Psalm 130:3-4
Provision of Forgiveness for Sinners
Pastor Martin expounds Psalm 130:3-4, focusing on the provision of forgiveness for sinners. He first establishes the setting of the psalmist's cry 'out of the depths' due to a painful awareness of sin. He then asserts the reality and certainty of divine forgiveness, grounded in God's revelation and ultimately in Christ's work, which leads not to license but to a deep, reverential fear of God. The sermon applies this truth by striking down both Roman Catholic teaching on earned forgiveness and antinomian 'cheap grace,' while urging both unconverted and sinning believers to embrace God's free pardon.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 8 sections · 54 min
- Introduction: The Urgency of Forgiveness in a Season of Searching 0:04
- The Setting: Crying Out of the Depths of Sin-Consciousness 7:07
- The Question Asked: Who Could Stand Before God's Marking of Iniquities? 12:44
- The Assertion Made: The Reality and Certainty of Divine Forgiveness 22:32
- The End Envisioned: Forgiveness Leads to Godly Fear 30:44
- Application: Death Blow to Romish Teaching and Cheap Grace 40:49
- Application: The One Way for Guilty Sinners to Find Acceptance 45:15
- Application: For Sinning Children of God 49:36
Key Quotes
“But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.”
“If it hasn't, you can mark it down. You are not a Christian. For the devil has blinded you to the magnitude and the horror of your sin. And you have no felt need for Christ and his salvation.”
“And that word, forgiveness, means remission. No longer charging men with their guilt and liability on account of their sin.”
“This is not the fear of dread which results in an aversion to God which is always the case when sin is known and its guilt felt but it is not forgiven.”
“But this fear is that fear of God which is the very soul of true religion. It includes love reverence and trust and all of the graces produced by those three great graces of love, of reverence and of trust.”
“But he who comes to the knowledge of God as a God of forgiveness and embraces that forgiveness will fear God in the language of the hymn in our own hymn book with deepest tenderest fear and that will be the fear that binds us to him in a life of loving trustful obedience”
“There is no true fear of God apart from the reception of mercy and forgiveness”
“if the faith of forgiveness is the faith born of God's regenerating work it is brought you into union with Christ and if it's brought you into union with Christ it's brought you into union with him in the virtue of his death and resurrection so that his death for sin has become your death to sin and you fear him and you dread to sin lest you should abuse the grace of God”
Applications
All listeners
- Examine whether the question 'If God should mark iniquities, who could stand?' has ever burned in your conscience, as its absence indicates a lack of true conversion.
- Reject the Romish teaching that full and free forgiveness leads to a life of license, understanding that true fear of God arises from receiving mercy.
- Beware of 'cheap grace' and using the truth of free forgiveness as an excuse to sin, as this turns the grace of God into lasciviousness.
- Take seriously that God marks your sin, and that human efforts to forget or ignore it do not erase it from God's book of judgment.
- Do not despise God's forgiveness; leave the things that will damn you and take the gift of His salvation in Christ, which removes guilt and grants sonship.
- If God has uncovered sin in your heart, don't go on crippled or in aversion from God; remember there is forgiveness.
- Confess your sin without covering or extenuating it, acknowledging it as the fruit of your own corruption, and trust in the inexhaustible virtue of Christ's blood.
- Wait upon the Lord to seal His forgiveness to your heart experimentally, drinking in the wonder and freshness of His mercy, to be more firmly bound to Him in holy fear.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 97 paragraphs, roughly 54 minutes.
