Sermon series: A SUMMER IN THE PSALMS

Psalm 130
"Out of the depths have I cried to You, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice; let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat us according to our sins, O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You [just what man needs], that You may be reverently feared and worshiped.
I wait for the Lord, I expectantly wait, and in His word do I hope.
I am looking and waiting for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, I say, more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is mercy and loving-kindness, and with Him is plenteous redemption.
And He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities."

MESSAGE

Psalm 130 is a profound psalm, and because it is a profound psalm, it has been profoundly treated! And the reason for these extensive treatments is that many of God's people down through history have considered this psalm blessed and have loved it as a result. It is blessed because it contains a penetrating statement of the gospel.
Most of us know the story of John Wesley's conversion on the evening of May 24, 1738, when he attended a meeting in a little nonconformist chapel on Aldersgate Street in London and heard someone reading from the Introduction to Martin Luther's work on Romans. It was the occasion when he described his heart as being "strangely warmed." What is not so well known is that on the afternoon of that same day Wesley attended a vesper service at St. Paul's Cathedral, in the course of which Psalm 130 was sung as an anthem. Wesley was greatly moved by the anthem, and it became one of the means God used to open his heart to the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ!
Martin Luther loved Psalm 130. He called it one of the Pauline Psalms (with Psalms 32, 51, 143) because of its offer of forgiveness by grace apart from human works. In fact, it is one of the best expositions in the Old Testament of the way of salvation by grace on the basis of Christ's atonement. Luther wrote a fine exposition of this psalm as well as a hymn based on it.
The hymn begins:
From depths of woe I raise 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?
Psalm 130 is a penitential psalm, the sixth of seven. It starts in the lowest depths of despair, but it progresses steadily upward until, at the end there is encouragement for the many from the experience of the one. In this sense Psalm 130 is itself a literal Song

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of Ascents, for it climbs from the abyss of depression to the high ground of steadfast hope. We see this progression mirrored in each of the psalm's four stanzas as they deal in turn with sorrow over sin, forgiveness, faith in God, and testimony.
The psalm begins with the writer in "the depths" or, as the Latin says, de profundis. In Hebrew being in "the depths" refers specifically to being caught in dangerous and deep waters. Psalm 69:1-2 reads: "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; and floods engulf me." What is it that has brought the writer of Psalm 130 into this dangerous condition? SIN! He cries out under the weight and waves of his sins. This the ensuing psalm makes evident. Desiring to be delivered from these depths out of which he cried, he deals with God wholly about mercy and forgiveness; and it is sin alone from which forgiveness is a deliverance. The doctrine also that he preached upon his delivery is that of mercy, grace and redemption, as is manifest from the close of the psalm.
Our problem today, especially in appreciating a psalm like this, is that most of us do not have much awareness of sin. We live most of our lives with very little awareness of God, and where God has been abolished an awareness of sin is inevitably abolished also, because sin is defined only in relationship to God. It is "any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God."
WE NEED TO RECOVER A SENSE OF SIN! We need to discover how desperate our condition is apart from God. We need to know that God's wrath is not an outmoded theological construct but a terrible and impending reality. We need to come out of our sad fantasy world and begin to tremble before the awesome holiness of our Almighty Judge!
The psalmist is deeply disturbed with a tremendous sense of guilt over his sins.
HOW DO WE DEAL WITH GUILT? One way is by denial. We simply refuse to admit its existence. Another way is through rationalization. We admit that we are guilty, but we immediately blunt the edge of our confession by pointing out all of the extenuating circumstances that have conspired to make us this way. If we can't blame our parents or our teachers, we blame the government or our genes. Another way to deal with guilt is by relativization. We simply point out that everyone else is thinking or doing exactly what we are, and that we aren't so bad. When we find worse examples than ourselves, it makes us look better. By this we also take the spotlight off ourselves and put in on someone else, much to our relief.
There is another way to deal with guilt, however, and this way gets to its roots! This is by admission, confession, and forgiveness! One advantage of this way is that we don't have to carry the guilt anymore. Since this way is healing, it is God's way, and our psalm witnesses to it. Before God we can not only be relieved of the guilt of our behavior; we can also be relieved of the guilt of our fallen existence. This is freedom indeed!

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I SAY IT AGAIN...WE NEED TO RECOVER A SENSE OF SIN!
Man calls it an accident; God calls it an abomination.
Man calls it a blunder; God calls it a blindness.
Man calls it a defect; God calls it a disease.
Man calls it a chance; God calls it a choice.
Man calls it an error; God calls it an enmity.
Man calls it a fascination; God calls it a fatality.
Man calls it an infirmity; God calls it an iniquity.
Man calls it a luxury; God calls it a leprosy.
Man calls it a liberty; God calls it lawlessness.
Man calls it a trifle; God calls it a tragedy.
Man calls it a mistake; God calls it a madness.
Man calls it a weakness; God calls it willfulness!

