Out of the Depths

The psalmist begins in the depths: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!” (v. 1). You could say that he’s in the depths of despair. You might go so far as to say that he feels like life is not worth living. 

Have you ever felt like that? Maybe you’re feeling like that today.

But the psalmist ends his psalm in the heights: “O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption” (v. 7). He goes from the depths to the heights!

How does the psalmist go from the depths to the heights?

A Plea for Mercy

Before we answer that question, we need to consider another question first: Why was the psalmist in the depths? Let’s look at the first two verses:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

The psalmist is feeling like he’s in the depths (i.e., the depths of the sea). There’s a huge distance between him down in the depths of the sea and God up in heaven. It seems like an insurmountable distance. 

What is the psalmist pleading to the Lord for? Mercy. And why does he need mercy? We find the answer in verse 3:

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?

The NIV says, “If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins ….” The psalmist is thinking about God meticulously recording all of his sins in a book. Imagine that there was a book like that for your sins and my sins … every sinful action, word, and thought … written in permanent ink, never to be erased. What would be included in that book?

The question in verse 3 is a rhetorical question. The answer is no one. No one could stand (i.e., escape divine judgment).

So the psalmist is in the depths of guilt. He’s feeling the weight of his guilt. And maybe on top of that guilt is trouble caused by his sin. 

Do we downplay the seriousness of our sin? The psalmist didn’t.

With the Lord There Is Forgiveness

How can we go from the depths of guilt to the heights of hope? Verse 4 begins with a small but extremely significant word: “But.”

But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

Notice in verses 1, 3, 5, and 7 that God is addressed as “the LORD.” In the original Hebrew, the word is “Yahweh,” God’s name. When God revealed his glory to Moses in Exodus 34, he proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (vv. 6-7). 

“With [Yahweh] there is forgiveness.” That’s who he is, a forgiving God. 

We can go from the depths of guilt to the heights of hope because forgiveness excites God.

To be “excited” is to be “very enthusiastic and eager.” Judgment doesn’t excite God; forgiveness excites him. God is never reluctant to forgive. Think about the story of the prodigal son. The Father runs to meet his son. He throws a party for him.

In his commentary on the Psalms, James Montgomery Boice gives four truths about God’s forgiveness. 

1. God’s forgiveness is inclusive. Verse 4 doesn’t say there’s forgiveness for this sin or not, but not other sins. No, there’s forgiveness for all sin. Someone might say, “But you don’t know what I’ve done.” God knows. And with him there is forgiveness … forgiveness of all sin.
   
   
2. God’s forgiveness is for now. Notice the word “is.” There is forgiveness available at this very moment.
   
   
3. God’s forgiveness is for those who want it. The psalmist isn’t covering up his sin. He’s being honest about it, confessing it. He wants forgiveness, and he’ll receive it because God will give us forgiveness if we ask for it, if we want it.
   
   
4. God’s forgiveness leads to godly living. Verse 4 ends in an unexpected way: “That you may be feared.” Why doesn’t it say, “That you may be loved”? This helps us understand what fearing God really means. It doesn't mean a bad kind of fear—fear of punishment—because forgiveness would lessen that kind of fear. The kind of fear that the psalmist is talking about is reverence. God’s forgiveness increases our admiration of God, which leads to obedience motivated by love for God.

I Wait for the Lord

There’s a lot of waiting in Psalm 130. Already the psalmist has talked about waiting for God’s response to his prayers. Now look at verses 5 and 6:

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, 
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

In this psalm, to wait and to hope are synonymous … enduring the present in anticipation of something good to come. It’s like a watchman waiting for the morning. It’s a tedious job. But the morning always comes.

The psalmist says, “In his word I hope.” God’s word refers to his covenant promises. Waiting often isn’t easy, but the fulfillment to God’s promises always comes.

O Israel, Hope in the Lord

In the final two verses, the psalmist encourages Israel to hope in the Lord.

O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

Three similar statements about Yahweh are made in this psalm: (1) “with you there is forgiveness” (v. 4); (2) “with the LORD there is steadfast love” (v. 7); (3) “with him is plentiful redemption” (v. 7). The people of Israel could hope in the Lord because of who he is!

He had also shown his faithfulness by his actions, especially the nation’s redemption when they were slaves in Egypt. Isaiah 51:10 says, “Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?

Fulfillment in Christ

The promise to “redeem Israel from all his iniquities” (v. 8) was fulfilled in Christ. The New Testament expands this promise to include all people. 

In Matthew 1:21, Joseph is told by an angel in a dream, “She [Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, he said to his disciples, “This [the cup] is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28).

The cross shows us that without a doubt that “with [the Lord] there is forgiveness.” Forgiveness required a tremendous sacrifice … his own Son. But he did it anyway because that’s who he is … a forgiving God … a God of “steadfast love” and “plentiful redemption.”

Have you received God’s gift of forgiveness?

Christian, is God’s forgiveness of you motivating you to live in obedience to his word?