[0:00] We'll read now in the book of Psalms, and reading from the beginning of Psalm 126, Psalm 126, A Song of Degrees.
[0:44] When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue was singing.
[0:57] Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
[1:08] Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
[1:29] A Song of Degrees for Solomon. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
[1:42] It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
[1:53] Lo, children are an heritage, an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth.
[2:09] Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. A Song of Degrees.
[2:21] Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord, that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
[2:35] Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house, thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.
[2:52] The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion, and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.
[3:06] A Song of Degrees. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say, Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.
[3:21] The plowers ploughed upon my back, they made long their furrows. The Lord is righteous, he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. Let them all be confounded and turned back, that hate Zion.
[3:37] Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up, wherewith the moor filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.
[3:50] Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name of the Lord.
[4:01] A Song of Degrees. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
[4:13] If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
[4:25] I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his words do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.
[4:37] I say more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
[4:56] And so on. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word, and to his name be all the praise. Let us now sing from Psalm 31.
[5:13] Psalm 31 and verses 1 to 5. In thee, O Lord, I put my trust.
[5:27] Shame let me never be. According to thy righteousness do thou deliver me. Bow thou thy near to me, with speed send me deliverance. To save me, my strong rock be thou, and my house of defence.
[5:43] Because thou art my rock, and thee I for my fortress take, therefore do thou me lead and guide, even for thine own name's sake. And sith thou art my strength, therefore pull me out of the net, which they in subtlety for me so privily have said.
[6:03] Into thine hands I do commit my spirit, for thou art he, O thou Jehovah, God of truth, that hast redeemed me.
[6:14] These tanzas, verses 1 to 5, from Psalm 31, to God's praise in thee, O Lord, I put my trust. In thee, O Lord, I put my trust, shame let me never be.
[6:40] According to thy righteousness, according to thy righteousness, good thou deliver me.
[6:55] How thou thy near to me will speak, with the throne, and elect thou voyage, and my house of defense.
[7:25] Because the Lord my love and the light for my fortress is, therefore do thou my light and light in part I own in sin.
[7:56] And sin thou art my strength and heart, pull me out of an end.
[8:11] With sin in certainty for me so plebably absent.
[8:26] In to thine hands I do comment my strength for thou art here.
[8:44] O Thou Jehovah, God of whom thou hast redeemed me.
[9:03] Now as the Lord enables us, let us turn again to one of the Psalms that we have read. Particularly Psalm 130.
[9:15] Psalm 130. We may again read the first four verses of this Psalm.
[9:28] A song of degrees. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
[9:43] If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
[9:54] We notice at the beginning of each of these Psalms, from Psalm 120 onwards to 134, this title, A Song of Degrees.
[10:16] And it is believed that when the Jews were ascending to Jerusalem to observe the feasts, that they would sing these Psalms as they made their way up to Jerusalem.
[10:38] And it's very interesting that at Psalm 122, for example, we find this state of mind described.
[10:54] I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord. And then when it comes to Psalm 130, the Psalm we've highlighted for our sermon today, the man is in a very different frame of mind.
[11:17] Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
[11:32] And so on. And I think that at least points to the fact that some people, in coming to the house of God, even in our own day, even this morning, may have come with joy in their hearts.
[11:52] Just like Psalm 122 said, I joyed when to the house of God go up, they said to me. You feel that the man is motivated and happy on the way.
[12:05] But there are other people, and maybe there are some within these walls this morning, who are in the depths, and who are crying unto the Lord, out of the depths.
[12:20] Just like to say a few words, first of all, about the depths mentioned here. And then, secondly, the question that we have in verse 3.
[12:35] If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? That's a question. And then, what the psalmist discovers in verse 4.
[12:51] But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Just one or two words on each of these.
[13:05] First of all, the depths that this man was experiencing. Now, it doesn't say exactly what the depths were.
[13:20] And I don't know, looking at yourselves here today, what depths may be experienced by you. Maybe some of you have outward troubles, health problems, family problems.
[13:41] Maybe you're burdened with the state of the world, the state of the church. Or maybe you are burdened, particularly, as I believe the psalmist here was, focusing inwards, to the state of your soul.
[14:04] Maybe you realise, well, I don't love God the way I ought to. Maybe the Lord has been hiding his face from me.
[14:18] I'm aware of my spiritual darkness. My spiritual poverty, impoverished by sin.
[14:31] maybe God's anger is a reality to me.
[14:45] Psalm 77 at verse 3 the psalmist says this, I remembered God and I was troubled.
[14:57] I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed. You see, he has come into, as it were, the atmosphere and the light of the presence of God.
[15:13] And he feels himself inadequate, impure, far from what he ought to be. In Psalm 88, the psalmist says, your wrath lies heavily upon me and you have afflicted me with all your waves.
[15:39] He's aware of God's chastening hand and that only casts him down. Do you remember how low even physically the prophet Jonah was when he was in sight of the whale and he said, I have been cast out of your sight.
[16:07] It's as if he's aware of God's tis pleasure. Nevertheless, he says, I will look again toward your holy temple.
[16:17] He prayed from that dark place, from that deep place, just like the psalmist here, prays out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
[16:34] God. I read somewhere the other day that there is no deep place on earth, so deep that God cannot hear the cry of someone crying from that deep place.
[16:58] In other words, in a day of grace, when we call upon the Lord, however dark and however difficult and however trying the situation might be, when we call upon him in faith, he will hear, he will hear.
[17:20] And this man, he comes to say this, Lord, hear my voice, let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
[17:36] And then he goes on in verse 3, if thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? It's as if he comes at this point to particularly specify the problem that leaves him in the depths.
[18:01] He is aware of his iniquities. Well, the word iniquities is used throughout the scriptures in various settings.
[18:17] For example, in Genesis 19 at verse 15, the Lord is asking his man to escape from Sodom, Lot and his wife, and he says, go out of this place, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
[18:47] Now, the focus of that iniquity was sins of the flesh, that was the focus of the iniquity of Sodom, and God directed his man out of there, lest he be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
[19:08] But then you see the word used elsewhere, for example, in Genesis 44, at verse 16, when Joseph's brothers are speaking, and they've discovered that they have been found out, and it says, verse 16, God has found out the iniquity of your servants.
[19:37] Now, what was their particular sin, their iniquity? Well, if you read the story of Joseph's brothers and the way they dealt with him, it wasn't primarily sins of the flesh as in Sodom, but there was hatred, and there was jealousy, and there was cruelty, and they dealt with Joseph in such a cruel and hateful way.
[20:04] And maybe that's the kind of sin that the Lord is revealing to you and to me about myself.
[20:19] I'm a hateful person, I'm a jealous person, I'm a cruel person, with what I do and what I say and the way I act.
[20:30] Maybe you're not sinful like the people in Sodom, but there might be other sins of the flesh of which you are guilty. And the word also was used in Joshua 22 at verse 17, and he's talking there about the iniquity of Baal Peor.
[20:52] In other words, he's finding fault with his people who have embraced the worship of Baalism, Baal Peor. And that was iniquitous.
[21:04] They had given their hearts to another religion. And there are many things in this world that call for our allegiance, call for our heart.
[21:20] The scripture says, my son, give me your heart. But the world says, give me your heart. The flesh says, give me your heart.
[21:31] heart. The devil says, give me your heart. And there are so many nowadays whose heart is locked into a way of thinking that is alien to the scriptures.
[21:42] others. And this man, I believe, this is what's causing his feeling of being in the depths and crying to the Lord because he's discovered who he is and what he's like in the presence of God.
[22:05] that he is an iniquitous person. And not only so, but he was formed in iniquity, just as it says in Psalm 51 verse 5, I was shapen in iniquity.
[22:22] In other words, our very nature is sinful. From the point of our being conceived in our mother's womb, original sin has attached to us, is attached to us, and our way of thinking from that moment on and our way of actions from that moment onwards will be sinful.
[22:54] You've heard of some people who have seen a newborn baby and it looks so beautiful. But somebody said, well, although babe looks beautiful, original sin is there, needs to be cleansed, needs to be forgiven.
[23:15] And this man realises that, that he is an iniquitous person from the very womb and his thoughts and actions cannot but be so until the Lord comes to correct things in his heart and life.
[23:32] And this is what he's asking. If the Lord should mark in equity, O Lord, who shall stand? The two words here for Lord are different in the original.
[23:47] If thou, Lord, the all-knowing Lord, the Lord who knows my thoughts, who sees me where no one else sees me, who knows my thoughts before I utter them, who knows the motives behind every action, if he marks my iniquity, I have no place to stand.
[24:13] And then it goes on to say, O Lord, who shall stand? The second word for Lord here is the sovereign Lord.
[24:26] the Lord who is altogether just and righteous and holy. Not only is he all-seeing and all-knowing, but he is also a righteous God who is offended by his sins.
[24:48] He is of purer eye than to behold evil, cannot tolerate iniquity. And that's what lies behind this question of the psalmist.
[25:03] If the Lord should mark it, if he attaches it to me, if it's as he's saying, if the Lord sticks it on me and makes it stick, there's no place for me to stand.
[25:23] Do you remember the account we have of Adam and Eve having sinned in the Garden of Eden? And the Lord showed them the door, out they went.
[25:39] They couldn't, they weren't allowed to abide in that place. if they wanted to receive of the tree of life, they would have to engage with that flaming sword, the sword of God's holiness and justice.
[25:57] And we see here, who shall stand? It's as if he is saying, I cannot stand, I am not able to stand because I have been found out as a sinner before God.
[26:09] but then he makes a marvelous discovery. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.
[26:26] Forgiveness is not an amazing word that God is able to forgive sin. There's an amazing verse in Jeremiah chapter 33.
[26:39] verse 8. I was going to quote it. I will cleanse them, the Lord says, from all their iniquity whereby they have sinned against me.
[26:57] And I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed against me. He is a God who is able to cleanse our iniquity, to forgive sin.
[27:19] What an amazing God he is. When Jesus came into the world he came to seek and to save the lost. When Jesus came into the world he came to fulfill what we could not ever fulfill in our own strength.