The late Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman used to tell of a Methodist preacher who often spoke on the subject of sin. He minced no words, but defined sin as "that abominable thing that God hates." A leader in his congregation came to him on one occasion and urged him to cease using the ugly word. Said he: "Dr. Blank, we wish you would not speak so plainly about sin. Our young people, hearing you, will be more likely to indulge in sin. Call it something else, as "inhibition' or 'error' or 'mistake' or even 'a twist in our nature.'
"I understand what you mean," the preacher remarked and going to his desk brought out a little bottle. "This bottle," he said, "contains strychnine. You will see that the red label here reads 'POISON.' Would you suggest that I change the label and paste one on that says, 'Wintergreen?' The more harmless the name the more dangerous the dose will be!"
The psalmist writing our psalm cries out in pain and urgency to God for forgiveness...his sin is sinking him deeper and deeper into despair and desperation.
Suppose you are aware of your sin. Suppose you are one of those apparently rare people in our day who truly are troubled by their many great wrongs and transgressions. Suppose you are in the depths. Where can you turn for help? You will not find it in yourself certainly, any more than the writer of this psalm found it in himself. The only source of help for you is God, and in His mercy, at that. You need to prostrate yourself before Him and ask for help! If you are looking inward, you are only going to sink deeper and deeper into the black abyss until you are lost forever. What you need is God, who alone is able to pull you out, set your feet on a rock, and establish your goings. The psalmist knew he needed God, which is why he called out: "O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy."
Charles Spurgeon, in his commentary, writes these words on this verse: "This is the psalmist's statement and plea; he had never ceased to pray even when brought into the lowest state. The depths usually silence all they engulf, but they could not close the mouth of this servant of the Lord; on the contrary, it was in the abyss itself that he cried unto Jehovah. Beneath the floods, prayer lived and struggled; above the roar of the billows rose the cry of faith. It little matters where we are if we can pray; but prayer is never more real and

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acceptable than when it rises out of the worst places. Deep places beget deep devotion. Depths of emptiness are stirred by depths of tribulation. The more distressed we are, the more excellent is the faith which trusts bravely in the Lord, and therefore appeals to Him, and to Him alone."
LORD, HEAR MY VOICE! The cry for God is the natural utterance of the awakened soul of man in every land and age. It may not always be an intelligent or conscious cry, but a seeker after God man has always been and must ever be, because from God he comes, and with a nature so constituted that only in God can he find his full and final satisfaction and rest. The surface of his life may often appear to say one thing, and its depths quite another thing, but it is the cry from the depths that reveals what he truly is and what he most needs. Outwardly he may seem to long and cry for other things more than the presence of God, and to find his peace and joy in them; but when his soul is moved, in all those crises which throw light on the inner state of his being, the cry for God is seen to be fundamental, and his longing to connect his life in some way with the life of the invisible and eternal world an irrepressible longing which tends ever to rise into a strong and intense passion. LORD, LET YOUR EARS BE ATTENTIVE TO THE VOICE OF MY SUPPLICATIONS.
Out of the deeps I cried to Thee;
There in the depths Thou heardest me,
And, swift as a lightning flash,
Thy love compassed me round in the dark and dread
Like the peace of God, and the bright winged dove
Of Hope came fluttering round my head.
And the clouds shone fair with Thy radiant face;
And my vision of faith could dimly trace
The ways of God; and my dull despair
Melted in light since my Lord was there.

Out of the deeps to thee I cried,
And, straight from the Cross of Him who died,
Thy searchlight cleft the shuddering gloom
And found me broken, and bruised, and lost.
And the Voice that rent the prison-tomb,
And stilled the fear of the tempest-tossed,
Spake with a music earth never knew.
And the wonderful hand of mercy drew
My feet to the Rock; and darkling night
Fled at the dawning of God's own light!

It is told of Pascal that often he seemed to hear God saying to him, 'Thou couldst not seek Me had I not already found thee.’ Yes! we seek God because He has first sought and found us. The cry out of the depths is more, therefore, than a mere human breathing; it is itself a Divine inspiration. Our pure unselfish longings for truth and goodness, our prayers for union with God, are, as Paul taught long ago, the Spirit making intercession for us—that highest human voice which is ever one with the Divine voice rising from the depths of our humanity and speaking through our spiritual needs!

