Please open your Bibles to Psalm 130 for our scripture reading this morning. Psalm 130. There are moments in our lives when we are reminded that God is wholly different from us. Wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y, different from us. He is entirely other. There are times when we realize more acutely than others, that God is most holy, that He is completely and utterly righteous and good. And I think it's in those moments that we see not only God's holiness and his perfection, but we see something of our unholiness and our imperfection and contrast to that. And in those more honest moments, moments when we're seeing God more for who he is, we're seeing ourselves more for who we are. In those moments, the words of the psalmist in verse three here can haunt us. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? And as we come to this psalm this morning, I want us to spend a few moments looking at this honestly frightening question from the psalmist. And then I want us to lift up our eyes and to look at the delightful answer that he provides for us. So let's look again to verse three. The psalmist says this, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? And here we find one of those rhetorical questions that we find often in the scriptures where the answer is given in the question itself. I don't doubt that, although some of our youngest children may not know what each of these words mean, I think they know the answer to this question. just by reading it. The psalmist is saying here, if God should mark iniquities, then no one could stand before him. The answer is given in the question. But what does it mean for the Lord to mark iniquities? Well, the word iniquities is in reference to our sins. So we need to be clear that when the psalmist is speaking here of marking iniquities, he's not simply talking about your personality flaws. He's not talking about the quirks that make you, you. He's not talking about your morally neutral imperfections. Instead, what he's speaking of is sin. He's speaking of your violation of God's law, of your acts of rebellion against God and against his holy will. And if the Lord should mark them, if he should keep them, if he should retain them, if he should mark them down permanently in the ledger book of your moral actions and then recall them to mind on the day of judgment, the psalmist is saying, if the Lord would do this, who could stand? Again, the answer is implied. No one could stand, no one could remain, no one could endure at the judgment seat of Christ if, if the Lord were to mark iniquities. And please note that no one here means exactly that. It means no one. The psalmist doesn't exclude himself from this reality and he doesn't exclude you or me from this reality. If you were to stand before the Lord clothed in your own merits, clothed in your own righteousness, you would fall, you would crumble before him. And we see here in this frightful question why the psalmist in verse one is crying out to the Lord from the depths. the light of God's holiness shines into the darkness, and what does it do? It exposes the sinfulness of mankind. And because the psalmist is conscious of his own sin, because he knows that God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, because he knows that darkness has no fellowship with light, The psalmist knows that he could not stand before the Lord if the Lord were to count his iniquities. He's been humbled to the dust, as it were. The psalmist has been made poor in spirit, and he cries out to the Lord from the depths of that poor spirit, as verse one says, from the depths. But I would submit to you that it's exactly from this position of weakness and humility that the Lord is pleased to hear the cries of those who are in the depths of their sins. Saints, do you have this type of humility? And I was thinking as Pastor Jerry was giving us the call to worship, There's a sense in which not just our holy affections can be dimmed over the years, and with constant exposure to these truths, and we can just have our spiritual senses dulled. Part of that is our humility as well. We can begin to grow prideful. We can begin to forget that the reason that we are able to stand before a holy God is because of his grace alone. And so I think we need to read this and we need to cultivate that spirit of humility. And as we see here in verse three, the best way to cultivate that personal humility is to set our eyes upon the holiness of God, to meditate on the great gulf that separates him and his perfection from us in our sinfulness. And I would encourage you to Gaze upon God and upon His holiness and upon your sinfulness, not out of some morbid sense of introspection where you're going to fix yourself, but I want you to do it, especially if you're in Christ here this morning, gaze upon God and His holiness in hope, knowing that the Lord inclines His ears to the cries of those who are deeply humbled before Him. And as we continue on here, what we see is that the humility of the psalmist does not lead him to despair, but it leads him to hope. So verse three, he asks this frightful question, and then we move into verse four, and he gives us a delightful answer, if you will. Look with me there to verse four. The psalmist continues, but with you there is forgiveness. And here in this verse is the balm for the wounds of self-reflection. Here in this verse is the solution to the iniquity that each and every sinner has, and that solution is forgiveness, mercy, pardon, exoneration, acquittal. This is our greatest need. And friends, it may sound like a cliché, And I know after years and years of hearing these truths, it sounds like old news. We heard it again this morning. It sounds like a platitude to us at times. Our greatest need is to have our sins forgiven. But I want to remind you again this morning afresh that it's not a platitude. It's not a cliche. It's not old news. It is the most relevant thing for each and every