Out of the Depths | Psalm 130

Some of you know who Carl Truman is.

He's a theologian, a historian, an excellent author

with a background from Westminster Theological Seminary.

And years ago, you may know this,

Carl Truman wrote an article that shook up

the church world.

It definitely shook up a number of church leaders,

because this was the title of the article,

listen to this now, What Can Miserable Christians Sing?

How many of you have turned to that article and go,

I need to see what that says?

What can miserable Christians sing?

Here's the reason he wrote this article,

in his own words, quote,

this article was intended to highlight

what I saw as a major deficiency in Christian worship

in both traditional and contemporary approaches.

The absence of the language of lament

and the understanding that life is a

sad, melancholy, painful dimension,

which is too often ignored and sometimes even denied

in our churches.

You can see why that shook people up.

He goes on, what songs can be sung honestly

by the woman who has just lost her baby?

Or the husband who has just lost his wife?

Or the child who has just lost a parent

when they come to church on a Sunday?

I saw nothing in our singing that would help

a struggling saint if he or she had come to church

with their hopes dashed.

And that's true, the vast majority of singing

being done in churches today is designed to be nothing

but upbeat and celebratory.

Happy, happy, joy, joy, all the time.

And that's a concern for men like Carl Truman.

And it's a concern for men like Carl Truman

and it's a concern for us here at Oak Hill

that there is a deficiency in that type of worship.

But honestly, Christians as a whole

shouldn't be surprised by this.

This is what the American church has been sold

for probably 50 years now.

In fact, it's the blueprint that's written

in all the books on church planting and church growth.

People don't wanna feel downcast is what the books say.

All the experts say that.

They wanna break from the difficulties of life

so when they come to church,

make them feel good.

Always move them towards celebration

because if you're always talking about good things

that will always draw a crowd.

And if you wanna grow your church,

your staff and especially your worship leader

has to understand this principle.

Make sure they do everything always

in the direction and the category of exciting.

larger churches in our country out there.

And by the way, not just in worship,

Exciting.

but in preaching too.

And sadly, that's been the formula

Hard passages get skipped over.

Difficult truths get shelved in favor

of practical teaching that brings

what quote encouraging word every single Sunday.

And the result is predictable.

We have a watering down of our church

a lot of people who are not gonna be able to

do what God says on Sunday.

And the result is predictable.

We have a watering down of our systematic understanding

of what God's word says.

And what breaks my heart is how many people

with good intentions, by the way,

will wander into a church like that.

A big church that is selling this

constant celebratory feel.

And they walk in, they don't even realize

that what they're being fed is not necessarily good for them

for real life.

Truma goes on in his article, he says,

quote, I have been increasingly aware of the power of liturgy

to shape the mind of a Christian congregation.

The things that we say and sing

as a congregation will over time

subtly and gradually inform our thinking

about the Christian faith and thus about life in general.

A liturgy which accurately reflects

the expectations we have for life

in a fallen world is critically important

as a means of preparing our people

for the suffering that must eventually come their way.

And then he goes on to suggest something near and dear to us.

He says, quote, God has given the church a language

which allows it to express even the deepest agonies

of the human soul in the context of worship.

The Psalms.

The church which makes the Psalms part of a regular diet

provides our people with resources for truly living

in this veil of tears.

To that I say amen.

So God has been kind to give us the Psalms

as part of his book of hymns

so that we have something to always sing to him

even when our hearts are broken and downcast.

When we're struggling in life and we come to church

or just come into the presence of God in private,

it's not only okay but proper to openly

and honestly cry out to him and to lay our anguish before him

and to lay our needs before him.

And in the midst of all that, the Lord will respond

and he will remind you of his promises

and he will lift your countenance and give you joy,

real joy, not the counterfeit joy

that is often served up in churches

that's brought about by emotional manipulation.

So grab your Bibles.

We're going to look at one of those Psalms this morning.

Psalm 130.

Psalm 130, like Psalm 127 that we looked at last Sunday,

Psalm 130 is another in this series that we call

the Songs of Ascent.

And if you missed the introduction of that concept,

go back and listen to last week's message online.

It is a Song of Ascent.

It's also classified among the seven penitential Psalms,

meaning it is a Psalm that's driven by the concepts

of confession and repentance.

Now we don't know who the author of Psalm 130 is.

It's anonymous.

But whoever did write it, we're going to read about

his personal testimony of how God rescued him

from the depths of guilt and despair.

