It's always good to see God's people in God's house on Wednesday night. And I enjoy preaching to the Wednesday night crowd because you're here because you love God's word. And it's easy to preach to a crowd of people that love the scripture. Take your Bibles out tonight, open to Psalm 120. As you know, we're studying these Pilgrim Psalms. I pray to the Lord that you're being blessed by it, that you're being encouraged, helped, helping me to study these things and learn some things that will give me strength for the journey. And hopefully that's doing that for you, too. Psalm 130, and follow along as I read these verses with this. Verse 1, out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Verse 2, Lord, hear my voice and let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall 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 waited for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. 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. I love that phrase, plenteous redemption. And then verse 8, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. John Wesley, the great 18th century Methodist evangelist, was ordained into ministry in 1728. But by his own admission, he wasn't converted to faith in Christ until 1738, ordained in 1728, and converted in 1738. So for a full decade, Wesley labored as an evangelist, preaching on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet he himself, by his own admission, was lost. However, on May the 24th, 1738, Wesley attended St. Paul's Cathedral there in London, and he heard Psalm 130 sung as an anthem. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? Deep conviction came over his heart because that thought so deeply penetrated him. How could he find acceptance with God? If God kept a record of our sins, who can stand? And later on that night, he went to a small group Bible study with a group of people that were reading Martin Luther's commentary on the book of Romans. And they were reading the introduction to the commentary on Romans. And Wesley heard the message of justification by faith. And he believed. And he later records that his heart was strangely warmed. And that was the moment when Wesley was converted to Christ. But the thing I want you to see is that God used Psalm 130 to open Wesley's heart to the gospel of salvation. Martin Luther also loved Psalm 130. He called it a Pauline Psalm. And the reason he called it that is because of the message of forgiveness and grace, apart from human works, that one finds when you read through and study through this psalm. In fact, this is one of the best Old Testament explanations of God's grace, His forgiveness, the way of salvation, anywhere in the Old Testament. And that's why Luther loved it, and that's why he also wrote a hymn based on it. Let me give you some of the words. From the depths of woe I rise to Thee, the voice of lamentation. Lord, turn a gracious ear to me and hear my supplication. If Thou iniquities dost mark, our secret sins and misdeeds dark, O who shall stand before Thee? Now, Psalm 130 is called a penitential psalm. In fact, it's one of seven psalms that are categorized as a penitential psalm. And it's categorized like that because this, along with the other psalms named, express deep sorrow and mourning over sin. And these psalms were sung on special occasions during the Middle Ages in the church. Now, if you notice Psalm 130 that we read, notice that it starts out really in despair. and it moves upward and it ends in hope. And so it starts out in the depths and it progresses steadily upward until, as Derek Kidner writes, at the end there is encouragement for the many from the experience of the one. And so really Psalm 130 in itself is like a psalm of ascent because it moves upward Throughout the four verses there are, I should say four stanzas, there are two verses in each stanza, and so we have eight verses with four stanzas, two verses each, and it's constantly moving upward. Now notice where it starts in verse one, it starts out in the depths. Now we have to ask ourselves a question, what is the depth that he's referring to here? The Hebrew word here refers to being caught in dangerous and deep waters. It gives the image of an ocean and a man who's drowning beneath the waves of the ocean. What is it that brought the writer to these depths, to these dangerous waters? Some commentators, like Eugene Peterson, say, well, what it's describing here is suffering. But I think that misses the point, with all due respect. I think what the psalmist is talking about here is sin. And the depths that he's talking about is he is wrestling with the guilt that comes with sin. He's wrestling with the shame that comes with sin. And he wants forgiveness. And he's tired of bearing this weight of sin. I agree with the great Puritan writer, John Owen, who wrote this. He cries out under the weight and the waves of his sin. So he deeply recognizes the depths of his own sinfulness. And let me just say, beloved, I think that today we have lost the sense of sin. We've lost the awareness of sin. Let me give you a quote from Boyce. I think he has a good word here. He said this, we live most of our lives with very little awareness of God. And where God has been abolished, an awareness of sin is also abolished, because sin is only defined in relationship to God. Think about what he's saying. It's so very true. We live in a society today that is trying to abolish God, that doesn't want to think about God. They don't even want to acknowledge that there is a God. But if you abolish God, along with that, you abolish sin. You know why? Because how is sin defined? It is defined as a transgression against God. And if you abolish God, then you have