Text: Psalm 130
Topic: The experience of being in the depths of sorrow over sin.

• Psalm 130
  • Illustration: After the Virginia Tech University massacre, a worship leader used this text to give solace.
• God's people have often made these words their own when going through deep grief.
• The psalmist images trouble as being in the depths: a pit, mire, deep water.
• The imagery conveys feelings of helplessness in the face of heart-breaking bereavement, victimization, or senseless tragedy.
• No light and momentary troubles here; people are in the depths, and out of the depths they cry to God.

• These words might seem fitting for the Virginia Tech service, but there is a surprise in the next line of the poem: "If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?"
• The depths this poet talks about are not depths of illness or oppression or violence or bereavement, but depths of guilt.
• Unlike most psalms where this imagery is used, here it's not a case of enemies digging a pit that he fell into, or the waves and breakers of life crashing over him.
• No, he's in a hole he made himself, a pit of sin.
• You and I make holes like that for ourselves all the time. This poet is one of us.
  • Illustration: A man who never went to church except for weddings and funerals was surprised when he heard the corporate prayer of confession: "We have done that which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone that which we ought to have done." He said, "These are my kind of people!"
• We're all his kind of people. All of us cry to God out of depths we're in because of our own sin.
• Our poet knew grace, mercy, and forgiveness, but his emotions did not yet match his theology. He believed God is merciful, but he was not yet feeling the sunshine of his merciful smile on his life.
  • Illustration: A man had an affair with his wife's sister. His wife forgave him, and he knew God forgave him, but he was still in the depths. Another man embezzled money from his company and went to jail. Even though he knew his heart was washed clean by the blood of Jesus, he was still in the depths of remorse.
• The depths are dark places: ocean deeps where blind fish swim, mines where light never comes, canyons so deep that it's always cold and dark.
• Our poet is a believer, but he's still in that canyon. He knows the sun is shining up there, but he can't see it, can't feel its warmth. He not feeling forgiven.
• His experience is perfectly normal.

• Some people think that only non-Christians have to pray "out of the depths"—that believers, who know they're forgiven, ought to always feel forgiven.
• But depths and darkness are normal for even the saintliest saint.
  •  Illustration: John Owen's masterful exposition of Psalm 130, Forgiveness of Sin
• God sometimes permits his children to grieve deeply over sins they know are forgiven.
• Though God washes us clean by the blood of his Son, he does not always immediately lift the cloud that covers our hearts.
• Why should this be?
• God sometimes wants us to know the depth and darkness of sin—an experiential knowledge that we know not only with our head but with our heart.
• Suppose you wound someone deeply. You get convicted about it, confess, and claim 1 John 1:9. Immediately you think, "That's taken care of; I feel good now!"
• Or suppose the Holy Spirit convicts you about a longstanding sin. You feel the darkness of this character flaw for a minute or two, but then you confess, and you think, "This isn't so bad. Just confess and get on with life. No big deal."
• If God did not sometimes let us experience longer seasons in the pits and in the dark, we might not take sin as seriously as he does.
• The psalmist says in verse four, "With you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared."
• If we grasp this, we won't say, "Oh well. Yes, I sinned, but God likes to forgive." We'll say, "God, as bad as sin is, I can hardly believe you're willing to forgive. I stand in awe of you, holy God."
• When we come to the Lord's table and we're reminded of the terrible price the Son of God had to pay that we might be forgiven, we cannot take sin lightly.
• We shudder and cringe that it was our sins that bloodied his hands and feet, our transgressions that pierced his side.

• After we confess, we wait. "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope."
• We put our hope in God's Word, this Book full of hope and promise.
• Whoever wrote Psalm 119 says that his eyes were open through the watches of the night that he might meditate on God's promises.
• Sometimes in God's mercy, we don't have to wait long. The feeling of forgiveness follows hard on the heels of forgiveness, and we don't linger long in the depths.
• But sometimes we wait, and we wait, and we wait.
• Sometimes we wait long because, although we've been forgiven, we keep on sinning.
  • Illustration: Eugene Peterson describes his experience with someone he knew who confessed again and again and wished he could stop having to ask God for forgiveness.
    
• Other times we wait because God knows there are lessons we can learn only while waiting. He wants us to feel about our sin what he feels about our sin.
• "My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning."
• Verbatim repetition is rare in the Psalms—these poets didn't waste many lines. But here, the repetition is just right.
  • Illustration: It evokes the kind of emotion we feel in Robert Frost's lines, "and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." It's wistful, it's longing.
• It's hard to wait through the night. If you're a sentry on guard duty, or a night watchman who has to keep his eyes open in a lonely, quiet building, it's hard.
  • Illustration: Langley shares his attempts at staying up all night.

• This perfectly chosen image of the psalmist's illustrates that however long the night seems, the morning will surely come!
• Another psalmist says, "Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning."
• It does come. It will happen.
• God does not ignore or neglect his children who wait for him and hope in him.
• Maybe it will come for you today, as you're reminded that the steadfast love of the Lord never changes.
• Maybe dawn will break when your season of darkness has sufficiently humbled you, broken you, and made you sense the depth and darkness of your sin.
• But this is God's promise: the darkness will not last, for any child of God, one hour longer than the Father knows best. Then—morning!
• Confident of this, the psalmist ends his poem: "O Israel! Put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins."
• Put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love all through the watches of the night.
• With the Lord is full redemption. He doesn't just forgive some of your sins or solve part of your problem.
• He himself will redeem Israel—and that includes us Gentiles who trust Israel's Messiah—from all their sins.

• Of the varied images of salvation in the Bible, redemption speaks most vividly of freedom from the slave market of sin.
• You and I are enslaved by our sins, but then the Redeemer comes along and purchases us and sets us free.
  • On a summer day in 1830, all the slaves in the British West Indies were to be set free. On the night before freedom day, many slaves never went to bed but sang and waited for the morning, when they shouted, "We're free!"
• That morning will come. So wait for the morning. Wait for the morning.