As they made their way up to Jerusalem, they sang these psalms as a way of preparing them for the worship festival in the city of Jerusalem. Back in 1971, music artist Carly Simon released a song entitled Anticipation. Many of you know it. And in it, she sings, we can never know about the days to come, but we keep thinking about them anyway. and then she has a refrain. It says, anticipation, anticipation is making me late. It's keeping me waiting. It's a catchy tune. It sticks in our mind for a long time. Five years later, this song was used by a ketchup commercial. And in between episodes of Laverne and Shirley and What's Happening, we were forced to watch ketchup slowly slide out of a bottle. Remember that commercial? Some of you are saying, no, that's way before me. YouTube it. And the marketers here were able to convert the annoying slow speed of pouring ketchup into an asset. And actually, it became a selling point. And the ketchup product did very well because of those commercials. Well, here we have in Psalm 130 a great anticipation. It's making me wait. It's keeping me waiting. What we have here is a waiting, a longing, an anticipation of God's intervention in somebody's life, in the psalmist's life, maybe your life. The psalmist is looking for God to intervene in the circumstances that he's facing. And you'll see in a few moments they are rather challenging. Psalm 130 is a great anticipation. Let's take a look at it. Beginning at verse one. 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 watchman for the morning, more than 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. We have been taking a look at the psalms and we have been seeing that these psalms are prayerful psalms. We do not have the melodies, but we certainly have the lyrics and we have the prayers. These are prayers that people spoke to God. They sang to God. A reflection of what's going on in their hearts. It's not just what's in their mind, this is in their hearts, this is their emotions as well. And I think we need to deal very sincerely with our emotions. Sometimes we tend to be thinkers, but not feelers. We need to be both. But I'm not necessarily suggesting you vent your emotions, but rather pray your emotions. That's what the Psalms are. They're prayerful, emotional truths that the psalmist writes. And he does so, well, obviously for his own sake, for your sake and maybe you can picture with me this Jewish family making their way up to Jerusalem let's say for Passover and they're singing the psalm and as you can see it's not a cheerful song it's very reflective it is a lament and as they sing they have this they have taken this personal inventory and they discovered that there's something missing there's something lacking in them there's The something is actually a someone. It's God that's missing in their lives. The hand of God, the presence of God, a sense of God's peace from day to day, it's all gone, it's not there. It used to be, but it's not now. There doesn't seem to be a manifestation of God's goodness. They know God is good, but they're not quite seeing it in their lives. They're wondering, why? Why? And he's coming to a conclusion. He's beginning to understand why. You see, life has become very sore and has become very painful. And pleasure and joy evades the psalmist. It's a difficult situation to be in. It's a place I think we have all been in to one degree or another. Some of you extremely so. Well, we have here four different sections to this psalm. It's not a long psalm. Four sections divided in two verses at a time. We have a cry, we have a confession, we have a waiting, and we have a confidence. It's all listed there on your worship folder. if you want to take notes. And what we discover is that with this confidence that comes at the end, the situation that he's facing, the anticipation he has, comes to a conclusion. It ends. He is satisfied. Take a look at the first section, verses one and two. Here we have a cry. I want you to see that God meets all of our needs. And in a few moments you'll see what the need here is for this psalmist. There's a particular misery in verse 1. A misery that is in his soul. A misery that is just churning in his life. Feelings of failure. He's unable to move forward. There's a heaviness in his soul. It's a misery that can be understood only by those who have experienced it. And yet, Martin Luther says, we are all in deep and great misery, but we do not all feel our condition. We're all in misery. We just don't all feel it. In fact, he says this. He says, crying? Have you ever cried? Sure you have. Have you cried recently? Crying is nothing but a strong and earnest longing for God's grace, which does not arise in us unless we see the depth of our misery. When we begin to realize the depth of our misery, then we begin to realize who's missing. And we begin to see that it's God. God's goodness, his hand, his presence is missing. Well, this fellow here is crying, and deeply so, he's longing for something from God. And so verse one begins with these words, out of the depths I cry to you, oh Lord. And the first thing that comes to my mind is Jonah, who sank into the depths of the ocean, and then he would come up and he would gasp for air before another wave would take over, consume him and bring him down again, And he would come up and gasp and be taken down again until eventually one wave had its way and he did not come back up. He simply sank. And in misery, we're told in chapter 2 of Jonah, we're told he prays in repentance as he's drowning. And this is what is recorded, Jonah 2.2. I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of death I cried, and you heard my voice. Verse 5. The waters