Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.heritagesermons.org/sermons/64821/crying-out-of-the-depths-quality-good/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] If the Lord will help us, we will turn to Psalm 130. Psalm 130.

[0:15] We will read the first four verses. Psalm 130, verses 1 to 4. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

[0:35] Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

[0:54] But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Amen. Amen. This psalm is one of several psalms which the Jews used to sing on their way to Jerusalem for the worship of God.

[1:25] Of course they did not sing it in the language which this volume of God's word is written in but in their own native tongue.

[1:40] And we therefore, had we been there would not have known what they were singing but God knew. It was not strange language to the Lord.

[1:55] This reminds us of the Dutch lady who can speak English but she said that the Lord always speaks to me in Dutch.

[2:06] He knows every language God does. He's omniscient. All knowledge belongs to him. All knowledge.

[2:18] The knowledge of all things. The Lord speaks to us in English because we are English people. What a wonderful thing that is.

[2:31] But there is one language, a pure language which God gives to all his people whatever their nationality.

[2:44] And that is prayer and supplication. In glory the redeemed will sing but one song. Not in so many different languages and dialects but there will be one pure language.

[3:03] A divine language. A divine song. And they sung a new song. But before poor sinners come to sing that new song in heaven they must know something of the depths here below.

[3:24] They must. And we find that they do. What are the depths? Well certainly not the heights.

[3:36] Not up there my friends. Not here. But right down. And down. And down. Into the depths. There are depths of iniquity within us which we shall never fathom.

[3:53] We go but a little way down. And that fills us with horror at times and amazement. causing us to cry can ever God dwell here?

[4:09] Am I really the temple of the Holy Ghost? I can't understand it. I cannot believe it. But that's true.

[4:23] And only a child of God will know anything of the depths mentioned in this psalm. Out of which the psalmist cried unto God the depths.

[4:36] We do not like the depths. No we will try to speak about the depths even though we do not like them because it is essential that we should speak of them.

[4:51] What is meant by the depths? Well first of all the Lord teaches his people experimentally that which we have just named the depths of sin.

[5:09] When Adam fell he fell from the heavenly height to an awful depth. Not just from heaven to earth but far far lower.

[5:22] He fell as it were into hell. Not literally. But so far as heaven and godliness and truth and righteousness were concerned man fell to great depths.

[5:43] But for the intervention of the Lord in his mercy and love man would in fact fall right down into the depths of hell.

[5:56] Which is called as you know the bottomless pit. A pit without a bottom to it. Ever sinking. Ever going down further and further away from God.

[6:13] What an awful thing that is. My friends if heaven is for the righteous then hell is for the wicked for the ungodly for those who know not and who love not their Lord Jesus Christ because they know him not and believe him not therefore does condemnation rest upon them.

[6:44] What a mercy to be made a believer in Jesus Christ. For those who believe have everlasting life and they are delivered out of the depths the depths of the fall.

[7:02] My friends who can judge of the extremity or extremities that are to be known or found in these depths the depths of sin.

[7:16] oh do you know something of this? If your eyes have been opened oh what pangs you will feel my friends when God brings you all of a sudden as it were or gradually as the case may be into the depths and away from the heights you sink you go down in your feelings you sink fathom after fathom.

[7:46] It isn't like the mariners in Port Shipwreck who when they deemed that they were drawing near to land sounded the line or dropped that weight to test the depth of the water when they did it for the second time there was less water so they knew that they were getting near to land now it's the reverse of that it's the reverse of that as the Holy Ghost teaches a sinner as to his sin and convinces of sin you sound the fathom you drop that line overboard and you cannot feel the bottle or what depths there are what deep water then there are the depths of trouble that God's dear people experience depths or how how far down some have gone in trouble the billows and the waves pass over their head down they go they sink in trouble they cannot find any foothold there in the mire in the miry clay into which they sink enveloped by trouble poor sinners go down there are depths of fears and these fears are connected with sin and the knowledge of sin as well as with the troubles that God's dear people come into fears fears are not things that lift the sinner up

[9:43] God's blessing does that when he speaks a kind comforting encouraging word that causes the stooping one to lift himself up but without that the heart knowing its own bitterness and not experiencing at the present time that joy which no one can intermeddle with well then he sinks he goes down into the depths now is it something like this with you my friends what depths are you in today depths of fear depths of sin depths from which you cannot draw yourself out in any wise and depths of trouble one thing upon another one thing after another now