And in keeping with this theme of a Song of Ascent,

metaphorically what we're going to see is the psalmist ascending,

think of a metaphorical staircase from the bottom rung of life

in despair up to a secure place of trusting in God

and great worship and thanksgiving.

So let's read.

A Song of Ascent, beginning in verse one.

Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord.

Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord,

who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord.

My soul does wait.

And in his word do I hope.

My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning.

Indeed, more than the watchman for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord.

For with the Lord there is loving kindness.

And with him is abundant redemption.

And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Now this Psalm has a long history,

both in Jewish life and in church history.

Psalm 130 was hugely important to Martin Luther.

In fact, at several crucial moments in his life,

Luther was known to gather his companions around him

and to ask them to recite this song with him

to drive out the enemy and to strengthen his resolve.

And for a man like Luther, if you studied his life, you know,

he was prone to depression, prone to despair.

And it was that phrase in verse one,

out of the depths that really meant the most to him.

He once famously referred to Psalm 130 as a Pauline Psalm.

Think about that.

Because right here in the middle of the Old Testament,

we see so many elements of the New Testament gospel.

Psalm 130 was also pivotal in the life of John Wesley.

And what's interesting is, Wesley had, if you don't know,

Wesley was English, but he served as a missionary in Georgia,

in colonial America in his day.

And he did that purely out of a love for his fellow man,

but as he acknowledged later on, he was not even saved.

During those years, he operated as a missionary.

But in May of 1783, he went to a worship service

at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

And guess what he heard?

He heard a choir singing a hymn called Out of the Depths,

the very words of Psalm 130.

And it moved his heart greatly as he listened to the words.

And then later that evening, he attended,

get this now, a reading of Luther's commentary

on the book of Romans.

And it was there that God moved in his heart.

What had happened was, he connected the Old Testament gospel

in Psalm 130, brought it together with Paul's exposition

of salvation in Christ alone in the book of Romans,

and it was that night that he bent his knee

and submitted his life to Christ.

So, great history behind Psalm 130.

Powerful, powerful.

Only a few verses, right, but very, very powerful.

All right, let's go back up to verse one.

And let's start with where the psalmist is coming from.

By the way, you may have noticed in your Bibles

that the psalmist alternates between two names for God.

Sometimes it's Lord in all capitals.

Other times it's Lord in standard size font.

And of course, the first, the capitals,

is his covenant name, Yahweh,

which always emphasizes God's faithfulness.

The other is Adonai, which emphasizes God's sovereign rules.

I'm gonna read those as we go through the rest of the way.

So, look at verse one again.

Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Yahweh.

Adonai, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

And other translations of that last phrase are

be attentive to my cry for help or be attentive to my pleas for mercy.

So, we're gonna look at some stares as we go up here,

as we look at the song of ascent,

and we're gonna walk through the steps that the psalmist walks through.

As Carl Truman pointed out, here we have a psalm

that does not begin with praise or worship or rejoicing.

Instead, where does it come from?

The depths of human despair.

The psalmist is bothered, troubled by something,

and he cries out for mercy knowing there's only one place he will find that.

I wonder, have you ever cried out like this in verse one?

Have you ever cried out, have you ever been in a place

where you cried out to God like this?

Listen, we all pray, we pray, but not all of us have found ourselves

in a circumstance where we cry out from this place of deep anguish.

And in moments like this, oftentimes you don't really know what to say to God.

You don't know what to ask for.

All you can do is look up as he does and says,

Lord, hear me and help me.

And the Father is gracious to hear just that simple prayer from his children.

And he will carry you through that moment,

even put the words in your mouth that you need to express your need to him,

because he knows your need more than you know it.

And he will carry you through that.

Now, this isn't the only example in Scripture where we have this type of depth of anguish.

In fact, we already read one of them this morning in our call to worship

from the story of Jonah.

Hear it again.

From the belly of the fish, Jonah says, I called out to the Lord out of what?

Out of my distress.

And he answered me, out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas,

and the flood surrounded me.

All your waves and your billows passed over me.

The waters closed in over me to take my life.

The deep surrounded me.

That's pretty deep right there.

He has gone to the very base.

Job is another great example, right?

In the midst of the excessive pain that he was in, Job says some pretty shocking things.

Listen to his despair.

He cursed the day of his birth.

May that day be one of darkness.

May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it.

Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.

Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?

My groaning comes at the sight of my food, and my cries pour out like water.

Then you read what the sons of Korah wrote in Psalm 88,

some of the darkest language in the entire Bible.

O Lord God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you,

for my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit,

like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more.

That's again very, very deep.

And this level of despair isn't just in the Old Testament.

It happens in the New as well.

Paul says this of himself and Timothy writing to the Corinthian church,

for we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia,

for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed we felt we could receive the sentence of death.

And of course, similar thoughts are written all over the record of church history.

So many we could take the next hours and go over all the examples in church history.

But one example that I've read multiple times that really strikes at me

is the story of a missionary by the name of David Brainerd,

who during the colonial period in America quit university life at Yale

in order to go do mission work among the native tribes.

And Brainerd suffered from everything that you could possibly imagine.

Illness, extreme hunger, loneliness, and a constant struggle to see any fruit at all

produced through his tireless mission.

And sick and exhausted, here's what he wrote before the Lord called him home at the age of 29.

Here's what he wrote,

I am so overwhelmed with depression that I knew not how to live.

I longed for death exceedingly, my soul was sunk in deep waters.

I want to share this with you for one purpose.

Crying out to God from the depths should not be considered unusual for God's people.

In fact, in most generations, it hasn't been unusual for God's people.

We don't always realize that because you and I have lived very comfortable lives in this generation.

But the historical record tells us that even for believers, life is hard.

Sometimes it's very short and very brutal, being in danger, being sick, being persecuted,

has always marked the lives of God's greatest servants.

And so this type of prayer that we see in Psalm 130 is really not as unusual as it first looks.

And if you haven't been in the depths yet, there's coming a day where you will be.

To some degree or another, you will someday be in the depths.

That's why knowing this Psalm,

that's why knowing the stories of saints who have gone before us, who suffer greatly,

but were counted faithful in the end, it is so important for us to carry these things with us

for the day when it happens in our lives.

And I know that sounds scary.

We're not asking for that to happen, but it will happen.

But I can share this bit of good news with you.

When you do come through a time in the depths, life on the other side looks very, very different in a good way.

It may take time, but your trust in the Lord will grow through that.

It may take time, but your sensitivity to the Spirit's voice will get louder.

And it may take time, but your abiding with Christ will become sweeter.

As hard as the depths are, God ultimately intends them for our good.

And Spurgeon talked about this. Here's how he put it.

He said, prayer is never more real and acceptable than when it rises out of the worst places.

Deep places beget deep devotion.

Of those who have cried out to God, the majority would say, I owe it to the depths.

I learned it there.

And that's the work that God does through us and in us when we go through hard times.

Now, what is the crisis here that has driven the author of Psalm 130 into these depths?

Well, recall that in some of the other Psalms we've looked at, there's been all kinds of crises that the psalmist have talked about.

Threats against their lives, oppression, physical sickness.

But this one is very unique.

In Psalm 130, the crisis is driven by the author's awareness of just how deep his depravity is.

And how guilty he knows he is before God.

Think about that.

Look at verse 3.

He says, if you, Yahweh, should mark iniquities, if you kept an account of our sin, O Adonai, who could stand?

That's what he's contemplating here.

Here's a fact that most of us prefer not to think about very often.

This is something that we tend to push aside.

There is no greater reason for a man to be in distress than when he contemplates his life before a perfectly holy God.

Now, we don't want to think about that often, do we?

In fact, most of society pushes that whole idea out of its mind.

But that's when we might find ourselves in distress.

I can point to Isaiah, for example.

Isaiah is a great example.

Do you remember what he discovered?

He's given a vision and he's thrust suddenly into the presence of God.

How does he react to it?

Here's this great prophet of God being commissioned for ministry, a very godly man, more godly than me.

I know that for sure.

And suddenly he sees God seated on his throne.

And what's his reaction?

Oh, this is nice.

This is a godly man.

He says, woe is me, for I am ruined.

Because I'm a man of unclean lips.

I'm a sinful man.

And I live among a people of unclean lips, sinful people.

And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

He is undone.

In that moment, Isaiah is in the depths, just like the psalmist in Psalm 130.

He's aware of how sinful he was in the presence of perfect holiness.

Now, we're not given the event or the conditions that caused the psalmist to do this self-examination.

But for whatever reason, he is asking this terrifying question.

Are you ready?

What if God dealt with me as I deserve?

