Climbers No.7 Mercy

The most effective proof at the human level of the truth of the Christian message is when a man, when a woman, when young people give testimony to the grace of God in their lives. A testimony invariably starts with the person and then it goes from the particular to the general. What God has done for me, he can do for you.

An ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory. This world does not lack for words. Its deficiency is in works.

It's not speak to me about your faith that is the cry of the unbeliever. It's demonstrate to me the practicalities. So here in this 11th Psalm, in the series of the Psalms of Ascent, the Psalms which ancient Hebrews sang as they made their way to Jerusalem and as they arrived in that holy place, you find the Psalmist starting with several particulars and then he moves on to a final general.

He starts with himself as an individual and he finishes with Israel as a nation. This is a wondrous Psalm. It is punctuated with references to the name of the Lord.

Verse 1, O Lord. Verse 2, O Lord, hear my voice. Verse 3, O Lord, if you kept a record of sins.

O Lord, who could stand. Eight times the name of God features in this Psalm. It's a Psalm in which the emotion as well as the theological conviction of the Psalmist can be heard and felt.

It's a Psalm which speaks of mercy which is, I believe, one of the most wonderful words in the whole of the Old Testament. The Hebrew Keseth, which comes time and time again, especially in the minor prophet Hosea, whose teaching is parallel to that of the fourth Gospel, John's Gospel, in the New Testament. John speaks of the love of God.

Hosea speaks of the Keseth of God. And it's that self-same mercy of God that the Psalmist here flings himself onto. When our beloved Lord comes on earth, you will find that time and time again people plead with him for mercy.

Here is blind Bartimaeus, the Lord Jesus and his entourage of disciples and followers, is making his last journey to Jerusalem and standing by the wayside deliberately in a place where he could catch the attention of Jesus. Bartimaeus says, Son of David, have mercy on me. Here is the man from Gadara who had been demon-possessed, freed by the Lord Jesus.

He wants to follow the Savior. And Jesus says, no, go back to your home, go back to your kith and kin, and tell them how the Lord has had Keseth, mercy upon you. The Apostle Paul speaks of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, a God of all comforts, a God of all mercy.

And at the end of his life, with still the feelings that he was responsible in his mind for the death of the first Christian martyr, the Apostle Paul says in a most moving, pathetic passage, God had mercy on me. We meet together this morning as a company of those who share as a common denominator the mercy of God. So as we crack open this psalm, if I can use such crude expression, first of all I draw to your attention in the opening couple of verses a condition described.

Out of the depths, I cry to you. The man who is furthest cast down is not necessarily the furthest away from God. For thus saith the high and holy one who inhabits eternity, I dwell in the high and holy place and with him, with her.

Who is of a contrite and humble spirit? Perhaps the second hardest sermon I ever preached from this pulpit. Forgive me for a personal and a repeated reference. It was when my dad died.

Underneath, round about, the everlasting arms. You never go lower than the arms of God. The fathomless depths still finds him.

Though I take the wings of the morning and find myself in the far flung places of the earth. Though like Jonah I am entombed in the stomach of a fish. Out of the depths, I cry.

Oh Lord, hear my voice. You can never mine to a place where God does not undermine. He always has his hands around you.

This prayer is personal. I, this prayer is fervent cry. This prayer has direction to you.

This prayer has a sense of awe. Oh, this petitioner knows the one to whom the prayer is directed. Lord.

Mom, look at me. Dad, watch what I'm doing. The acceptable cries of children as they've developed some new activity and they want parental observation.

Excusable for infants, but here I tell you my friend is an excusable prayer on the part of the depressed man, the depressed woman. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. Here is a condition described.

But let me tell you something my beloved friend. You can never ask for the mercy of God for yourself. Unless you show mercy to others.

Blessed are the merciful. For they shall obtain mercy. And old Puritan puts it like this.

He that demands mercy and shows none ruins the bridge over which he himself will have to pass. Well, if that is a condition described. Next I bring to your attention a nightmare denied.

If you, oh Lord, kept a record of sins. Can you think of a greater terror than this? That all the misdemeanor of yesteryear. That the thought life of the last 24 hours.

That the secrets of your heart were placarded in front of this great God. And indeed before the whole of intelligent beings. What a nightmare that would be.

Oh Lord, if you kept a record of sins. Who could stand? And the Hebrew here is very specific. It's got the idea of intense watchfulness.

The concept is of someone storing evidence up to be used. To quote the old fashioned warnings that police used to give. To be used in evidence against you.

Oh Lord, if you did that. Who could stand? I need to search for my sin and it's easy. But I need to search for ransom and that's hard.

How can I stand before you if there is no ransom? How can I come before the bar of your justice? And convince you and any angel who is looking on. That I am not a sinner condemned. And with justice directed towards hell.

Oh Lord, if you keep a record of sins. Who can stand a nightmare? The preposition if in the third verse. Needs to be conjoined with the preposition but in the fourth verse.

For the two are hinged together. The if is the nightmare. The but is the ecstasy.

The if causes worry. The but creates wonder. The if is there to ensure that you are never presumptuous.

The but is there. To ensure that you never despair. If oh Lord you kept a record of sin.