Introduction: The Urgency of Forgiveness in a Season of Searching
Now, having to settle upon a text or a theme upon rather short notice, for it was our expectation that Pastor Nichols would be preaching tonight, as I sought the face of God and cast about in my mind this afternoon what could possibly be the word of the Lord to us tonight, I trust in answer to prayer, without hearing any voices or claiming any direct revelation, but believing in specific guidance as promised in the word of God, that God has directed my mind to a psalm that I want to read in your hearing,
and then we shall concentrate upon the teaching, particularly of two verses within that psalm. Will you follow, please, as I read from the 130th psalm, Psalm 130,
the title that appears, in the 1901 edition, the American Standard Version, is Hope in the Lord's Forgiving Love. And this is, as you will know from the subtitle, A Song of Ascents, one of the psalms that the people of God would sing as they made their way out of their various geographical locations up to Jerusalem at the stated feasts. And here the psalmist writes, 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. If thou, Jehovah, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could 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 watchmen wait for the morning. Yea, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in Jehovah.
For with Jehovah there is lovingkindness, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Let us again seek the face of God in prayer that God himself will come, and minister to us his own word of pardoning grace and forgiving mercy. Let us pray.
Our Father, how rich is your holy word. And already that word has come to our hearts in the reading of it. And we have been reminded of your grace and kindness to preserve your people from their enemies, and to establish them in their trust in yourself. And now as we contemplate the psalmist's declaration of your mercy and forgiveness to needy sinners, may the Holy Spirit take this great truth and make it, we plead, a fresh truth to every heart, even that heart that has known your forgiving mercy
for the longest period of time, and even to the heart that even at this moment is a stranger, a stranger to that mercy. Oh Lord Speak to us with clarity and with power as together we study your Holy Word. Hear us as we make our plea in the name of your beloved Son. A man.
Now I'm certain that all of us who are part of this congregation are very conscious that these passed days and weeks have been a season or have constituted a season when we've been very much aware of the searching eye of God in our midst, that though the Lord continually deals with us as his people, there are seasons when there is an intensification of his work of searching and of uncovering our sins. And in doing this gracious work of uncovering sin,
God has struck a crippling blow to the prince of darkness who would seek to hinder the work of God in our midst and so ensnare us in sin and then keep us impenitent for our sins that the Holy Spirit would be grieved away from our midst. However, the enemy of our souls has not been ignorant of the work of uncovering which God has been doing. And the enemy of our souls is continually pressed with his own wicked ambitions with reference. To this matter of human sin.
On the one hand, he seeks to blind men to its reality and its ugliness so that they will have no felt need of divinely provided forgiveness. That's one thing the devil continually seeks to do. To keep men and women, boys and girls, ignorant or insensitive to the reality of their sin so that they feel no need of divine forgiveness. That was the great problem with the Pharisees.
Jesus said, They that are whole have no need of a doctor, but they that are sick I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. But if the enemy of our souls fails here and if by the probings of conscience or by the pressure of the word of God upon conscience men begin to be aware of their sins begin to smart under the pressure of their sins uncovered and revealed then the enemy seeks to blind men to its reality and its ugliness to the reality and nature of the divine forgiveness which God has provided for sin or to keep them from the believing acceptance of that divine provision.
And I'm convinced if the enemy is seeking to do anything at this point in our life together he would concentrate his attacks more upon this second issue. God has sobered us by the laying bare of sin. God has brought us into a season of searching of heart. And now the enemy having failed to keep us in a position of justifying and excusing and covering our sin will seek to blind us to the reality and nature of divine forgiveness or to hinder us from the believing acceptance of that forgiveness.
The Setting: Crying Out of the Depths of Sin-Consciousness
And there is but one cure for this two-fold thrust of the enemy as we were reminded several weeks ago the people of God need continually to visit two mountains Mount Sinai where our sins are uncovered and Mount Calvary where we see the basis of just forgiveness. And so not unconscious of the ways of the enemy and of our present life as a congregation I want to direct your attention tonight to verses 3 and 5 and 4 of Psalm 130 a text in which we have one of the most clear and wonderful statements
of the provision of forgiveness for sinners. If thou Jehovah shouldest mark iniquities O Lord who could stand but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. That great master of heart theology John Owen has a commentary upon this psalm that extends over some 320 pages and over 200 of those pages are an exposition and application of verse 4. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.