closed in over to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wracked around my head. This is the deep sense of anguish and alienation that the psalmist in 130 is experiencing. This is what's in his voice. There's a loneliness there, a fear. He feels like he's being cast into the deepest oceans. And he cries out for the death of his soul the words we just read to the Lord. He's a man in trouble, in deep trouble. Sadness is overwhelming him. Depression is at the door. And the reason for his misery, the reason for his misery is listed for us in verse two. The reason for his misery is unrepentant and unconfessed sin. Does that surprise you? He's experiencing guilt. It's all about guilt. Notice he's calling out from the depths of misery. He doesn't call out for help. He calls out for mercy because of the guilt he's experiencing. Guilt is something we should be more aware of in ourselves. Let me just remind you, let me just say that we should be more aware of guilt in our lives. I think we're more apt, when we're not doing well, when we're not feeling well, when life is not going the way we expect, we are more apt to blame our diet, or maybe our work hours, or maybe our boss, or maybe our spouse, or whatever relationship it may be. We tend to blame other things, and we seldom consider our own lifestyles in the realm of morality or immorality. We never, well, let me not exaggerate. But seldom do we say, Lord, am I sinning against you? Lord, is it possible that I feel this way because I am guilty of unrepented, unconfessed sin? How often do we think of guilt? How often do we blame guilt or blame ourselves for living in a certain way? Well, this man is stricken with guilt. Now, notice something very important here. It is not a guilt for forgiven sin. He is not saying, God's forgiven me, but I haven't forgiven myself. That's actually sinful. That's actually saying, Lord, you are pure, but I am purer. You forgive, but I can't do that. You see, my moral standards are higher than yours. You don't want to do that. And neither is this self-manufactured guilt, feeling guilty for something God said is not wrong. No, this is true, real guilt for doing what he should not have done. God said he's guilty. He ignored it. And now he feels true guilt for true, unrepentant, and unconfessed sin. And so Psalm 130 is a confessional psalm. It's a penitential psalm. And I understand, we were talking about this downstairs earlier, guilt seems to be an obsolete idea in our culture. We don't think much about guilt. We're not taught about guilt. I mean, our pulpits do, but outside of the legal system, there's really no talk about guilt in culture. In fact, many people think that guilt is a result of man-made rules. Guilt is the result of this antiquated, this ancient religious stuff. And so you get rid of that antiquated religion, and guess what you get rid of as well? You get rid of guilt, take away the rules, take away religion, and there's no guilt left. And everybody goes to sleep better. Everybody lives better, of course, there's also a lot of problems. People are doing things they ought not to do, and so sin is occurring. The problem is that it's not being dealt with. And the more you live in unrepented, unconfessed sin, the more alienated you become from God. Somebody mentioned downstairs that that's probably why we have such a high degree of mental illness today. I would agree. People who are just emotionally distraught and broken because they do not deal with the guilt that they face, that they're guilty of. In fact, in our culture today, we say that there's no reason for feeling guilty anymore because we have progressed beyond this idea of right and wrong, of rules, of morality. In fact, we're told that you ought to do what best expresses yourself. That's who you ought to be. That's what you ought to do. If this best reveals who you are, best expresses who you are, then go for it. Go ahead and do it. Do not feel guilty. It may not work for me, but it works for you, so go ahead. There's no need for guilt. After all, we live in a postmodern world where we live guilt-free lives because there's no right, there's no objective right or wrong. But what we see here at Psalm 130 is that this man is not the product of his religion. He's not the product of some moral conversation from the pulpit. Rather, it is his conscience that's telling him that he is wrong. And he knows that there's something missing in his life, something he innately desires, something he was created for, and it's gone. And he knows he has wronged God. Preacher didn't tell him that. His own conscience told him that. He has wronged God. and he stands guilty. And now, as a result, he is alienated from God and he's living in the consequences of his moral or immoral decisions, choices. So what does he do? Notice here he runs to the Lord. The word there, Lord, is Yahweh or Jehovah. Referring to, he runs to the sovereign God. Why? Because there he knows is the only place where he is going to find rescue. The only place. Now some people run to the bar or maybe to the liquor cabinet in order to find rescue. Some people get lost in some sort of digital form of escapism or some other addictive behavior. Now this man very wisely, this psalmist, runs to God. Finally, he runs to God. And look at what he writes in verse 2. He says, O Lord, and there the word is Adonai, O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. And I mention the name Adonai, or Lord, there because it's not simply my sovereign God, but rather my master. And so you see that there is a servant-master relationship that he acknowledges. He says, O Adonai, O master, he does not approach God as an equal, and neither