"It's interesting to me to let these guys back here testify for themselves. In Psalm 130 is one of the most amazing passages if you just sit and think about it.
[1] Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
[2] Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
[3] If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
[4] But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
[5] I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
[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.
[7] Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
[8] And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
"When he says 'out of the depths,' if you went back to Psalm 69, that reproach song about the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll see he cries out of the depths, and at first the depths are terrible circumstances coming on and finally it's the depths of death, where he's being swallowed up down into the pit," explains Richard Jordan.
"This psalmist is saying, 'Out of circumstances in my life that were just dragging me down to the bottom.' It's like he's right in the middle of them. He's not over here on the corner looking at them, saying 'over yonder.' He's right down the tube, right down the toilet with his circumstances.
"And he 'cried unto thee O LORD.' It didn't say he prayed; it said he cried. When you cry, you don't just go, 'Oh, huh.' When you cry, you wail. He's over and over and over and over and over--here's a guy who's in it, man.
[2] Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
"That's kind of brassy, isn't it? Look to God and shout, 'Here Lord, I got something I need you to hear me on.'
"But look at verse 3: [3] If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
"This character knew that his problems had something to do, in the bottom of them, with the fact he was a sinner. He said, 'Lord, if you mark iniquity; if you go around and keep a detailed list of my failures . . . if you do that, there ain't nobody going to stand.'
"Because we're failures, we're sinners, and it was out of a consciousness . . . You know what Paul would have said, 'Not I,' and I'm glad the psalm doesn't stop there. Verse 4: 4] But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
"You see his next word? 'But.' You're not left in the depths, flushed down the toilet with God marking your sins. That's where you might be, with nowhere else to go, BUT he had one place to go.
" 'There is forgiveness with thee,' and I want you to look at the rest of that verse: 'that thou mayest be feared.'
"Under the law they feared God because of His wrath. In Exodus 19 He says, 'Tell them not to come close to the mountain lest I slay them.' But this guy's not fearing God because God's going to kill him. He's saying there's forgiveness, there's acceptance, there's love, there's you accepting me.
"He's saying, 'I don't know why, but with you there's forgiveness. How do I know? You've told me so. Lord, I'm just pleading what you told me.'
Verse 5: [5] I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
"That's saying, 'I'm not hoping in my goodness, in my righteousness, in what I'm doing. If I'm asking Him to look at me, I'm in trouble. I'm just going to trust the promise He made me.'
"What's the promise? [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.
"He's anxious like he just can't wait for the sun to come up. Verse 7: [7] Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
"When the Bible talks about hope, almost always, and I say almost because I don't want to say always, but especially in Paul's epistles, when it talks about hope, it's talking about the Lord's coming.
"Almost always when it talks about hope, it's talking about looking toward Christ's Second Coming to accomplish all that He's promised.
"He says, 'I'm hoping in the Lord and my hope is in His Word, because what His word's told me is there's plenteous redemption.' Redemption is to buy back and, 'He's going to come and buy me back from all my iniquities.'
"Again, I don't know how else an Old Testament dude could say what he had never heard about--about what the Lord Jesus Christ's going to do--any better than that. He didn't know how God was going to do it because He hadn't told him yet, but he sure trusted God to do what He told him He would do.
"It brought him into a level, and I love that thing in verse 4 ('there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared')--not because you're scaring me, not because you're big and bullying and can smush me like a bug, but because you love me and you accept me. That's different. You know what that is? That's spooky, but that's almost like the way Paul uses fear: 'Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.'
"You see, there's a guy who got it. If Nicodemus had had that attitude, Jesus would have never said to him, 'Art thou a master in Israel and know not these things?' Because when Christ said that, He pointed out the problem Nicodemus had. He wasn't walking by faith in the message God had given him."
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