what we've done, he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Now
I want you to see this is the context in which John is speaking.
In verse 8 he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves and the truth is not in us. That is a man who stands
up and says, I don't commit sin. He's a liar. He's a liar. Verse
10 he says, if we say that we have not sinned, now that's not
to say I have never committed sin. That's not it. But rather,
if we say in anything we do, no matter how noble it appears
to men, I have not said, we make him a liar, and his word's
not in us. Because God says everything you
do say. Everything I do is said. You see, the metaphor that's
taken back here in this text, we are all as an unclean thing. is a metaphor that's taken from
the Levitical law. And it implies that we are as
that man who is a leper, or that man who has touched some unclean
things. Now the one who's described in
the Levitical law as being unclean, was one who had no right, he
had no right to come up to the house of God. He wasn't permitted
to come into the temple. He wasn't permitted to come into
the tabernacle. He was not allowed to come and offer sacrifice to
God. He was not allowed to dwell among the people of God. He had
to dwell outside the temple in a place that was separated from
everybody else because he was unclean. If he touched anything,
it became unclean. If anybody touched him, they
became unclean. If he drank out of a cup, the
cup was unclean. And whatever was in the cup became
unclean. If he ate a piece of bread, the
bread was unclean. And anybody who picked it up
after him was unclean. Everything about the man is unclean
and defiled, so that everything he touches is unclean and defiled. And this is what we've got to
come to see. I am as an unclean thing. I can't come to God. I can't
approach God. I can't be accepted of God. I
cannot, I cannot in myself find any basis upon which God Almighty
can even look in my direction. We're all as an unclean thing. You'll never seek salvation by
Christ until you recognize you're lost and unclean. What comfort can a Savior bring
to those who've never felt their A sinner is a sacred thing. The
Holy Ghost hath made him so. In this day of easy-believism,
when all that's involved in evangelism is a preacher telling a story
or button-holing somebody and saying, Believe in Jesus, they
make folks to be believers before they are made to see that they're
sinners, and it can't be done. You will never come to Christ. You will never trust Christ. You will never believe on Christ
until you know your need of Christ. The prophet Isaiah said, woe
is me, for I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. And
when he speaks of his lips, his lips are just the door of his
heart. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh. He said, my heart's unclean and
my mouth speaks unclean things. But I'm helpless because I dwell
in the midst of a people who are also of unclean lips. We're
all in the same boat. We can't help each other. We're
all depraved. Our hearts are all corrupt. And
the only hope we have is that God Almighty will come with the
power of his grace like that angel taking the live coal from
off the altar and apply to our hearts the precious blood of
Jesus Christ. Those who talk about the nobility
of fallen man and the dignity of the human race simply do not
know themselves and they simply do not know God. They're utterly
void of spiritual knowledge. Secondly, truly regenerate people,
men and women who know God, acknowledge and confess that even their righteous
deeds are abhorrently evil. Look at our text again. And all
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We repent of our sins, and we
repent of our sin, and we repent of our righteousnesses. Our prayers need to be prayed
over. Our tears need to be wept over. Our sacrifices need a sacrifice. Our repentance needs to be forgiven. Our love needs to be washed in
the blood of Christ. Our faith needs to be sanctified
by his grace. Our very best thoughts, our noblest
aspirations, our most holy deeds, our most holy feelings, our most
holy praise, our most holy desires are worthy of nothing but God's I get weary. I just get weary
listening to people talk about men and talk about themselves
in terms of holiness and becoming more holy and growing in holiness. Oh, my soul, you don't know yourself. We are all as an unclean thing. And all our righteousnesses are
filthy rags before God. Do you understand that? It's
utterly impossible that we should ever be accepted of God on the
basis of something we do, because everything we do is vile. It arises from a vile heart. Oh, I'd love to pray. And when I say at night, even
the expression of the thought is full of sin. I'd love to preach
in this Oh God, I'd love to preach just one time before I die. But
even the aspiration to do so is full of sin. I would love,
oh my God, I'd love to walk before you in the perfection of holiness,
but Larry Criss, even the desire is full of sin. It's full of
sin. It arises from a putrid heart.