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The most central truth of our religion is just the helpfulness, the lovingkindness, of God. This is the heart of the religion of the Hebrew poets and prophets. This, also, is the message of Jesus Christ, to whom God was the Eternal Shepherd of souls, who seeks until He finds. It is the message which the Church has been repeating age after age, clearly or faintly, in differing and often confusing phrase: God is with us—with us in the deepest depths, with us in our greatest humiliations, our bitterest sorrows, with us to forgive and save, to strengthen and comfort.
Our Psalmist becomes overwhelmed with the MERCY OF GOD! "If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat us according to our sins, O Lord, who could stand?
Because God's heart is open to him with mercy and love, the psalmist knows that his cry is not in vain. As he thinks about God and his sin, there are two alternatives.
The first is that God will note every sin that we commit and hold us accountable. The second is that God, knowing our sin, will accept responsibility for it and forgive us. The psalmist reflects: "If You, Lord should mark [keep...that is, keep account of] iniquities [deviations from God's path], O Lord, who could stand?"
If, as the Pharisees thought, God has a great ledger up on which He writes our credits and debits, our account would be so lopsided that we would fall before His justice. The guilt would be so heavy that our punishment would be certain. The other alternative, however, is the true one: "But there is forgiveness with You."
Here is the gospel! We are in the depths. Our guilt is before us. We cry to God, and He hears us and comes, not with judgment but with forgiveness. This we know supremely in the face of Jesus Christ. It was He who stood before the woman taken in the act of adultery and said, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." The irony of this statement is that only Jesus Himself is qualified to stone her, since He is the sinless Son of God. Nevertheless, He forgives her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more" (John 8:11). Indeed, we are certain, as the psalmist says of Yahweh, "there is forgiveness with You." As a result of this divine mercy, he adds, "That You may be feared" (v.4). When we truly understand God's forgiveness and the cost of it, in sending Christ to the cross, we are broken and humbled, as we bow in awe before God. There is no presumption here. There is no flippancy here. We deserve judgment; we receive mercy. Like the returning prodigal son, we are staggered by the Father who welcomes us home free!
BUT THERE IS FORGIVENESS WITH THEE, THAT THOU MUST BE FEARED (v.4) The spirit of the Gospel breathes through this Old Testament text! In the first word "but" you can almost hear the sigh of relief which welcomes the assurance of forgiveness.
WHAT IS FORGIVENESS? There are so many things that go to make real forgiveness. First of all, forgiveness is only possible between two persons. We do not forgive the piece of machinery that crushes our hand, or the animal that wounds us. Before we have forgiveness there must be between the forgiver and the forgiven a

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a special relationship. We do not talk of forgiving a stranger who harms us accidentally. We use language that implies it, but is not real; we overlook the offense, we excuse him, but it is hardly forgiveness.
Forgiveness, then, is a personal thing, and there must be love between the forgiver and the forgiven. It is the restoration of mutual confidence and unhindered friendship where these had been broken off. It is not forgetting your child's offence, or letting him off merely, but taking him to your arms and to your heart again; and that, carried out perfectly, is what happens when God forgives us! And it carries with it this: that our sin also is personal. We sometimes pity ourselves when we have sinned, and sometimes are ashamed to have failed our brother. But in the last resort we have failed our God, and in every case wounded and grieved Him.
Let me suggest four things about God's forgiveness.
(1) God's forgiveness is inclusive. Verse 4 does not say, "There is forgiveness for this sin or that," while leaving out some other sin, perhaps the one you have committed. It sets no limits at all. It says, "There is forgiveness," forgiveness for any sin by anybody. Murder, adultery, lying, stealing, coveting, failing to keep the Lord's Day, taking the name of the Lord in vain, whatever it may be. There is forgiveness with God. You may be utterly ignorant of the Bible. You may not know a single item of theology. Know this at least: "THERE IS FORGIVENESS" with God!
(2) God's forgiveness is for NOW. The translators have rightly used the verb "is," putting "But with you there is forgiveness" in the present tense, but the force of the sentence is even stronger in the Hebrew, where there is no verb at all. The Hebrew simply says: "With you forgiveness." You do not have to hope that somehow you might have forgiveness at the last day, at the final judgment, but need to stand in trembling uncertainty until then. You do not have to work for it or earn it; you could never earn it anyway. There is forgiveness now, at this very moment; and it is for you, whoever you may be, wherever you are, or whatever you have done. At this very moment you can pass from death to life, and know that your sins have been forgiven forever!
(3) God's forgiveness is for those who want it. It is available, but you must ask God for it and trust Him to give it to you. The writer of the psalm is confessing his sin, not covering it up, which would be a way of pretending that he does not need forgiveness (v.l). He is asking God for mercy, for he has no claim on God (v.2). He is believing or trusting God, for he says, "With You there is forgiveness" (v.4). Thousands of people confess that each week in the words of the Apostles' Creed: "I believe...in the forgiveness of sins." Have they actually asked God for forgiveness? Many do not know what the words mean! Do not be among those unbelieving masses. Come to God, and ask Him for the forgiveness you need and He provides.
(4) God's forgiveness leads to godly life. Some have objected to the Bible's teaching about salvation on the grounds that free forgiveness must lead to wickedness.