[10:44] God's people of old were not strangers to these depths were they never let Satan succeed in trying to convince you that you are lower than anyone else has ever been in all probability many have been much lower than we have been much lower the time was with me I think about 27 years ago when I vainly imagined because the Lord blessed my soul that I should not know such depths again now what a great mistake I made we have gone much further down since then than we did before and the wonderful thing about this is that the

[11:44] Lord himself knows these depths his dear son has been into the depths if ever anyone has oh what depths Christ entered into when he sank under the weight of your sin and mine as we hope and believe he did what depths all the powers of hell get hold upon him what trouble he had what bitterness of soul how his holy spirit or soul was drunker and withered as it were by sin and trouble Jesus wept dear young friends and children you will know that that is the shortest verse in the Bible Jesus wept but it is one of the greatest texts in the

[12:47] Bible Jesus wept because of the depths the depths that he himself experienced and also the depths that he knew sinners experienced especially as when he wept over Jerusalem and the things that were coming to pass upon Jerusalem oh how he wept if only my people had hearkened unto me then said he their peace would have been like a river and how quickly he would have overcome their enemies oh Jerusalem Jerusalem that stonest the prophets and so on how Jesus wept out of the depths you must be in them before anything will come out of them the first thing to come out of the depths is a cry to cry and that cry is like a forerunner of the crying one to come out of the depths if you are crying to the

[14:05] Lord out of the depths your cry is preceding you you are following your cry your cry goes up and you are coming up and will be delivered out of the depths in God's appointed time the second point we would name then is this the cry out of the depths you can't cry my friends out of the heights you can praise there and bless God but you can't cry there's no crying in the heights of heaven there's no more crying we are told that explicitly no more weeping no more tears there's nothing to cry about in glory all that is put away and finished forever but sinners here below and down in the depths or what they have to cry over no they cry not to man but they cry to the

[15:11] Lord and although they are so low the Lord hears that groan which is within them that prayer which never escapes their lips the Lord always lends a gracious ear to what the weakest child can say and only in these depths weakness is a very prominent and outstanding thing in these depths many lessons are learned which could never be learned elsewhere that is one of them my utter helplessness my utter wretchedness my total inability to deliver my own self from these troubles these depths these sins which compass me about like bees but out of the depths there comes something first the cry the cry addressed to God the groan which he alone hears and he alone understands yes the

[16:24] Lord why he's not put off by the depths sinners cannot get too low for Christ to hear and for Christ to save and to deliver in fact we will state this one of our greatest troubles is that we are too high not nearly not nearly low enough we have to be brought low enough to value a precious saviour now the psalmist whoever he was was crying to the Lord the saviour out of these depths and his prayer was Lord hear my voice hear my voice not a voice my voice and not simply a petition but my petition and my voice in my supplication my voice the inward voice the voice that no one else hears the groan that no one else could possibly understand

[17:37] Lord hear my voice as though the psalmist did so want the Lord to know that this was the poor sinner in the depths and not someone else my voice and the psalmist made much of this point my voice why not simply my prayer no it was my voice my voice there are times with God's people who are in the depths when another sinner doesn't want to hear their voice and would silence them in this connection what of the poor blind beggar Bartimaeus even God's followers Christ's followers were for silencing him do not cry after him poor dear man he was a beggar he was blind probably a beggar because he was blind and he heard this commotion the footsteps and probably the voices who is it

[18:49] Jesus it's Jesus Jesus of Nazareth is passing by oh this was the very one the blind beggar wanted to make contact with but no the people following Christ they tried to silence him I suppose we might say that his voice grated upon their ears but not so when it came to the Lord Jesus that voice was sweet to Christ Christ fully understood it he didn't turn round and say to the multitude now which one of you cried to me he knew exactly where that cry came from and not simply the direction of it but the person the man the poor sinner whose cry whose voice it was but the

[19:56] Lord hears the voice the cry of poor sinners and you'll find this that neither Satan nor anyone else can possibly quench or silence your voice when you cry unto God you keep crying day and night your tears are your meat day and night perhaps they have been perhaps they were last night perhaps you think they will be this night no friends what about this weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning perhaps next next day tomorrow the next morning you will be out of the depths the Lord having heard your voice during the night and his ears you will prove it his ears are attentive to the voice of your supplications and verse three seems to explain to us in part at least the depths which the psalmist was in and what this was all about namely his iniquities this gives the clue really to his petition and explains the depths if thou

