Psalm 130. Psalm 130. Out of the depths Have I cried unto thee, O Lord? Lord, hear my voice. 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 waiteth 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. And he shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Lord, we ask that we might be
enabled to be Israel who hopes in the Lord. Lord, how we thank
you for this passage of scripture, how we thank you for who you
are, the God you reveal yourself to be in the glorious reading
of your word. We ask that you would bless us,
that you would make yourself known to us, that you would reveal
your son to us. We ask that we might be enabled
to worship him. We ask that you would give each
person here, saving faith, a heart that believes for Christ's sake.
Lord, we pray for your blessing on those of our number going
through severe troubles and trials. We pray for those that are sick.
Lord, we thank you for all the blessings that you bestow upon
us. Be with all your people wherever they meet together, in Christ's
name we pray, amen. Psalm 130. Now, one of the writers
that I read said this is one of the seven penitential psalms,
psalms of repentance. And I thought that's kind of
like saying this is one of the 22 messianic psalms. There is
150 messianic psalms. All the psalms are messianic
psalms and all the psalms are psalms of repentance. What is
repentance? Changing your mind. Having your
mind changed. And we are in a continual state
by the grace of God if we're believers of repentance. Repentance
isn't a one-time thing. It's something we're doing all
the time. This was said to be Martin Luther's
favorite psalm. And I hope this will be our favorite
psalm. And I hope every psalm we're
reading will become our favorite psalm. But the psalmist begins,
out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. out of the depths. Now there
are all kinds of depths that people can cry from, the depths
of sickness, the depths of depression, the depths of horrible circumstances,
and we cry. But what he's talking about is
the depth of sin. We know that from what verse
3 says, If thou, Lord, shouldst mark my iniquities, O Lord, who
shall stand? Now, sometimes we're aware of
the depths of sin. Sometimes we're not all that
aware of it, but we're always aware of it. The man after God's own heart
said, my sin is ever before me. Can you say that? My sin is ever
before me. I think of what Paul said in
Romans chapter seven when he said, Oh, wretched man, that
I was before God saved me. No, before God saved him, he
could never say this, but when God saved him. And he was made
to know who Jesus Christ is. He cried, O wretched man that
I am. Present tense. Who should deliver
me from this body of death? I want you to turn, hold your
finger there, to Psalm 130. In Psalm 130, and turn to 1 John.
This is a scripture that came to my mind when I was thinking
about him crying out of the depths, have I cried unto thee? And then
he said, if thou shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who should
stand? Now the passage I'm reading is
a very familiar passage, 1 John 1, but only a believer can enter
into and understand this. An unbeliever could never understand
what is being said by John in 1 John 1. Look what he says in
verse eight, 1 John chapter one. If we say that we have no sin. Now, he doesn't say sins. This word is a noun and it's
talking about an evil nature you're always aware of. He's talking about the sinful
nature. He's not talking about an individual sin. He's talking
about a sinful nature. If we say that we have no sin,
what have we done? We've deceived ourselves. Well, that's a scary thought
to deceive yourself, to tell yourself a lie and believe the
lie that you've told yourself. We deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us. As a matter of fact, if someone
would deny that, they lose all credibility. They're liars. They're
not honest. If we say, John has a lot to
say about what we say, if we say that we have no sin, We deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. You see, only a believer
understands that sin is more than what you do. It's what you
are. And the only way I'll understand
this is if I see who he is. And if I see who he is, I'm gonna
see who I am. Not before then. Now, verse nine. If we confess our sins. Now that doesn't mean that you
articulate each sin you've committed. I confess I've done this, I've
confessed I've done that. Because most of the sins you
and I have committed, we don't even know we've committed them.
And we would be in a nonstop state of confession if that were
the case. This word confess means to speak the same thing. It means
to agree with what God says. about my sin, not about how I
feel, but I agree with what God says about my sin in his word. Now, if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just. And I love this, not just merciful
and gracious, but faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Verse 10, if we say we've not
sinned, now they're the words of verb. Now, what that means
is with regard, and you have to be born again to understand
this. You have to be regenerate. God has to have done something
for you. While I'm speaking to you, every word I'm saying coming
out of my mouth, because I said it, there's an element of sin
in it. Whatever I do, whatever I think, If I say I've not sinned,
well, you're preaching, aren't you? You're preaching from the
scripture. I'm not going to say there's not sin in everything
I'm saying in the sense that I said it. There's bad motive.
I might read the scripture with the wrong emphasis, trying to
glorify myself or reflect glory. It's always there because I have
this sinful nature. That means everything I do is
a sin. Now, somebody that is not born
of God cannot possibly understand that. Somebody that's born of
God does. Now, back to our text in Psalm
130. And remember, when he's talking
about the depths, he's not talking about the depths that everybody
experiences from time to time, from loss or sickness or horrible
circumstances or some kind of terrible thing happening or the
depths of financial burden or whatever it is. He's talking
about the depths of sin. Out of the depths have I cried
unto thee, O Lord. Now, if you're in the depths,
you know what you're going to do? you're gonna cry. And you're gonna cry
to the Lord. This is not talking about talking
to somebody else about how you feel. You're going to cry unto
the Lord. Now look what he says, Lord,
hear my voice. I wanna be heard, don't you?