And believe me he has not exhausted the theme even with 225 pages of exposition and application. And so it's obvious that if he could not exhaust the theme with all of those pages I cannot exhaust it in 45 minutes. But I hope at least to highlight the great theme that is set before us in this text of God's holy word. Will you note with me first of all the setting of our text.
We're going to concentrate on verses 3 and 4 but they do not come to us in isolation from other threads or strands of thought. Note with me the setting of the text. The setting is given to us in the language of verse 1. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee O Jehovah.
The psalmist pens this psalm in a condition that he describes as the depths. Now that word in the original is the word commonly used for valleys or for deep places but especially to describe deep waters. And these depths are difficulties attended with fear with horror with danger and with trouble. Now what are the depths?
What is the situation of horror of terror and of trouble out of which the psalmist cries to God and within which this marvelous statement of divine forgiveness is couched. Well it's evident that the depths had something to do with a present awareness of the guilt of sin in the face of almighty God. The depths had some connection with the desperate need for forgiveness. For the question of verse 3 points in the direction of those depths.
Out of the depths have I cried if thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord. Who could stand? So the depths have to do with the problem of the felt pressure of guilt upon a human conscience in the face of human sin. Furthermore, it's clear from the emphasis of verse 4 that these depths have something to do with the necessity of forgiveness.
There is forgiveness with thee. Verse 7 With him is plenteous redemption. Verse 8 He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. So these strands of thought clearly indicate that the setting of this psalm is one in which the psalmist is passing through an experience of felt and painful awareness of his own sin.
He is in the throes of conviction for sin. And this conviction has become so intense that he describes his state as the depths, the deep places, the place of danger and vulnerability and pain. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O God. In other words, God has wounded his conscience.
God has brought home to his heart the awareness of the reality and the ugliness of his sin. And so this passage, particularly verses 3 and 4, is a text for anyone who's sitting here tonight has a smarting conscience or for anyone who at any time in his life will have a smarting conscience with reference to personal sin. Then notice in the second place, and this will occupy the remainder of our time, the substance of the text. Having spent just a few moments to establish that the setting of the text is a setting
The Question Asked: Who Could Stand Before God's Marking of Iniquities?
of the felt consciousness of sin, what is the substance of the text? Well, we have, first of all, a question asked, verse 3, an assertion made, verse 4a, and a goal envisioned, verse 4b. So we look at the text and first of all consider the question, asked. Now to whom is this question addressed?
You will notice it is addressed to Jehovah. If thou, Jehovah, or as you have in the marginal reading, if thou, Yah, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? This word, Yah, is the same root as that word translated Jehovah throughout the Old Testament, Yahweh, it is seldom used, but when it is used, it seems to underscore the terrible majesty of God. Notice its use in Psalm 68 and verse 4.
Psalm 68 and verse 4.
Sing unto God, sing praises to His name, cast up a highway for Him that rides through the desert, His name is Yah, and exalt Yah, ye before Him. The exalted God who is to have the highway under the imagery of a conquering king, this highway made for Him, it is God in His self-existent, unchangeable, independent majesty which the psalmist envisions as He's in the depths. He is feeling the pressure of sin upon His conscience. He feels the overwhelmingness and overwhelming weight of guilt in the light of that sin,
and He is viewing that sin in the light of the majesty and the exaltedness of Yah. He is not thinking of sin in terms of what it has done to Himself, in terms of what it has done even to others, but He is contemplating His sin in the light of God's countenance. In the language of Psalm 98, Thou hast set our sins before Thee, our secret sins, in the light of Thy countenance. And so He addresses His question to the majestic, eternal, ever-blessed God,
if Thou, Yah, shouldest mark iniquities. Thou having contemplated who is addressed in the question, notice the essence of the question. If you, you, great and majestic God, should mark iniquities. Now, what does that word mark mean?
