With Him There Is Forgiveness

is a profound Psalm. Not a long Psalm, not a complicated Psalm, but a profound Psalm. It has, throughout the ages, been a Psalm loved by many of God’s people. They have loved it and considered it blessed because it so clearly articulates both mans greatest dilemma, and the solution or answer for that dilemma. In fact, in all the Psalms there may not be another that has such a clear, succinct statement of the Gospel.

As John Wesley recounts the story of his conversion, he tells of a Vesper service in 1738 that he attended on the afternoon of that day at St. Paul’s Cathedral. In that service, this Psalm, 130, was sung as an anthem. Wesley recalls being so greatly moved by the message of this Psalm that he attributes it as one of the distinct means that God used to open his heart to the Gospel. Later that night, while gathering with another small group of believers, Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed” by the Gospel and was saved.

Martin Luther, who loved the Psalms dearly, called it a “Pauline Psalm.” Now what did he mean by that? That he believed Paul wrote it? No, of course not. But what he meant was that this Psalm so clearly demonstrates forgiveness by grace apart from human works that it very well could find itself with Paul’s epistles in that regard. Luther wrote a lengthy exposition on this psalm, and in that he rewrote the words of the psalm into a hymn.

Psalms, Volume 3: (Psalms 107–150): An Expositional Commentary A Psalm Greatly Loved

From depths of woe I raise to thee

The voice of lamentation;

Lord, turn a gracious ear to me

And hear my supplication:

If thou iniquities dost mark,

Our secret sins and misdeeds dark,

O who shall stand before thee?

I won’t sing it, but here are a couple of stanzas:

From depths of woe I cry to Thee, In trial and tribulation; Bend down Thy gracious ear to me, Lord, hear my supplication. If Thou rememb’rest ev’ry sin, Who then could heaven ever win Or stand before Thy presence?

Thy love and grace alone avail To blot out my transgression; The best and holiest deeds must fail To break sin’s dread oppression. Before Thee none can boasting stand, But all must fear Thy strict demand And live alone by mercy.

Therefore my hope is in the Lord And not in mine own merit; It rests upon His faithful Word To them of contrite spirit That He is merciful and just; This is my comfort and my trust. His help I wait with patience.

And though it tarry through the night And till the morning waken, My heart shall never doubt His might Nor count itself forsaken. O Israel, trust in God your Lord. Born of the Spirit and the Word, Now wait for His appearing.

Needless to say, just as many have loved this psalm throughout the ages, we too should take great joy at not just this psalm, but in the message it proclaims.

May we wait on the Lord and rest assured that He forgives and delivers His people.

As you can see, for today we will break the Psalm into two main portions, each having two “stanzas” each, if you will.

1. A Prayer to The Lord - 1-4

That this portion is a prayer to the Lord may seem like an obvious thing and unnecessary to point out, but as we examine the trouble that this psalmist finds himself in, we will see just how critical it is that this is a prayer to God and not just a general plea for help; for the trouble that this soul finds is the trouble that every soul finds, and the answer to the earnest call can come from none but God.

A. A Petition - 1-2

As we begin, we find the Psalmist has no small problem here. His cry is strong and urgent and forceful! He does not simply cry in his mild oppression, or in his difficult season, or in his small predicament - rather, he cries out of the depths.

The reference to “the depths” for the Hebrew people usually referred to deep waters. As people who were a mostly land-based civilization throughout most of their existence, the idea of deep, unknown waters was one that struck fear in their hearts. Drowning and deep water is a fear of many, so we can relate. I’ll even confess that jumping into deep, unknown water is not something that I would volunteer to do for fun.

Deep water is a common theme in the Psalms, it refers to the worst of calamity, the most serious of troubles. Another place where we see its strength is

Psalm 69:1–2 ESV

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

Psalm

So the psalmist is crying for help in the deepest of troubles. What could it be? Why is he in this dangerous condition, we could ask? Some conclude that the problem the Psalmist is facing is merely suffering. And while suffering no doubt is a part of the whole picture here, if we simply view his cry with suffering alone in view, we will miss the great theme of the Psalm.

As we look at the whole Psalm, we see that it is not simply suffering that troubles the Psalmist, but sin. This is what John Owen writes here.

Psalms, Volume 3: (Psalms 107–150): An Expositional Commentary In the Depths

He cries out under the weight and waves of his sins. This the ensuing psalm makes evident. Desiring to be delivered from these depths out of which he cried, he deals with God wholly about mercy and forgiveness; and it is sin alone from which forgiveness is a deliverance. The doctrine also that he preached upon his delivery is that of mercy, grace and redemption, as is manifest from the close of the psalm.… Sin is the disease, affliction only a symptom of it.

Now, perhaps you’re thinking, haven’t we heard enough about sin? Haven’t we spent weeks and weeks looking at the 10 commandments learning what sin is? Couldn’t we apply or relate this psalm to a more relevant topic such as suffering, oppression, fear, doubt, politics? If that is the case, then i suppose you would also suffice with Ibuprofen when you need a body cast, and that a band-aid would satisfy you if you were mortally wounded.

It is the very joy of Satan that our sinful hearts would rather hear of easement for our pain than of healing for our disease. It is sin that causes us to be in the depths, and not just what causes us to be there, but the pit of sin is the depths. This psalmist turns to the only solution for that ailment, and it is where we must turn as well.

B. An Expectation

Many today do not have any awareness of sin, let alone a proper understanding of it. The Westminister Shorter Catechism defines it as “Any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.” May we pray that we, in our lives, in our church, as God’s people, recover a sense of our sin - to remember just how desperate our condition is apart from God.

The psalmist here states a conditional clause with a rhetorical answer, and if left alone, this sentence is chilling.

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

Of course the answer to the rhetorical question is “No one.”

In , Paul cites from and when he writes these chilling words.

Romans 3:10–12 ESV

as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

In verse 3, the Psalmist references the Covenant name of our God, Yaweh, along with a the title for Lord, or Master, to remind his readers of the power and sovereignty of God. We are reminded that if the charges against us were remembered, if our sins were enumerated, not one person could stand up against the righteous judgment of God. Too often we find ourselves in a sad fantasy world where the idea of sin can be ignored, altogether forgotten, and the concept of the wrath of God is an antiquated theological construct. But when our minds are returned to God’s Word, we are returned to a place where we again realize that if our sins were counted against us, not one individual person could stand against the weight of penalty that we have incurred.

Perhaps you are here today, and you are aware of the weight of your sin, you are convinced that wickedness in your life is crippling and deadly. Perhaps you are here today and you find yourself in the depths along with the psalmist. Where can you turn? What should your cry be? You will not find in yourself any answer, you will only find it in God alone. He is the only source of help for you, and for me!

As quickly as the psalmist asks this rhetorical question, he comes back with a resounding conjunction that lifts our spirits and calls us upward into the mercy and graciousness of God.

“But with you there is forgiveness.”

This reminds me so much of Paul in

Ephesians 2:4–5 ESV

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

It has been said here before, and elsewhere by men greater than I, but we must be so thankful for the phrase “but God” in the scripture. If verse 3 stood alone, we would be helplessly positioned in the firing line of God’s wrath with no solution, no recourse, no help for our calamity. But God!

But with you there is forgiveness!

As God’s wrath is part of his eternal, unchanging character, so is his forgiveness. God did not become a forgiving God after Christ came, He has all along been loving and merciful to those who come to Him.

Moses received this revelation of who God is.

Exodus 34:6–7 ESV

The Lord passed before him and 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, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Exodus

Here we find that God’s mercy and wrath are not in competition, they are not a contradiction of terms. They are equally a part of His character. God’s wrath is real and impending on every person that comes into the world, but his mercy and grace are available to all who will believe.

Today, if you find yourself sinking in the depths, up to your neck in the helpless pit of sin, today dear one, realize that yes, God’s wrath is real, and we are all deserving of it, but there is hope even in the depths! For just as God’s wrath is promised to all who are guilty, forgiveness and clearing of guilt is promised to all who call upon him in faith.

That you may be feared.

You may think at first that such a grand forgiveness would lead us primarily to love God. But fear? What is this fear of God? Well this fear is nothing more, but certainly nothing less than holy reverence. In our reverence for God there certainly is love for Him and adoration, but along with that comes devotion, reverence, and service to Him. The forgiveness of God certainly relieves our guilt, but it changes more than our position before Him. Our justification is the beginning of God’s work of sanctification whereby we are made like Christ.

2. A Plea to the Congregation - 5-8

As the Psalmist goes on, he is building his audience. Primarily he prays to God, but as the theology of the Psalm unfolds, the windows open for the rest of the congregation to peer in, and He begins to plea with the people.

A. A Pronouncement - 5-6

He makes it clear to those who are now listening that the Lord is the focus of his attention, the Lord is the hope of his life, the Lord is the center of his yearning.

What was he waiting for? Was it forgiveness? No, forgiveness had already been granted and recieved by the nature of God. Was he waiting for his troubles to cease? No, as we already saw, his troubles weren’t the focus of this psalm. He was waiting for the full and final restoration that would come. This psalmist knew that this earth was not the full realization of God’s redemptive work. He was waiting for eternity, but in reality it was God Himself he was waiting for.

more than the watchmen for the morning.

There are a couple things that the psalmist could be referring to with the allusion to watchmen. It could be those who kept watch over flocks of sheep, warding off predators and those who would do harm. It could be the watchmen of the priesthood, who were waiting for the early dawn to commence the morning sacrifices. Either way, we understand the metaphor - we have all had those nights in which it seemed as if the morning would not come. Waiting in darkness, knowing the light is coming, but yearning for it!

Psalm 30:5 ESV

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

The psalmist proclaimed that he was waiting on God, and then finally he invites those listening to join Him.

B. An Exhortation - 7-8

He sends out the cry of exhortation to all the congregation saying, Trust in The Lord! Trust in The Lord!

He has mercy, steadfast love, he has an abundance of redemption! Enough not just for me, but for you as well! Stop looking to yourselves, stop looking elsewhere, look to God! Weeping may tarry for the night, but the dawn is coming and God is that dawn!

His exhortation to his fellow Israelites is now our exhortation as God’s people in the New Covenant. We are assured that with God there is an abundance of forgiveness, there is steadfast love. He has given us forgiveness, and our final and complete redemption is coming. One day, for certain, the effects of our sin will be taken from us, and the one whom our soul longs for will come again.

This ought to be our cry to one another in the deep valley, O church, Hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love and plentiful redemption. We may attempt to comfort one another with kindness and good words, but there is not more certain a comfort than to point someone back to their God and Savior.

The final stanza that Luther wrote in his Hymn of this Psalm is fitting here.

Though great our sins, yet greater still Is God’s abundant favor; His hand of mercy never will Abandon us, nor waver. Our shepherd good and true is He, Who will at last His Israel free From all their sin and sorrow.

May we wait on the Lord and rest assured that he forgives and delivers His people.