In October, 1987, Walter Wyatt got into his Beechcraft airplane and took off from the Nassau airport. Even though thieves had stolen his navigation equipment the night before, he felt confident that he could make the hour long flight to Miami, and there he would file his insurance claim. After a few minutes, he flew into a thick bank of clouds, and that is when his compass began giving him incorrect readings. He dropped down until he was just above the ocean and began looking for landmarks, but he couldn’t see anything he recognized. Because of that he soon realized that he was off course. But he used his hand-held walkie talkie and was told he was actually only 6 miles off the Florida coast. That is when things went from bad to worse. The criminals who broke into his plane, not only stole equipment, they also damaged other components. Just as night was falling his motor quit, and the plane did a belly flop into the water. With a leaking life-jacket and a bleeding forehead, Walter bobbed around in the Atlantic for ten dark hours
In the morning, he started looking for airplanes, ships or sea shore, but he still couldn’t see anything. Yet there was something; it was the dorsal fin of a shark. He felt the very rough skin of the big shark brush against him, and then that one was joined by two others. He kicked at them, and they moved away but kept circling him. After another hour of worry and bobbing, he was nearing exhaustion. There wasn’t a thing he could do to help himself. He couldn’t walk on the water or fly. He couldn’t eat anything or drink the water. He couldn’t stop the bleeding. He knew that couldn’t keep the sharks from smelling his blood or eating him if they chose to.
And then he heard the hum of a distant aircraft. When it was about a half mile away, he took off his orange vest and began waving it. The pilot saw him, dropped a smoke canister and radioed the coast guard cutter Cape York. The pilot could see the sharks and told the Cape York to get there as quickly as possible. After what seemed like another hour, the Coast Guard arrived and pulled him out of the ocean, totally exhausted, but alive. Walter Wyatt had been saved. He didn’t follow any special rules, any twelve step plans, and he didn’t use any self-saving techniques. Nothing less than outside help could have rescued him. Without a doubt, he would have been dead in a few hours, but for the grace of God.
And grace is exactly what is necessary for the salvation of dying sinners in any ocean of life.
Some people think that its only in the New Testament that we find answers to the question: “How can a man be just before God?” But actually those words are a quote from the Old Testament Book of Job. Was Paul the first to say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved?” Was it necessary that Paul say, “Being justified by faith we have peace with God,” before it was so? Not at all: I believe that David, the penman of this Psalm, knew what it was to be justified before God. David not only enjoyed peace with God, but he was a friend of God and a man after God’s own heart.
People in every age have asked their equivalents to the question: “What must I do to be saved?” In nearly every book of the Bible we can read statements which sound like the words of Paul. And where we don’t read the actual words, we see pictures. Noah could preach the Gospel as well as John or Peter or Paul. Moses knew the doctrine of Atonement as well as any of the disciples of Christ. Isaiah 53 is a gospel sermon exactly as preached by the Lord Jesus Himself. Unexpected places, like Proverbs chapter 1, can give us the message of salvation from sin. “Salvation is of the Lord,” said Jonah. Salvation from sin is completely, entirely, effectually, initially and finally of God’s free grace. Just as Walter Wyatt had nothing to do with his salvation from the sea, neither does any other sinner.
But Walker did wave his orange vest; he did fend off a few sharks, and he did keep his head above water. But did these things save him? No, the U.S. Coast Guard saved him. And by the way, the Coast Guard saved him from the effects of his own foolishness, just as it is with any other sinner.
This morning I would like to wave the orange life vest that we find in verses 4 and 5. Without the Lord we are at the point of death. We may be bobbing in the water, but for all intents and purposes with the sharks circling, we are dead. And for many, it is when they reach the point of spiritual exhaustion that they become desperate for the Lord’s intervention.
If you’d like peace with God, may I suggest that you “STAND in AWE before Him and SIN NOT.”
What is it to be in awe of God? David uses an interesting Hebrew word. Only once is it translated “to be in awe.” Most of the time our Bibles render it “to tremble” or “to shake with fear.” For example, after Habakkuk was given a prophecy about the Lord’s upcoming judgment, he said, “ When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.” When God’s prophet heard what the Lord was going to do to sin and sinners, he stood in awe, trembling from the core of his being.
What is it to be in awe of God? It is to have an understanding of who we are in the light of who God is. Moses expresses his awe, and the awe of others, as he sang about his awesome God in Exodus 15: “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed (the Egyptians). Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people (of Israel) which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina… Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O LORD, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased.”
God has revealed His hatred towards our sinfulness – towards each of us in our sins. From the aftermath of the very first transgression of Adam, God has shown His anger. The Lord is not disappointed with sin; He is not upset by sin; He is not saddened or depressed by sin. God is furious against sin and against His creation which continues to sin against Him. Look across the page at Psalm 7:11-13: “ God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, (God) will whet (or sharkpen) his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.” It is essential before God for sinners to recognize that they are sinners. They need to stand in awe.
Some people think that God has been like some evil congress, enacting a bunch of laws to make their lives miserable. The moral laws of God were never designed to make any of us miserable. They were revealed – not enacted – to show to us the nature of the heart of Jehovah. They are to help us to stand in awe before the Lord. If the law ends up making someone miserable that is a good thing because it prepares him for rescue. It would be silly to think Walter Wyatt didn’t want to be plucked from the sea. But the presence of three hungry sharks made the approach of the Coast Guard just a little sweeter.
On the other hand, it is a foolish and dangerous to think of God’s law as a ladder to heaven. Heaven is too far and any earthly ladder is too short. The law is not a crutch to lean upon, it is too sharp and would simply slice us open if we tried. And the law is not a system of government like the code of Hammurabi.