Well, the word is used in many ways in the Old Testament, but here, as in Psalm 56, 6, and Psalm 37, 37, it obviously means to mark or to observe with diligence, to lay up something in the memory. Notice that use in Psalm 56, and verse 6, they gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps. Here are the enemies of the psalmist seeking to track him down, they mark his steps, they observe the patterns of his life that they might plot his destruction. And so when the question is asked,
if Thou, Yah, shouldest mark iniquities, what the psalmist is asking is this, if you, great, self-existent, unchangeable, independent, eternal, majestic God, if you should store up in your memory everything that you know of me that can be called sin, O Lord, who should stand? Job 10 in verse 14 is perhaps the best commentary upon the significance of the use of the word in this context. Job 10 in verse 14. If I sin,
then Thou markest me, and Thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity. If I sin, then Thou markest me. If I sin, then, God, You consider and observe that sin, and then You reserve punishment for me on account of that sin. And notice the word used, if Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities.
And that word points to any kind of sin against God from either table of the law. So here's the question. If Thou, Yah, majestic, holy, self-existent, God of glory and power, if you should observe with your eye of omniscience that searches the depths of every thought and intention of the heart as well as every unspoken thought, every deed, every word, if you should mark every deviation from your holy law in thought, word, impulse, motive, desire, as well as external deed, who could stand?
That is, who among all the creatures of the earth could appear before you, and be righteously acquitted? That's his question. Lord, if you should mark, observe, record, and store up the deserved judgment for iniquity, who among us could stand? That's the question that burned in the conscience of the psalmist.
And let me ask you as you sit here tonight, has that question ever burned in your conscience? Has that ever become the most pressing question upon the face of the earth to you? If you're a Christian, it has.
If it hasn't, you can mark it down. You are not a Christian. For the devil has blinded you to the magnitude and the horror of your sin. And you have no felt need for Christ and his salvation.
Now, having considered to whom the question is addressed and the essence of the question, notice what the assumed answer to that question is. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Who could stand? And it's obvious that the assumed answer is none could stand.
For there is not a just man upon the face of the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. And when we turn to Scripture, we come to a shocking discovery that the men and women most accounted rightly, much as by their own peers, were the ones most ready to confess the magnitude of their guilt and their sin. Job is described as a just and righteous man above all others on the face of the earth. And yet he cries out, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes see of thee and I abhor myself and I repent in sackcloth and ashes.
Had he gone out on a weekend drunk? Had he gone down to the local area where people pushed their dope and shot up dope for a weekend? No, he was a blameless man. Yet when he stood before YAH, when he stood in the presence of this great, this glorious, this God of burning holiness, he said, I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sees you.
That is, by inward spiritual perception, I've come to grips with something that I've never seen before. It's something of your own burning holiness. And by comparison, I abhor myself and I repent in sackcloth and ashes. Likewise with Isaiah the prophet.
Isaiah was no bum. And yet when he saw God, he said, I'm unclean. I'm unclean. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
Woe is me! He felt something of that inner terror that comes when a sinner is exposed before a holy God. And even the great apostle Paul cried out, O wretched man, the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do, who shall deliver me? In my flesh dwells no good thing.
It is this realization that brought the psalmist into the depths. The contemplation of the holiness, justice, and majesty of the Lord, who is Yah, and the reality of his own sin. And he cries out, if you, Yah, if you should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Now that's the question.
The Assertion Made: The Reality and Certainty of Divine Forgiveness
Now notice the assertion that he dares to make.
But, blessed transition, but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be healed.
Notice, first of all, the focus of his assertion. The focus of his assertion is the reality of divine forgiveness. There is forgiveness with thee. You see, he is not concerned simply to have peace somehow, inwardly and subjectively.