It arises from this heart of flesh. And it cannot be, cannot
be accepted of God. It's built in man's way. I recall several years ago, I
was preaching from this passage of Scripture and there was a
preacher and his wife in the audience. And the preacher's wife was a
rather delicate lady. And she came up to me afterwards
because I did not explain plain language as I shall this evening
and have been determined to ever since, her delicate words. She came up to me afterwards
and she said, I appreciate you handling that verse of scripture
so delicately so as not to offend. And I was confident she needed
offended. I was just confident she needed
it. And the prophet says, here our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. The word that is used is used
by God the Holy Spirit, so if your ears are too delicate for
it, your ears are too delicate for his word. He's saying that
our righteousnesses are as a rotting, discarded, smelling, filthy,
minstrel's cloth. No man would dare even think
about approaching it and taking it to himself! Much less would
God Almighty even think about taking to himself what we own.
Just filthy rags. Just filthy rags. He said, Preacher,
I'm not that bad. But I'm going to tell you something. You don't know yourself and you
don't know God. You don't know yourself and you
don't know God. Men and women, young and old, in their noblest deeds, and noblest
aspirations offer nothing to God but filthy
rags. I've been preaching for most
of my life. I've been preaching longer than
I've been doing anything else. Most of my life I've been preaching.
Bob Plunkett says, filthy rags. Filthy rags. I spend 65-75 hours
a week studying and preaching. It's filthy rags. We give our
little bit of money and we say, boy, look what I've done. It's
filthy rags. We read our Bible and we go through
the Bible once a year, twice a year, three times a year. It's
filthy rags. We say our prayers, we speak
to God, we cry out to God. It's filthy rags. For a preacher,
how on this earth can a man be accepted with God only through
a substitute and no other way? How can you be righteous? If
you justify yourself, your own mouth will condemn you. How can
a man be just with God? Only through the imputed righteousness
and shed blood of a perfect substitute, Jesus Christ the Lord. Thirdly,
every awakened soul, every sinner taught by God the Holy Spirit,
acknowledges and confesses his utter helplessness. and utter
spiritual inability before God. Read again in the text. And we
all do fade as a leaf. You look out here on these trees
in the blast of winter, there are a few that just are hanging
over by a thin, thin thread. And you look out one of these
days when the wind comes with a heavy gust, and they're all
gone. They have no resistance, and
we're just like them. I take this to mean that we can
do nothing to change our condition. And that's not an excuse, Bobby. We have no ability whatsoever
to help ourselves. Like dead leaves hanging on the
tree in winter, we're utterly powerless to make a change. Oh, you can change your actions,
but you can't change your nature. You can change what you do, but
you can't change what you are. That's A drunk can sober up,
a dopehead can quit smoking dope. A fellow who wants to quit being
a propagate by a whoremonger can quit being a propagate by
a whoremonger, and he can become an upright moral citizen, clean
as a hound's tooth. But you can't change your heart. You can't do it. You can't do
it. You've still got the heart of the drunk, the whoremonger,
the dopehead. You've still got the heart of the evil. Our attempts
at moral reformation fail because our hearts are evil, and we can't
change our hearts. The Ethiopian can't change his
skin, the leper can't change his thoughts, and you that are
accustomed to doing evil can't begin to do good. You can't do
it. You can't do it. It's not possible.
How often have you said to yourself, I'm just going to quit thinking
like that? Try it. I hear preachers saying that
we're not responsible for the birds that fly through our head.
We're just responsible for the ones that nest there. You're
responsible for the ones that fly through. They come out of
here. No, they come out of here. They come out of here. We're
filthy and we're utterly incapable of changing it. Our efforts at
controlling our passions are useless because we can't control
our hearts. attempts to resist evil are wasted
efforts because our hearts are in league with hell itself. Fourthly,
every soul awakened by grace knows and confesses that he is
by nature utterly alienated from God, and our iniquities, like
the wind, have taken By nature, we're all far off
from God, lost, undone, and incapable of bringing ourselves back to
Him. You who are here without hope, you're without God, without hope, without life, in
this condemned world, far off from God. Because there's no
possibility of you getting back unless God comes and fetches
you back. But that's not all. Every believer knows that he
has no power in himself to resist temptation. Our iniquities, like
the wind, have taken us away. Isaiah here speaks as a man of
experience in grace. He speaks as a man who's speaking
as a representative for the whole church and kingdom of God, and
he says, we're in the myth, we're in because our iniquities, like
the wind, have taken us away. Mr. Spurgeon wrote in commenting
on this passage, the well-instructed believer is very much afraid
of himself. Did you get it? It's worth remembering. The well-instructed believer
is very much afraid of himself. If you haven't learned that yet,
if you haven't learned to be afraid of yourself, then I fear
for you, because you're about to. You're about to. I know that God's grace is stronger
than temptation. I know that God's grace is sufficient
for me. and forgive. But I know this too. Apart from God's grace, I have
no power over any evil to resist it. Neither do you. No power over any evil to resist
Let me digress a minute and talk to you young people. You say to your mom and dad,
because they exercise care and discipline, don't you trust me? Don't you trust me? That's not
the issue. That's not the issue. Be smart
and don't trust yourself. Don't trust yourself. Oh, be
wise, young people. I'm talking now about believers.