That's the terrifying question that he is bringing to his own heart.

What if God dealt with me according to what I deserve?

This is the biggest, deepest crisis the human soul will ever have to face.

If we stop our hectic lives long enough to consider it, and most don't.

Most people never even consider that.

But the truth is, if we consider it, we will realize that we all deserve judgment and wrath.

And that's no failure on God's part.

It's due to our own iniquity.

We put ourselves in this position.

A wise man once said, we have met the enemy and he is us.

This is why Augustine, after he got saved, famously prayed, Lord, save me from myself.

Some of you guys know who Ligon Duncan is.

Wonderful pastor.

He tells the story of a conversation he once had with John Piper.

They were at a pastoral conference together, both speakers.

And Piper said to him, you know, I've never been bothered about the truthfulness of Christianity

because of attacks against the Bible.

It's never bothered me.

And Duncan thought, that's a remarkable statement.

This is a guy who did his PhD in New Testament.

He's heard every attack against the Bible, and yet none of it has bothered him.

And then Piper paused and he said, but you know what does give me doubts?

My own lack of progress in sanctification.

In other words, it was being aware of the depths of his own sin that caused John Piper

the most discomfort in his life.

The most discomfort in his walk with Jesus.

And this is what the psalmist has figured out.

He knows the same truth.

We sang it earlier.

We are not what we should be.

No true believer is ever satisfied with where he's at with holiness,

or his zeal for the things of God, or the pace of his sanctification,

because our sin is ever before us.

And there are times, and this is what the psalmist is dealing with,

there are times in your life where you step back and you say,

man, if I realized if God dealt with me according to my record, I would be toast.

And that raises an interesting question.

Does God keep a record of all of our sins?

I mean, is there a list up in heaven somewhere of all the things that you and I have done wrong?

Think about what a nightmare that would be.

Every sinful thought, every sinful word, every sinful deed recorded for all of eternity,

and not just sins of commission, things we've actually done,

but sins of omission as well, meaning things that we ignored,

commands that we failed to get around to do,

commands that we did far below the standard required.

If you added up all of your sins in just the past few hours,

you could not stand before the judgment seat of God.

Just in the last few hours.

Now, is God aware of each of our sins?

Of course, he's omniscient, and he doesn't suffer from amnesia.

But the Hebrew word here for Mark in verse 3, Shammar, is a very interesting word.

It's very specific. It means to keep, guard, or watch over.

So the question being asked by the psalmist in verse 3 is this,

Lord, if you keep careful track of my sins, if you watch over my sins,

if you preserve this list of my sins, then I cannot possibly stand in your presence.

Right? Who could?

Nobody, right? That's the answer. Nobody could.

And so the hope of the psalmist is this, that in his mercy,

and that's the key word for this morning, in his mercy,

God will not mark his sins in this way.

Otherwise, he realizes what his future is.

He's going to be just like Jonah, sinking into the abyss of Sheol.

That's the crisis.

So now we come to verse 4, right?

Got to understand what's happened.

He's lamented. He's now explained the crisis.

Verse 4, he's longing for salvation.

And what does it say?

That there is forgiveness with you.

Do you see the but?

Is that the famous but from Ephesians 2, but God?

Here we see it in the Old Testament.

But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared.

What an amazing statement.

Listen, when you come to a place when you're overwhelmed by the immensity of your sin,

and that's not a bad thing, by the way,

to step back and be overwhelmed by the immensity of your sin,

and you're in the depths of despair, this is the remedy.

The important thing to do in that moment is to resist the temptation

to believe the lies of the enemy,

and to focus your mind and your heart on truth according to what God has said in his Word.

And what has he said?

With him there is forgiveness.

Because when we're struggling like this, in that anguish, what do we tend to do?

We tend to get fleshly, and we begin to think,

oh, I'm awful, I'm terrible, I could never be loved.

And we believe these lies because the enemy is just howling at us.

But the remedy is to believe what God has said in his Word.

With him there is forgiveness.

I shared earlier, Luther loved this Psalm.

In his commentary on it, he brings out this same point.

Here's what he says.

He says, the devil comes and howls at you,

and tells you that your doom is sealed and your damnation is sure.

Folks, expect that.

Prepare for that.

Put on the armor of God, because the enemy will howl at you.

But there is forgiveness with God, Luther said.

And that was his hope.