He wants to know that something has actually happened in the court of heaven by which sin, is no longer marked, but is passed over and put away. And that's the most crucial issue in this matter, of being right with God. Many who feel the initial smartings of conscience are quick to get any kind of ease, for their smarting conscience is, and the enemy of the souls of men is quite ready to say, peace, peace, when there is, no peace. The assertion made in our text
has a focus, and the focus is upon the reality of divine forgiveness. There is forgiveness with thee. He's not interested in absolving himself. He's not interested in having a fellow mortal absolve him. He wants to
know that Yah, this great, eternal, majestic holy God, who marks the sin, is the one who blots out and passes over the sin. There is forgiveness with thee. And that word, forgiveness, means remission. No longer charging men with their guilt and liability on account of their sin. So that's the focus
of his assertion. Divine forgiveness. Now notice the certainty of his assertion. But there is forgiveness with thee. There is
no doubt in the Psalmist's mind, though he is in the depths, and out of the depths he cries to God. He cries with a realistic view of God's majesty and holiness. A realistic understanding if God marks, that is observes and holds any man accountable for sin, no one will stand before him. And yet in the face of all of that, he makes this certain assertion, there is forgiveness with thee. Now how in the world
did he come to that confidence? How did the Psalmist come to the confidence that there is forgiveness with God? Well, writing out of the context of the Old Covenant, a person could come to that certainty by reviewing God's dealings with our first parents. When Adam and Eve sinned and ran from God, it was God who came seeking them. It is God
who gave that first gospel promise, I will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And promised that eventually the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. The Psalmist could look back to the institution of the sacrificial system in which God was demonstrating in these external symbols that when guilt would symbolically be transferred to the head of an innocent victim, the lamb, the goat, whatever the animal or sacrifice was and that sacrifice was slain and its blood sprinkled upon the altar and the worshipper given access and in particular
in the great ritual of the day of atonement as described in Leviticus chapter 16, God was declaring that he was a God of forgiveness in the establishment of the priesthood, in the words of his promise, in his gracious covenants and in his dealings with men. He forgave Abel, Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Moses were forgiven men and by all of these means even someone living in the relatively limited light of the old covenant could say there is forgiveness with thee. Don't let anyone make you old testament saints.
Here is full assurance there is forgiveness with thee. There is this certainty of the assertion and it was based upon the revelation God had made of his disposition to forgive and the framework of his forgiveness which was that of sacrifice the innocent dying in the place of the guilty. But oh if the Psalmist within that relatively limited light of the old covenant could make this certain assertion how much more should we be able to make it? For we have all of that
Old Testament revelation of God's disposition and of his method of forgiveness and added to it we have the reality of the enfleshed God. We have the reality of the personal life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. We have his death and resurrection and his ascension the descent of the spirit the inspired explanation of these events in the apostolic preaching and writing and then we have all of the promises based upon all of those realities the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. God justifies the ungodly. Christ
died for the ungodly. God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins has quickened us in union with Jesus Christ and so we have a far broader base for the certainty of assertion that there is forgiveness with God. And now what is the ground of that assertion? We've already hinted that the ground of that assertion for the Psalmist was the revelation given to him up to that moment in history the revelation made plain to him, made real to him by the Holy Spirit and you and I have in addition
to that all that God has revealed in Christ and in the full revelation of his mind and will in the New Testament Scriptures and so the Psalmist can say there is forgiveness with thee. Not because he ceases to be Yah God of holiness God of majesty God of inflexible justice but because as God of majesty, as God of holiness he has made a way of forgiveness consistent with his holiness and his justice. He has so loved the world as to give his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have
everlasting life. Now having considered the question asked if thou Lord shouldest mark iniquities O Lord who could stand? Having contemplated the assertion made there is forgiveness with thee. Now notice in the third place the end described. What
The End Envisioned: Forgiveness Leads to Godly Fear
is the end for which God conceived procured revealed and announces a way of forgiveness for guilty sinners consistent with his justice and with his holiness. What is the end? Look at the text. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.
Now on the surface that's an apparent contradiction isn't it? If it said if thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord who could stand? There is judgment with thee that thou mayest be feared. We could all understand that without much trouble couldn't we?