I'm talking now about men and women who walked in the grace
of God. I'm talking about Hubert Montgomery
and Merle Hart and Charlotte and Don and Shelby. I'm talking
about folks who know God. And I'm telling you, not one
of us has any power in ourselves to resist evil. Not one of us. Because all the evil that's out
there has a companion in here. All of it. All of it. Now you who yet don't know God,
don't know His grace, you ain't got anything. You don't have anything. It's
not surprising to me, it's not surprising to me that many women,
young and old, who don't know God, live in utter hypocrisy. I'm astonished that we're as
good off, as well off as we are. I'm astonished that this nation
is as upright as it is, and it's utterly contemptible. I'm astonished
that God hasn't left us all together to ourselves. Because without
him, you have no power to resist him. I know that in me, that is in
my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. And I have no more power to resist
evil in myself, apart from God's free grace, than a handful of
chaff thrown against a hurricane-force wind has power to resist the
wind. It can't do it. Fifthly, sinners awakened by
the Spirit of God are aware of acknowledge and confess their
utter, total inability with regard to spiritual things. We can't
even pray. Look at verse 7. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. I read books and sermons and
hear men talk about prayer. But most of what I read, most
of what I hear, I simply can't understand. And I have to conclude
that either they don't know anything about prayer, or I don't know
anything about it. You see, prayer is much more
than asking God for something. Prayer is much more than If I
could illustrate it, a man walking out and saying, Blood, will you
give me a dime? Prayer is much more than a man walking out and
saying, Blood, will you do this for me? Blood, will you do that
for me? Prayer is something more than
that. Prayer is much more than just saying God's name and repeating
words before God. Calling upon his name like Jonah
did when he was in the belly of the whale. Calling on God. And I have more difficulty praying than I do eating. I really do. Because my mind
is so full of everything but God. Prayer is stirring up your soul
to take hold of God. Like Jacob did when the Lord
wrestled with him, and Jacob said, I will not let thee go,
except thou blessest me. Prayer is stirring up your soul
to take hold of God. And no man by nature can or will
call on God. He won't let him. I can plead
with you, preach to you, I can beg you, I can scare you, I can terrify you
with the threats of God's judgment and God's wrath, I can allure
you with the charms of God's grace, but I can't persuade you
to call on God. You won't do it unless God pours
upon you the spirit of grace and supplication. Not even true
believers by their own strength, can stir themselves up to take
hold of God in prayer. You nearly tell me if I am mistaken.
You tell me. You get up here and you read
the scriptures and try to lead the congregation in prayer, and most of the time when you
get done, You wish you just hadn't said anything. Because prayer wouldn't say any
word of it. Prayer stirs up your heart to take hold of God. And you just can't pray in the
Spirit without the Spirit. You just can't. You can't worship
in the Spirit unless the Spirit of God enables you to worship. True prayer has got to be put
in the heart by God the Holy Spirit. Now then, when God puts
it in your heart, and you know the difference. If ever you have known what prayer
is, you know the difference between true prayer and muttering words. Sixthly, Every awakened sinner
acknowledges the justice of God in the judgment of his sin. Look
again at verse 7. The believer takes sides with
God against himself, and says, Thou hast hid thy face from us,
and hast consumed us, and here's the reason, the cause of our
iniquity. It comes to this, you'll either take sides with
God in your own damnation, or you'll never know his grace and
savage. Got to acknowledge God's justice. Got to do it. And if
ever we come to acknowledge God's justice, Lindsay, in our own
condemnation, we won't question his justice in anything else. Folks talk and say, well, how
could God do this? Oh, I'm afraid you betray a heart
that's yet unbowed before God. How could God do the other thing?
