Psalm 130 In His Word
Do I Hope 10/24/2004
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- From Out the Depths I Cry (Psalm 102:14, 130:1,
Rev 6:9)
#1. Lord, Hear My Voice (Psalm
130:2-3, Prov 28:9, Psalm 11:5, 1John 5:14)
- There Is Forgiveness With Thee (Psalm 130:4, Heb 12:28, Rom 3:18, Matt 1:21)
#2. I Wait for the Lord (Psalm
130:5, Luke 2:25-26, Psalm 119:49)
- More than Watchers for the Morning (Psalm 130:6)
#3. Let Israel Hope in the Lord (Psalm
130:7, Gal 4:25, Matt 20:28)
- He Shall Redeem Israel (Psalm 130:8, Psalm
103:2-5)
Please open
your Bibles to Psalm 130:1 (2X). You find the Psalms about in the middle
of your Bible. We will have for our text all 8 verses of this Psalm. I chose
for the title of this sermon: “In His Word Do I Hope” (2X). Psalm
130 is one of the “Songs of Degrees”. There are fifteen “Songs of
Degrees”. The first one is Psalm 120 and the last one is Psalm 134. These
“Songs of Degrees” are also called “Songs of Ascent”, or “Songs of
Steps”. These were sung by the children of Israel
when they traveled to Jerusalem
3X each year. As you know, God required that all the males of the nation of Israel must
appear before Him 3X per year. Those 3X were on the feast of Passover in the 1st
month, on the feast of Pentecost in the 3rd month, and on the feast of
Tabernacles in the 7th month. This is how it came about that the
pilgrims sung these 15 “Songs of Ascent” as they were ascending up to Jerusalem. They were
already feasting in their heart before the feast started. Let us compare
this with us. Do we have such a love and anticipation of the spiritual
feast we have each Sunday when we meet here in church? Is there a song in our
heart when we are on the way to church? Do we love to be here, or are we just
filling a desire from the Pastor to be here? Would we still come if we knew
that the Pastor would be on vacation? For whom are we here? Are we here
for the benefit of ourselves, to learn something that we have not heard before?
Or are we here to please the Pastor, or to please the congregation? Or are we
here because it is pleasing to God? These are serious questions, which reveal
the state of our soul. Think about these questions honestly. Does God demand
from us that we love the church? Indeed He does! The Bible says that Christ
loves the church, and since we are the Body of Christ we too love the church. Please
turn about 25 pages to your left, to Psalm 102:14 (2X), where the
Psalmist cries unto God for the deplorable state of the church. God says in
Psalm 102:14, “For thy servants take pleasure in
her stones, and favour the dust thereof”.
This verse says that the true servants of Jehovah love the church so much that
they even take pleasure in the stones of the church, which is just the outward
manifestation of the church. And there are many more such verses in the Bible. Let
us now turn again to Psalm 130 and Verse 1.
- From Out the Depths I Cry (Psalm
102:14, 130:1, Rev 6:9)
Who is speaking in
this Psalm? This is not a Messianic Psalm. These are not the words of Christ.