Now other human beings may not forgive you if you've sinned against them,

but there is one who will forgive.

And in the new covenant age that we live in right now,

that forgiveness comes through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

And it comes by God's sovereign grace and through faith alone

in Jesus' sacrificial death and resurrection.

With God, with Christ, there is forgiveness of sins.

And this is so important to say.

It is critical for everyone here this morning to hear this.

And anybody who listens to this message later online, listen now.

Notice that the psalmist puts no hope in himself here.

Not in any way.

There is no hope in himself.

He doesn't say in verse four,

but for those who obey you there is forgiveness.

He doesn't say, but for those who strive to do their best,

there is forgiveness.

There is no mention here of him being worthy of being forgiven.

No mention of him being, well, I'm better than most people.

No mention of his good works in the past.

No mention of him promising to do better in the future.

He simply points to the character of God and says,

there is forgiveness with you.

That's where he puts his hope.

His hope is in the nature and character of Yahweh.

Paul, by the way, makes the same point in Romans 9.

He begins by quoting from Exodus 33 and he says,

the Lord said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then, check this now, so then it does not depend on the man

who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

That's who God is.

He alone has mercy and he will have mercy on whom he is pleased

to have mercy.

And to some extent, we have messed this up in the church,

at least in the time that I've been in the church,

wanting so badly for people to quote, get saved,

encouraging them just to pray a prayer of salvation.

We have subtly communicated to people that forgiveness happens

because of us, because of our decision,

because of the strength of our faith.

Like so many other things, we've made it about us.

Now, I'm not saying that our decisions don't matter

or that our faith doesn't matter,

but look at the truth in Romans 9.

It does not depend on the man.

The decisive factor is the Lord, for he has mercy.

We need to get that right.

We need to get our theology of salvation right.

By the way, why does God forgive any of us?

Isn't that really the biggest question?

For a people like you and I who fall so short of the standard

of holiness, why would he forgive us?

The answer is the same.

It's because of who he is.

It's because of the character and nature of God.

Recall how he described himself to Moses up on Mount Sinai.

Yahweh, Yahweh-el, compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness and truth,

who keeps loving-kindness for thousands,

who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin,

yet he will be by no means leave the guilty unpunished.

Guys, understand, this is an incredible moment

in scriptural history where Moses says,

show me who you are, and God says, this is me.

So look carefully at it.

You want to know who God is?

This is about as a direct answer as you'll find.

And what you see here are two of his greatest attributes.

Number one, yes, he punishes the guilty.

He is a perfect judge.

But number two, he is compassionate, gracious,

and forgiving, and those things do not contradict.

All of humanity is guilty before him.

All deserve punishment,

but because there is forgiveness with God,

we can place our hope, not in us, not in anything that we do,

but in him alone and trust that he will be merciful and save us.

Which means we should revisit the way David approached this

in Psalm 51, because if there is an example

of how to do this well, how to look at this issue

of my guilt but God's compassion,

you cannot do better than David.

He says, be gracious to me, O God.

I mean, if you want to, tomorrow morning,

if you want to say a prayer, turn to this passage.

Let it be a model for you.

Be gracious to me, O God.

He doesn't come to him with his, you know, how much he's,

how worthy he is, how much he is owed anything.

He says, Lord, I just need grace.

Be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness

that is according to who you are,

according to the greatness of your compassion,

blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity

and cleanse me from my sin.

Look at that next line.

For I know my transgressions.

He's not hiding anything.

He's not trying to camouflage his goodness.

I know them.

My sin is ever before me.

How many of you guys feel like that?

Every day, my sin is ever before me.

It's okay.

God knows.

It was true of David as well.

It's not okay to push it out like it doesn't matter.

Let your sin be ever before you.

Why?

So that you will appeal to God for his mercy.

Against you and you only, I have sinned

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified when you speak

and blameless when you judge.

So David says, I deserve your wrath,

but Lord, I'm asking for your grace

because this is the only plea that I have.

Don't deal with me as I deserve.

Deal with me according to your steadfast love.

Guys, this is the heart of the gospel, is it not?

Right in the middle of the Old Testament.

Now, did you catch the last phrase in verse four?

There's forgiveness with you that you may be what?

What?

Feared.

Now, does that look wrong at first glance?

Here's what you might expect.

There's forgiveness with you so that you might be loved.

That you might be worshiped.

But listen, being forgiven ought to lead you and I to fear God.