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"If God forgives us for anything we do, why shouldn't we just go on sinning? they argue. It doesn't work that way! The forgiveness we are talking about does not lead to license, as some suppose, but to a heightened reverence for God and holiness. It is what verse 4 teaches when it adds to forgiveness the words "therefore You are feared." Feared? Shouldn't the verse have read "loved"? Well, I would think so until I remember that in the Bible FEAR has to do with holy reverence of God that is the essence of true religion. It is what is drawn from us when we know that we have been loved and saved by God in spite of our sin and former disregard of Him. Spurgeon, who has a wonderful sermon on this text, translates this verse as, "There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be loved and worshipped and served."
TWO FEATURES OF FORGIVENESS WHICH ARE EXPRESSED BY THE TEXT ARE...WONDER...and its PURPOSE.
ITS WONDER!
The wonder of forgiveness is two-fold. It arises out of what it means to man, the Forgiven, and then what it means to the Forgiver.
To man it means the rescue of his life, nothing short of that. When a man is rescued from drowning, he does not make light of the means by which he has been saved. If he has a heart at all, his gratitude does not vanish with the day of his rescue, but remains a thing of life with him for all time.
Forgiveness means that God's loving power is on our side to deliver us from our sin and shame. The man who suffered God to rescue him from his sin, to bring him out of that morally dark world in which he once lived without Him is aware of the joy of that emancipation, and he will never cease to regard his forgiveness as the miracle of his life!
But part of the wonder of forgiveness lies in what it means to God. On man's side it is rescue, emancipation, the crowning experience of life; on God's side it is sacrifice. There are two points at which suffering comes in. There is the pain of the injury done, which falls on the injured one, and there is the pain of the process of restoration. There is always a self-loss and a self-giving in great restorations. If this be true, then, we see that the suffering of forgiveness falls on the Divine, both the suffering of the Injured and the suffering of the Restorer. And the greatness of forgiveness is His also. To give His life for His enemies, to spend and to be spent for those who injured Him, to turn in patient ministry to those who turn from Him—this we ascribe to God when we say 'there is forgiveness with Thee.' When we say that, we say there is the height of self-giving with God; there is self-loss at its noblest; there is love at its purest!
Its PURPOSE.
That Thou mayest be feared! The forgiven soul is the reverent soul. When we know the means by which forgiveness was made possible for us—that the price was paid on Calvary not merely to God but by God in His dear Son—we too 'fear greatly' like those who stood by the Cross. Standing there, all is forgotten except

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the certainty that we are forgiven, and wonder that it should be so, and adoring praise of Him who pardoned at a cost so great!
Oh! how I fear Thee, living God,
With deepest, tenderest fears:
And worship Thee with trembling hope,
And penitential tears.
In the beautiful, poetic third stanza the psalmist says that he is trusting (hoping) in God's Word and waiting for the Lord, indeed, "more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning."
What specifically is he waiting for? He is not waiting for deliverance from his trouble, he is not waiting for forgiveness either, which we might suppose next, for the earlier stanza says he has already found forgiveness.
He is waiting for God Himself! It is God whom he has offended by his sin, and it is fellowship with God that has been broken and needs to be restored. He longs for that intimacy with God. His heart is yearning to feel the tender presence of the Divine again! And Oh! what a precious moment that is when we feel surrounded by His love and cradled in His tender compassion and covered with His mercy!
Verse 7 declares: "WITH HIM IS PLENTEOUS REDEMPTION."
These words were written by one who lived centuries before the Crucifixion! What words would he not have used to describe the love which God has since shown in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ?
WITH HIM...ALMIGHTY GOD, CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. The redeeming death of Christ is a mighty manifestation of the character of God!
GOD IS RIGHTEOUS! He is the giver of the moral law, and through that law He showed His righteousness to man. From the day of the giving of the law, man's duty was clear; it was to strive after the attainment of God's righteousness. If man had been able to attain, there would have been no need for the Cross! But man found the attainment of that righteousness, as he does still, beyond his powers. Therefore God gave to the world the greatest revelation of His righteousness, and with it the power which all who longed to gain it had desired. By His perfect life Christ vindicated the claim of the moral law, of the righteousness of God; and, by His obedience to the law 'even unto death' He broke the power of sin, and 'condemned sin in the flesh.'
GOD IS LOVE! God 'spared not His own Son.' Far removed from the sin and hatred of the world, irresistible in their appeal, the words come back to us unceasingly, as we ponder the story of God's redeeming love: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
"What is the blood of Christ?" asked Livingston of his own solitary soul in the last months of his African wanderings. "It is Himself. It is the inherent and everlasting mercy of God made apparent to human eyes and ears. The everlasting love was disclosed by our Lord's life and death. It showed that God forgives because He loves to forgive."
WITH THE LORD, THERE IS MERCY AND LOVING-KINDNESS, AND WITH HIM IS PLENTEOUS REDEMPTION.