This is a prayer, which God gave to His saints, by the hand of one of His
prophets, who is praying this back to God. It is a prayer that contains the
essence of the Gospel, and the prophet is praising God for His great
forgiveness through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read here in:
Ps 130:1 ¶ <<A Song of degrees.>> Out of the depths
have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
What depths is the
prophet talking about? When we read this verse we are immediately thinking of
the prophet Jonah, who cried out to God from the belly of the great fish. Jonah
was in great trouble, and Jonah was in great depths of the sea. But this Psalm
does not refer to
Jonah, because the Lord Jesus said that Jonah was a figure of Christ. Since
this is not a Messianic Psalm, Jonah is not in view What then do these depths refer to in
verse 1 of this Psalm? We can be sure that these depths are a consequence of
sin. Therefore, #1, this could be the prayer of a repenting saint, who prays to God for
delivering him out of a sordid mess that his own sin has gotten him into. If
any of us has experienced this kind of trouble we have gotten ourselves into,
then we can identify with the prophet who prays this prayer. #2, this prayer could be from
someone who is living in the midst of heathen, who do not fear the Lord, and
who do not obey His commandments, and he prays to God for delivering him out of
the depths of sin that he is in the midst thereof. If any of us are in such an
environment, may be in the workplace, or in the office, or in a family that
does not fear God, then we realize that these people are on the way to Hell,
and therefore we are in the midst of the walking dead. #3, this prayer applies to the
souls of the saints, whose bodies are buried in the dust, and who cry out for a
bodily resurrection. We know that this is so, because we read in Rev 6:9 about the souls of the saints
under the altar in heaven who cry unto God to make a speedy end of them that
dwell on the earth. Now that they are in heaven they can see how this earth is
wallowing in sin, and they pray to God to avenge their blood on them that dwell
on the earth. In all three cases we see that the depths, from which the saints cry out,
were formed because of their own sin, or through the sins of those who are
their enemies. Therefore the saints cry out to God in the following verse:
#1. Lord, Hear My Voice (Psalm
130:2-3, Prov 28:9, Psalm 11:5, 1John 5:14)
Ps 130:2 Lord, hear
my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
Why would God pay any attention to our crying? Does God listen to
every human being on earth who cries to Him? Surprisingly, the answer that the
Bible gives is: NO! God does not listen to the prayers of
everyone on this earth. God says in Prov 28:9, “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his
prayer shall be abomination” (2X).
And there are many other verses of this nature. This is clear language. The Law
does not refer to the 10 Commandments. The Law refers to the whole Bible. God
does not listen to anyone who refuses to believe the whole Bible. And someone
who picks and chooses from the Bible is just as bad off as someone who refuses
the whole Bible. Both have declared God a liar. God calls them “the Wicked”,
whereas God calls those who believe the whole Bible “the Righteous”. The wicked
have no place in the Kingdom
of God. God does not give
them the grace to hear the Gospel, God does not give them grace to understand
the Gospel, God does not give them faith, God does not give them anything
that might be used by them to become saved. The Wicked are not only ignorant of
the God of the Bible. The Wicked actively hate the God of the Bible. They do
not want to know anything about the God of the Bible. Do you want proof? Try
this out: Mention to anyone this verse, Prov 28:9. Have them read
it, and explain it to them, because they are hard of hearing. And then explain
to them that this applies to the majority of mankind. It follows then that God
hates the majority of mankind. Does God hate anyone? God says in Psalm 11:5,
“The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence
his soul hateth”. This is the God of the Bible. This is the God whom we
worship. Do they want to hear more from this God of the Bible? NO!
If they are nice, they will have all kinds of excuses for not believing
that the Bible is the Word of God. They will claim that the Bible was written
by men, and thus it does not differ from any other book that was written by
men. They will claim that the Bible is full of contradictions, and thus we
cannot believe that it is the inerrant Word of God. If they are not nice
they will throw you out on the street, and declare that you are a hatemonger
and that you are distributing hate literature. They will claim that they firmly
know what they believe, and nothing that you can show them from the Bible is
going to persuade them to believe otherwise. And so, when we read in this Psalm
in verse 2, “Lord, hear my voice”, it is implied that this is a person
who believes the entire Word of God. This is so because the same God wrote
Psalm 130:2 as well as Prov 28:9. Therefore, we who believe the whole Word of
God will be delighted to know that God always lends us a willing ear. We read
in 1John 5:14, “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that,
if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us”. When we belong
to that very small fraction of people who are willing to believe the whole
Bible, then we know that this is a faith given to us from God. This kind of
faith does not come out of our own good heart. O NO! We do not have such a good
heart. But just like Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, tempting
her not to believe everything that God told Adam, even so does Satan tempt the
human race to disbelieve what God has said. And it turns out that Satan is
quite successful at it. We can see the evidence of it all around us:
Divorce and fornication is at an all time high. Murder of unborn infants is at
an all time high. Stealing by white-collar workers is at an all time high. Just
think of the Enron scandal. That is one that came out in the open. But there
are many more that remain hidden that are sucking America dry. And all these crimes
are allowed to go on because our government has made them legal, so they are
approved. There are more and more women entering the ministry and are appointed
deacons and elders and pastors. There are more and more homosexuals appointed
to the ministry also. There are more and more pedophiles discovered in the
ministry of almost every denomination in the country. The theory of evolution
is continuing to gain ground. The false gospels are also growing like
gangbusters. And so on, and so on. And all off this boils down to this event: The
church has begun to disbelieve the Word of God, just like Eve did in the
Garden of Eden. All these things enter into the picture wherever you read, “Lord,
hear my voice”. Let us now go on in Psalm 130, and there we read about
sin. Not the sins that I listed in the past 10 minutes, but the sin of Adam
and Eve, which led to the proliferation of sin in everyone of the human race.