And I mean fear in a biblical sense, not in a worldly sense.

We're not to be afraid of our Father in heaven

once we've been saved,

but when he forgives our sins, we should fear him in the sense

of having greater love for him and greater respect for him

and greater honor for him and greater reverence for him.

And that is by his design because when he lavishes us

with his mercy, it humbles us.

And it wrecks any pride that we have in our own goodness.

It destroys our own self-righteousness.

And as a believer saved by grace, you fear God

because you know something is true.

And here's what it is, that he has every reason to condemn you.

But instead he's willed to forgive you and to save you.

That's a healthy fear, isn't it?

Now what you really fear is the thought of not loving him

as fully as you ought to.

That's a totally different fear, isn't it?

Thomas Adams, the great Puritan said,

no man more fully loves God than the man

that is most fearful to offend him.

This week I read an amazing historical account

that took place back in 1833, the time when

the Christian influence in British Parliament

convinced the nation of England to abolish slavery,

not just in the homeland but throughout her colonies.

And on the night before that act of abolishing slavery

was to take effect, historians of the country

say that the slaves in the British West Indies

never went to sleep.

Instead they went to their houses of worship

and they spent the night singing praises to God

and waiting for daybreak.

Because when day broke they knew that their time in chains

would finally be over.

And tens of thousands of these slaves waited

and watched that night.

Can you imagine the feeling of that?

Tomorrow I'm free for the first time in my life.

And just before dawn they sent a few messengers

to climb to the top of a few select hills

so that they could signal to the rest

as soon as daylight had arrived.

Out of the depths of slavery they were now free.

And with that in mind, look at verses five and six now.

I wait for Yahweh,

my soul does wait,

and in his word do I hope.

My soul waits for Adonai more than the watchman for the morning,

indeed more than the watchman for the morning.

So what is the psalmist waiting on?

There's lots of opinions on this

and it's not entirely clear,

I'll give you my opinion in just a moment,

but the first thing we should say is what it can't be,

he's not waiting on forgiveness,

because forgiveness is not something

that God just dishes out over time.

It's either present from him or it's not present.

So I think this is a multilayered thing.

By the way, that's not uncommon in scripture

to have a present day meaning

and a future eschatological meaning,

but first in the present,

the psalmist is waiting for a renewed sense

of God's presence and love.

He's had this cleansing time of confession

and now he's looking for the presence of God's love.

Because friends, here's the truth,

unconfessed sin strains our fellowship with God.

It puts up an obstacle between him and us.

But confession and repentance does the opposite.

It restores and rebuilds intimacy with God,

and I think that's what the psalmist is now longing for.

And I think that's borne out by the reference,

repeated reference, by the way,

that his soul is waiting like a watchman.

He is watching for and anticipating God's mercies

that he knows are new every morning.

He's looking for daybreak for a fresh start with God

now that he has cleansed himself.

He has laid himself before the Lord and said,

there is forgiveness.

Have you ever experienced that?

When you've been engaged in sin,

you've been in a desert period, you've been far from God,

and you know why.

It's not because God moved.

It's because you've been in sin,

and you've put up an obstacle between you and him.

Your fellowship is broken.

And then you come to him and you have quiet time,

and you say, Lord, I have got to get this off my chest.

Now, did he know already?

Of course he knew.

But that quiet time of honesty and transparency,

of laying your sins before him

like a father might do or like a child might do to his father.

And when you're done with that,

you look forward to that next morning

to this renewed sense of cleansing and refreshment

as you walk into your day.

I think that's in the present,

that's what the psalmist is waiting on.

But then there's the second layer of meaning,

and that's the ultimate one, the eschatological one.

The psalmist waits for that day of salvation.

And we all do.

We wait for the ultimate salvation.

Like those slaves in the West Indies,

we look forward to the day of freedom

for that time when sin will be no more.

We will not be affected by the enemy.

There will be no sinful inclination in our heart.

We will have true freedom.

There will be no more anguish,

no more time in the depths when we're with the Lord.

But until that moment, look what the psalmist does.

He says, my hope is rooted in what?

In verse 5.

In your word.

What he means by that is in your promises.

My hope is rooted in the promises

that you have given to your people.

And as we gather here this morning, guys,

this is our hope as well.

What are the promises that God has given us in His Word?

Promises of cleansing, promises of forgiveness,

promises of mercy, promises of redemption,

and ultimately, eschatologically,

a promise to save us forever and ever.

And just like the watchman,

the psalmist knows that even though the night drags on slowly,

how many of you guys have ever worked nights?

Oh, it moves slowly.

I was once a security guard in college

who worked the night shift.

Man, it moves slow.

But you know what?

Every single day, morning comes.

It's a certain hope that daylight will come.

And friends, that's how we should wait and hope.

Even today, Jesus will return.

And when He does, we'll be changed forever,

and that is a certain hope.

It's the nighttime now, but morning is coming.

Morning is coming.

Okay, quickly, last two verses.

Get this now, the psalmist has gone from the depths of despair

to the heights of forgiveness and joyful anticipation,

and now he cannot just stop with himself.

He knows that others in Israel are where he was at.

They need forgiveness too.

So verses seven and eight are his appeal

to his brothers and sisters.

Oh, Israel, hope in Yahweh.

For with Yahweh, there is loving kindness,

and with Him is abundant redemption,

and He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

So I love all the theological language in this very short psalm.

First of all, forgiveness.

Second of all, loving kindness.

And third, we get this beautiful word, redemption,

to be bought back.

Redemption.

And not just redemption, but what kind of redemption?

Abundant, plentiful redemption.

Luther comments on this as well.

Although our sin is great, yet His redemption is greater.

Now, do you see that quote?

It's the inspiration for a song that we love to sing here at Oak Hill.

Our sins, they are many.

His mercy is more.

Straight out of Psalm 130.

So as we wrap up, I want to make an appeal

to anyone here this morning,

anyone who might listen later online,

to anyone who has no assurance,

no assurance that your sins have been forgiven

as you sit here.

Look at Psalm 130.

Look at the staircase.

I want to put it back up.

See how at first it brings us face to face

with the harsh reality,

the depths of our sin.

But then how it ascends up to the heights of salvation,

where we come to this wonder and amazement

about God's mercy and grace and forgiveness.

Make sure you see both ends of that,

because that is the human experience.

Both the bottom rung and the top rung.

And what a journey.

Paul says in Romans 7, you know this verse,

O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me

from this body of death.

That's in the depths.

That's the bottom rung.

But then Paul gives us the answer.

What's the answer?

Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That's who will deliver us.

That's how you get from the bottom rung to the top.

Who can stand?

The psalmist asks.

Well, John tells us who can stand.

The man who has Jesus at his side

as his advocate, pleading his case before the Father.

That's how you stand in the courtroom

when you've got Jesus as your advocate.

Though we do stand guilty in that courtroom,

Christ intervenes on our behalf,

and he offers to the Father his righteous life

and his sacrificial death as our defense.

Can you believe that?

Can you believe that?

Does that not cause you to fear God?

And if we're covered by his blood,

the Father then imputes the righteousness of Jesus to us.

And then he takes our sin and puts it on Jesus.

That is the most glorious exchange

you've ever heard in your life.

Man.

No one, not even our howling enemy,

can bring a charge against a child of God

who is found in Christ and has Christ as his advocate.

Friends, that's the only hope we have.

Just like David, that's the only plea we have.

The mercy and the grace of God with Jesus at our side.

So if the list of your sins remains on your record,

you cannot stand.

You will not stand when that day comes.

So before any more time passes,

to anybody who doesn't have assurance this morning,

before any more time passes,

discover right now what the psalmist has said.

There is forgiveness with God.

And that forgiveness is found only,

only through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Let's bow our heads.

Father, we do thank you for the beauty of this short

but powerful psalm that you have chosen to gift to your church

as a means of helping us to understand

these two important things,

how truly guilty we are before you,

but how much forgiveness there is

when we put our trust in you.

And that we would see both ends of that ladder

from the bottom rung to the top.

And that we would lay aside our pride

and our self-righteousness or any sense

that we might be owed something from you

or that we've earned anything

and just throw ourselves on the mercy of your throne.

And you will meet us there and you will love us

and you will care for us and you will adopt us forevermore.

Lord, if you kept in account of iniquities,

who could stand?

I pray that every person who can hear my voice this morning

will put their faith in Christ

and have him as an advocate before the judgment seat.

Father, we're overwhelmed by your goodness in this.

We fear you, we revere you, we honor you, we respect you,

and we worship you.

And pray that we'll do that well,

even in the last couple of songs that we sing,

that your name might be lifted up.

Thank you again for this time.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.