[21:22] Lord shouldest mark iniquities oh Lord who shall stand so I suppose the psalmist didn't feel that he was standing he was in the depths he couldn't stand and do you know what it is not to be able to stand or lie or sit or do anything else so overwhelmed with grief and sorrow and distress and trouble and your chiefest trouble being sin sin you try to stand and you can't you try to stand upon a foundation but there isn't one for you to stand upon because your iniquities are marked they're marked just as the iniquity of that woman in the fourth chapter of

[22:23] John was marked iniquity I suppose she came to that well day after day to draw water perhaps for herself and household and she might have had some animals to give drink to we do not know but we know that she was familiar with that well she knew its location she knew something about its history it was known as Jacob's well she knew it as Jacob's well and she knew it was a deep well she knew something of the depth of it but she herself was not in the depths feelingly although she was deep in iniquity but until this conversation took place and divine life and light were imparted by the dear Lord Jesus to her she knew nothing of the deep well of sin that was in her own heart and life so it would seem that in all probability she came in a bold and hard and careless and light the hearted manner to that well as she had often done but now there was someone sitting on it who was he he looked like a

[23:57] Jew he was a Jew he wore the clothing of a Jew he looked like one he had Jewish features she knew that he wasn't a Samaritan but a Jew she was a Samaritan a woman of Samaria and I suppose at first that she might have been just ordinarily interested in him and the fact that he was resting there but now as soon as he said to her give me to drink she began to wonder he was a Jew asking a favor of a Samaritan a thing absolutely unheard of Jews and Samaritans traded with each other but no more than that they wouldn't converse in a friendly and intimate way now this arrested her attention it must have done even by the facts of the case it must have done now there was iniquity in her which

[25:15] Christ would mark yes he marked her as a sinner and she knew the mark she fell under the mark she did indeed and there was more than one mark against her although one question or one word from the Lord Jesus about one thing opened up the way for all the other marks and all the other iniquities even to use her own words all things that ever I have done they've been shown to me said she to the men of the city no the Lord Jesus marked her iniquity and in such a way that she couldn't stand do you know something of that why with many who attend the public means of grace they may have no iniquities marked as yet their book is clean the pages are clean no blots upon it they view their lives as perfect or well nigh no marks no quite so and no marks of grace either if you've got marks of grace you'll feel my friends to be marked sinners and you will know who has made the mark you have made many marks but the Lord

[27:02] Jesus has made one he's marked you as being a great sinner a lost one now this is what happened to this woman the Lord Jesus marked her iniquity go said he call thy husband and come hither I haven't won said she in that said Christ thou said truly you've had five in fact but the one you now have is not thy husband now that did it that did it then the conversation went on as you know about worship and salvation soul matters and the Lord marked her iniquity and for a while she must have been in a position when she couldn't stand for the depths into which she had been plunged under conviction of sin by the law's application she now had a guilty conscience she would no longer be lighthearted and pleased with herself and as though she was altogether innocent and had not transgressed no she was marked on that great occasion when Christ met with her she was marked and all

[28:34] God's people are be sure thy sin shall find thee out you will either find us out in the judgment day or here below oh how infinitely better to know something of the depths whilst here below because if you do you'll never know the depths of hell hereafter you'll escape that and be with Christ in the heavenly heights which is far better but we notice the psalmist puts a question to the Lord if thou Lord should his mark iniquities oh Lord who shall stand if he should but doesn't he we can see from many places in scripture that he does mark iniquity now this is why he does because he can never pass it by

[29:37] God never winks at sin he marks it according to his holiness glory truth majesty and justice he must mark sin that is he must deal with it he must deal with it God deals with sin in one of two ways and only two in imputing it to the sinner himself which is perfectly just of God to do perfectly just absolutely right or he imputes it to his dear son instead of to sinners so God marks iniquity in one of two ways oh how God marked iniquity at Calvary he did he laid the iniquity of all his people upon his beloved son oh what a mark what a mark what a transaction to think that the dear the darling son of

[30:52] God most holy most high was made sin was marked as a sinner was dealt with as a sinner was accounted sin by his dear father and made a curse for us and if you and I are God's children then our sin has been marked first by conviction of it in our own souls by the guilty conscience that we have and should have and should have more than we do have in fact but especially this that he marked out he appointed his beloved son to bear their sins now by virtue of this sinners can stand their standing ground is Christ and him crucified no other therefore the psalmist seems to mean this if their