If you Lord mark iniquity as you marked it in the days of Noah when a whole generation except eight souls were inundated in the flood. If the text said if you Lord should mark iniquities who could stand? There is judgment with you that you may be feared. The meaning of the text would be plain.
We could take the flood and the cities of the plain Sodom and Gomorrah the individual judgments that fell the judgment upon Nadab and Abihu upon Achan and his family. We could find instance after instance. Or if the text said there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be loved then we could understand that. And it wouldn't take much explanation to explain it.
But on the surface this seems to be a contradiction. If Lord you should mark iniquities who could stand? But there is forgiveness that you may be feared. That seems to be a contradiction. That judgment
to be feared or forgiveness to be loved I could understand it. But it says forgiveness that you may be feared. Now the key is in understanding the word fear. This is not the fear of dread which results in an aversion to God which is always the case when sin is known and its guilt felt but it is not forgiven. That's the fear that
Adam had in the garden. God came to him and said Adam where are you? And what was Adam's response? I heard your voice and I was what? Afraid.
And he ought to have been afraid. That was the fear of dread by which he ran from God. And he should have run. Yes he should have.
He was guilty. God was marking his iniquity. The anger of God burned against him. He knew God's word in the day that you eat.
Dying you will die. And now he wonders what will the full weight of God's threat be? I have violated the command of my God. And as a God who keeps his word he has marked my iniquity. He's full of dread
the fear of dread which always creates an aversion to God. That's why an unforgiven sinner can never draw near to God. Truly draw near to God. An unforgiven sinner who has any sense of his sin cannot draw near to God. He runs as Adam
did and he hides. But this fear is that fear of God which is the very soul of true religion. It includes love reverence and trust and all of the graces produced by those three great graces of love, of reverence and of trust. And according to this text the great end for which God has made a way of righteous forgiveness has revealed it to men seals it to their hearts by the Holy Spirit is that such forgiven sinners may fear him that is be bound
to him in cords of deepest love deepest reverence and deepest trust. And these are the very terms of God's covenant of mercy as clearly stated in such passages as Jeremiah 31 Jeremiah 32 and Ezekiel 36 notice as I just read briefly from these passages Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34 Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest and in Hebrews 8 and 10 this passage is quoted as being fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in gospel provisions now not some future blessing for ethnic Israel here and
now in the gospel now notice the same God who says I'll put my law in their inward parts I will fully and completely forgive their iniquities I'll no longer mark their iniquities I will forgive and pardon them notice what he says in Jeremiah 32 in doing that work beginning with verse 37 I will gather them out of the countries whither I have driven them in mine anger and wrath and great indignation bring them again to this place and cause them to dwell safely they shall be my people I will be their God I will give them one heart and one way that they
may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them and I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from following them to do them good I will put my fear in their hearts now notice that they may not depart from me here is a fear that does not cause its possessor to run from God but to cleave to him to cleave to him in deepest bonds of love of reverence and of trust you see it is the promise of full pardon that
produces this true fear of God in the heart leading to a life of whole souled obedience and perseverance in the ways of God now why is this so what is the connection at the level of our own psychology and experience well I believe it is this he who is ignorant of God and of his own sin despises God there are some of you sitting here tonight that God is a boring subject to you to put it bluntly God is a boring subject to you Christ is a boring subject forgiveness the blood of the covenant pardon mercy these are boring
subjects to you why because you are ignorant of who God is and what you are if you could but see him as the mighty God exalted glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity who will by no means clear the guilty if you could but see him with the eyes of the soul in all of his glorious and then see your own heart and see your own sin against the backdrop of the white light of his burning holiness you would not despise God and regard him as a boring subject and his
son and his forgiveness as matters of indifference he who is ignorant of God and of his own sin despises God he who has some true knowledge concerning God and of his own sin will dread God you see once you begin to take who God is seriously and take what you are seriously you can no longer despise God you can't ignore him you can't count him a boring subject but neither can you draw near to him begin to discover who he is and what you are and like Adam you'll run from him you'll dread God but he who comes
