Wait On The Lord

Crying to God from the Depths of Trouble

Well, the preaching this morning will be from Psalm 130, Psalm 130, if you would turn there when you have that and stand with me for the reading of God's Word, Psalm 130. 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. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning, more than the watchman for the morning. 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.

May God bless the reading. Now the proclamation of his Word, please be seated. The cry to God from the depth of our trials, our troubles, the tribulations we find ourselves in, the depth of our soul, crying out to God for deliverance, crying out to God for mercy.

Here's what the Psalm is about. The Psalm is about crying out to God and trusting him to have ears attentive to this plea for mercy, and knowing that because of the Lord Jesus Christ, he hears us. And because of him, he answers us rightly in terms of what he gives, how he delivers, and when.

The Psalm is about trusting God. The Psalm is about we, when we have nothing left to do, nowhere left to go, we can only trust God. All our resources have been used up as we trusted ourselves, as we trusted other worldly maneuvers, as we looked outside of the means of grace that God has given us, until finally we come back to where the Psalm is.

And from the depth of our misery, our trials, from the depth of the troubles we've gotten ourselves into, crying out to God for mercy. Have you ever been there? Have you ever had to cry out to God because you've used everything else up?

You did not go to him first? Have you ever cried out to God where it's just this screech, as it were, from the soul? I think of in Romans chapter eight, where the Apostle Paul says, we do not know how to pray as we ought to, but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.

It's when we can only go, and I can't make any more words. And if you're in Christ and the Holy Spirit is in you, then he takes that groan and he brings it, as it were, to the throne of grace, to the very altar of God, and then, as it were, he interprets it and makes sense of it in a holy and right way.

So when God answers, he answers rightly. This is what our Psalm was about. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord, hear my voice, that your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy.

Exile, Sin, and the Meaning of the Depths

The Psalm was first intended for the exiles coming back from Babylon. And I believe that to be the case with all the Psalms that are called Songs of Ascents, starting at Psalm number 120, going through Psalm number 134.

This Psalm says, it's often attributed to David as Davidic. I don't believe David wrote it. I believe it was written in exile. It was written in Babylon, and it was sung by them as they came back from Babylon after the Lord had released them by moving Cyrus to do so.

So it's a worship leader, as it were, leading the congregation to remember that it's the Lord who has forgiven their iniquities. As it says in Isaiah 40, Isaiah prophesied that they would be in exile and that they would be released, and Isaiah 40 begins with comfort.

Comfort my people. Tell Jerusalem that her sin has been paid for. She has paid double for all her iniquities. And this is a Psalm written for them, sung by them, intended also for us. Where sometimes we look at our iniquity, we look at our sins, we look at the things we have done that have put us in, as it were, an exile, as Israel is literally in exile, and sometimes we are because we've taken ourselves away from the means of grace.

We've not prayed. We've not trusted. Sometimes we look, and it wasn't that hymn that sang from the back of the bulletin. Can I believe that God's mercy is for me? Would God forgive someone even like myself who's done what I've done so many times?

And the answer is, if your repentance is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes. Psalm was written for them as they came back from Babylon. Has so much application to us today. It says, 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. What are the depths? Again, for them, back then when this was first written, the depths were the years and the centuries of idolatry and disobedience to the Lord.

For us, it's the same sort of thing. Maybe not the idols that they had, the desecrations of the temple that were literal and physical. Different ways that we take ourselves away from the grace of God.

Different ways that we go our own direction, intentionally not looking to the Word of God, which is sometimes a little harder to obey. We get ourselves into this trouble. We get ourselves in these trials.

We slowly let our relationships deteriorate. It's step by step that our jobs go south because of us, because of ourselves. You know, I was at the training for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors in Walnut Creek.

One of the speakers, I don't remember which one it was, and I might have given you this example before, but he was talking about a board of directors for that counseling organization coming together, and they're waiting for some men to show up.

A couple of men of the board who weren't there. And finally, late, the meeting's starting late, one of them comes in and sits down, and he gets held by his ashen face that something awful had happened.

They said, where's the other guy? They said, he fell. He'd fallen to some moral sin. He was no longer qualified to be a pastor, no longer qualified to sit on the board. And all these men just sat there aghast, quiet.

The man who was telling this, he was there. He said, you could hear a pin drop. There wasn't a sound. And then one of the men spoke up finally and said, you know, he did not fall far. What he meant by that is it's step by step by step by step until you're with the psalmist in the depths.

We need to be careful in following the Lord. We need to watch ourselves, to watch our walk with the Lord God, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we've been called. Because brethren, when we come off that path that is leading us towards the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we come away from the scripture, when we take our way south away from the fellowship of the saints and the teaching of the church, slowly, it's step by step by step until when we take that final tumble, and we can no longer hide it from ourselves or from others.

And sometimes the worst thing that could happen is that God makes it possible that we can hide it. And we don't have to confess it even to ourselves, much less to others. And we take that final tumble.

We don't fall far. It's incremental. However, the depths I cry to you, O Lord. There are so many examples of this. I think of the prodigal son. You know, he left his father, he took his inheritance. We know the parable very well.

And it's not like he went there, and the next day, he doesn't have anything to eat, and he's feeding better food to pigs than he had. That didn't happen all at once. Step by step by step. Many people in Israel probably didn't join this plea to God to hear them cry out to him for mercy.

There are probably many in Israel who, when they were released by Cyrus, didn't have faith in God, didn't trust that Cyrus had really been moved by God to release them. And so they stayed. They didn't stay, they didn't join in the joy and the celebration of God having finally, at the exact moment that Jeremiah had prophesied, the 70 years, caused them to be released.

And why is that? It's really for the same reason that many of us would have. They didn't know they were in trouble. They didn't know they had gotten in trouble. They didn't realize that they were in a sinful position.

They had jobs there. They had friends. They had homes. They had integrated well into society, yet still stay separate as Jews. For many of them, it was a land of comfort. It was a land of prosperity. They would never call it a land of exile and punishment.

They didn't realize that they were in the depths. In Scripture, depths is always of water. And water drowning was a fearful thing in the ancient Near East. You get in the water, no air to breathe. You know if you open your mouth, you're going to die.

Your lungs are ready to burst. You feel the pressure crushing. Your eardrums are forcing out this last breath. You're desperate and there's nowhere to turn. There's nothing ahead but slow, torturous drowning.

All this is in that word, depths. Out of the depths, I cry to you. But they weren't in the sea drowning. They were in Babylon. They were in the depth of the land of exile and punishment. Have you been in that incremental?

Kind of trouble where you didn't see it coming. You lost your vigilance. As Peter says, stay vigilant for your adversaries like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. So watch your walk. Be careful because it just takes these little steps.

We don't notice it or we get away with it. We don't notice it or get away with it. And on and on it goes and downward. If you ever read Le Miserable, the author Victor Hugo has an excursus which is historically accurate and he speaks of these beaches in Normandy that are very dangerous.

Gives an example of a man walking out there. He's just enjoying himself, enjoying the waves, enjoying the scenery, just having a time with himself and he doesn't notice that as he keeps going, he's getting a little harder to pull his feet out.

It's like the sand is gathering around his foot and there's a little bit of a suction so it pops out but he doesn't notice because he can still move. And on and on and on he goes until he can't move his feet anymore.

He tries to turn around. It's very difficult to turn around. As he corkscrews himself around, he goes down deeper. Well, of course, you see what's coming. He's in quicksand. He didn't notice it step by step by step until the earth just swallows him up.

And this is really what it is with the depths. So I would encourage you, I would admonish you, I'd call out to you, I would plead with you, brethren, to know that when we get in, we've gotten into these depths, we didn't do it all at once.

You didn't fall down 20 stories. You went down the stairway in that building one step at a time, not noticing. If you carry on the analogy of the stairway in a building, every now and then there's a landing there.

You stop and catch your breath. If you're going down, don't you have to stop and rest your knees a little bit? And then you have a moment to look and say, oh, I'm going down. Down the wrong way, step by step.

Watch yourselves. Take care of your souls. Know that you can go into these depths and you don't even notice it coming like the proverbial frog in the water, which is untrue. It's proverbial. You just don't see it coming.

We get in the depths of poor health, broken relationships, sin kept in the heart, job woes, housing woes, surrounded by God haters, all these things, nowhere to turn. All effort has been futile. Each failure bring another incremental sinking.

Know that God didn't put you there, but he is ready to draw you out. God gave you the means not to get off the path that he would have us to be on through the scripture, through the church, through his spirit, through prayer, what we call the means of grace.

When we get there, know that God is ready to hear you. He says, let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. We call out to God for mercy. He can stop the downward spiral. He can show us where we're at.

The word of God is powerful and active. It exposes us to ourselves. It will show us where we are. It will show us where we're going. And we will hear the voice of your pleas for mercy because of the Lord Jesus Christ in whom his mercy was poured out.

The mercy of God shown to us in giving his son and sending him to die for our sins and giving you faith to believe that. His ear is attentive to the plea for your voice, your voice of mercy, to the voice of your plea for mercy.

So call out to him. Trust him to hear. He goes on. He says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared. How does that tie to what came before?

Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, do those tie together? I believe they do. I believe they flow very nicely together, very logically together. Because why does God hear the cry of your voice for mercy?

Because he forgives sin. Why would you need mercy in the first place? Because you sinned. And what kind of God are you going to, pleading to for mercy? A God who does not mark your iniquities. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared. See, in Christ, our iniquities are removed from us. Our sin is taken from us as far as east is from the west. God says, I will remember their sins no more.

That's all because of Jesus Christ. That's all because of his cross. If you should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Could you stand before God with your iniquities upon you? No, you'd be like in, what's the name of the prophet with chapter 3 and the priest?

Joshua the priest. Zechariah, Zechariah 3. You'd be like the priest, Joshua in Zechariah 3, covered with filth, representing the sins of his people. Do you stand before God with your sins? Could you stand?

Who could stand? If you mark iniquities, if you remember my iniquities, if I come to you, Lord, with them upon me, would I be able to stand? Only long enough to hear Jesus Christ say, you get on my left side with the goats.

Oh, no, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't I do many works in your name? Didn't I give alms in your name? Didn't I give that poor beggar over there a couple bucks to get a hamburger with? Oh, Lord, wait, I never knew you.

Who could stand with their sins upon them? None. That's the answer to the question. If you should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Do you know how intensive that one statement is? Think of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Think of him again, tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin, called the Holy One of God, called the Righteous One. He who knew no sin, who became sin for us. Lord made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.

And when Jesus Christ became sin for us, could he stand before God? The answer is no. When he became sin for us, he was pinned to a cross. He could not stand, he could only die. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

None. But the Lord Jesus Christ, when marked with our iniquities, died. And could he stand? Amen, yes. Upon his resurrection, upon that certification that he had indeed completed the work of God. Of our iniquities, which were put upon him.

Back to 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. That in him, we might become the righteousness of God. He became our sin. We could only, he couldn't stand in that time on the cross.

He couldn't stand when sin was put upon him. But when he said it is finished, and he died on that cross, and he was buried and three days later resurrected. Oh, now he can stand, he stands at the right hand of God.

Can you now stand before God? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you repented of your sin and gone to him for forgiveness? Because if so, then yes, you can stand before God. But that's not because of anything in you.

That's not because of anything in me. You can stand before God because your sin was put on Jesus Christ. He took your sin upon himself. And therefore, we can go boldly to the throne of grace and there find help in our time of need.

Therefore, as the apostle Paul says in Ephesians, we have together access to God. We're able to stand before God as we do now. But if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have not gone to him in repentance for your sin and sought forgiveness from him, an eternal life which only he can give, he sends upon you.

Take the warning of the psalm seriously. Because if you, O Lord, should mark my iniquities, if I should stand with you with them upon me and I must pay for them, I will not stand but be condemned. Only the Lord Jesus Christ could take your iniquities upon himself and do something with them.

They didn't go poof. They didn't go away. God didn't give him some potion that magically causes them to disappear. Jesus Christ paid for them, each of them, all of them. None left out. It is finished, it is finished indeed.

Now that's my word, it's finished indeed. But you get the point. But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. How does forgiveness bring fear? It's simply this. There's forgiveness and it brings fear because if you know the forgiveness of God because of Jesus Christ, if you understand the cross as well as a human can possibly understand it, which is not fully, if you looked at the cross and you see what he did there and you see the price that was paid for your sins, you see what Jesus Christ went through in order to provide forgiveness, in order to accomplish forgiveness, in order to do the Father's will and bring us forgiveness, if you look at your sin and what Jesus Christ went through in order to resolve your sin, that's a God to be feared.

That's a God who is holy. That's a God who is righteous and that's a God who will not stand for sin. He's of two pure eyes to even behold sin. That's Habakkuk. Isaiah said, I am ruined because I'm a man of unclean lips.

I dwell among a people of unclean lips and I've seen the Holy One, I've seen the righteous God, the holiest man in Israel. And as R .C. Sperl used to say, I've come apart. There's nothing left of me because I've seen the righteous God.

That's a God to be feared. That's a God to be terrified of. That's a God when you think of what he is and who he is and Jesus Christ, this Holy One of God, the righteous one and compare that to ourselves and think of a God like that that would love you as he loves his son, Jesus Christ.

It's in John 16. The God the Father loves those in Jesus Christ the same as he loves his son. We say, okay, that makes me happy. What a great God. He's like my daddy. No, that's a God who's so loving and so holy and so pure and so perfect that the forgiveness of sins is something fearful, something awesome, really awesome.

Not in the slang use of the word. Calvin spoke of predestination, erode of predestination, says a horrible decree. Well, back in that day, horrible didn't mean bad. It meant not understandable. It's beyond my comprehension.

It's so grand and so wonderful I can't wrap my mind around. It's just a horrible decree. I can't do anything with it and forgiveness is like that. If you see yourself for who and what you are and the price that was paid for your forgiveness, there's a horrible decree.

There's a God to be feared. There's a God to be loved. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, he is one Lord preceded by or then flows from, excuse me. You shall love this God because he's worthy of fear, but he calls you to love him.

He should be something of terror to us like it was for the prophets. Remember Peter when they caught the fish on the other side of the boat and somehow this showed him the holiness of God and he fell down on his knees and he said, depart from me, O Lord, for I'm a sinful man.

With you there's forgiveness that you may be feared. Fear this God who provides forgiveness, fear this God who's so opposite of sin and yet draws sinners to himself by giving them faith to believe in Jesus Christ.

Waiting for the Lord and the Hard Work of Repentance

Now he goes on. Now here we are having called out to God and thanking him as it were for the forgiveness that we have that allow us to call out to him the forgiveness of our sins that makes us sure that he hears us because we come to him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore sin was on him and it's not on us, we can come to him and now we can say, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and in his word I hope my soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning, more than the watchman for the morning.

Do we wait for the Lord? Do we look like the watchman did for the rising sun when he could say, the sun is coming and all's well, I've been watching out, no army, no enemy has come. I'm gonna take some rest but now you can go about your business.

I watch for the Lord, I wait for the Lord. Oftentimes we wait for the Lord no longer than a quick prayer and we come up off our knees either symbolically or maybe literally and that amen as we're standing up, amen, okay I prayed, now let's get going.

It's not waiting for the Lord. If the Lord knows and has decreed when a sparrow falls as Jesus says, he's a Lord worth waiting for and what's the waiting lead to? What's the answer to your dilemma, to the thing that got you into the depths and caused you to cry out to God?

Depends, depends on you, depends on me, depends on the situation, depends on how you got there. Usually I would argue, usually what we need to wait for is for the Holy Spirit to work on us enough that we submit to him and repent of something because usually when we stepped onto that beach, we ignored a sign that said quicksand.

Usually we put something aside in order to go our own way and so what is it to wait on the Lord? Most often for most of us is to repent. Sometimes we have to wait a long time before the Lord breaks us down to the point that we will actually repent and confess our sins even to him.

If to others is required, according to what James says, confess your sins to one another. According to what Jesus says in Matthew 18, 15, go to your brother and show him his fault. Usually the waiting is a breaking down of our pride, our stubbornness, our stiff-neckedness.

He says, I wait for the Lord, this Lord who heard me, this Lord who's forgiven me. My soul waits from the depths of yourself, from your most inner most being, waiting for the Lord. It looks different for all of us.

I can't give you a step one, two, three and I can't even say that as you're waiting for the Lord for your solution that it's because of your sin that you're in this trouble. It's probably the case. I can't say for sure.

I'm not a prophet. I can say that waiting is the hard part. If you know that God hears you, if you know that he's forgiven you and that's why he hears you and you fear this God who's forgiven you, waiting is the hard part.

Waiting for a providence where you can line it up and look at the scripture and talk to brothers and sisters and say, yes, there's the solution to your dilemma. This is the way you should go. This is God's will for you.

It takes a long time. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of submissiveness to the word. And to the Lord. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord for with the Lord there's steadfast love and with him is plentiful redemption and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Redemption, Yahweh and Adonai, and the Cross of Christ

And we're gonna circle back a little bit in this message and sort of do some technical analyses of what's happening here. The first thing I wanna point out to you is what I just read that this is the only place in scripture according to Walt Keats theological workbook of the Old Testament where redemption is tied to sin.

He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities, from all his sin. This idea of this commercial transaction taking place where a price is paid and someone is redeemed like the whole book of Ruth where Ruth is redeemed with Naomi from their trials and brought into Boaz's family which results in David being born which results ultimately in Jesus being born.

That's sort of redemption. Redeeming your first born son with a lamb that you bring to the temple, that sort of thing. Making this commercial transaction as it were. It was all by faith but it has commercial overtones.

Here in this psalm is the only place where redemption is tied to sin. He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. That's the first thing I want you to have in mind. The second thing, we need to circle back to verse one to pick this up.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord is Yahweh. Who is Yahweh? Yahweh is the self-existent Lord. Yahweh is the one who is ineffable. He dwells in unapproachable light. He's the one that we can't get our minds around.

He's the one who had to cover Moses' face when his back parts went past him. Yahweh, who exists in and of himself with nothing outside of himself to make himself right or holy or existent, he simply is who and what he is.

I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord, hear my voice. That Lord is Adonai. With a small a in your Bibles, it could be used of people, of a king, of a governor. He's an Adonai. He's a Lord. Here it would have a capital that would be proper.

O Lord, hear my voice. The one is Yahweh who we can't approach. The one is Yahweh who if anyone touches the mountain while he was giving the law to Moses, they'd have to be stoned. Nothing shall come near Yahweh.

O Lord, hear my voice. O Adonai, he's the one we go to. He's the one we relate to. He's our Lord. He's our master. He's the one to whom we owe allegiance. In Genesis chapter 18, when the Lord is explaining to Abraham about Sodom's fate, in chapter 18 and verses 22 and 26, it is Yahweh who has come to him.

I believe it's the preexistent Jesus Christ. Let me show you something about this. Yahweh and Adonai back and forth in the psalm. We'll come back to it in just a moment. 1822, so the men turned from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham stood still before Yahweh.

Verse 26, and Yahweh said, if I find it Sodom 50 righteous in the city, I will spare it. Then in verse 27, Abraham answered and said, behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, Adonai. Now, the person he was speaking to didn't change, but Lord, master, the one who's on my level speaking to me, the one who's come in some kind of a human form, Adonai, verse 30.

Then he said, oh, let not the Lord, Adonai, be angry and I will speak. Suppose 30 are found there, and one more in verse 31. He said, behold, I've undertaken to speak to the Lord, Adonai, suppose 20 are found there, and so on.

Adonai, Lord, master, ruler, the one to whom I owe allegiance, the one to whom I owe an answer. If you, Adonai, should mark iniquities, oh, excuse me, if you, Yahweh, should mark iniquities, oh, Adonai, who could stand, but with you there is forgiveness.

I wait for the Lord, Yahweh, my soul waits, and in his word I hope my soul waits for the Lord, Adonai. Yahweh, unapproachable, Yahweh who dwells in light, Yahweh who inhabits eternity, Adonai. Who speaks to men, Adonai, who's had a conversation, as it were, back and forth with Abraham.

I cry out to Yahweh, but ask Adonai to hear my voice. Yahweh, if you mark iniquities, Adonai, to whom I owe an answer for those iniquities, I couldn't stand. I wait for Yahweh, in his word I hope, in his word I trust, in the word that he gave that reveals Jesus Christ to me, I put all my hope and my trust, oh, Yahweh, my soul waits for that one.

My soul waits for the Adonai more than the watchman in the morning. Adonai, bring it down to the watchman, bring it down to this level, bring it down to that one to whom I can relate to, whom I can speak.

Who is Adonai? It's Jesus Christ. Some weeks ago, Pastor Brian, who resigned here just shortly, just a few weeks ago, but several months ago, did a Sunday school and showed very clearly from the New Testament that Jesus Christ accepted the implication of being Yahweh.

Though he never said that explicitly, but it was very, very clear that Jesus is Yahweh, and it took us back to the Old Testament, showed how the Old Testament usage of that word included him, Jesus Christ, he is Yahweh.

But what was the most common term that he took? It was Lord. It was the one here on earth, walking this ground with us as Lord. He's the one to whom we owe the answer. He's the one, Adonai, who told the waves to be still.

So his disciples who said, don't you know we're perishing, did that which was not incumbent upon him to do. He didn't owe them salvation from that storm. Adonai did it. Wait for the Lord and trust in his word.

That's Yahweh, he's given us his word. What we call the Bible, 66 books, 39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament, Yahweh, the one who gave his word to Moses. Yahweh, the one who terrified the prophets when they saw him face to face.

It's Yahweh who gave his word. My soul waits for Adonai, that one who comes and brings knowledge of the Father to us. Does it not say that in the opening of John's Gospel? For the law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, the only God who's at the Father's side. He, Jesus Christ, Adonai, has made him Yahweh known. No one comes to the Father except through me, said the Lord, Jesus Christ. The Lord is the one who comes here and relates to us.

The Lord is the one who came as Yahweh, but appearing as Lord, spoke back and forth with Abraham. The Lord, Adonai, the Lord, Jesus Christ, son of David, his other favorite appellation. The Lord to whom you owe an answer.

The Lord, Jesus Christ, the one to whom you must give an answer one day. The Lord, Jesus Christ. He is the one you must be able to point to. And when the Lord says, where is all that iniquity? He doesn't say it that way, this is me.

Where are all those iniquities? Where are all those sins that you committed in this life? You say, him, Adonai, the one you sent and gave me faith to believe, you, Father, full of mercy and grace, put them on him so I can now stand before you because he paid the price for them.

I love this interplay between Yahweh and Adonai in the psalm. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Why would he do that? Why would such a God who's to be feared as God is to be feared do something like that?

Redeem Israel from their iniquities? Well, back then they were redeemed from their iniquities. For that time, they were sent to Babylon. Jeremiah prophesied it'd be 70 years. At 70 years, God forgave, he redeemed, he brought them back.

He moved Cyrus, you can read at the end of 2 Chronicles, the beginning of Ezra, that he moved Cyrus to do this. He redeemed them from his iniquities as he promised. Comfort, comfort my people. Tell Jerusalem she's paid double for all her sins.

Her iniquity's been pardoned. Just a picture, just a faint glow of what Jesus Christ did. Because when Jesus Christ said it is finished, you can say comfort, comfort my church, comfort my people. Tell the church, tell you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ has paid for your sins, that the Lord has paid double for all your iniquities, and you've been redeemed from your iniquities.

He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities, he did. And that points to what Jesus Christ has accomplished on the cross. That your iniquities have been covered, that your iniquities have been taken from you and placed upon him, that he became sin for us.

Hope, Testimony, and Worship After Redemption

So what do we do? Where do we go with this beautiful psalm? Are you in the depths? Have you begun going down that staircase? God willing, this message will put you on that landing. I'll tell you, you may have come a long ways and have a long ways to go back up, but stop, stop and wait there on the Lord.

Stop there and ask the Lord, what am I doing here? How did I get here? That man on the beach in Hugo's excursus from Les Miserables, you feel that suction of the sand hanging onto your foot just a little bit, making it just a little bit harder step by step to come out.

You go too much further, when you try to turn around, you're just gonna corkscrew yourself right into it. Stop, stop while there's still some dry sand under your foot. Wait on the Lord. Know that He has redeemed you from your iniquities and He hears you even now.

My favorite verse to go to for this is 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins, in other words, if we stop on that landing, we stop and confess, He will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness by bringing repentance to us, by reminding us of His forgiveness, by turning us around on that landing and saying, gotta get back up.

Hard work, difficult work, maybe not as hard as waiting for some of us, but it is where the Lord often puts us. May Jesus Christ be praised and glorified as we stop our downward spirals. May you know that if you call out to God from the depth of despair, whether you got there yourself or the circumstances around you, that God will hear you.

He hears your plea for mercy because of the Lord Jesus Christ and He acts in the here and now and He brings us to a place where we can know that we've been restored by God and we can give Him praise. Why does God do this?

For His glory, for the good of the church. And the last thing I wanna say here, and this is a very common thing in the Psalms, you'll find this in Psalm 30 as well, many others, is after you go through this whole process, after you've gone through all this redemption and hearing God hear your plea for mercy and restoring you, this worship leader to them way back then, and today he says, oh Israel, I say, oh church, hope in the Lord.