I want the living God to actually hear my voice. Lord, hear my
voice. Let thine ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplications. I want to have the ear of God. Now he says, if thou, Lord, verse
three, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who
shall stand? If the Lord would say, and mark
it, and observe it, and see it, and call it to attention. If
he would mark iniquities, the numerous iniquities, if he would
mark them, who would stand? The wise man said in Ecclesiastes
7.20, there's not a just man on the earth that doeth good
and sinneth not. Paul quoted the psalmist in Romans
chapter 3, there is none righteous, no, not one. Now, put yourself
in this description. There's none that understands.
There's none that seeketh after God. They've all gone out of
the way. They have together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good. No, not one. That is the scriptural testimony. Romans 3, 10 through 12, a quotation
from Psalm 53 and Psalm 14. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, who would stand? You couldn't and I couldn't go
five seconds without sin, that he couldn't point out. Not a millisecond. If thou, Lord,
shouldst mark iniquities, who should stand? Now here is one
of the most glorious verses in the word of God. But, that's
the but of grace. But God. But there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared." Instead of marking iniquities,
there is forgiveness with thee. Ephesians 4, 32, Be ye kind,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's
sake hath forgiven you. And God's forgiveness is just
not like our forgiveness. Now we're called upon to forgive.
The Lord said, if you forgive not me in their trespasses, neither
will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses. Now, hear
that. If I don't forgive, I won't be
forgiven. And I don't forgive in order
to be forgiven. I forgive because I've been forgiven.
That's why you forgive. And that's the command. But the
Lord's forgiveness is not like ours in this sense. Now, I'm
just speaking for myself. Maybe you're like it was. I kind
of suspect you are. I can forgive. I remember it,
though. Well, we ought to just forgive
and forget. I agree. Wouldn't you just love to forget
and not even thinking about anything, any injustice done to you? Oh,
they did me so wrong and all that self-pity that we have. Wouldn't it be great to forget
it? Not even think, but you don't, you should. But I think of even
Joseph, when he said to his brother, I am Joseph, whom you sold into
Egypt. He didn't forget that, did he?
He saw those boys, he loved them, he forgave them, but he didn't
forget what they did. Here's the way the Lord's forgiveness
works. He puts away your sin. He justifies
you. He made it so you never sinned
in the first place. And there's no sin for him to
remember. That's why he says there are
sins and there are iniquities. I will remember no more. There's
nothing there to remember. And even in heaven. God's not
going to look at me and think I remember what he did. He's
going to say he never sinned. That's what justification is.
It's not just having your sins forgiven, but they can be brought
up again and remembered. It means you stand before God
having never sinned with the perfect righteousness of Jesus
Christ as your righteousness before God. Now, the only people
who fear God. And this tells us what the fear
of God is. When most people think of the fear of God, they think
of the fear of Him when you see Him. Him getting you. I'm going
to strike them with cancer. I'm going to give them a heart
attack. I'm going to make them wreck their car. I'm going to make
them lose all their money. Oh, wrath's going to come down if
you don't straighten. That's not the fear of God. That's ignorance
of the living God. That's no knowledge of God at
all. The fear of God is that awe you
feel at such a God who is just and justifies the ungodly. Now, when you see that, when
you see there's forgiveness with him, that's when you fear God. That's when you're awed at his
person, at his glory. There's no fear of God where
there's no forgiveness of sins, but anybody that's had their
sins forgiven and they see what it costs, it costs the precious
blood of Christ. We see that God made a way to
be consistent with his glorious just character and yet justify
somebody who's ungodly and evil in and of themselves. Bow down. What a glorious God is God. There's forgiveness with thee
that thou mayest be feared. That's the fear of God, not the
fear of punishment, not the fear of something bad happening to
me because I did this or I thought that. It's just awed by his forgiveness
of sins. There, but there is forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared. I hope that verse registers in
our heart from henceforth and forever. The psalmist says in verse five,
I wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait, and in his
word do I hope. Now this is a weight of confident
expectation. He goes on to say, I'm gonna
come back to verse five, but he says, my soul waiteth for
the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say,
more than they that watch for the morning. Now, the image is
somebody waiting for morning time. Well, it's coming. When you're
waiting, You're waiting for the sun to shine. You're waiting
for the morning to come. You know it will come. It always
does. You wait. You don't have any
other options, really. You know, when you wait on the
Lord, when you know you can't do anything to save yourself
and you're waiting on Him to do something for you, it's not
like you have other options. You wait. You believe He is. You believe the morning will
come. You wait. I wait for the Lord
more than they that watch for the morning. This confident expectation. I wait for the Lord. My soul
doth wait. And in his word do I hope. Now
hope. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. Hope. What is hope? Well, Paul
tells us in Romans chapter eight, hope that is seen is not hope.
If it's something you can see, there's no hope involved in that.
You only hope in that which you cannot see. When Paul says we're saved by,
as a matter of fact, go to Romans chapter eight. I want us to see
what this thing of hope is. In his word, do I hope. You see, there are so many hopes
that are not really good hopes. I hope I'll be in heaven. I have
a hope that God will be merciful. I have a hope that when I die,
everything's going to be well with me. That's what I'm hoping
for. You can have that hope, and it'd be a bad hope. I want
to have a good hope, don't you? I want to have a scriptural hope.
But look what he says about hope in verse 24 of Romans chapter
8. For we're saved by hope, but hope that is seen. is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that which
we see not, then do we with patience wait for it, which is exactly
what the psalmist is saying, and that's in his word do I hope. I wait on the Lord in his word
do I hope. Now, his word, this book, is the inspired
word of God. If we don't have that, we don't
have anything. This book is the inspired word of God, and this
book tells me that everybody that Christ died for is justified. Without sin, without guilt, I
stand perfectly righteous before God. Can I see that? No. I can't look at me and think,
well, you really are righteous. No, no, not at all. But I have
confident hope and expectation that I am, because this is what
his word says. In him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete, lacking nothing
in him. That's what the word says. I'm
hoping in that word. Having been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm hoping
in his word. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, of him,
remember we're hoping in his word, and let Israel hope in
the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, of him
are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. His word tells
me that I have wisdom. I feel like such a fool, but
the Bible tells me I've got the very wisdom of God, that I have
the very righteousness of God as my righteousness, that I'm
sanctified, that I'm declared by God to be holy, that I've
been redeemed, that I've been completely delivered. Do I see
those things? No. Do I believe I am those things
in Christ Jesus? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. That's what he's talking about
when he says, I wait for the Lord. My soul is wait. And in
his word, do I hope my soul waited for the Lord. It's not like there's
another option. You know, when you wait on Lord,
when you have no other options, my soul waited for the Lord,
you know, I'm waiting for him to stand up and represent me
on judgment day. When my name is called. I'm waiting
on him to say present and accounted for. He's one of mine. I'm waiting
on him. I'm not saying anything. I'm
waiting on the Lord. My soul waited for the Lord more
than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they
that watch for the morning and let Israel hope in the Lord. Now who's Israel? Is that just talking about the
nation of Israel? Now, let me tell you something. God doesn't have one
plan for Israel and another plan for the church. Israel is the
church. Israel is every believer. Israel is that prince with God. Israel is, you know, the scripture
says they are not all Israel which are of Israel. Just because
you're a physical Israelite or Jew, that doesn't make you a
true Jew. Here's the true Jew. We are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit. We have God the Holy Spirit who's
given us a spiritual nature that's able to worship God. A natural
man can't worship God. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. We look to him only and we have
no confidence in the flesh. Now that's the true Jew. He worships
God for who he is in the spirit. He rejoices, he glories in, he
has confidence only in Christ and he has no confidence in the
flesh. Now let Israel. Let Israel, that's every believer,
all of God's elect, everyone who looks to Christ, let Israel
hope in the Lord. Where's my hope? In the Lord. My only ground of confidence
is in the Lord, being found in him. So that when God looks at
me, he sees his son because I'm in him, in the Lord. Let Israel
hope in the Lord. And here's why. For with the
Lord, there is mercy, loving kindness. He delights in mercy. This is who he is. And with the
Lord, with him is, I love this word, plenteous redemption. Plenteous. The redemption of the Lord is
particular. It's for the elect. And I make
no apologies for that. Somebody says, well, that's negative.
Why can't you say it's for everybody? That seems negative to say it's
only for the elect. That's not negative. It's positive. That
means that we'll be redeemed. It means we have hope. It means
his redemption is successful. Listen, this doesn't prevent
people from being saved who otherwise would have been. It makes people
saved who would have been damned. Thank God for his redeeming power. Plenteous redemption. Plenteous. But you can't sin more than his
redemption is. You can't do it. His redemption
is so plenteous. It's so all powerful and prevailing. Successful redemption. Plenteous
redemption. Glorious redemption. Let Israel
hope in the Lord. And here's why. With him, there's
mercy. And with him is plenteous redemption. And then we have
this that I believe Matthew was thinking of when he wrote, thou
shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from
their sins. Maybe he had this in mind. Maybe he had just read
Psalm 130 and it says, he shall redeem Israel from all of his
iniquities. There's the promise of the gospel.
He shall. He shall. Redeem Israel from
all their iniquities. Matthew 121, thou shalt call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
And then when he bowed his mighty head and said, it is finished,
all of his people were saved from all their sins. Isn't this
a glorious Psalm? Psalm 130. I see why Martin Luther,
Canada's favorite, and right now I'm counting it my favorite,
but I hope every time I, whatever psalm I read, it's going to be
my favorite psalm.