to the knowledge of God as a God of forgiveness and embraces that forgiveness will fear God in the language of the hymn in our own hymn book with deepest tenderest fear and that will be the fear that binds us to him in a life of loving trustful obedience and the Psalmist understood that he was not taking sin lightly he was not trying to calm himself into some notion that sin is not quite as bad as his conscience was telling him no he says out of the depths have I cried if you Lord should mark
Application: Death Blow to Romish Teaching and Cheap Grace
iniquities even the iniquities of your covenant people oh Lord who could stand that's the cry of a man who takes God and his sin seriously but he also takes seriously the God given provision for sinners the reality and way of forgiveness there is forgiveness with thee to this end that thou mayest be feared now by the way of concluding application what does this text say to us well obviously it strikes a death blow to all of the Romish teaching that full and free forgiveness received by faith in Christ alone will lead
to a life of license the council of Trent has never retracted its pronouncement of anathema upon anyone who teaches that sinners upon believing in the Lord Jesus Christ are upon the moment of looking away from themselves to Christ alone for pardon fully completely eternally pardoned and accepted as righteous in the sight of God on the grounds of the obedience and death of Jesus Christ the Roman church has never retracted her anathemas her curses upon those who preach free pardon for believing sinners because poor
Romish deluded Romish theologians think that if we tell sinners that they are pardoned solely on the works of another that will lead to a life of carelessness a life of indifference to holiness and self-denial and obedience and it's only if you're conscious that you are working for forgiveness that you really fear God that's not what the text says it says there is forgiveness with thee not that you may be despised and treated lightly and carelessly there is no true fear of God apart from the reception
of mercy and forgiveness and so this text strikes a death blow at every notion that full assurance in divine forgiveness leads to a life of carelessness but it also strikes a death blow to all talk of cheap grace people who say oh yeah there's forgiveness who even when they contemplate sin in the midst of temptation say oh well if I sin I can always go to the Lord there's forgiveness listen my friend it doesn't say there is forgiveness with thee that we may sin with a high hand that is not what the text says and if you use the truth of free forgiveness based upon the work of
Christ as an excuse turn the grace of God into lasciviousness actually do what I've described in moments of temptation reason that way oh well there is forgiveness no sin I may commit is greater than God's grace therefore I can sin and come and tap into that grace after I've wallowed in my filth after I've drunk down the cup of my iniquity my friend if you think that way you beware lest you come under the frightening condemnation that God describes in the book of Jude with reference to those who turn
the grace of God into a license for sin shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid how shall we who have died to sin live any longer therein if the faith of forgiveness is the faith born of God's regenerating work it is brought you into union with Christ and if it's brought you into union with Christ it's brought you into union with him in the virtue of his death and resurrection so that his death for sin has become your death to sin and you fear him and you dread to sin
Application: The One Way for Guilty Sinners to Find Acceptance
lest you should abuse the grace of God it strikes a death blow to Romish teaching it strikes a death blow to all antinomian talk of cheap grace but thank God it does set before us the one way in which guilty sinners can find acceptance with God if God marks your iniquity my friend you won't stand now what are you going to do about the reality of your iniquity what are you going to do about all the thoughts and words and attitudes and deeds and motions and desires that have been violations of God's law you can go out and get yourself stoned and forget
yes but God doesn't forget keep the records he does you can shut it out of your mind when you sneak off for your immoral relationship with that man or woman when you sneak off to blow your mind on drugs and booze you can crowd out of your head the fact that God is marking your iniquity but that doesn't change the fact that he's marking your iniquity that's why revelation 20 says in the final day the books will be opened and the dead will be judged out of the books
according not to their memory of their sin but according to God's knowledge of the sin according to their works young man young woman you listen to me you better take seriously that God marks your sin you may do everything to rub it out of your conscience but it doesn't rub it out of God's book and you'll stand before God and what a horrible thing to have God pronounce your sins in your ears and demonstrate to the entire moral universe that when he says depart from me he is utterly just he is Yah he is the majestic exalted holy spotless righteous