one of us in this room. And as much as we may desire good things in this life, and I'm not discounting the goodness of some of these things, as much as we may desire them, our greatest need is not economic prosperity. Our greatest need is not physical health. Our greatest need is not material possessions. Our greatest need, as much as I don't wanna go to war or see any of you go to war, our greatest need is not for our country to be at peace with other nations. Our greatest need is that we as individuals are at peace with God. And the good news of verse four is that with God, there is forgiveness. But notice that detail, with you. Forgiveness is not sourced from various places. It doesn't come from your own merits or good works. It doesn't come from your baptism or the Lord's Supper. It doesn't come from your parents or family members. It doesn't come from the Pope or bygone saints. Forgiveness only comes from the Lord. But with you, there is forgiveness. And the means of obtaining this forgiveness is spelled out to us quite clearly throughout all of scripture and praise God for that. Another Bible verse that sometimes we can read and we can say, that's old news. We can say it or we hear it sometimes and interpret it as a platitude. But friends, think about the significance of this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. That is not a platitude. The Lord Jesus Christ said of himself, I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. And I would submit to you that the whole of the Bible testifies to this truth, that there is salvation in no one else besides Jesus Christ, because there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So if you have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and obtained the forgiveness of God, then I would encourage you, follow the example of the psalmist and wait upon the Lord in hope. I would encourage you to persevere through the hardships, through the depths, if you will, of this life, waiting upon the Lord in hope. Now at times, if we're honest, we struggle with this tension. We know that we've been forgiven on one hand, yet at times we find ourselves truly in the depths, wondering if the Lord is for us or against us. And saints, I want you to know that your forgiveness is sure. Because of Christ, you can stand confidently before the Lord on the last day, but I also want you to know that in this life, you will never be completely removed from the depths of sin. Now to be sure, the guilt of sin is removed from you. The power of sin over you has been removed, but the effects of sin will not be completely removed from you in this age. And I don't only mean the effects of your personal sin. Certainly our personal sin carries consequences that we have to bear the burden of. But I'm not speaking only of the effects of your personal sin. There is much suffering that we endure in a fallen world that is not the direct result of our personal sins. And we would be mistaken at times to interpret it like that. There are frowning providences that we endure in this fallen world that are not the direct result of our personal sin, and these effects will remain until the Lord returns. Accordingly, for that final deliverance from the depths of sin, we must wait. And for this, we groan inwardly with all of creation as we wait for adoption as sons. The scripture says, as we wait for the redemption of our bodies, as we wait for the glory that is to be revealed to us. But believer in Christ, you can wait in hope, you can wait in confidence, you can wait in full assurance, knowing that as we read in verses seven and eight, with the Lord, there is steadfast love and with him is plentiful redemption. and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. But for those of you this morning who are outside of Christ, if your iniquities are still marked by the Lord, for you to enjoy the forgiveness that is in God, you must humble yourself, you must flee to the only mediator that is between God and man. You must run to the one who is the way, who is the life, who is the truth. And if you're gonna do that, you have to look at yourself honestly. You have to see yourself, you have to see your sins in the light of God's perfect holiness. You have to see that you are in the depths of sin and that you in no way can stand before God safely. It's not a safe thing for you if you are outside of Christ to die. Pastor Jerry mentioned just a moment ago on the call to worship that there are some people here who are not ready for Christ's return. It also stands that there are some people here who are not ready to die. So there are two ways that this life can come to an end, that this age can come to an end, as it were. And if you are outside of Christ, you're not safe. It's not safe for you to die. So what I want you to do is to hear this and not to be discouraged. I don't want you to despair. I do want you to see the seriousness of this. I don't want you to try to work harder, to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, as it were, to pull yourself out of the depths of sin so that you can somehow stand before God in your own righteousness. That's not what I'm asking you to do. But instead, I want you to recognize that your job as a sinner is to understand that you need a Savior and to go to the only Savior of sinners, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Your job is to believe in Him. That's it. And he says, anyone who comes to me, I will never cast out. So do you believe that promise? If you do, go to Him. And I promise you, He will not cast you out. Well, if you're able, please stand as we read the word of God together. Psalm 130. Hear the word of God. A song of a sense. Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? but with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning, more than the watchman for the morning. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Amen. May God bless the reading of his word. You may be seated.