We all inherited from Adam and Eve the rebellious attitude against God that
they displayed in the Garden of Eden. That is why we read in Psalm 130:3,
Ps 130:3 If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O
Lord, who shall stand?
Can anyone of us say that we have not sinned?
Suppose there would be one man who could say, “I am not living in sin right
now. I am married and I have not committed adultery, or stolen, or committed a
lie. I have not murdered anyone and I do not covet anything that does not belong
to me. I am supporting my father and mother, I go to church every Sunday, and
so on, and so on.” But what about his past sins? He was a child at one time,
and he was a teenager at one time, and children commit a host of sins. What
about those sins? Those sins have been recorded in heaven. That is why the
inspired Word of God reads here in Psalm 130:3, “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall
stand?” There is NONE righteous, NO NOT
ONE! If God would count our iniquities, which means our sins, then we all would
have to pay the penalty required for committing our own sins and that would
mean that we all would be on the way to Hell. If God is just, and God would
give us what we deserve, then the whole human race would be sent to Hell. If that
would be the case, then God would not have to write the Bible. But that was not
God’s plan. God had mercy on some of the human race, and God said in Psalm
130:4,
- There Is Forgiveness With Thee (Psalm
130:4, Heb 12:28, Rom 3:18, Matt 1:21)
Ps 130:4 But there
is forgiveness with thee, that (in order that) thou mayest be feared.
The word “that” literally means, “in order that”. Now, this
is a peculiar sentence structure. If this verse would read, “There is the penalty
of Hell with Thee, in order that Thou mayest be feared”, then this verse
would seem logical. But that is not what God wrote. He said, “There is
forgiveness with Thee, in order that Thou mayest be feared”. In other words, the fear is a result of the forgiveness.
Do we fear God because He has forgiven us our sins? Now, that is indeed true.
All those who have their sins forgiven by Christ on the cross have been given
faith, and have been given the desire to worship Him and praise Him and glorify
His name. Now, here is our definition of fear. We do not fear God for
casting us into Hell. We know that God would not do that if we are His
children, and we believe that we are His children. We do not fear God like we
fear terrorists, but we fear God by worshipping Him and praising Him and
glorifying Him with a godly fear. According to Heb 12:28, “we serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear”. We delight in fearing God
this way. But the unsaved do not fear God in this way. The unsaved do not
worship Him and adore Him and bring glory to Him. The unsaved also do not fear
God in the other extreme. They sin because they do not fear that God will cast
them into Hell. God says in Rom 3:18, “There is no fear of God before
their eyes”.
Moreover, when we read about forgiveness in
Psalm 130:4, we are reminded of the forgiveness that God designed into His plan
of salvation. How many ways are there in God’s plan to forgive sins? Only
ONE! The only way that anyone’s sins can be forgiven is that the Lord Jesus
Christ must have paid for those sins on the cross at Golgotha.
This was the only time in all of the history of mankind that sins were atoned
for. There is no other way to forgive sins. And when Christ paid for our sins
on the cross this was not a token of a possibility to forgive sins. Christ’s
payment on the cross was not some amorphous gesture on the part of Christ to
forgive all those who would take the action of believing on Him. Christ did not
make it possible for anyone to become saved. Christ actually saved people,
rather than provided the possibility to be saved. The angel said to Joseph in Matt
1:21, “Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his
people from their sins”. When Jesus saved His people, He definitely saved
them from their sins and from the consequences of their sins. All our sins were
still future sins at that time. And thus, the forgiveness that God lavished on
us must be entirely a gift of grace. But grace is unmerited favor.
Therefore, since this gift was unmerited, God decided to whom He would give
this grace and whom He would pass by. God chose the people whom He wanted to
save, and called them His elect. These were the people for whose sins Christ
suffered and died. These were His people, His elect, and these
are the people that are in view in Psalm 130:4. He saved His elect by
substituting for them and by paying for their sins the equivalent of an
eternity in Hell. Then, at some point in the life of each one of His elect the
payment is applied, their sins are forgiven, they receive the faith to believe
that, and they praise God and glorify God for His wonderful salvation that has
come so freely. That is why we read in Psalm 130:4, “There is
forgiveness with Thee, in order that Thou mayest be feared”. And then we read in the following verse,
#2. I Wait for the Lord (Psalm
130:5, Luke 2:25-26, Psalm 119:49)
Ps 130:5 ¶ I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait,
and in his word do I hope.
What does it mean to wait for the Lord? It means simply to wait
until He comes, or to wait until God has finished His plan for some portion of
our life. The clearest example of this process of waiting for the Lord is given
in the Gospel according to Luke 2:25-26.
Lu 2:25 ¶ And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem,
whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting
for the consolation of Israel:
and the Holy Ghost was upon him.
Lu 2:26 And it was
revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he
had seen the Lord's Christ.
Then, when he held the Lord Jesus in his arms, it was revealed to
him that this was the Lord’s Christ, this was the Messiah, the Anointed One.
This was what Simeon waited for. He waited for many years, and he never knew
when the time would come. But he was certain that the time would come when He
would see Christ with his own eyes. He looked forward in hope, but it was not
an uncertain hope. Hope in the Bible refers to something that we have not yet
seen, but it is certain to come. Therefore when we read in Psalm 130:5, “In
His Word do I hope”, we are reminded that the promises in the Word of God
are not possibilities, but they are certainties. That is what the Biblical word
“Hope” stands for. Faith, Hope and Love. We already know that Faith is a
gift from God. Is Hope also a gift from God? Please turn about 8 pages
to your left, to Psalm 119:49 (2X).
Ps 119:49 ¶ Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which
thou hast caused me to hope.
What does this verse say? God has caused me to hope in His Word.
In other words, God gave me this Hope, and I believe that His Word is
completely trustworthy. I look forward to being with Christ, I wait for His
initiative to bring it to pass, and I am certain that it will come, just like
Simeon was certain that he would see the Messiah. Please return to Psalm
130:6.
- More than Watchers for the Morning (Psalm
130:6)
Ps 130:6 My soul waiteth
for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than
they that watch for the morning.
I am waiting for the Lord and in His Word do I hope more than the
morning-watchers who are watching for the morning. In OT time some
officers were peculiarly appointed from a tower to watch for the first
appearance of the break of day. With such anticipation did the ancient church
expect the appearance of that “day-spring from on high”, who was in the
fullness of time to visit the world. Then Christ came and left. In the NT
time have some in the church looked forward to the dawning of that last
morning when sin would be abolished and when sorrow will have an end. These are
the morning-watchers. But Psalm 130:6 says, “I wait for the Lord and
hope in His Word more than the morning-watchers”. The morning-watchers are
checking their calculations and are looking to the outside world for signs of
the times that the Lord is coming. But my trust is entirely in His Word, the
Bible. I wait for the Lord but I leave it up to Him when He must come. In His
Word do I hope, and I believe that His promises are sure. We do not need to
fret about the timing of His 2nd coming. We do not need to fret
whether the church is dead. The church is not dead yet.
Now, let us apply this to ourselves. Do we come to church joyfully? Do we
come to church with the confidence that Christ will keep us safe unto the end?
Do we come to church knowing that we will hear the true Gospel, and knowing
that we are worshipping the only God, the God of the Bible? Do we realize that
this is happening because of God’s irresistible grace? It is only by grace that
we have received all these spiritual benefits. It is only by grace that we can
continue to rejoice in the light of the Gospel, and continue to rejoice that we
are still faithful to the Bible. Do we fully put our hope in the Word of God?