Who could stand? But. With you. There is forgiveness.

There's a wideness in God's mercy. Like the wideness of the sea. So high you can't get over it.

So low you can't get under it. So wide you can't get round it. Our kids sing that of the love of God and the love of God and the mercy of God.

If not synonyms are twins. With you. There is forgiveness.

But not a forgiveness with which you can be cavalier. So the Psalmist puts in the rider. Therefore you are feared.

You are held in awe and respect. Because as I come to you in my cringing fearful condition. As I make my way towards the throne of grace.

In order to find mercy in the time of need. I leave with a sense of awe and wonder that you great God will deal with me. He speaks twice.

Oh Lord. Oh Lord. Twice the name of God.

As though he takes both hands of the Lord. I once saw a picture. It was brilliant.

Done I'm sure with some inspiration of the spirit of Jacob. As he looks into the face of God. Jacob this twisted.

This man who has so great difficulty coping with his own psyche. And he looks up with pain. And thrusts himself on the mercy of God.

As he's fought with God during that mysterious night of travail. And I can see Jacob now as the artist depicts him. Stretching out.

Both hands. Clasping the hands so to speak of God. And looking into his face.

Sometimes friends it's not the word you speak. It's the look upon your face. It's the eye.

It's the tear. It's the inarticulate groaning of your personality that conveys to this God. What you are wanting more than anything else.

Oh Lord. Oh Lord. And God responds by reminding the Psalmist of his forgiveness.

And the Psalmist responds by saying that I respect you God. Always. And.

Ever. I will not glory because I am righteous. But because I am redeemed.

Not because I am cleared of sin. But because. My sins.

Are forgiven. So said a preacher of. Centuries ago.

Forgive me my trespasses. As I forgive those. Who sin.

Against me. So the Psalmist moves on. A condition he describes.

A nightmare he denies. And a conviction to which he admits. My soul waits for the Lord.

He tells us three times that he will wait for the Lord. Why? Because you see in the third verse is what he is reaching out for. His realization that God does not horror of horrors.

Thank God that the negative is not true. Bless God the positive is. He doesn't keep a record of sins.

There is forgiveness. But he hasn't as yet entered into the good of the forgiving heart of God. So he waits.

Lloyd-Jones taught me many a thing. As to quote one American reviewer of my book I trawl through his sermons. He speaks one day of a man who came into his vestry in London.

And the man cataloged certain sins that he had committed. And then he was applying to those sins the forgiving grace of God as set down in the scripture. And Lloyd-Jones said this.

He healed himself too quickly. He healed himself too quickly. What he meant was that well here was his sin and there was the promise of forgiveness.

And he put the two together in such a hurried fashion that there was no sense of waiting for the Lord. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits.

My soul waits for the Lord. For the Son of God to rise with healing in his wings. Nothing more awful than being in an agony of conviction that sometimes may last months as it did in the case of David.

Nothing more wonderful than knowing the joy of absolution. Here is this pilgrim. He's climbed the hill towards Jerusalem.

He's in the temple area and it's very early in the morning. And he looks out towards Moab. And suddenly he sees the first red rays of the light of the sun as she starts to rise in the heavens.

And he realizes that a new day has dawned. And David says, that's like me. My soul, I wait.

I wait for the Lord. For what are you waiting for David? I'm waiting for relief. I'm waiting to know.

Not just to know in my mind. I'm waiting to know in my very psyche. My soul waits for the Lord.

I've been doing a study on the Hebrew concept of soul. And it's very different from the way that we sometimes today understand soul as we tend to approach the Bible from, it's too complicated to go into this, but we tend to approach it with a Greek mindset. We Europeans owe more to the Greeks than we do to the Hebrews in the way that we deal with philosophical problems.

But as I say that's complex and I don't want to go down that track. Here's the bottom line. When the Hebrews spoke about the soul, they didn't speak about a little bit tucked away somewhere in their being.

The soul is part of the totality of nature. The totality of themselves. My soul, I yearn.

My physical being, my mental being, my spiritual capacities, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits for the Lord. More than watchmen wait for the morning.

More than watchmen wait for the morning. Have you watched a mom with a babe? The little child's got a fever. And there's that greasy sweat on the brow of the child.

A mom always feels. You can't be a true mother and not. The sicknesses your kid has, you'd rather have them yourself.

That goes for dads too if they're worth their salt. And you wait. You wait for the fever to go.

And it's a long night, or a long week, or a long month. But you wait. More than the watchman waits for the morning.

More than the parent waits for the healing of the child. I wait for the Lord to come. To do what? To bring me into the experience of his caresseth.

The Puritans were great preachers. But there were two strands within Puritan preaching. One was very academic, and I think it did the church in one sense a disservice.

The other was much more experiential. And actually George Fox of the Quakers in one sense caught the emphasis of Puritanism at that level. And I think George Fox was right.

Fox and a certain classification of the Puritan preachers were always talking about the experience of God. You get this in Jonathan Edwards too. And really my friends, if you don't experience God, it's not much point is there claiming too great a value on the Christian faith.

Because the Christian faith is not philosophy. It's the experience of God. It's entering into the blessings of the gospel.

And this is what David is doing. He's wanting, he's waiting, he's yearning for God to come with cleansing, with absolution. So that this man who's cried from the depths, and David has done some awful things, might know the relief.

You see he doesn't heal himself quickly. Sometimes we do that. And when the relief comes.

Well you're back to the evangelistic aspect of the biblical message in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. He admits to this conviction. He's waiting for the Lord.

What he's waiting for he experiences. So then what does he do? Well it's cause and effect. He is in exhortation.

And he wants to transmit it. Oh Israel, put your hope in the Lord. What I have discovered, may you discover too.

I have been blessed, I have known absolution. May you be blessed, may you know freedom too. Oh Israel, put your trust in the Lord.

Why? Well because the Lord has merchandise that no one else can dispense. Let me take you back to the Puritans. I should have lived 200, 300 years ago.

Here's William Gurnell. He speaks of the blessings of salvation. This is so sweet a morsel.

Now referring to the psalmist. This is so sweet a morsel he does not wish to eat alone. And therefore he sends the dish even lower down the table that every godly person may taste with him of it.

You want others to know? Oh Israel, put your trust in the Lord. For there, in him there is mercy. In the bosom of God rests a heart of mercy.

There is redemption and it is plenteous. He, God himself, will redeem Israel. Here is a tilt at the ministry of our Lord Jesus.

Call his name Emmanuel for he shall save his people from their sins. Call his name Jesus. Jesus the Savior.

I conclude for we're coming around the table of the Lord in a moment. I'd love to have been with Martin Luther. I guess the nearest in terms of emotional and intellectual blessing I've ever had to the experience of Luther's disciples must have been on one occasion being with Richard Wurmbran.

Luther was a great man and he'd invite people for breakfast, his students, and as with Richard Wurmbran, every sentence that Luther spoke seemed to have a gem in it. And on one occasion the student said, Dr. Luther, which is the best psalm? And he gave them three. And he said of Psalm 130 in the Latin, this is the psalm I Paulini.

This is the Pauline psalm. What did he mean? Well, here is God speaking about redemption and forgiveness and justification. He might well have said here is the psalm I Johanni.

Because here is God speaking about absolution. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, keeps on cleansing us from all sin. Oh Lord, if you kept a record of sin who could stand but with you there is forgiveness.

You see that's Pauline. That's Johannine. That's the New Testament.

So I leave you with this psalm. A psalm that speaks of the love of God, of the mercy of God. Never say I dealt with it cavalierly.

You enter into the benefits after going through the torment of conviction. But when the benefit comes, it is so superb you want others to know. Oh, to the depths I cried.

And it took some time before I had relief. I waited for you, I waited for you, I waited for you more than the watchman waits for the morning. And when it came, it was so blessed.

The sense of bonhomie, of being one with God. Oh Israel, you also put your hope in the Lord. For with Him is full redemption.

In Him is unfailing love. He will redeem you from all your sins. Ruth will lead us in a song that stems from this psalm.

It's number 215 in the supplement, Beyond the Overheads. Into your presence He calls us. He calls us to come.

Into your presence you draw us. Now by your grace we come. Now by your grace we come.

Only by grace, please join in. Only by grace can we enter. Only by grace can we stand.

Not by our human endeavor. But by the blood of the Lamb. Into your presence you call us.

You call us to come. Into your presence you draw us. And now by your grace we come.

Now by your grace we come. Lord, if you mark our transgressions, Who will stand? Say, to your grace we are cleansed By the blood of the Lamb. Lord, if you mark our transgressions, Who will stand? Thanks to your grace we are cleansed By the blood of the Lamb.

Only by grace can we enter. Only by grace can we stand. Not by our human endeavor.

But by the blood of the Lamb. Into your presence you call us. You call us to come.

Into your presence you draw us. And now by your grace we come. Now by your grace we come.

Would you like to turn to number 59 in supplement? It'll be on the overhead. Here is love, vast as the ocean. And if you have your finger in number 619, Such love, we'll sing that as well.

Here is love, vast as the ocean. Loving kindness as the flood. When the Prince of life, our ransom, Shed for us his precious blood.

Who his love will not remember? Who can cease to sing his praise? He can never be forgotten. Throughout hell's eternal days. Fount of crucifixion, Fountains open deep and wide.

Through the floodgates of God's mercy Flowed a vast and gracious tide. Grace and love like mighty rivers Poured incessant from above. And hence peace and perfect justice Is the guilty hold in blood.

Lord, if you mark our transgressions, Who will stand? Thanks to your grace we are cleansed By the blood of the Lamb. Lord, if you mark our transgressions, Who will stand? Thanks to your grace we are cleansed By the blood of the Lamb. Such love, pure as the whitest snow.

Such love, weeps for the shame I know. Such love, pain prepares my love. Oh, Jesus, such love.

Such love, still in my restlessness. Such love, weeps for the shame I know. Such love, still in my restlessness.

Such love, showing me holiness. Oh, Jesus, such love. Such love, bringing fraternity.

Such love, streaming through history. Such love, that's enough life for me. Oh, Jesus, such love.