judge when he sends you into hell laden with your sin you better take that seriously oh yes you can go out of this meeting and you can turn on your radio and you can fill your ears with jungle music hell music it's a preview of the cacophony of the damned in the pit oh yes you can do it but my friend it doesn't affect God's book he's marked your iniquities he's marked your iniquities and you're going to meet them and you won't stand for the great day of his wrath is coming and who shall be able to stand oh thank God for the next
statement but there is forgiveness there is forgiveness and oh my unconverted friend why do you despise that forgiveness God doesn't ask you to go out and cut off your fingers he doesn't ask you to crawl on your knees even to the front of this building let alone to Rome or any other place all he asks you to do is leave the things that will damn you and take the gift of his own salvation in the person of Christ that will remove all of your guilt will give you the status of a son or daughter in his family that will endow you here and now with the rights and privileges of an adopted member of
the household of God and start a work in you that he will not let off until he's made you over into the very likeness of his dear son when by grace we've come to taste of that forgiveness then we can say oh how I fear the living God with deepest tenderest fears and worship thee with penitential tears dear child of God what sin has God uncovered what ugly morass of uncleanness and devious actings of your own heart and mind has God laid bare in recent days
Application: For Sinning Children of God
don't go on crippled don't go on in the state of aversion from God feeling the uncleanness and the devious actings there is forgiveness there is forgiveness there is forgiveness there is forgiveness but not for those who cover their sin for he that covers his sin shall not prosper not for those who extenuate their sin and say well my circumstance my friend stop all that foolishness come before God and say God it's my sin my sin my sin it was my sin the child of my own remaining corruption it was the fruit of my own indwelling corruption and remaining uncleanness
oh God it's my sin but I have not exhausted the virtue of the blood of your son how many times have I come before God with this very passage and open my bible and put my finger upon the verse and found that the only way I could get relief to my conscience God didn't need to have me point to his word but I don't think he's upset when I do it and I actually say Lord this is your word of promise there is forgiveness with you seal that forgiveness to my heart that's the latter part of the psalm I wait for the Lord you see he didn't go in rush into the presence of God say a few words of penitence and rush out he waited upon God
that God might seal to his heart experimentally with spiritual relish the reality is his forgiveness he waited upon the Lord not to earn forgiveness it was freely extended not in any way to do some kind of penance but to have his own soul as it were drink in the wonder the freshness of forgiving mercy that he might go out more firmly bound to God in bonds of true holy fear may God grant that this passage of his word will minister to all of our hearts by the power of the
Holy Spirit let us pray our Father we do purple that there would be forgiveness for the likes of us we have sinned times without number our sins are known fully only to your eye but we thank you that as far as your eye searches out the magnitude and the horror of our sin so you cast over our sins your forgiveness and for this we praise you we thank you for the remission of sin the forgiveness of sin
that you have declared in your word that you have buried them in the depths of the sea you blotted them out as a thick cloud though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool oh how we thank you we praise you and oh God for those who despise this forgiveness because they do not take you seriously nor their sin seriously may your word so fasten itself upon their consciences that they'll not be able to sleep this night until they know that this forgiveness is theirs we pray for any of your children who are walking as it were lame and halt and maimed because you've discovered sin to them and
yet they've been reluctant to come to that one place where even your sinning children find forgiveness imparted and sealed afresh to their hearts by the Holy Spirit oh God to such may your word come with power that they may know that there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared oh increase in us that holy fear which is the intended fruit of your gracious forgiving mercy seal your word to our hearts and to your name be praise and honor and glory through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
These verses form the core of the sermon, presenting the question of standing before God's judgment and the assertion of His forgiveness leading to fear.
Texts Expounded
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