does he approach God as if God owes him forgiveness. Rather, Look at it, verse two, he pleads for mercy. Now we don't know his sin. We don't know what it is that he did, but we do know that God has responded to his unchecked, unrepentant sin. And that was in anguish. He's lost. He's alienated from God. Life is just churning. His heart is just pouring in pain. I'm sure that in the morning when he got to work, he was smiling and saying, hey, how you doing? Good day, good weekend? Yeah, sure, it was good, good. Got a lot done. But inside, he was broken. He was sick to the core. He was hating life. That's this man. Alienated from God. First Corinthians chapter 11 verse 32, we'll look at it again at the Lord's table. But first Corinthians 11 32 reads this way, but when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. You see my friends, God's discipline of his children is far, far better than God's final judgment of the wicked. However, keep this in mind. God's discipline of his own children is not easy, it is not pleasant, it is not trivial, and it is not comfortable. God forgives, but he also corrects his children. And it's never comfortable. Now the psalmist knows what he deserves. So what does he do? He pleads for mercy. He says, Lord, I know what I deserve, but instead I'm going to ask for mercy. God have pity on me. He knows that this is his only hope. And without this hope, life is over for him. Life is not worth living. He is saying, Lord, withhold your punishment, the very punishment that I deserve, withhold that, and instead give me your kindness, give me your forgiveness, give me your compassion, even though I don't deserve it. In short, he is saying, Lord, give me your grace. Give me what I do not deserve. Give me your grace. Well, this is his cry. Verses 3 and 4 show to us his confession. Now, no one can withstand the judgment of God. Not even the godliest one among us can withstand the judgment of God, because even the godliest is guilty. Guilty of something. Maybe not as guilty as me, but you too are guilty of sin. No one is without iniquity. Now, iniquity is not simply sin. Sin means that we miss the mark of God's moral standards in our conduct. The Bible also tells us that we're guilty of trespasses. Trespasses refers to the very actions that take us across the line of God's moral standard and we venture into things that are forbidden by God. But here the word is iniquity. Iniquity is different. It is a sin. It does refer to sin. But you see, iniquity is sin that comes from who I am. Iniquity comes from your heart. It's who you are, not just what we do. It's who you are. It's a deeply rooted, lawless, crooked desire that creates in us a satisfaction in sinning. Iniquity. For men in particular, those glory days we often think of, the older we get we think of those glory days. For many people, those glory days are just riddled with iniquity. And what's proof that iniquity exists is that even though we know it is sinful, we dream of those glory days as if they were good, even though we know they were wrong. Iniquity a desire for sin that comes from their heart Not just what you do it's who you are It's rooted in who you are We love what we ought to hate And what's the origin of iniquity? Well, we're born with it. Psalm 51 5 says, I was brought forth in iniquity. That sinful nature is what we are born with. My friends, today, we tend to concern ourselves more with inequity than we do with iniquity. Inequity meaning what is fair. Oh, we're so big about being fair. when we really should be big about iniquity, not inequity. We have it backwards. Well, this man's iniquity has caught up with him. Look at verse three. It reads this way. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there's forgiveness that you may be feared. He knows that he's not alone. says, if you, O Lord, should mark, if you, O Lord, should keep a record of the iniquities of your children, O Lord, who could stand? Now that term there, that phrase there, should mark or keep a record, literally means, Lord, if you were to observe, if you were to watch, and honestly, you all know this, right? There is a record. God does observe. God does watch. He does know. But listen, the record is set aside, it is blotted out for those who are saved by God's grace. He does watch, but that record is wiped away for those who are saved by grace. Otherwise, who among men would be able to withstand God's judgment? Everyone is dependent on mercy. We all are. And it's not just because of the greatness of your sin, but rather the greatness of the one you sin against. You are dependent on mercy. And so the psalmist writes at verse four, he says, but thanks be to God that there is forgiveness. And he keeps no record of our sin. Look at what he says, but with you, there is forgiveness. For with you, oh Lord, there is forgiveness. I'm reminded of Psalm 103, 12. As far as the East is from the West, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. A lot of distance between East and West, right? You realize that if you head North, eventually you're going to head South, correct? Though they're polar opposites, if you go North, eventually you're going to start going South. But if you head East, you're never going to go West. You'll perpetually just keep going East. If you go West, you're never going to go East. And the Lord is saying here that He takes your sins and He forgives you so that your sins will never meet up with His judgment, with His condemnation of you who are in Christ. This is not a promise to everyone. It's a promise to those who know Christ as their Lord and Savior who are born again. Your sins will never meet up with God's final judgment. Amen. God forgives, and He forgives fully. But listen, Christian, your sin will encounter God's discipline and His correction. It will not encounter His condemnation, but it will encounter His correction, His discipline. But as for your guilt, as for your guilt, Christ is forever removing it. He removes it. Our iniquities have been placed on Christ, because Christ is our substitute. He is the one that went to the cross. That's the beauty of Christmas, that Christ would grow up and go to the cross, and He would be our substitute, so that our iniquities, our sins, are placed on His account, on His shoulders, instead of ours. And He removes our guilt. In fact, if you look at verse 8, it says, and He will redeem. God meets our needs. He takes away our guilt. Faith in Christ, which by the way is always accompanied by repentance. Faith in Christ brings us to Christ for salvation. And in Christ we are justified, declared no longer guilty. And our guilt is removed because our sins are, here's a theological term for you, our sins are expiated. They are removed. And God's wrath, here's another theological term, The wrath of God is propitiated. It is satisfied. Because it is spent on Jesus Christ. Because Christ becomes, here's another term, our penal substitute. He takes our place. He takes our punishment. And look at verse four. I think verse four is so interesting. That you may be feared. That you, God, would be feared. Now we don't normally associate being forgiven with developing fear, right? It's an odd combination of ideas. Forgiveness creates fear. When you forgive me, I don't now fear you, I'm thankful to you, but that's not what we see here. God is forgiving, and in forgiving us, we develop fear of him. And by the way, the word there in Hebrew for fear means reverence. We develop a reverence for him, but it also means fright. It means a dread, that sort of fear, a deep-seated, shaky-in-your-boots kind of fear. And how does that work? Well, when he forgives us, that's what happens, because that's when we realize that only God can forgive, that only God can forgive sins, and we're just awestruck by it. And that's when, then, we begin to dread the idea that I would sin against God. We begin to see how big God is and how powerful and majestic He is, and fear begins to set in, and then we experience His sovereignty, His ability to rule over literally every aspect of His creation, and then we realize how much we need God. And fear begins to set in. Would I want to sin against such a great God? A dread of sinning against the one who loves me so much. A fear that I would offend such a good and perfect and loving Savior. Forgiveness from God creates a healthy fear of God. That's what this man is beginning to experience. So we have a cry, we have a confession. I want you to see now a rather significant contrast beginning at verse five and then six. Here we have a waiting. The psalmist says that his soul, his inner person is waiting for the Lord, verse five. And his waiting is not in vain because God said he would respond. God will keep his word. And so the psalmist says, and in his word I hope. This is a hope-filled waiting. a hope-filled anticipation. He says, I wait, my soul waits, I put my hope in his word. Hope requires waiting. This is a great anticipation. An anticipation that God is going to respond, and that God is going to forgive, and that God is going to restore him from the anguish and the alienation that the consequences of his sin has brought about into his life. And he's waiting. He's waiting, Lord, when will it be? When will you restore me? It's making me wait. There's a messianic tone here, no doubt about it, pointing to the future. This is, in some degree, a promise of a future Savior, because God's plans for forgiving us is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And that's why we have Christmas. That's why we have the Incarnation. That must happen first, of course, followed then by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ back, then into ascending back into his glory, to his proper rightful place in glory, and then, of course, he returns. We see here that there's a waiting and anticipation for a new work to be completed, a new work of salvation to be accomplished. In the Old Testament, what we see is that the Old Testament believers placed their faith in the Christ that was to come. We here, as being New Testament Christians, on the other side of the cross, we place our faith in the Christ that has already come. And the psalmist, centuries before Christ's coming, he's placing his faith in the one who is to come, and it will be this one who will come who will provide the salvation. And so there's this great anticipation. He awaits the fulfillment by which sins are going to be forgiven and the believer will be fully restored back to his proper relationship with God. But listen, Christian, it's available to you now. He can restore you now. No need to wait. No need to be late. He restores now. Notice this man's faith. He believes in God's word. He believes that he is forgiven. In his word, he writes, in his word, I place my hope. He does not place his hope in his feelings. He does not place his hope in the sense of shame, saying, look, I feel shameful, therefore I must be guilty. He does not look at himself and say, I am perpetually guilty when God says, I will forgive you. But in the fact that God does forgive and restore, there's his faith. In the fact that God said, I will forgive, I will restore. And he does, through Christ. 