And so we say,
#3. Let Israel Hope in the Lord (Psalm
130:7, Gal 4:25, Matt 20:28)
Ps 130:7 Let Israel
hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is
plenteous redemption.
Who is this verse speaking about? It speaks about Israel. Which Israel? Is this
speaking about the nation of Israel
who are the descendants from Jacob? But that nation is no longer the favorite
nation of God. We read in Gal 4:25, “Jerusalem which now is, is in
bondage with her children”. It means that the majority of the nation of Israel is still
in bondage to sin and Satan. Only a remnant saved by grace is worshipping the
triune God of the Bible. Obviously, if the majority of the nation of Israel rejects
the NT, and they adhere only to the OT as the Word of God, then they have a
description of God that is smaller than the whole Bible. This means that they
have a different authority than we do from our Bible and therefore, according
to Rev 22:18, they worship another god than the God whom we worship. Let us
therefore look for another Israel
in Psalm 130:7. The Lord Jesus Christ is also called Israel,
and therefore the people who constitute His Bride, the body of Christ, are also
called Israel.
This is more likely the Israel
that is in view here, because verse 7 continues with the words, “for with the LORD there is mercy”. Mercy is the antonym of grace. Grace is unmerited
favor. Grace is receiving a gift that we do not deserve. On the other hand, mercy
is withholding what we do deserve. We deserve the penalty of Hell. The mercy of
God is that God withholds the penalty of Hell from us. God can have mercy on
all those for whom the Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died, because Christ paid
the penalty for their sins. Therefore, when we think of mercy we think of the
cross of Christ. That was the time when God approved to have mercy upon all
those who were represented by Christ and who were in Christ from before the
foundation of the world. That is why God says in verse 7, “with him is
plenteous redemption”, and the Hebrew word for “redemption” is the word
“ransom”. Literally the last 5 words in verse 7 are, “with Him is plenteous
ransom”. The Lord Jesus said in
Matt 20:28 Even as the Son of man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
He gave His life a ransom for many, not for
everyone, but for many. That is why Israel must hope in the Lord. This Israel refers
to the body of believers. We must put our trust in His Word, for there is where
all our hope lies. There is where we learn of His mercy and there is where we
learn of His ransom.
- He Shall Redeem Israel (Psalm
130:8, Psalm 103:2-5)
Ps 130:8 And he shall
redeem (ransom) Israel
from all his iniquities.
God shall ransom us from all our sins and
from the consequences of our sins. When do we expect this to come to pass? The
previous 7 verses were addressing a saved individual. So, why does verse 8 say
that Christ shall redeem us again from all our iniquities? It is because this
verse speaks of our final redemption to the NH&NE. It is a promise that God
will keep us in His care down to the very last breath of our life. God will
make sure that He will finish the work that He began. It is also a promise that
God will resurrect our mortal bodies and give us new life. We have been
redeemed now, but we have not been redeemed completely. Our bodies are still
the same bodies we had before our salvation. But when Christ shall come on the
clouds of glory on the last day, when He brings with Him the souls of all those
in heaven, then shall we receive our glorified bodies in a moment that is as
short as the blinking of an eye. Then shall we truly be redeemed from all our
iniquities. Please turn about 24 pages to your left, to Psalm 103:2
(2X). This Psalm also should be looked at with eyes of anticipation. We read
there in Psalm 103:2,
Ps 103:2 Bless the
LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
Ps 103:3 Who forgiveth
all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
Ps 103:4 Who
redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies;
Ps 103:5 Who
satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed
like the eagle's.
Do you see in verse 3, “who healeth all thy diseases”? This does
not occur until we have received our new glorified bodies. Do you see in verse
4, “Who redeemeth thy life from destruction” Literally this does occur when we receive our new glorified
bodies. Do you see in verse 5, “thy youth is renewed like the eagle's”.
Why is this speaking of our youth? And why are we compared to eagles? It is
because we will fly faster than eagles, and we will be young all the time. This
is what we are looking forward to when we receive our new glorified bodies.
This is when we will be truly redeemed from all our iniquities. This is what we
read in His Word and therefore we do hope in His Word.
AMEN. Let
us turn to the Lord in prayer.