[27:40] He came to fulfill the law in all its requirements and he came to suffer the punishment due to us for having broken God's law in our iniquitous lifestyle and according to our original sin also.
[27:58] there's an amazing verse in Leviticus 16 and verse 21 and I'll just read that in relation to the great day of atonement and it says Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins putting them upon the head of the goat and shall send him that is the goat away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
[28:53] sacrifice. That was part of the ceremony on the day of atonement that there were two goats one was slain as a sacrifice and one was used in this way having the sins of the people confessed upon him the hand of Aaron lying heavily upon the goat's head as it were showing that the sins of the people were being placed onto the head of the animal rather than the punishment come upon the people that the punishment of separation from God was onto the animal.
[29:55] This was called the scapegoat and the goat was led into the wilderness and evidently it would never find its way back again and so it is with the sins of the people of God when we come to confess our sins upon the head of Jesus he is our sacrifice he is our mighty saviour he is the one alone who is able to bear our sins and iniquities away so that their punishment may never come upon ourselves and this is what this man is saying there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared isn't it wonderful to know that this is the God with whom we have to do a God who is not like any other
[30:56] God listen to what it says in Micah chapter 7 who is a God like unto you pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your heritage you do not retain angerth forever for you delight in mercy how do we know that our sins have been forgiven what are the at least some of the experiences of those whose sins have been forgiven I'm going to say two or three things first of all I believe this is true of them that they have a love for God they love God we cannot we do not love
[32:00] God in a state of sin and unconversion but those who have had the blessing of forgiveness they love God I love the Lord because my voice and prayer she did hear and so on we love him for what he has done for us we love him for himself there is none as attractive to us as he is the fairest or the chiefest of ten thousand the altogether lovely one it's not what the church said in the song of Solomon about Christ our beloved we love God we love his word we love his people we love his day we love the means of grace we love coming to the house of God that we might hear his voice and have a new glimpse of his love and his beauty the next thing is those who have had forgiveness of sin they hate sin they hate sin one of the old commentators wrote this regarding
[33:28] Christians and he said the Christian is a strange mysterious creature he hates sin with a perfect hatred nevertheless it's as if something within him delights in sin as if it were a delicious morsel see there is this tension we love the Lord we hate sin nevertheless we are still bearing with us a remnant of corruption and that remnant of corruption rears its head seeks to assert itself throwing us back into sin but you put your heels hard in the ground as it were resisting and refusing to be drawn because you love the
[34:31] Lord and you really hate sin with a perfect hatred and you also you focus on Christ crucified as the basis of your salvation there is salvation in none other the Lord Jesus Christ the cross is crucial to the Christian's life there are things that are crucial in life generally but for the spiritual life the cross needs to be at the centre and Christ crucified and Christ risen and Christ ascended on high and Christ at the right hand of God is the focus that you want to have and to maintain all of your days listen this is what the apostle was saying he asked the people to whom he was writing to have their affections set on the things that are above not on the things that are on the earth where
[35:56] Christ is sitting at the right hand of God the Christ who came as mediator and as the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world that Christ who became precious to you who is now at the right hand of God interceding on your behalf I think I mentioned this here before I mentioned it somewhere anyway how do we know that Christ is interceding for me for you how do you know well the way I believe you know is when the love of Christ when the love of God fills your heart that is a sure sign that you have an advocate with the
[36:58] Father Jesus Christ the righteous and his love is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared and then verse 5 little wonder he says I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope it's as if he is going on from that difficult moment on his way up to Jerusalem where he was in the depths dealing with this problem of iniquity problem of sin and now that he realises that there is forgiveness with the Lord he wants to fear him he wants to respect him it says in the
[38:00] Bible doesn't it that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man and that's what we want to do to do what pleases him to do what will honour him and I wait for him and my soul waits and in his word do I hope is in this the way we are here this morning waiting for him if it were to please him to come in to touch a heart here a heart there to touch to touch my own heart and to speak a word in season to my soul well he uses his word in that respect we have to be often at the word of God asking for light asking that he would speak to us through the word that we're reading and upon which we're meditating it's the word of
[39:08] God that we need to be close to and prayerful over all of our days and this is what this man resolves my soul waits and in his word do I hope my soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning if a person is ill through the night they long for the morning don't they they long for the first ray of light to come through the window and that's the way this man seems to have been and eventually the light came and the light encouraged him and the light gave him new strength and the light gave him to walk on and then he turns to others and he says let
[40:11] Israel hope in the Lord with him there is mercy there is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities may that be true of every one of ourselves may we know that redemption the power of blood the blood of atonement sprinkled upon us giving us to know that love of God that passes all understanding amen let us pray help us oh Lord to be thankful for all that you have done for us this day hitherto you have not dealt with us according to our sins and give us Lord always to look unto Jesus who is the sinner saviour and in whose name we come even now we pray for your blessing upon the congregation here everyone present and give us oh Lord grace and a spiritual appetite to come under the sound of the word in the evening if that is your purpose for us may we be edified and richly blessed go before us and forgive all of our sins in Jesus name amen