no sin. And if there is no sin, then guilt is looked upon as a negative and destructive emotion. And that's exactly the way society views guilt today. It's to be ignored. It's to be silenced. Guilt is to be eradicated. It is to be removed. It is a destructive, negative thing. In fact, there was a bestseller that came out years ago called Your Erroneous Zones. It was written by a man by the name of Dr. Wayne Dwyer, and he was one of the most influential voices in trying to decry this idea of guilt altogether, trying to get rid of this idea of guilt. And he named guilt, this is what he said, as one of the most useless of all what he calls erroneous zone behaviors. According to Dr. Dyer, guilt is nothing but a neurosis. He says guilt zones must be exterminated, spray cleaned, and sterilized forever. Now, how do you do that according to this man? This is what he says you do. He says, do something which you know is bound to result in feelings of guilt. And then what do you do after that? You defy those emotions. You ignore those emotions. You forget those emotions. He goes on to say, attack that sense of self-disappointment head on. He said it's to be ignored. It's to get rid of it. But friend, you know what guilt is? Guilt is an emotion that comes from a healthy conscience. And guilt is designed to drive a soul to God. If they'll do that, if they'll allow that. But what our society today is doing is it's trying to silence the conscience. It's trying to say there is no such thing as sin. And guilt is to be ignored. And friend, people who believe that message are in a very dangerous position. You know what this psalmist teaches us? What to do with our guilt. Where should we go when we wrestle with guilt and shame that comes with sin? And so what this psalm basically does is it exalts the forgiveness of God. It shows us what a precious thing it is to have the forgiveness of God in our life. Because that's the only way to deal with guilt, beloved. We have to go to God. We have to repent before God. We have to find cleansing with Almighty God. And so this exalts the fact that we have a God who is a God of forgiveness, and again, it shows us how precious it is to have that. Now, based on that then, I want you to see just how the forgiveness of God just will produce four effects. in a person's life, all right? And that's the sermon, just four effects that should happen as a result of understanding how wonderful it is to have the forgiveness of God. Here's the first one. Write down number one, repentance. How should we respond to God's forgiveness? With repentance. Look again in verse one. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. And so this first stand to the psalmist is turning to the Lord with this repentant heart. He longs to be free from the guilt of his sin. And what we learn from verse one is this, to cry out to God for mercy, you must feel the depths of your sin. You have to feel that to cry out for his forgiveness. I believe that there are, by the way, we have been taught as believers rightly that when we sin, we are to go to God and confess that sin. And we are taught 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us. And we are to use that. Beloved, I believe that. But I also would like to say that I think sometimes we use that flippantly, almost as a get out of jail free card, without thinking about the depth of sin. For example, I read about a pastor who overheard two college students talking, and they were talking about some horrible sins that they had committed, and one of them said very fitfully, yeah, I messed up, but I just confessed 1 John 1, 9, and now it's all over with. And he moved on. And, friend, I think if we're not careful, we can be a little bit too careless about just confessing 1 John 1, 9 without first thinking about the seriousness of sin. There's a sense in which we should feel the weight of sin. We should feel the depth of our sin. And let me just tell you this, that when you have an understanding that God is a holy God, you will feel that weight of sin. We understand that God is a God who hates sin. And sin is what put our Savior on the cross. Then we won't treat it with such a careless attitude. We should feel the depth. of our sin. John Newton, that wild man that was tamed by the Lord Jesus and wrote the song Amazing Grace that we love to sing, talks about how the Lord saved him out of an incredibly wicked lifestyle and he wrote his autobiography and the name of his autobiography was Out of the Depths. It's kind of a play there because at one time he was rescued from drowning in the sea But he uses that analogy to speak about how God had rescued him from the depths of sin. And as a man who saw and felt the depths of sin, he understood also the holiness of God. And again, that is kind of a relationship there. Once you see and know our God is a holy God, you will feel the depths of your sin. And I think the psalmist feels that. You can see that emotion in verse number one. I think of Isaiah, who when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, what is his first response? He said, oh, woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. The very first thing that he felt was his own depth of sin. C.S. Lewis put it like this. He said, when a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. But I want you to see also that no matter how low you may be, you can cry out to the Lord. Look in verse 2. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. And so there's an emphasis here of calling out to God. And in these eight verses, he uses the word Lord eight times. Several times he uses a divine name, he's calling out to God, and you can see the intensity there, the fervency there as he cries out to the Lord for his forgiveness. And so the first response is there needs to be genuine repentance. Genuine repentance. But here's the second thing. Not only repentance, but also write down reverence. Reverence. Look at verse number three. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Now, here's a reason we should be drawn into wonder, love, and praise to God. It's because, beloved, God does not give us what we deserve. Look at the word mark there. It's a word that means to hold one accountable for sins, to observe, to keep a record of. And so the statement there in verse 3 raises the question, does God keep a record of our iniquities? Well, yeah. God doesn't have amnesia. He knows everything that we do. He sees every thought. He sees our heart. He knows the motives of our heart. He knows everything we do. Write down Psalm 90, verse 8. Thou hast said our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. Friend, God sees and knows everything that we do. But what the psalmist means here, if the Lord were to tally up all of my sins, if God were to take all of my sins and then hold me accountable for all of my sins, you know what that means for me? That means I'm done. That means I don't have a chance. I'm done for if God ever does that. There's sometimes people will who don't know the Lord, they'll think, well, you know, in the day of judgment, you know, I've done some bad things, but I've done some good things. And, you know, in the day of judgment, I'm basically a good person. You know what? You don't understand. You don't understand how God sees sin. Have you ever stopped to think how a holy God looks and if he did, Make us accountable for every sin, what that would look like. That's an incredible thought when you think about it. Just think about this. Try to add up in your mind all the past sins that you may have committed in a month. What would you think the number would be? I'm talking about all the sins of commission and omission, things that you should have done that you didn't do, things that you shouldn't have done that you did do. You ever try to think about that? Let's just say sometimes when I'm witnessing to a person, trying to get them to understand their need of a Savior, I'll use this illustration, I'll say, let's just say that I've committed three sins a year. Let's just try to add up our sins. I've committed three sins a year. I say year. Three, yeah, right. Three sins a day would be more what I'm talking about. Three sins a year, yes. Everybody sing together. Holy, holy, holy. Three cents a day. Now, that would really average out to about a thousand cents a year. So a thousand cents a year, if you're 30 years old, that's 30,000 cents. But really, they say three cents a day. That's giving me a lot of credit. More like three cents an hour or three cents a minute. Think about that. Have you loved God with all your heart, soul and mind and strength? You know, that's commanded in Scripture. And do you do that all the time? And you realize when you're not loving God with all your heart and strength and mind and you're not doing that, you're disobeying Scripture. That's a sin. Do you ever think about that? Have you ever have you loved your neighbor or family as yourself with no hint of selfishness? Have you put the axe immediately to every prideful, lustful, and greedy thought that you've ever had? Or have you dwelt on those? And we can go on, but you get the idea. If we start adding up our sins, not for just this past month, but over our whole lifetime, if God did that, and He numbered every one of our sins, and He held us accountable for every one of our sins, then the question is, who can stand? And the answer is, of course, none of us. If we got what we deserved, we would all be doomed. And this is the very thought that devastated the peace of Martin Luther. He had a legal background before he became a priest. So he had this legal mind. And he started numbering all of his transgressions. And then he understood from the scripture that God was a holy God, and he would not let one half of one sin ever go unpunished. And that began to dawn on him in his mind, and he began to add up his sins. And that's why, as a young priest, a young Catholic priest, he would go into confession, and he would spend six hours in confession. And then the very next day, he would go back in and spend five more hours in confession. And his superiors thought, he's just trying to get out of work. But that was not the case. He understood that God was holy. And he understood that God punished sin. And that thought terrified him. And all of this was before he understood the momentous truth of justification by faith that our God forgives based on what Jesus Christ has done on the cross. And when he came into realization of that, it was like he had said in his own writings that it was like he entered into the portals of heaven. And that was so very true. Notice the good news that's in verse number four. This is what he saw. And by the way, this is why Martin Luther so loved Psalm 130 because of what is said in verse number four. Notice what it says. But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. There is forgiveness with thee. Now, notice the word but there. That is one of the greatest contrasting conjunctions in all of Scripture. But There's forgiveness with thee. Lord, if you were to hold us accountable for all of our sins, who can stand? But there's forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Now, I think this verse here is one of the greatest verses in all of the Old Testament. And I think it's comparable to Ephesians chapter two. Remember when the Apostle Paul, after he told us that we were dead in our sins, writes, but God being rich