Psalm 130, a song of ascents. Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Yahweh. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If you, Yahweh, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. I wait for Yahweh. My soul waits, and in his word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord. more than those who watch for the morning, yes, more than those who wait for the morning. O Israel, hope in Yahweh, for with Yahweh there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." There are three sections in this psalm, each of them marked by the covenant name of God, Yahweh, and then recognizing that this Yahweh has made Himself our Lord, has made Himself our Master, not just that He has authority over us, not just that we have respect for Him, but that we belong to Him. This is similar to what was rejoiced in in Psalm 123, when we were thinking about, as the eyes of the servants look to their hand of their masters, the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to Yahweh, our God. And so you have verses 1 and 2, cried to you, O Yahweh, Lord, hear my voice. Verse 3 and 4, or just in verse 3 rather, if you, Yahweh, should mark and introduce Lord, who could stand? And then the last section starting in verse 5 and 6, I wait for Yahweh, my soul, for the Lord. And so the psalm itself gives us these three sections by this pattern in the language, driving home the first main point is that Yahweh is our Lord. And as our Lord, He is our hearer, and He is our healer or forgiver, and He is our hope. First, He is our hearer. Note that the first request of the psalm is to be heard, to have the request heard. Out of the depths I have cried, hear my voice, let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. Here is a wonderful thing. Yahweh, creator of heaven and earth, the one who is, the only true and living God, who has all existence and being in himself, the only one who is genuinely independent, upon whom all other things must be dependent, for he is creator and they are creature, Yahweh listens to our voices. to the sound of our voices, even knows and hears, listens to the cries of our hearts. And so even when we are in the very depths and the illustration there, or the metaphor there is either depths of earth or depths of sea, either one being buried or being drowned or at the bottom of the sea. Psalm 139 is going to refer to the womb as the depths of the earth. Ephesians 4 is going to allude to that about the Lord Jesus, that he who ascended first descended into the depths of the earth, meaning the womb. The womb is also like being buried in a cave and being underwater. It's actually kind of both. which is a wonderful little word picture there. But what's also like that is when you're overwhelmed by the greatness of your sin, which is the main circumstance in this psalm. You just feel buried and drowned by how guilty you are. And you're not wrong. But praise God, Yahweh, who has made himself our own covenant Lord and bound himself to us and us to him, has done so not only as our hearer, but also as our healer, our forgiver. That takes us into the second section, verses three and four. If you, Yahweh, should mark iniquities, O Lord who could stand. So you're remembering in your depths that you're not in good company. You don't want to use the word good. but you are definitely in broad company. Every person to walk this earth other than the Lord Jesus would not survive this examination, cannot survive the justice of God. But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. He gains nothing by our fearing Him, by our worshiping Him and wondering at Him loving Him and serving Him and honoring Him. We cannot add to God. Like we heard in Proverbs 9, if we are wise, we are wise for ourselves. God is not the beneficiary of our wisdom. We are the beneficiaries of His giving us wisdom. But in His love and generosity, He has given to an innumerable multitude whom he has chosen out of his good pleasure, just because he is pleased to do it, to display his mercy, to display in an outward way into the creature the love that God has within himself. and deciding to redeem, to bring these creatures, us, into that love between among the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So just as He has mutual adoration and devotion and delight within Himself, He has delighted and determined to give to us to fear Him. And since he has determined to give to us to fear him, he has determined that the great way in which he will do so is by forgiving sins in his son. So that not only do we get forgiven of sins, but because of the method necessary for sins against such a God to be forgiven, we would be forgiven in union with his son. which is applied to us by His Spirit, who is not only with us for the purpose of giving us life that we may believe in to the Son, but because we belong to the Son, comes and dwells in our hearts. He sends the Spirit of His Son into our heart. And so all of this God has determined in order to bring us at last to be fearers of Him forever. So verses three and four are not saying, since God is a respect craving despot, he forgives people to get them to fear him. No, the forgiving and the fearing are both divine infinite gifts. Not only is there forgiveness with him, but the reason there's forgiveness with him is so that we may come into the blessedness of fearing him. And so you go from the dreadful depths of who we are in our sin against God to the incomprehensible heights of who this God is to people such as we are in our depths. Yahweh, our Lord, is not just our healer, but He's our healer, and therefore He is our hope, and that's verses 5 through 8. First, the individual waiting for the Lord, and then the urging to others to do the same. that we would all do this together, because God's determination to save is not merely individual, but is corporate. He has an entire Israel. He has an entire church that He is determined to bring into this everlasting and infinite blessedness of fearing Him and knowing Him. And so as I wait for him more than the watchmen wait for the morning, my soul realizes that what I'm waiting for is something that must be enjoyed with the rest of his people. You know, as Hebrews says that he didn't give it to them yet because his plan, his purpose was that apart from us, they should not be perfected or they should not inherit so that we all come into it together. So you have this Lord, our Healer, the Lord, our Healer, the Lord, the individual believer's hope. I wait for Yahweh. My soul waits in His word. I do hope. My soul waits for Yahweh more than those who watch for the morning. Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. I mean, The depths that we are in are worse than the night that the watchmen are looking forward to the morning dispelling, and the morning that they are looking forward to dispelling is so much less than the blessedness of God, the knowledge of our forgiver whom we are brought into the blessedness of fearing, so of course we should long for it more than those who watch for the morning. but then realizing that God's plan of salvation is not merely individual but corporate in Christ. You know, whether you're thinking about as a bride or members of a body or as a city, Zion, Jerusalem, or as a nation, Israel, a people, They're all the corporate idea, realizing that his plan is not merely individual salvations, but the redeeming of this corporate entity who are in Christ, the entire covenantal people who are in Christ. The individual longing in verse 5-6 turns to urging the others who will inherit with us and come into the blessedness with us to do the same. Oh, Israel, Hope in Yahweh, for with Yahweh there is mercy and with him is abundant redemption. You see how great is the forgiveness, even of a single believer, that that which is infinitely culpable or requires infinite punishment, one sin, deserves an eternity of hell. And how great is the forgiveness and mercy necessary to redeem one believer. But he doesn't just redeem one believer. He redeems an innumerable multitude, and so you get into the higher math, or the calculus, and it shows the greatness of His mercy, and the greatness of His forgiveness, and the greatness of His redemption. Oh, Israel, hope in Yahweh, for with Yahweh there's mercy, with Him is abundant redemption, and He shall redeem Israel, not just Israelites, but all Israel, from all His iniquities. every last one of them. And so, however great are the depths of the guilt that you might feel at any point in time, whether it has come from knowing your sin better, or whether, as is often the case, it comes from knowing Him and His glory and His holiness better and having to see yourself. You can bank on that word all at the end of verse two. He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Your guilt will never outpace his redemption, his mercy, his forgiveness. Indeed, it won't even outpace the greatness of the blessedness of that fearing him. into which He is bringing all of His Israel. Amen, let's pray. Oh, we thank You, our Father, for Your Word that is full of riches on every page, for in it You communicate Yourself to us, and not just Yourself as the only God, the true and living God, the Creator, Yahweh, but our God, our covenant Lord. the One who has given Yourself to us and taken us to Yourself. We thank You for presenting Yourself here as our hearer, that even now You listen to our voice, the prayer as imperfectly composed as it is, and yet Not only have you helped us by your spirit using your word to form our prayers, but even your spirit then intercedes for us and perfects our prayers so that you are our hearer and you are our healer and you are our hope. Grant that your spirit would stir up our hope in you and that we would heed the exhortation at the end of this psalm. For we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen.