So I'll read the psalm, and our text is going to be within that psalm, verses 5 and 6. 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 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 waits, and in his word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, yes, more than those who watch for the morning. Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all of His iniquities. Most of what I am going to communicate to you in verse 5 and 6 comes from a book that for years has been very, very edifying to me. It is a book that was an exposition of Psalm 130 by a Puritan named John Owen. I want to put it into a more modern language, and it became known as the forgiveness of sin. And I knew with this trial that I was going through, I really needed the comfort of verse 5, and I needed to understand in a way that I had never understood before what it means, in fact, to wait upon the Lord. Now, this psalm relates to a personal concern and is wholly taken up with the affairs of the soul. And we'll say, for the sake of argument, it is David. And it is reckoned one of the seven penitential psalms. And it breaks down verse 5 and 6, 7 and 8, with 1, his desire towards God, verses 1 and 2. Number 2, his repentance before God, verses 3 and 4. Number three, his attendance upon God, and that's what we want to focus on, how he attended upon God by waiting, verses 5 and 6, and his expectations from God, verses 7 and 8. So in verse 5 it says, I have waited, or expected. The word indicates to be intent on anyone with great desire to behold or regard him and to depend upon him. And it also expresses the earnest inclination and intent of this will in mind. It goes along well with Psalm 69 verse 21. And I looked for some to take pity. I looked round about this way and that way, diligently and solicitously, to see if any would pity me or lament with me. Thus, I have waited. As if he was to say, I have diligently, with intention of soul, mind, will, and affections, looked to God, an earnest expectation of that from Him, that I so much stand in need of. Boy, did that touch home. And which must come forth from the forgiveness that is with him. So three things, there is an expression of this duty in which he was engaged, David, and that is earnest waiting for the Lord. Now in verse four, it says there is forgiveness with him that he may be feared. and it comforted him enough within his soul that it stayed him. But what he lacked, he had the notional understanding of it, but what he wanted in his heart of hearts was to know it experimentally. What does it mean, the peace of God that passes understanding and to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man? He knew it notionally, he did not yet enjoy the full assurance of it that would give him the peace that he was seeking. The motive and foundation of that of his waiting and expectation was the Word of God. the word of promise, he diligently hoped, and the word, and number three, the frame of his spirit in and the manner of his performance of this duty of waiting. And so the verse can be divided into four parts or subjects. One, the duty he performed earnest waiting and expectation to the object of his waiting. He was waiting on the Lord and that's what we really want to understand. What does it mean to wait on the Lord? It begins with that you do not have yet the thing that you desire, the full conviction and assurance, the love of God shed abroad in his heart, Romans 5.5. He didn't know yet the joy and the peace of what he knew notionally that there was forgiveness of God. But this morning I'm not focusing so much on the experimental thing of the forgiveness of God, but weaning upon God in a trial. You're anxious. You're incapacitated as I was for some of your duties because the depth that he talks about in verse 2 had swallowed him up. They had overwhelmed him. He felt like wave after wave was going over his head. So he's waiting upon God for comfort, for relief. Number three, his support in that duty the word of promise. This is supporting him. This is causing him not to faint. It is upholding him, but he lacks the fullness of assurance that he is looking for so that he can walk away and go back to his business knowing that God has this taken care of. And number four, the manner of his performance of it. One, with earnestness and diligence. So you can wait, you can be quiet before the Lord, you can be silent before him, and yet you can be earnest and diligent in the use of means. Meeting with the brethren, the sacraments that are given to the church like the Lord's Supper, reading your Bible in prayer, and number two, He waited with perseverance. The matter was not resolved right away. God sometimes to test our faith to see if we will be diligent in our seeking him does not come immediately to your rescue and giving you the comfort that you need to get through this immense trial. So having been raised out of his depths by the discovery of forgiveness, in God yet not immediately made partaker of that forgiveness as to a comforting sense of it. I know it notionally, I know God forgives me, but it isn't comforting me. He gathers up his soul from wandering from God and supports it from sinking under his present condition. It is, he says, the Lord alone with whom is forgiveness that can relieve and do me good. His favor His lovingkindness, His communication of mercy and grace from thence, is that which I stand in need of. On Him, therefore, do I with all my heedfulness attend. On Him do I wait. My soul is filled with expectation from Him. Surely He will come to me. He will come and refresh me. Though He seem as yet to be afar off, And we can have those times. It seems like God is a far off. I'm crying to him and it seems like heaven is brass. It seems like he doesn't hear. It seems like he's not paying attention to my prayer. But remember this is perceptual. It is not what is in fact the case. But during those times you don't faint, you cry out the more diligently, and in this frame of a sin-entangled soul who has really by faith discovered forgiveness in God, but is not yet made partaker of a comforting, refreshing sense of it. six observations. The first proper fruit of faith's discovery of forgiveness in God to a sin-distressed soul is waiting, and patience, and expectation. We'll look at that in a little bit more detail in a moment. You're patient. You're not fretting. You're patient. You're not trying to take matters into your own hand and say, God isn't hearing me and I'm going to get what I need by my own natural might, by my own experiments, by my own diligence. Observation two, the proper object of a sin-distressed soul's waiting and expecting is God himself, but not just God in an incommunicable attribute, but God as you are reconciled to him in our Lord Jesus Christ. I have waited for the Lord. It's very important if you are in a time of waiting, and you are in a trial, and you are under duress, and you are being poured from vessel to vessel, you must understand your forgiveness in God. You must have and aim for a high assurance that you are His child. It's tough enough to wait. It's tough enough to be patient. It's tough enough to be diligent as it is. But if you don't have the comfort inside that you're a reconciled to Him, that you're not approaching God as a judge, but you're approaching Him as a Father, it will be impossible for you to be patient. It will be impossible for you to be silent before Him. So the Word of Promise, the Word of God, that God will, in fact, relieve the distress of his beloved child. That supports you in this trial in waiting for God. In your word do I hope. Sin distressed souls wait for God with earnest intention of mind, diligence and expectation. And observation five, continuance and waiting of God appears to the soul is necessary and prevailing. It's necessary. It's that without which we cannot attain assistance. You must be prevailing. You can't give up. You can't allow your heart to sink. You have to stand on the promises of God and know that He is faithful, that He is Father and not a judge, that He has given you a spirit of adoption and not a spirit of bondage and fear. Without this, you cannot attain the assistance you are looking for. And with this prevailing, you will not fail. I don't have the love of God shed abroad in my heart. I don't have that comfort that I am seeking after. I know it notionally, I need Him to sustain me. It says in Ephesians 3 that He would strengthen us with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That He strengthens you in your heart of hearts and enables you to stand in the day of your trial. And so, while you were in this waiting posture, in your prayers, you do not give God any rest, but you were diligent and say, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And this observation arises from the influence that these verses have to those that follow in verses 7 and 8. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption. and he shall redeem Israel from all of his iniquities. So the psalmist, David, having made some progress in this waiting and indeligent use of the means of prayer and reading his word and fellowship with the saints, can now look about him and begin to deal with others and exhort them as God is helping him to an expectation of grace and mercy if your fellow brother, if your fellow sister is going through this trial as well. And so, though the soul be not absolutely in the haven of consolation yet, where it desires to be, yet it is cast out in anchor that will sustain the ship in the rugged storm. Though it is still a tossed boat, yet it is secured from shipwreck and is rather sick than in danger. A waiting condition is a condition of safety if you are waiting on God. And if you are trusting Him, and if you know that He is your Father and not your judge, that is a condition of safety. Even if Satan is buffeting you, if your dependence is upon God, you hear other voices coming in and accusing you. And yet you say, there's nowhere else can I go, for you and you alone have the words of eternal life. So there is safety in this resting. There are few duties given to us in the Bible as often as waiting on God. So what is it? To wait. We must understand, first, the nature of the duty itself. Secondly, the necessity and usefulness of its practice is to be explained and demonstrated. So waiting. Waiting on the Lord consists of being quiet in opposition to haste and agitation of heart. Number two, diligence in opposition to being spiritually slothful and lazy. It is no time for carnal security. This ship is being tossed back and forth by the waves of depths that are mentioned in verse two. It is no time to be slothful. Water, metaphorically speaking, is getting into the boat, like when our Lord was in the boat. It's no time to be slothful. You have to take a bucket full of the water and throw it back out, and you're crying out to God. So despondency and neglect of means is not a proper method of waiting on God. And number three, you must have an expectation. You must believe that if you hold on, the desire will come. in opposition to being in despair, distrust, and other proper immediacy actings of unbelief. In Habakkuk chapter 2 verses 3 and 4 it is written, though the visionary wait for it, Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith." Now, what does it mean, the soul is lifted up? That means instead of waiting on God, expectation coming from God, you fret and you take the matters into your own hand. And I went through this a little bit this week. I say, imagining the worst case scenario, and you start to prepare for a fear that is never realized. You're afraid, and so you take matters into your own hand, sometimes carnally. And in the mercy of God, he overrules it, but he shows you your waiting is full of anxiety, my son. It isn't patient. It isn't silent. It could be complaining. It could be murmuring. You could have a passive resignation. Well, it's never going to get any better and therefore you fret or worse you become bitter and you have a resentment and you start to murmur like Jonah did. So God has given to the soul a feeling of peace through the discovery of that forgiveness which is with him but he will have us wait for an actual participation of it to give you rest and comfort. He that will not do this but lifts up his soul, that is, in making haste beyond the rule and method of the Spirit of God in this manner, his heart is not upright in him. Nor will he know what it is to live by faith, so if you frustrate these means and you get impatient and you start to murmur against God, don't be surprised if you stay in this trial longer than you would have if you would have submitted, waited, and had an expectation and a hope that the desire of your heart would be granted. The cause, the cause is in the end to be desired. You want your heart to be consoled, you want your heart to be at rest, but it becomes eclipsed or disappointed because you are fretting. The prophet Isaiah, speaking of this manner, tells us that he that believes shall not nor will not make He's not in a hurry. He's not agitated. He's resting, Isaiah 28, 16. Because a Christian is not relieved at once from his burden and the desired end does not come as soon as he would like, he chafes and possibly murmurs because God does not seem to hear his prayer. And of course the devil takes advantage of that. He sees you are all discombobulated and then he starts to put the fiery darts into your mind, hard thoughts of God, or you start to expect a worst case scenario. You start imagining how this could really turn out bad. and you're so far from being patient and silent that you almost fall apart. Although the afflicted Christian wishes and prays for deliverance from the painful feelings of affliction, if he has a right frame in his trial and it isn't relieved right away, yet he is more desirous, the Christian is more desirous after he learns to yield that it should be rendered effectual to subdue his pride, wean him from the love of the world and aim for patience and resignation to the will of God, then that it should be removed. All right, I want it to be removed, but it isn't removed right away. So God, if you put me into this furnace. And I understand it must be so because I see so much of the remaining indwelling sin that is rising up against your providence. Since you were showing me these things, rather than take the trial away at once, do not take these sharp arrows of conviction out of me until the furnace has done its place in the purification of the remains. in my heart, so that I would come forth of gold. He hopes and prays that his dross may be consumed, and that he may come forth as gold, which has passed seven times through the refiner's fire. Take Job, for example. God did not immediately answer Job's prayers for deliverance. He was in the refiner's fire of adversity for a long time. But in the end, God blessed Job in a far greater way than he expected. Sometimes we face unanswered prayer and persistent trials as God chooses to refine our character. Don't give up. God knows what he is doing, and it seems like he is a far off. He doesn't hear my prayers. God, why aren't you closer? And he's working all the while in this and remember that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him and you seek him and you're resting and you're waiting. Next, number two, you must have diligence in opposition to spiritual sloth. This is included in waiting on God as well. Diligence is the activity of your mind. and a regular use of means for the pursuit of any end proposed. The end aimed at by the soul is a comforting, refreshing interest in that forgiveness that is with God. For the attainment of this are a number of means instituted and blessed of God, a neglect of them through being unregarded or through being lazy will certainly disappoint the soul from attaining the end that you desire. Passive resignation, well, it's just going to be as it's going to be, or worse, murmuring against God, dealing with us, will frustrate the design of your submission and waiting. Disdiligence in his waiting, David expressed in Psalm 40 verse 1, we render it I have waited patiently, yet that is waiting I have waited, that is diligently, earnestly in the use of means. So he describes this duty by a similitude or resemblance in Psalm 123 verse 2. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and is the eyes of a maiden to the hand of her mistress. So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that He have mercy upon us. Thirdly, there is expectation in your waiting. There is hope. There has to be hope. All repentance that has no hope is servile fear and it isn't evangelical and it isn't that which pleases God. True evangelical repentance and waiting has hope because you have been reconciled to God and you know that he that has begun a good work and you will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus. So you can wait expectantly. It is the very life and soul of the duty under consideration. So the psalmist declares in Psalm 42.5, My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is only from Him. The soul will not, it cannot in a new manner wait upon God unless it has expectations from Him. At last, as James in his epistle speaks, he looks to receive something somewhat from Him in chapter 1 verses 6 to 8. But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. It isn't anchored, it isn't silent, it's being rocked back and forth. And as the disciples supposed, they were going to drown. Jesus, don't you care? For that person, James says, must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. The soul in this condition regards forgiveness not only as by itself it is desired, but principally as it is by God. promised, promised. God cannot be untrue to his promises. His promises are yay and amen forever, not yes and no. A person who doesn't rest in this is a double-minded man, James says, unstable in all of its ways. The soul in this condition regards forgiveness not only as by itself it is desired, but principally as it is promised by God. So they expected to trust the promise of God in this. So when David comes to deal with God in his great distress, he prays to him, O Lord, you are my God. My times are in your hands. Psalm 31, 14 and 15. His times of trouble and of peace. of darkness and of light, he acknowledged to be in the hand of the disposal of God, so that it was his duty to wait his time and season for his share and portion in them. But during this state, there are times of trial and temptations to give up waiting, a state in which a soul meets with many oppositions, difficulties, and perplexities, especially if its darkness be of a long continuance. The toughest part about a difficult trial is the long continuance of it. Most of us can persevere if it's 24 hours, if it's 4 days, or whatever, but when it seems to go on and on, and you're crying to God, doesn't seem to give ear to you, and you think He doesn't hear you, and then you even begin to doubt your salvation. Well, if I was a Christian, why would God wait so long before He comes with His comfort? As with some, it abides many months, sometimes years, or hope being by this deferred. Hope deferred makes a heart sick. and their spirit oftentimes to faint, and this fainting is a defect in their awaiting for their lack of perseverance and continuance, which frustrates the end that the Christian is aiming at and which God designs. Patience draws to be refined, draws to be consumed, and the goal to be refined. David in Psalm 27 13 said, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord. But In finishing, we have to ask, why is this waiting on God without fainting necessary? One, it is necessary because they that watch for the morning, to whose frame enacting the waiting of the soul for God is compared, don't give up until the light appears, or if they do, if they are wearied and faint, and so cease to watch, all their former pains will be lost and they will be met with disappointment. So it will be with the soul that deserts its watch. and faints in its waiting upon God. If upon the eruption of new lusts or corruptions, if upon the return of old temptations or the assaults of new ones or the fiery darts of the devil, and you reason I have looked for light and behold darkness for peace and yet trouble comes as summer has passed, the harvest has ended and I am not relieved. Such and such blessed means have been enjoyed and yet I have not attained rest. And so you give over to waiting in the way and course that we are describing here. It will at length utterly fail and come short of the grace that you are aiming at. Thou has labored and has not fainted brings in the reward. Revelation 2 verse 3. So application 1. Encourage your souls to waiting on God. Do new fears arise? Do old disconsolations continue? Say to your souls, yet wait! on God. Why are you cast down on my soul? And why are you disquieted within us, hoping God? For we shall yet praise Him who is the health of our countenance and our God. As the psalmist says in the like case in Psalm 43.5, So he speaks elsewhere. Wait on God and be of good courage. Shake off your sloth. Rouse up yourselves from under despondencies. Let not your fears prevail. This is the only way for success, and it will assuredly be prevalent. Oppose this resolution to every discouragement, and it will give new life to your faith and your hope. Say, my flesh and my heart fails, but God is a rock of my heart and my portion forever. But during these trials, what will help is a proper understanding with the God with whom we have to do. If you're brought through this and you're going through it deep, you really want a proper understanding of God is who he is and his ways are not as our ways and lean not into your own understanding. And first you have to understand His being and the absolute and essential properties of His nature. Let us consider the infinite glorious being of the Lord with His absolute, incommunicable, essential excellencies, and then let us ask ourselves whether it does not become us in every condition to wait for Him. Who are we dealing with? We are dealing with