in mercy, And in the great love wherein he loved us when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, he made us alive. What an incredible contrast there. There is forgiveness with you. And notice the next phrase. This is very interesting. That thou mayest be what? Be what? Be feared. That's interesting that the psalmist says that. We would think that he would say there is forgiveness with you that you may be loved. And by the way, we do love God for his forgiveness. But notice the first response that the psalmist says, there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. You know, every once in a while we hear someone say, well, if God's grace is true, then we can just send all we want to. And they use grace almost as a license to go out and live however they want to. I would suggest to you that anyone who even thinks that way needs to examine whether they're really a believer. Because when you understand the forgiveness, the incredible forgiveness of Almighty God, when you understand that, the proper response is not one of revelry, but reverence and fear, that thou mayest be feared. You see, you're not going to want to go out and sin. You're going to have an awesome understanding of that forgiveness, and it will lead you to greater godly living. Titus 2.11, I quoted this Sunday night, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly. in this present world. The very first response we have is a reverential fear that leads to holiness and God in living when we truly understand the magnitude and the depth of the forgiveness of God. And so there is repentance. There's reverence. Let me give you the third idea here. There is restoration. Restoration. Look at verse five. I wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait. And in his word do I hope. My soul waited for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they that watch for the morning. Now, in these next two verses, which is the third stanza of this psalm, the psalmist is now waiting on the Lord. And notice the beautiful imagery that he gives here, a watchman waiting for the dawn, waiting for the dawn to come. Now, we have to ask three questions here. First of all, what is he waiting for? Now, again, Peterson says he's waiting for deliverance from all his trouble. But again, we saw that this is not talking about suffering, deliverance from suffering. This is talking about sin. And he's not waiting for forgiveness. Why? Because in verse four, he already has that forgiveness. It's obtained. And forgiveness is not a feeling. It is a fact based on the Word of God. It's a fact that we obtain by faith. And so he has forgiveness. We don't have to wonder because it tells us in verse six what he's waiting for. Look at verse six. My soul waited for who? For the Lord. Who's he waiting on? He's waiting for the Lord. He's saying what way sin always strains our fellowship and our sense of closeness with the Lord. You know, you can't lose your salvation, but beloved, you sure can lose your fellowship with God and you can lose blessings. You can lose intimacy. You can lose closeness with the Lord. And so you know what the psalmist is waiting for? He's waiting for that sense of God's presence in his life, that sense of intimacy that he knew formerly before the sin, before the guilt and the shame that came with that sin. And that relationship was severed and cut off, and now he's waiting for that sense of restoration. You know what I'm talking about as a Christian? You ever have that sense of intimacy and closeness and it's wonderful? And your heart is filled with joy and peace? You know, the only thing that can take that joy away and take that presence away and that peace away is when sin gets in between. And it's gone. And instead there's guilt and there's shame. And so now he is waiting for God's assurance that he is his child. And he's waiting for that presence again. Why does God make him wait? Ever ask that question? Why does God make us sometimes wait for things like that? Well, because first of all, waiting exercises are patience of faith. You're looking at the most impatient person there ever was. And so God loves to make me wait, but it helps us in our faith, but also it gives us time to prepare us for the coming gift. And also, in this sense of God's presence, You know, if we're not careful, we can get to where we don't really value that sense of intimacy and presence and fellowship with God. And sometimes God will make us wait to let us know how valuable it is to have that sense of fellowship and presence with the Lord. It makes the blessing sweeter when it arrives. And then he makes us wait because it shows us that he's in control and he'll give it when he pleases. when he's ready. Not our time, but at his time. And all of this causes us to submit to the Lord. And so we see then that what do we wait for? We're waiting for that sense of presence, that sense of intimacy. What is the basis of our waiting? Look again in verse number five. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I what? I hope. The whole basis of this is God's word. You see, we have the promises of the Word of God that when we confess our sins and we ask for forgiveness, God forgives us. But not only that, He restores us and He brings us back into that wonderful place of fellowship and blessing. That's all based upon the promises of God's Word. And so what He's waiting for is for that presence, but He's waiting based upon the Scripture, the Word of God. Matthew Henry said this, we must hope for that only which he has promised in his word and not for the creatures of our own fancy or imagination. We must hope for it because he has promised it. And that's so true. The basis of our hope is the promises of God, not something that we think of in our own fancy, but the promises of the word of God. And then the next question is not only what do we wait for and what is the basis of our waiting, but how do we wait? And this is where we see the imagery that's used here. Look down at verse number six. My soul waited for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they that watch for the morning. Now, the psalmist uses this analogy of a watchman that is waiting for the dawn of the morning. And notice that it's repeated, and that's for emphasis. That's to make us stop and think. And the idea here is a watchman. Think about this. You know, every city had a wall, and on the wall there were towers, and in those towers were watchmen, and they would watch out for the enemy. And sometimes you had night shift, if you were a guard, and you would have to, through the night, from midnight on in to the early morning hours, you would watch. And you know, you got to some of these watchmen, they would just get to a point to where they just wanted the dawn to come because they knew that when the dawn came, their shift was over and they were done. And so they were longing for the dawn. You ever have a third shift job? Anybody ever work from midnight till morning? I did that once in college. And I want to tell you, that is not easy. In fact, there's a verse in the Bible against the night cometh when no man can work. And I'm not sure that's exactly right in the context, but I think that there's something there about that. The night cometh when no man can work. And I remember sometimes I was in an engineering plant, and I was just working through the night, and not far from where I was working was a window. And I can't tell you how many times I'd look out, waiting for the sun to come, because I knew that when the dawn came, it was time to get out of there. And I just longed for that. But you know what? I knew the dawn was coming. It was certain that it was going to come. And that's the idea here. The main idea is that we should wait expectantly and with certainty, knowing it's going to come. God has promised it. It's going to come. And so we should wait with this renewed sense of the Lord's presence, after we have asked for His forgiveness, and after we have experienced His forgiveness, and we want that fellowship restored, that presence restored, we wait for it like a watchman waiting for the dawn, full of eager expectation, knowing that it's going to come, knowing that that restoration is going to come. Maybe you're here tonight, you say, man, I have struggled with sin and I've asked God for forgiveness and I want that fellowship back, that restoration back. Well, beloved, wait, it's coming. It's going to come. God's going to bring that. And here's the fourth and final thought. Not only repentance and reverence and restoration, but lastly, think about redemption. Redemption. That's the theme of these verses. Look at verse seven and eight. 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." Did you notice here the psalmist is encouraging others to place their hope in the Lord for forgiveness? Let Israel hope in the Lord, verse 7. You know, when you've been in the depths of sin and you've been washed And you experience that freedom of forgiveness. You know the first thing you want? You want others to experience it. I want others to know that. I want other people to know the forgiveness that Jesus has given me. Isn't it wonderful to see other people experience that same thing? This is exactly what the psalmist is saying here. He is hoping that others will do the same. Let Israel hope in the Lord. And the basis for hoping in the Lord is that with Him there is mercy. Look in verse 7. For with Him there is mercy. With Him He is plenteous in redemption. And so the word mercy here, chesed, lovingkindness. I thank God that we have a God who is so filled with mercy and lovingkindness. Remember in Exodus 34 when Moses was before the Lord, Israel had just committed that monstrous You say, what did they do? The golden calf episode. Right after they agreed to worship God only, and they entered into a covenant relationship with God, and they said, you're going to be our God, and we're going to be your people, and we're going to be your chosen nation, and we're going to shine as lights in the world. Just a little bit later, they were worshiping a golden calf. And God said, you know, He threatened to destroy them. But Moses interceded and God said, OK, he's going to forgive him. And then Moses said, Lord, I want to know you. I want to know you're the kind of God that can forgive Israel, that you can restore Israel back to the previous position as if there was no sin at all committed. Is it possible, God, that you can forgive such monstrous sin and you can bring back such restoration to where a person was exactly where they were before the sin? And that's when the Lord gave this monumental revelation, where he said, the Lord God compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and truth. Here was God's self-revelation to Moses. And basically, he was saying to Moses, Moses, I want you to know the kind of God I am. And he uses the word here, kesed. And this is the same word that's being used here. For with the Lord there is mercy, kesed. And with him is plenteous redemption. I think this verse here is referring back to that incredible revelation that God gave to Moses, where God revealed that he's a God of forgiveness, who is a God of redemption. And so we move really from that of a watchman to that of a slave in the market. Redemption is God paying the price, paying the purchase price, to redeem a people unto himself. And beloved, that's what God has done for all of us. We are redeemed because of what Jesus Christ has done. And that's all based on the forgiveness of God. We belong to Jesus Christ. I read of a story of an orphan boy who was living with his grandmother and the house caught fire. And the grandmother tried to get upstairs to save the boy and died in the attempt. And as the boy cried out for help, a heroic man came in and he climbed up an iron pipe to get to the boy with the house ablaze, the pipe red hot. He climbed up this pipe and put the boy on his shoulders and came down that pipe and he rescued that child and then left. No one knew where he went. And then the day came when the public hearing was going to decide who the boy would live with. He had no one else. Many people from the town came. And they wanted to make a claim why they should have that boy and he could live with them. But a stranger appeared in the courtroom and it was a man and he showed the scars on his hands. It was the man who had saved the boy and the marred hands of that man settled the issue. Let me tell you something, beloved. The nail scarred hands of Jesus settled the issue for us. We belong to him. He has redeemed us. And notice what it says in verse eight. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. There's no sin that cannot be washed in the precious blood of Christ. And so there's forgiveness. And so we see then that this ends up on a beautiful high note. It starts out in the depths and then it ends up on a high note of the forgiveness of God where God can forgive all iniquity. There is no sin that you can commit that God can't forgive. One time I was preaching and a woman cried out. She said, I was talking about the forgiveness of God and she just spoke out and said, God can't forgive me. I said, ma'am, I don't know what you've done, but God can forgive you. And she said, I've committed murder. Can God forgive me? And I told her about how God saved Moses and used Moses and the Apostle Paul. And right there, she got on her knees and she prayed out of the depths. You talk about depth. She had a burden of sin and guilt and she prayed. And I want to tell you, when she got off her knees, she looked like a new person. That's the forgiveness of God. That's crying out out of the depths and knowing the redemption of Almighty God. And so when we understand the magnitude of God's forgiveness, it leads to repentance and reverence and restoration and redemption. I'll close with this. On the night before August 1st, 1830, there were some slaves in the British West Indies, and they never went to bed that night because they were told that at daybreak, when the dawn came, they would be absolutely free. They would be slaves no longer. And so thousands of them began to sing and praise God in their places of worship. And they would send a messenger up to the hill just to see when the first glimmer of dawn, the first ray of light raced over the hills, that person would let them know. And they would thank God that they were out of slavery. They were slaves no more. They were waiting expectantly for that. And beloved, when Jesus, the sunrise from on high, visits you, with the tender mercy of God, and you're forgiven. And you're no longer a slave to sin, but you're redeemed. You'll have the same sense of praise and rejoicing in your soul. Let's bow for prayer together. Let's bow for prayer. Father, we thank you that our record has been destroyed, that you don't hold us accountable for our sins. If You did, Lord, who can stand? None of us could stand. But there is forgiveness with You. And Lord, the magnitude of Your grace and forgiveness, it just causes us to love You and reverence You all the more and praise You. Lord, we thank You that You remember our sins no more. And Lord, I pray that You'll help us to never treat sin lightly in our life. May we feel the guilt of sin. May it drive us to you for your forgiveness. May we once again realize how precious our redemption is through the blood of Jesus Christ that paid for our sins. Lord, may the truth of this song cause us to fear you more, to love you more, to praise you more. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. And I just want to ask, perhaps you're here, And maybe you're in the depths right now. Maybe you're feeling the weight of sin. That guilt is just beating you down, and you feel the shame of sin. Well, friend, the good news is that, thank God, you have a healthy conscience that speaks to you of sin. And it's not an accident. God has put that in you. You know why? Because He wants you to come to Him. Let that guilt drive you to God. That's why He gave us a conscience, so it will drive us to Him. God is the only place where you can find forgiveness, and that guilt can be cleansed with the precious blood of Christ. Are you tired of the weight of sin? Friend, would you come to Christ? Maybe you're here tonight, maybe that's your condition. Would you be willing to cry out of the depths that you're in? And go from the deaths of guilt to the mountaintop of praise, knowing that your sins have been forgiven because of Christ. And friend, if that's your heart's desire, would you be willing to pray right where you are? Just say, God, forgive me. Cleanse me with the blood of Calvary. Cleanse me. I know that I'm a sinner. I don't deserve it. And Lord, if you mark my sins, I could never stand before you. But I thank God that you're a God of forgiveness. And I thank you that you forgive me because of Jesus. So forgive me for my sin and cleanse me. And friend, you can experience the freedom, the joy of God's forgiveness. Father, take these words to our heart. Thank you again, Lord, for the magnitude of your grace. We pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen.