DUNCAN/Greatly afflicted
If you have your Bible, please turn with me to psalm 130. The psalmist is setting forth a lament of his soul. He expresses the lament, finds the mercy of the Lord, and it leads him to thanksgiving. He wants you to see both of those aspects of his spiritual experience. The psalms are filled with this. You know, if we only had happy songs to sing, we couldn’t sing to God about most of our lives because our lives are filled with hard things. And God is so kind to put psalms in His hymnbook of the Bible so that we have something to sing to Him even when our hearts are downcast.
God Gives Us a Song to Sing Even in Our Despair
The first thing I want us to see as we look at verses 1 and 2 is that God gives us a song to sing even our despair. He even writes the lyrics for us. “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 supplication!” At times it might be easy to sing songs of joy. But what can a Christian who is facing the fires of affliction sing? This psalm is for struggling saints who have had their hopes dashed. Christian experience has its depths as well as its heights. It has cries from the pit as well as shouts from the mountains. The psalmist finds himself in despair, in the depths, crying to the Lord, begging the Lord for rescue, begging the Lord to hear him. He doesn’t feel like the Lord is hearing him and so he’s pleading with the Lord to hear his petition — To pay attention to his prayers.
Have you ever been with a friend who says, “I can’t pray right now. I can’t even open my Bible and concentrate right now. I’m so burdened. I’m so cast down. I can’t think straight. I don’t feel as if God is hearing my prayers.” The psalmist is speaking about that kind of experience. He’s in the depths. If you’ve felt yourself in that situation — If you feel yourself in that situation today, do not feel that you are alone. Thousands of years ago, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the psalmist wrote down precisely that kind of a personal account of His own experience. He is in the pit; he is in the depths, and he is begging for God to hear him.
The Deepest Problem Our Souls Will Ever Face
The second thing is this. What’s the crisis? What has gotten the psalmist here? The answer lies in verse 3. We see the deepest problem that our souls will ever face: “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O LORD, who should stand?” You know in other psalms the problem is persecution or ridicule or sicknesses, but not here. The problem here is sin. The problem is guilt. The psalmist is looking into his own heart and he’s saying, “Lord, if You dealt with me the way that I deserve, I would not stand before You. I would be pronounced guilty as charged. If You really dealt with me in accordance with my sin, You would condemn me. You would cast me out. You would curse me. You would send me to hell.” My friends, we never have a better reason for distress than when we contemplate our own sin. The biggest, the deepest problem our souls will ever face is our own sin.
It’s our sins that are our deepest problems. It’s our sin that separates us from God. It’s our rebellion against Him that has distanced us from Him. It’s not some failure on His part; it’s our sin. That’s why Augustine prayed — “Save me from myself, O Lord. I’m my own worst enemy.” And this psalmist is saying, “Lord, of all the problems I have, the greatest one is this — If I were to stand before You and You were to take account of my iniquities, I would not stand. You would be unjust not to declare me guilty.” And the psalmist is troubled by that. It’s the deepest problem of his soul.
God’s Forgiveness is Not Based on Our Deserving
And then if you look at verse 3 and especially verse 7 you see the solution to this particular trial of the soul. God’s forgiveness is not based on us or in us, but it’s based on Him. It flows from Him; its source is from Him. This hope is very clearly set forth in verse 7. “O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is loving kindness.” Notice what the psalmist says here. His hope for forgiveness is not based on his deserving. His hope is not that he’s not that bad or that what he’s done is not that bad. His hope is in the Lord.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if your deepest, darkest, secret sins were brought to light? What would people think of you? And if you were to be judged by them, what would the result be? If we’re honest with ourselves, we realize that we are wicked people. But notice, the psalmist’s hope is not that God is just going to kind of cut us all some slack. His hope is not based on a lack of God’s justice. No, his hope of forgiveness is based on the Lord’s loving kindness. Look again at verse 7. “For with the Lord there is loving kindness” — The kind of love that continues to show mercy even when it is undeserved, especially when it is undeserved. It’s right there in Psalm 51. “Lord, I’ve only got one plea and it’s Your loving kindness. Don’t deal with me as I deserve. Deal with me according to Your loving kindness.”
Abundant Lovingkindness and Redemption
Lastly, we hear an expression of thanksgiving for God’s abundant loving kindness and redemption. “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 watchmen for the morning, indeed more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is loving kindness, with Him there is abundant redemption. He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”
You cannot know God’s grace and mercy until you know that you need His grace and mercy. The psalmist knows His need of that mercy. And it’s precisely because of this that he learns something about God that he couldn’t have otherwise — That there is abundant loving kindness with the Lord. But you know even this psalmist could not have fathomed what this loving kindness would cost. God shows His loving kindness not by setting aside His justice but by fulfilling His justice on the person of Jesus Christ in your place.