[32:04] Lord should mark iniquities apart from pardoning it apart from finding one to bear it away apart from laying it upon thy beloved son then no one would stand who would stand in the heavenly congregation hereafter if the Lord should in fact mark iniquity so indelibly that it could never be pardoned but poor sinner in the depths remember this the words of the dear Lord Jesus himself when he said this all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men was the sin of that woman of Samaria pardoned yes but it is not recorded that she was told that her sins were pardoned but she was what of the wretched woman in

[33:06] John 8 I believe the woman taken in the very act of adultery now what will transpire I wonder what about this sin and this sinner shall she be forgiven she is apprehended and she's apprehended by the law in that the Pharisees or Jews or people take her and quote Moses by whom God's law was given now what will happen Moses said one thing but what sayest thou of course they were using her as a kind of bait to trap the Lord Jesus in his words so as to have as they wanted to have an occasion against him only because they hated him do you really think that they hated the sin of that woman no they hated

[34:10] Christ Christ hated the sin of that woman but the Lord knew how to deal with them how to silence them he stood and with his finger it was as though he wrote something on the ground and also said to them that he that was without sin may be at liberty quite free to take to cast the first stone they all went out one by one beginning with the eldest they were all gone all gone that's conviction their sin was marked wasn't it it would be a wonderful thing if it was marked prior to being pardoned but that is the lot of God's people only marked but pardoned the rest marked but not pardoned however what happened doth no man condemn thee neither do I said

[35:18] Christ but go and sin no more go and do this iniquity this transgression no more no more if thou lord should mark iniquities oh lord who shall stand but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared forgiveness oh sin is a dreadful thing what a solemn thing to go about the streets to live in our homes to attend to various necessary things with this continual feeling oh what a sinner I am what a sinner I am what depths there are yet undiscovered of iniquity and deceit in my own heart maybe you have gone about the streets or your work or sat in your home with a word like this continually repeating itself in your mind and thoughts if lord if if thou shouldst do this if thou shouldst mark iniquities

[36:40]  I shall be the first to fall and the last to stand and we have to come to this lesson you know we have to be taught this that if god would in strict justice and according to the rigor and tenor of his holy and righteous law deal with us then we would never stand we would sink into hell forever however there is a wonderful but but there is forgiveness with thee or do you mark yourself as being one of the greatest criminals alive others are apprehended and in jail maybe and many many are as you know now we in that respect are free but on the other hand if you know something of the power of sin and the lust that bore in their members and the frown of god upon their souls because of that you won't feel very free a man in the depths is not at liberty is he he's as good as in prison if if lord but a wonderful but there is forgiveness with thee and only with god even the self-righteous pharisees knew this who can forgive sins but god only in that says thou truly oh pharisee but they knew not anything of the depths that god's children enter into there is forgiveness with thee now forgiveness to a guilty sinner is the most wonderful thing and it flows from the pure undeserved mercy of god and the mercy of god which is in christ jesus o lord and through whom forgiveness alone comes those lines were most sweet to us once and they have been sweet to many a poor sinner in the depths namely it was jesus my friend when he hung on the tree who opened the channel of mercy for me and friends the channel of mercy for me is the very channel the very means whereby i am delivered from the depths is christ and his precious blood his redeeming love his all sufficient grace his infinite merits his atonement once made for sin there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared the word feared here means revered loved worshipped approached with holy boldness oh there is such a thing as holy boldness you know there is but there must be proper grounds for it the right foundation for it now that is christ and him crucified oh has god blessed you with faith faith to view his beloved son do you approach the father through his dear son he is the alone mediator who died at calvary who forgives you see by virtue of the death of christ the sufferings and death of christ sinners are pardoned sinners are forgiven that thou mayest be feared yes approached no man can approach me said god once and the word of course still applies although it was a long time ago when he said that but no man can see me or approach me and live what god meant was this apart from my dear son who would be revealed in the fullness of time only through a mediator may he see me and live and live with me in bliss in glory forever so if guilt weighs heavily upon your conscience cheer up desponding soul though in the depths there is forgiveness with god when you get forgiveness from him you'll no longer be in the depths you'll be delivered you'll be so free so happy so blessed god smile upon you god's presence with you and all that my friends that experience all those experiences are certain forerunners of eternal glory may god bless his word and pardon all of this amen