2 Chronicles 7.14 reads this way. If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. This, my friends, is a promise made specifically to the people of God, the nation of God, Israel, that chosen nation. But it's also a promise that extends to the Christian, to the church, the chosen people of God. If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves, repent, pray, then will I heal. I will heal the church. And I know many people say, well, this is a promise to the United States. No, not really. It's a promise to Israel. It's a promise to the church. But it's not a promise to the US of A, although I do, I would love it if the Lord would restore our borders, bring peace in our land. But that's not the promise here. The promise is extended to you, Christian, that he can bring peace to you. He can change your life. He likens himself here, verse six, to a watchman who guards the city walls all night long. In fact, he's rather emphatic. He repeats himself. He says, my soul waits for the Lord more than a watchman for the morning, more than the watchman for the morning. Have you ever worked the graveyard shift? Oh, those long hours. Daylight never comes. It just lasts forever. And that's what this man feels like. He feels like, Lord, when are you going to bring peace and restore your presence in my life again? I'm longing for it. And notice that longing. There is a deep longing for God, but there's also a dependence on God. He's not running elsewhere. He's running to God. He's saying, I am depending on you. Only you can do this for me. So I'm coming to you, Lord Jesus. and also an assurance. I know you will keep your word, you will forgive, you will restore me. There's a trust, despite the bigness of his sin, he knows that God forgives. Despite what he's done, maybe persistently, he knows that God forgives. That's the beauty of God's grace. You cannot out-sin God's grace, Christian. And he believes it. There's an assurance in him that makes him come to the Lord. Let me just point one more thing out to you. That's actually in the next Psalm, Psalm 131. It's a little sidetracked, but I think it's worth your time. Stick with me here. Take a look at Psalm 131. I want you to see that there's contentment in living within God's rules. Look at what it says here. Oh Lord, 131, oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high, I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. You know, many people do not fear God. You know what they do fear? They fear having to live a life without the pleasure of sin. They don't fear God. They fear living without the pleasure that sin brings about. Say, would you expect me to live like that? No way. It's just not worth living. I want to live as I want because it brings me pleasure. And I refuse to change. But notice here with this Psalmist thrice. It's a beautiful song, a little song. He says, I don't focus on things that are beyond my comprehension. That's verse one. Verse two, the one who waits and hopes on the Lord, look at what he says. Your soul will be calmed and quieted if you wait on the Lord. He writes, calmed and quieted within his soul. That's who he is. You see, my friends, there is great contentment when you live within God's rules. You go outside of those rules, and one thing that will happen for sure is you will not be calm, you will not be quiet. In fact, he describes himself now as a child who has been weaned from his mother's breast milk. A child who can now go for more than two hours without wailing and crying, saying, I want more. He's saying, now I am content. Now I am satisfied. I could go much longer because I have been satisfied. How? By the rule of God in my life. Don't fear God's rule. Fear living outside of God's rule. Fear God. Lastly, we have a confidence. A confidence that exudes from the songwriter. It's verses seven and eight. Are you still with me? It looks like you are. He takes what he knows to be true for himself and he extends it to the people around him, to Israel. He calls on his neighbors to call on the Lord as well. Look at what it reads, last two verses, 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. If you feel that you do not need forgiveness, then you do not know God and you do not know yourself. If you feel that God owes you forgiveness, then you do not understand grace and you do not understand mercy. Like the psalmist, you have to run to God for rescue. for mercy and for grace, for forgiveness, for the elimination of your guilt. At verse 7 he says, with God there is steadfast love. That term there, steadfast love, is covenant love. This is an unconditional, unbreakable commitment that God has with all those that he gives new life to. A covenant love. And then he says that God redeems fully. In fact, I love the phrasing here. He says, with him is plentiful redemption. Plentiful redemption of your sins too. How frequent are they? He forgives that too. Plentiful redemption. He's able to forgive all sins and assist you in the most difficulties in all of the difficulties your sin brings about. My friends, we tend to show mercy to ourselves. And we persuade ourselves that, listen, I'm really not guilty, I'm not so bad. We're very merciful to ourselves. Let me encourage you to be honest with yourself and run to Christ and plead for his mercy instead. Lord, forgive me my sins. I stand guilty before you. Sin, iniquity, is the deadliest enemy that you have. And that sin is also the deadliest enemy against the church. And just as Israel here is called to run to God for forgiveness, so my friends, you too, run to Christ for forgiveness, and for salvation of your soul, and for the expiation, the removal of your sins, for forgiveness. Run to Christ. Run to Christ. Let's transition now to the Lord's table. And as we consider what Christ has done, let's examine our own hearts and seek his forgiveness as we repent and confess.