God Almighty is just. He's just. He's going to punish
sin. And He's going to make it evident that He punishes sin
and is angry with the wicked every day. And the believer,
the man, the woman who's been awakened by God's grace, taught
by God's Spirit says, God, whatever you do with me, whatever you
do with mine, you're just. You're right. You're right. Let
me show you. Turn to Psalm 51. Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God. according
to thy lovingkindness, worthily. According to the multitude of
thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me through
thee from mine iniquity, cleanse me from my sin." Notice how David
uses all three words describing sin, dealt by his sin. Transgressing
the law, failing to come up to the standard of the law and the
evil of my nature, transgression, iniquity, and sin. For I acknowledge
my transgressions, I have broken your law, and my sin, my sin,
my sin, not just my transgressions outwardly, but my sin, what I
am, is ever before me against thee, thee only have I sinned. and done this evil in thy sight."
Now remember what God told him. God told him, said, David, your
boy's going to die. I'm going to kill him. God said,
David, your son is going to take your wives and parade them before
all Israel publicly and defile them because you've done this
thing in secret. And I'm going to show the whole nation, I'm
angry with sin. I'm going to show the whole nation
this thing's displeased God said, David, the sword will never depart
from your house. It'll never depart from your
house. And David said, you're right. You're right. That thou mayest be justified
when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest. One more thing. every sinner
who has been awakened, enlightened, and taught of God the Holy Spirit,
acknowledges and confesses that salvation is of the Lord. That's the meaning of verse 8.
But now, O Lord, thou art our Father, we are the clay, and
thou our potter. We are all the work of thy hands.
Isn't that amazing? God, this is what I am, unclean. My righteousnesses are filthy
rats. I fade as a leaf, my iniquities
like the wind have taken me away. I don't have the ability to call
on your name, I can't stir myself up to take hold of you. You've hid your face from me
and consumed me because of my iniquities. Butt nail. Butt nail. You're my father. Oh, what a blessed, blessed,
blessed, blessed revelation. You're my father. Thank you for
an adoption. Because you said I'll be his
daughter. You'll be my child. You're our
father. with your clay. I'm a vessel
of mercy, because of divine predestination. Look at this clay. Same kind of clay, out of the same pit, from the same corrupt school
of humanity, came Sodom and Gomorrah. Vessels
of wrath. Out of this same clay, this same
lump of clay, came Noah's generation. Vessels of wrath. Out of this
same lump of clay are those men sitting over there in North Point
prison who have lived their lives and the lives of everybody around
them. Out of this same lump of clay are the damned in hell. But by your sovereign mercy,
by your sovereign mercy, through the righteousness and blood of
Jesus Christ, because you for eternity determined that you'd
be mine, I'd be yours. God, you made me a vessel of
mercy. And now, we're believers, you
creatures in Christ. by the operations of your grace,
Lord God, we all are the work of thy hand." He was saying, he was saying, base, despised, useless things
we are. sinful, vile, corrupt things
we are. Robed in the righteousness of
Jesus Christ, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, washed
in his blood, saved by his grace. Men and women in whom God has
established his kingdom and his Son, partakers of a divine nature. So that by nature, though we
are full of sin and nothing but sin, there's another law in our
members. It's called righteousness. It's
called grace. It's called sanctification. It's
called Jesus Christ. So that in the depths of our
souls, while we cry, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? We yet look to God our Savior
and say, thanks be unto God. Thanks be unto God. He will give
us triumph over this body of flesh. For Jesus Christ is ours
and he will give us the victory. For we are all the works of his
hand. And we acknowledge, gladly acknowledge,
from our hearts acknowledge, by the grace of God. Now as we eat this bread and drink this
wine in remembrance of our Redeemer, remember acknowledge and confess it fully,
and rejoice in the facts. Then Gillette sang Only a Sinner.
I believe that's number 474. Nor have I gotten but what I
received. Grace hath bestowed it since
I have been healed. Boasting excluded, pride I base. I'm only a sinner saved by grace.