Wait and Watch (Psalm 130)

2. Started college at age 17 in 1625. Earned his bachelors, masters, and then studied for six more years to prepare for a life of service to God and country. After some tours through Europe to study and expand his horizons, he was ready to take on the world by about 1640.

3. By 1652 he was blind as a bat. Ironically 12 years of study, then 12 years in the political arena before he was blind.

4. Wrote “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” in 1655

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

a. Here he is: a blind book-man, and he’s spent half his life investing that one Talent which is death to hide[1]

b. Lodged with me useless: it’s lodged in his brain! He can’t see to read or write. How is he going to be useful?

c. Will God require from Milton what he doesn’t have? What can Milton do here?

d. The first half of a sonnet presents a problem. This is Milton’s problem, his trial.

d. Milton, I have no doubt, considered in order to finish his sonnet. And so will we, and see how he applied it to find encouragement in the depths of his trials.

II. Brief Explanation of [Read ]

A. Outline – 4 stanzas, 4 sections

1. Crying out in Confession

2. Affirming God’s Forgiveness

3. Watching and Waiting

4. Holding on to Hope

B. Crying out in Confession

1. Out of the depths I cry to you (v1)

a. “Depths” are often of despair, they’re trials, persecution, could be loneliness or disappointment, defeat by an enemy, some great loss

b. In this Psalm, these are not the depths of persecution, or an outside enemy. We find out in the next two verses that these are the depths of sin

c. Indeed, the psalmist’s enemy is not surrounding him; his enemy is within him. And such is his state that it calls for an appeal to God.

d. Appeal to Yahweh and Adonai

1) Throughout the Psalm, God is referred in a poetic pattern as LORD (all capitals) and then Lord (lowercase).

2) Yahweh, “I AM,” the God who is, and always will be.

a) The God of presence, the self-sustaining one, the omnipresent and eternal God

b) He is “eternal” not only in the sense of time, but also of scope. As eternal as He is from beginning to end, He is likewise eternal in mercy and love, in justice and righteousness, eternal from height of heights to uttermost depths.

b) The Psalmist is reminded that there is no depth from which God does not hear our cries

3) Adonai, “Lord,” Master and Provider, Sustainer and Help

a) lords provide

b) This Title reminds the Psalmist that there is no depth from which God cannot redeem us.

4) The great I AM was with Jonah at the bottom of the sea (literal depths!), He was with Jonah in the belly of the fish, and He is a powerful Lord and Master who sustained and cared for Jonah through all of that

3. Appeals to both names, asking God to hear his pleas for mercy

a. Here is where we realize this is a penitential psalm, crying out from the depths of sin

b. Psalmist is aware of his sin

c. He’s also aware of his dependence on God

d. He’s not asking for something that is due him

e. He is certainly not demanding something owed him

f. He’s pleading for mercy, dependent on God’s compassion

2. If you should mark iniquities, who could stand?

a. NIV “If you kept a record” of sins

b. NET “If you were to keep track” of my sins

c. NIRV If you “kept a close watch on sins … who then wouldn’t be found guilty?”

d. Like Milton’s sonnet, the psalmist has presented a great problem up to this point. He is in the depths, he’s crying out, and he’s totally dependent on God’s mercy. If God kept record of every sin, none could stand.

B. Affirming God’s Forgiveness

BUT.

1. But with you there is forgiveness (v 4)

a. Spurgeon writes, “What a blessed ‘but’ this is! One of the most blessed … in the Word of God! ‘But with you there is forgiveness.’”

b. This line is the crux of the poem, the turning point

c. If it ended before this line, the poem would be death, and despair, and hopeless failure, and it would still be just

d. BUT, with God, there is forgiveness.

1. with the Lord there is steadfast love (v 7)

2. with Him is plentiful redemption (v 7)

3. He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities (v 8)

4. there is forgiveness … that God may be feared

a. Because there is hope in forgiveness, we can fear God rightly

b. Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost, after rebelling and falling and realizing he’s lost everything, says, “Farewell hope, and with thee, farewell fear”

c. Where there is no hope, there is no fear

d. We have a great hope, because we serve a God who forgives.

e. We serve a God who not only forgives, but in His grace prepared a plan from before the foundations of the world to save and reconcile a people to himself, all for the Glory of His grace.

In , the Apostle Paul proclaims that “In him [Jesus] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him [Father] who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

f. We serve a forgiving God, worthy of a right fear, as we hope in His salvation.

C. Watching and Waiting

1. (therefore) I wait for the LORD (v 5)

2. I hope in His word

3. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning (v 6)

a. What does it mean to “wait for the Lord more than watchmen”?

b. What is the relationship between watching (like a watchman) and waiting?

3. Hebrew has multiple words for “wait.”

a. In , Elihu “waited” to speak to Job, and that just means “waited;” he delayed, held off, postponed, stood by.

b. But when Ehud kills Eglon, the king of Moab, in , the king’s guards “waited” outside his chamber to “the point of embarrassment.” The word “waited”[2] here comes from the word “writhed” or “twisted.” The word means “waited anxiously.”

4. doesn’t use either of these forms of “wait.”

a. Verse 5 uses “qavah,” which means “to expect,” “to look patiently for,” to anticipate, to hope for

1) To wait doesn’t mean to sit back

2) According to , to wait is to hope

a) if you look at the definitions of the Hebrew words used in verse 5 for wait (qa.vah) and for hope (ya.chal), they are both defined as “to wait, to hope, to expect.”

b) To wait upon the Lord is to hope -- expectantly

3) The comparison in verse 6 further explains that hope

5. Verse 6, “watchman” is the word “sha.mar”

a. “sha.mar” Sha.mar (8104) to hedge about, to guard, to protect, also attend to, beware!, observe, preserve, regard, watchman

1) may be a reference to nightwatch shepherds

2) also a military term (consider the workers rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem with a sword in one hand)

b. coincidentally, this is the same word that is used for what God does not do with our iniquity, in verse 3

c. But this is to be our attitude as we enter into waiting on the Lord.

d. As our soul waits for the Lord with longing, expectantly, patiently, we are to be watchmen, night shepherds

1) guarded against false teaching

2) hedged about to ward off temptation

3) taking heed, circumspect, careful

4) watching together, supporting each other, keeping each other awake, so as not to be found by the Savior and hear Him say, as he said to Peter, "could you not watch with me one hour?” ()

e. Watchmen wait and watch for two objects:

1) Be alert! Regard, protect, hedge about, beware!

a) The nightwatch isn’t just awake; they’re alert, watching for enemies, ready to defend and protect

b) Jesus instructs the disciples to “watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” ()

c) In Luke chapter 21, specifically in the context of waiting for the return of the Lord, Jesus tells His disciples to “watch [themselves], lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation [entertainment] and drunkenness and cares of this life.”

d) Therefore, “stay awake,” Jesus warns in verse 36 there, “But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

e) Watch for the enemy, but also watch for the object of your hope

2) wait for the morning –

a) eager for the sun!

b) Watch for the Lord’s coming

c) As inevitable as the sunrise after a long night, we persevere with all diligence, confident in the promises of our Lord

d) don’t be caught off guard, but be a servant found ready, faithful, tired, having finished the race, having fought off the wolves of temptation until the end of your watch

IV. Conclusion

A. Blind Milton finished his poem by beautifully capturing a right sense of his dependence on God.

1. Do you remember his question?

a. “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

b. What will God do with me now, a blind scholar?

1) Of course, Milton’s blindness was not sin.

2) We might be asking, what can God do with me, a sinner?

3) I’m too deep, I’m in too far for forgiveness. There’s too great a chasm between me and a holy God.

c. How can I put to good use the gifts I’ve been entrusted?

2. Here’s how Milton concludes the sonnet:

But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

B. In his despair, in the depths, Milton learned to wait on the Lord (to stand ready, and wait on the Lord!).

C. Incidentally, in 1667, fifteen years after he became blind, Milton published his greatest work, Paradise Lost.

D. The Lord continued to use him, and arguably most profoundly after Milton learned this lesson to wait upon the Lord and hope only in Him.

E. Let us be encouraged and emboldened by :

1. To cry out to the Lord, in confession and dependence on Him

2. To affirm the goodness of God to forgive us

3. To watch with all diligence as we await Christ’s return,

4. and to hold fast to the end the hope we have in Jesus.

Pray

Father in Heaven,

We thank you that you are a good Father, that you hear our prayers. There is no depth where you cannot hear us, see us, reach us. We thank you that you have ordained the depths as well as the heights, and that you work all things together for the good of those who love you, who are called according to your purposes. Give us endurance to stay alert, to watch and pray, to be vigilant until the end of our watch. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD [yahweh]!

O Lord [Adonai, lord-title], hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive

to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

If you, O LORD, should mark [sha.mar, keep watch, observe] iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,

that you may be feared.

I wait [qa.vah await with hope] for the LORD,

my soul waits [qa.vah],

and in his word I hope [ya.chal, wait/hope/expect];

my soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen [sha.mar, guard/heed] for the morning,

more than watchmen [sha.mar] for the morning.

O Israel, hope [ya.chal] 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.

[1] Parable of the Talents,

[2] chul, to writhe, to twist, to wait anxiously

Related Media

Related Sermons