the greatest mind in the universe. We are dealing with a God who is omniscient, who knows all things, and is omnipotent, who has the ability to assist us. Let us consider this God with whom we have to do when we are in this trial, and let us put our hands to our mouth and our faces to the dust. He sets before him his own glorious greatness as manifested in the works of his power that by this you're being convinced of your own ignorance, weakness, and infinite distance and all things from him. It will humble your soul into the most submissive dependence on him and waiting for him. And this David does accordingly in chapter 42 verse 6, Job, I abhor myself, he says, and repent in dust and ashes. His soul now comes to be willing to be at God's disposal. Isn't it true that a Christian is given to complain because he has very inadequate views of this God who has ordered his way like this? Job 50 verse 21, you thought that I was altogether such of one as yourself. A.W. Pink in The Attributes of God, The Supremacy of God, wrote, Men imagine that the Most High is moved by sentiment rather than actuated by principle. The absolute and universal supremacy of God is plainly and positively affirmed in many scriptures. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all, and you reign over all. Do not, I feel, heaven and earth, God says in Jeremiah 23, 24. The heavens, even the heaven of heavens, the supreme and most comprehensive created being cannot contain him. Solomon says, in his infinitely glorious being he is present with and yet distant from all places, not affected by time. God is not affected by time. That is a saiety of God. So everything that we think that God should be in a hurry, we have to remember that God is not affected by time, let alone our timetable. It is good to consider the instances that God has given of this as infinite greatness, power, majesty, and glory. Such was His mighty work of creating all things out of nothing. We dwell in little knoll hills of the earth, and yet we know the least part of the excellency of that spot of ground which is given us for our habitation here below. Secondly, the waiting for God respects the whole of the condition expressed in the psalm, and this contains not only spiritual depths about sin, but also providential depths, depths of trouble or affliction, that we are exercised with, that we are tried with in the holy wise providence of God. In reference to these, waiting in patience and silence is our duty. And it's easier to do if you consider this great omniscient God, whose thoughts are not as my thoughts, who knows all things. I can trust myself into his hands, that in his time the desire will come. God doesn't judge as man judge. We judge by the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear, according to outward appearance and evidences. But God searches the heart. We judge on what is between man and man, God principally upon what is between himself and man. And what do we know or understand of these things? His goodness and grace are also to be considered in all the works of his mighty hands. Yet he is a good God and we need to keep that before us. We start to think hard thoughts of him. But He is a good God, it is His very essential character, and we must stay ourselves upon this. And there is no unrighteousness in Him, so also there is all that is good and gracious. And whatever there is in any trouble of allay from the utmost wrath is of mere goodness and grace. Your houses are burned, but perhaps your goods are saved. Is there no grace? Is there no goodness in this? Or perhaps your substance also is consumed, but yet your person is alive. And should a living man complain? But say what you will, this stroke is not hell. You're not in hell, which you have deserved to go long ago. Yet it may be a means of preventing your going there, so that it is accompanied with infinite goodness, patience, and mercy also. And let me close by four lines of a hymn by John Though it tarries, wait for it. If hope that used your soul to cheer now leaves you dark as night, and neither sun nor stars appear, yet wait for morning light. Still look to Christ with longing eyes, though both begin to fail. Still follow with your feeble cries, for mercy will prevail. What if he drops no gracious smile or bids you leave his door? Yet still, knock on and wait a while, he must relieve the poor. He tarries, O, till men are faint, and comes at evening late. He hears and will relieve complaint. Tis hours to pray and wait. And that's in the Gadsby hymnal, and with that I'll close. Holy Father you ministered to me through this verse this week and it wasn't a long trial, though four days seems like forever if your hearts are fainting within us. One moment we're red hot in our prayer and we're trusting and the next moment we're key cold and we're fainting. How inconsistent are the frames that we are in. And yet all this while you were trying us and you knew what would be manifest, a dross that would expose itself. And still you were long suffering with us and most kind and most gracious. And when the desire came, it was a sustenance of life. How it put wind back into our cells, how it put a spring back into our feet and enabled us to go on as soldiers. to rise up and go to war again. And the whisperings and the hissings of Satan, you were able to calm and to quiet and you were able to say, my son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you. We thank you for that, for the mediator that we have, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.