The law is an illustration of the heart of God, designed to make us tremble before Him. It reveals the perfect righteousness of the Lord. I Peter 1:15 quotes God in the Old Testament and says, “Be ye holy, even as I am holy.” That is about as good a summary of the law of God as anything you’ll ever find. Leviticus 11:44 says, “For I am the Lord your God, ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves.” Sinai was a symbol of that law, and only those bidden could touch that mountain without dying. In Isaiah’s vision of the throne room of God there were angels, there was incense. The doors of the place shook, and there was the sound of praise everywhere. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah heard and saw it all, then standing in awe before God said, “Woe is me for I am undone.” That vision accomplished its purpose in Isaiah, “Stand in awe, and sin not.”
To stand in awe encourages and enables us to humbly look up into the face of God.
David went on to say, “commune with your own heart… and be still.”
Now this is the dangerous part of my message this morning. There is a sense in which David’s heart might be likened to the human liver or perhaps the gall bladder. One job which your liver performs is to filter your blood, detoxifying it. Almost all the blood in your body passes through the liver. And as it does, that ugly organ breaks down such poisons in your system as drugs and alcohol. Your gall bladder, which is connected to the liver, goes on to break down excess fats in your system.
There is a sense in which your heart filters and captures all your sins. But it isn’t honest in its reports. When your liver or gall bladder begin to fail, there are tell-tale signs, giving you options to correct things. But your “heart is deceitful and desperately wicked?” – Jeremiah 17:9. Walter Wyatt, while bobbing up and down in the Atlantic, could commune with his heart and recognize the danger he was in. But until the Holy Spirit applies the Word of God to a person’s heart, the average sinner is not going to be convinced of his desperate condition.
This is why the preaching of the gospel is so important. The ministry of God’s Word provides all the diagnostics necessary to reveal the heart’s true condition. If the Spirit is using blood tests, the results come back that we are children of Adam and the poison that man introduced into his system has been passed on to us. If the Lord runs us through a spiritual CAT scan or a heavenly MRI machine, they both reveal that our hearts are fully corrupted by sin and its curse – black and spiritually dead. Proverbs 28:26 says, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.”
Without the Lord’s diagnostics, in communing with our heart we will hear it say such foolish things as: You’re not any worse a person than your neighbor, your boss, your uncle or that man you heard about on the news last night. While that may be true, the deception comes in hiding the fact that all of those people are bobbing around in the sea beside you with their faulty life vests, blood in the water and sharks nearby. Your heart may tell you that you have done some pretty good things during your life. You’ve successfully flown from Florida to Nassau in the Bahamas. But will it honestly tell you can’t possibly finish your journey? Your heart may try to say that God is fine with you in your current condition. But what is your condition? You are facing certain death if you aren’t rescued. On what grounds has your heart based those revelations? Not on the Bible, the revealed heart of God. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually.”
Of course, I am going to agree with David that we all MUST commune with our hearts. Because it is absolutely essential our heart be engaged in our rescue from the sea of our sins and judgment. It is “with the HEART man believeth unto righteousness” – Romans 10:10. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” – John 3:16. And the preceding verse tells us whosoever believes on Christ will not perish, but have eternal life. Jehovah is faithful, and He has an perfect record at rescuing souls which are drowning in the sea of sin’s judgment. The Saviour said in John 5:24 – “Verily, verily, I say unto you…” This is absolutely trustworthy. “He that heareth my word, an believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.” And the Apostle John added, I have written these things, “that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” – John 20:31.
Commune with your heart and ask it in the light of what the Bible says, if your soul is really as safe as your tiny life vest is telling you?
The third thing David tells us is: Offer the proper SACRIFICE and put your TRUST in God and His grace.
“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.” Just because something appears to be good or religious that is not a guarantee that it pleases God. The eldest son of the first family chose to made a religious offering to Jehovah with something which had not been approved by God. Since those were early days and the Lord’s lessons had not be taught, retaught and reiterated, Cain’s offering was merely given no respect by the Lord. There has never been a time following that day when God showed any regard to offerings which He had not proscribed. In fact, time and time again, the Lord judged those who brought offerings to Him of their own design.
I won’t take you through the history of man’s use of sacrifices, because far more important is the conclusion of it all. When the Son of God came into the world, sent forth by God the Father, as the son of Mary He came to redeem sinners “that we might receive the adoption of sons” – Galatians 4:4. So when God’s transitional prophet, John the Baptist, saw Christ Jesus, he declared, “Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” John recognized, through God’s special revelation, that Jesus was to be the final and ultimate sacrifice. “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” – Ephesians 5:2.
Paul deals extensively with this question of sacrifices of righteousness versus unrighteous sacrifices. In Hebrews 10 he says, “It is NOT possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Those were offerings Israel had made to God for centuries, but Paul said they were no longer acceptable. “In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin (God now) has no pleasure.” Today, “we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” “This man (Christ) after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” “For by one offering he that perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
Conclusion
Here is the point I am trying to make: You and I, along with all the rest of mankind, are sinners in the sight of God. We are dead in trespasses and sins, bobbing our way through life, pushed by the currents, just awaiting the end. We may swim a bit, catch a few rays of the sun, enjoy the passing fluffy clouds, but the sharks begin circling the very moment we enter the pool of life. It is essential that we recognize our condition and our imminent danger. “It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment” which our sins deserve.
But a righteous sacrifice has been made. It was made by God himself. And whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Salvation is found in Christ; deliverance from sin and wrath of God is to be found only in the Saviour.
So as David says, “Stand in awe, and sin not; commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” Then “offer (by faith) the sacrifices of righteous, and put your trust in the Lord.” Is your trust for deliverance firmly fixed upon the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus? I plead with you, “Repent before God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”