Good morning to you all again this morning. We're going to stand and sing together from Psalm 102 this morning as we begin. And similarly to the psalms that we've already considered together, Psalm 102 is one of those psalms that, as someone said to me once, ought to be sung or should be sung with four-part harmony. the four-part harmony of the spirit. As we remember the context of the original writer, and then the church in the Old Testament singing this song, then again, Psalm 102, we know from the letter to the Hebrews, speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then as the church in the New Testament takes up these words, until Christ comes again. So there's a beautiful four-part harmony in the spirit as we sing the words of this psalm. We'll sing Psalm 102, verses 1 through 5, and then 10 through 11, and the tune is 136, St. Agnes Durham. Psalm 102, 1 to 5, 10 and 11, and the tune is 136. Let's stand together as we sing, and then remain standing for prayer. And in my pride, I bring to you my plea. And in the day of my distress, I want your face from me. I fall. Give answer soon, I say. My bones, my embers burn. My days, my soul have passed away. my grass is withered up and dead. Indeed, I even did forget to eat my merry bread. I am reduced to sin and woe. I'm like a pelican that in the desert lives. I have become just like manna, that in waste wastes lies, and like a load I lie awake at night. God bless for you, O Lord. You sinned and grown for us. And to the generations old, your fame will still endure. to show her favor for the time appointed now has come. Let us pray. Lord God, our Father in heaven, even as we have sung to you in praise and in prayer that you would not hide your face from us, we know that in the gospel, for the sake of Christ, your face shines upon us. We thank you, Lord God, for that blessing, that the light of your countenance is upon us. and we have your peace. Father, we thank you for our mediator, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, our prophet, priest, and king. We thank you, Lord, for his work on the earth as our great high priest, offering himself, the perfect final sacrifice for the sins of his people, and now continuing that priestly work of prayer seated at your right hand, trusting that after we said our amens last night, he was always awake, watching over us, praying for us. Even as we opened our eyes this morning, he ever lives to make intercession for us. We're so thankful that we have such a great and good shepherd. Father, we pray And as the disciples asked the Lord when he was on the earth, we ask you now, Lord, teach us to pray. And we ask that soberly and humbly, remembering again that as you teach us the Christian life, you choose our teachers. Even as we are taught by word and spirit, that teaching comes through your providence in our lives. There are many ways that you teach your people to pray. Father, as we have your word open again before us this morning, the light of your face shine upon us. Send forth your light and your truth and may they lead us to the place where you dwell. Father, we make this prayer in humble reliance upon your spirit and in the name that is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus the Christ. Amen. Please be seated. Well, as I spoke with a number of people after this session yesterday, they said not by any way of complaint, but just reality, you left us in the depths. You left us in the depths. You know, we sing often psalm selections. We perhaps do that more often than we sing through entire psalms. And there's a benefit, and sometimes at a conference like this, I think a necessity of dividing up the word of God and dividing up Psalm 130, for instance, to take out the microscope as we look more carefully at individual parts of a psalm. But it's good to keep in mind that this psalm was given as a whole. Have you ever been trying to explain something to someone and they interrupt you and break in and you respond, but wait, you didn't let me finish. And that can be similar I think to what happens if we would take a psalm like Psalm 130 and just be in the depths and not always keep in our mind that that's not the whole psalm. We need to go on, even as we consider this morning, again, just part of the first part of the psalm, that we keep the whole psalm in mind so that God would not say to us, as it were, you didn't let me finish. And so we were in the depths yesterday in the psalm, but we want to continue on today and, Lord willing, throughout the rest of the week. So we have this whole psalm ministering to us. And in that regard, I want to read again to you the whole psalm, verses 1 through 8, this morning. Psalm 130, beginning at verse 1, as we hear again the holy, perfect Word of God. Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness. Therefore, you are feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. And so reads the holy word of God. Well, yesterday we did consider the experience of being in the depths. And that experience of the depths, we could say, was the occasion of Psalm 130. But the focus in verses one and two is what happens in the depths. What did the writer of the Psalm do when, in God's providence, he was in those deep waters? Well, verses one and two tell us he prayed. He prayed. Tavius Winslow again said, seasons of soul depths are ever seasons of heart prayer in the Christian's experience. So this morning, in the most general sense, we are going to consider our prayer out of the depths, our recourse in the depths. And it's often in the depths that the Lord teaches us to pray. Calvin said, we don't often pray when things are well. Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. What can you do when you are in the depths? Again, Alanna spoke of her experience. Sabbath evening. She said it just so clearly. Nothing else I could do but pray. You can cry to the Lord. That word cry in the Hebrew is onomatopoeic. It sounds like a cry itself. The very word sounds like a cry. You know, Augustine said something very interesting when he said, there are none so in the deep as they who do not cry and call out of the deep. What did he mean by that? Well, I think that he was getting at the truth that to cry is itself a sign of grace. in a person's life. Professor Andy Bilson has had 30 years of experience studying childcare, and in particular, orphanages around the world. And he said in a recent article, while we often think of a happy childhood being associated with a noisiness, He said, tragically, however, many of the eight million children confined to orphanages overseas are growing up in utter silence. He says the most gut-wrenching sound he had ever heard was the silence in a ward full of children in an orphanage. He goes on, in orphanages throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and in South America, babies have learned not to cry because they have realized no one will comfort them. They are ignored, forgotten, silent. But you see, as believers in the gospel, in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have received the spirit of adoption. And by him, we cry, Abba, Father. To cry in that sense is a sign of grace. And we see that grace lived out throughout the scripture, Lamentations 3. They tried to end my life in a pit and threw stones at me. The waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to be cut off. I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea. Do not close your ears to my cry for relief. You came near when I called you, and you said, do not fear." And again, Jonah, that prototypical man of prayer in the depths. In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the current swirled about me. All your waves and breakers swept over me. I said I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple. What can you do when you are in the depths? You can cry to the Lord. Prayer is like the pathway that the Lord gives us through the depths. Because it says of God in Isaiah 51.10, was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over? And in Christ, that pathway, that road through the deeps is the way of prayer. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God. Psalm 71, though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again from the depths of the earth. You will again bring me up. The prayer from the depths. Puritan Thomas Watson said, when God lays men upon their backs, then they look up to heaven. Affliction is a bitter root, but it bears sweet fruit. And one of those fruits is the fruit of prayer. I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit. Lamentations 355. Beloved, for the child of God, every valley of acor, every valley of trouble is a door of hope. Isn't that what it says in Hosea chapter two? Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. Perhaps here it would be helpful to give a caution, a word of warning. Be careful, watch out in your life for only calling on God in times of trouble. If you look back over the past in your life, months or years and see that it is really only been in times of trouble that you've really prayed. When we do that, we're treating God like the spare tire in the trunk of our car. When you don't need it, you don't think about it. This is what we read was the case in Jeremiah chapter 2. Their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets They say to wood, you are my father, and to stone, you gave me birth. They have turned their backs to me and not their faces, yet when they are in trouble, they say, come and save us. When they are in trouble, they pray. We don't pray often when things are well. Psalm 66 reminds us, I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you. Vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble. Watch out if you only pray in the depths, but This is where we are in Psalm 130, and many Christians would testify that the depths are those special times when God teaches us to pray. Charles Spurgeon called times of trouble or difficulty, the dark providences of life, he called them night school, the Christians' night school. And in God's night school, One of the courses in the core curriculum of God is prayer. From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God. In my distress, I called to the Lord and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help and you listened to my cry. One writer said, he was a runaway. He tried to escape from the presence of God, yet the Lord was still his God. God will not lose any of his people, even if, like Jonah, they are in the belly of a fish, God is still their God. And we cry out to him. From the end of the earth, I will cry unto thee when my heart is overwhelmed. Psalm 61 says, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. And like the rock from which the waters flowed in the wilderness, that rock is Christ. And so we see here in this Psalm, out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. He calls out to the Lord, to the living and true triune God, the faithful covenant God. He calls out to the Lord in the name of the Christ. He has been brought to an end of himself. Jonah knew he couldn't save himself. Salvation is of the Lord. And so he prayed. And here in Psalm 130, similarly, out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. If we look at the world and its advice and its remedies and its solutions to the problems of life, it is almost exclusively self-help. There are huge self-help sections in every bookstore. I haven't read it yet, but I'm interested to read a new book by Jordan Peterson. I don't know if that name is as well known here as it is in North America. Jordan Peterson is a He is a professor at the University of Toronto who has gained a lot of notoriety lately because he's been standing up as a very eloquent defender of free speech, especially in the context of compelled speech. His university was compelling him to use the pronouns of choice of his students. with all the transgender movement, transgenderism that's been enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the Human Rights Bill in Ontario. He was being compelled to use all kinds of different pronouns, and he's been standing up against that. He's not a Christian. And he's written a book, Twelve Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos. And I'm sure it's filled with a lot of very helpful things. I've listened to a lot of Jordan Peterson and learned a lot and appreciate a lot of what he said. I think he's pickpocketing the Bible and the Christian worldview a lot of the time. But Jordan Peterson's book, I looked on the back, I just had a copy in my hand and I looked at the back and I noticed a little note on the back of the dust cover. Self-help section. Self-help section. That's what Jordan Peterson has to offer you. As eloquent and insightful as he is in many ways, self-help. Out of the depths, I cry to you, oh Lord. Derek Kidner said, self-help is no answer in the depths of distress, however useful it may be in the shallows of self-pity. Abraham Lincoln once confessed, I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. What do we do in the depths? We cry out to the Lord. Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. In the depths, from out of the depths, the psalm writer, interestingly, is praying about prayer. Oh, Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. He's praying initially about prayer. Lord, hear my voice. And he pleads not just for a bare hearing of his words, but an active engagement of his cry. Hear my voice. Do not ignore me. Be attentive, he goes on to say. Hear me, but be attentive. Do not be indifferent to what you hear. And so this profound experience of the depths has stirred in the psalm writer a passionate pleading in prayer to God, that God would hear his prayer. And we see that passionate pleading throughout the Psalter. Listen to my cry for help, my God, my King, for to you I pray, Psalm 5. Psalm 61, hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer. Psalm 86, hear my prayer, O Lord, listen to my cry for mercy. And here in Psalm 130, our psalm this week, be attentive to my cry. You see, before he goes on to say anything in particular, he pleads that God would be attentive to him. The depths of soul suffering have made the psalmist an attention seeker. Now usually when we hear those words, an attention seeker, it has a negative connotation. We would encourage our children not to be attention seekers. in many contexts. But here, seeking attention is the spiritually spontaneous reflex to trouble and need. Out of the depths, oh Lord, look, hear, be attentive. That attentive cry is just spontaneously, by grace in the spirit, comes out of the psalmist's soul. When a child is desperately desiring something, they don't need any coaching, they don't need any instruction about being persistent in seeking the attention of the parent. All of their words, all of their body language passionately says, be attentive to me. A drowning person doesn't need encouragement to cry out for help. And help in desperate need is the special kind of cry mentioned here. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. Or to the voice of my supplications, it says in the King James Version. That word supplications is the same word that's used in Daniel 9, 18. Give ear, O God, and hear. Open your eyes. and see the desolation of the city that bears your name, we do not make requests, but literally supplications of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. And so you see it is the mercy of God that needs to be the context into which we consider this prayer, and particularly this prayer that God would be attentive to us, and to our prayers when we are in the depths. Why is that the case? In pleading for God's attentive ear, we learn several things from scripture. First, God is the God who is able to be attentive to his children. God is the God who is able to be attentive to his children. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the true and living God. He is everywhere present, and he is all-knowing. He is not like the idols. They have ears, but cannot hear. The true and living God has no physical ears, of course, young people, but he hears his children who could have heard Jonah from the belly of the fish. Who else could have heard him but the Lord God? No, it's not like the case on Mount Carmel. Midday passed and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice, but there was no response. No one answered. No one paid attention. because Baal has never listened to anything. But because God is infinite deity, he is able to be attentive to prayer. But secondly, because God is also holy, people must not assume or demand his attention. to our prayers. You know, think of it this way. Pay attention is often what a parent needs to say to a child. Pay attention. You are being inattentive. Proverbs 420. My son, pay attention to what I say. Listen closely to my words. Pay attention. Give heed. But here in Psalm 130, here is the creature appealing to the creator. Let your ears be attentive to me. Pay attention to me. The creature is appealing to the creator. The sinner is soliciting the king and the lawgiver and the judge. It's really quite astounding. We have no right in and of ourselves to barge into the throne room of God to assault the throne with our prayers. No matter how deep our depths may be. Here in Psalm 130 is a call for God's attention toward us. But God has every right to accuse each and every one of us and condemn us for inattention. Listen to Jeremiah 6. To whom can I speak and give warning, says the Lord, who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so that they cannot hear. The word of the Lord is offensive to them. They find no pleasure in it. And in Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 34, our kings, our leaders, our priests, and our fathers did not follow your law. They did not pay attention to your commands or the warnings you gave them. This is where we have to begin. Even as we hear a cry that God would be attentive to us, God would have every right to say, how attentive have you been to me? This is what the Lord Almighty says in Zechariah 7, 9, administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another, do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor, in your hearts do not think evil of each other, but they refuse to pay attention. Stubbornly, they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. You know, even in the life of a believer in Psalm 66, you remember in verse 18, we read these words. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But you know the Psalm continues. But God has surely listened. and heard my voice in prayer. We need to come again to the marvel of that, not simply to expect God's attention, but to demand it from Him in and of ourselves. How and why does God listen to the prayer of His people and give attention to them? Well, Daniel, teaches us in Daniel 919, oh Lord, listen, oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, hear and act for your sake. Oh my God, do not delay because your city and your people bear your name. It's for the Lord's sake. It's for the Lord's glory. It's because of the mercy of God in Christ. that God hears the voice of our prayers and gives attention to us. Oh my God, Daniel says in that same prayer, incline thine ear and hear, open thine eyes and behold our desolations, the city which is called by thy name. For we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies." We need to remember as we hear this prayer out of the depths and this pleading that the Lord would be attentive to us, we need to remember our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness. In John 11, 41, when Jesus looked up, he said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. During the days of Jesus' life on earth, the author to the Hebrews tells us, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death. And he was heard. because of his reverent submission. And we often go to a verse like Hebrews 5 and like many other descriptions of the life of Jesus Christ, we often go immediately to a verse like this as an example of Christ to us. Christ prayed, so should we. Christ offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears, so should we. And of course, that's true, but before and over and above the example and the model that Christ is, we must see his praying, even his praying as well as part of his righteousness for us and for our salvation. Like his law-keeping, his prayers were part of that active obedience that are in the gospel through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to the account of those who believe. And that's a wonderful comfort to us. I am not justified before God. I am not accepted by my heavenly father because of my proficiency in prayer or the eloquence of my petitions. That would be works righteousness. The very prayers of Christ on earth are part of his obedience and righteousness, which are imputed to the believer. I am not accepted by God because of my prayer, but because of the imputed righteousness of Christ. And as a justified, having been justified believer in Christ, I pray. And in terms of prayer, the prayer of Jesus was not only part of his active obedience, it was also part of his passive obedience as our great sin bearer. In the depths of his substitutionary suffering, in the depths of the depths, the Christ found God silent to his prayers. See, that's the other side. That's the sin bearing of Christ. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why so far from helping me and from the words of my groaning? Charles Spurgeon, I think with sanctified imagination, once mused, I think I hear the Father say to Christ, my son, I forsake you because you stand in the sinner's stead. As you are holy, just, and true, I would never forsake you. I would never turn away from you. Even as a man, you have been holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. But on your head rests the guilt of every penitent transferred from him to you, and you must expiate it by your blood. Because you stand in the sinner's stead, I will look not at you till you have borne the full weight of my vengeance. Then I will exalt you on high, far above all principalities and powers. Christ praying and being heard as part of his act of obedience, Christ praying and not being heard as his sin bearing, come together in the mediator to the people of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as such a humbling and such an encouraging reality that through faith in Christ we can be And we are and we must be more and more confident of God's attentive ear. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. And we look to Christ. And we know our Father will be. He will hear. He will pay attention. He does give heed. That was already prefigured in the Old Testament in the temple. Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people, Israel, when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. 2 Chronicles 6, 21, and later in the chapter. Now, my God, may your ears be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. And the reality, of course, of those Old Testament shadows is in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has entered the most holy place by his own blood, by a new and living way opened up for us through the curtain that is his body. And in Christ-mediated prayer then. And all our prayer has to be so consciously Christ-mediated. There's an author from the States, I can't recall his name offhand, who's written a book called Praying Backwards. Praying Backwards, and by that he means we often leave to the end of our prayers in Christ's name. And he says we need to remember that right at the beginning of all our prayers. In Christ's name we pray. Praying Backwards. But in Christ-mediated prayer, God's people have the comfort and the confidence to seek attention. from God our Savior. Nehemiah did. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. Let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name and give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. Psalm 10 encourages us. You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted. You encourage them and you listen to their cry. Beloved child of God, your Savior, Your God is attentive to your cries. There's a wonderful illustration of the attention in that word attentive given in a very striking negative way because that word for attention in the Greek translation of the Old Testament is the word that Paul uses in 1st Timothy 3.8 in the duties of a deacon. When he says, deacons likewise are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging, the NIV says, not given to much wine. Not giving attention to wine. That's the same word. It is related to this word, be attentive to my cry. So as one writer said, as the drunkard pays attention to the bottle, so God pays attention to his people's prayer. So striking in the contrast, but so vivid. As the drunkard pays attention to the bottle, so God pays attention to his people's prayer. Psalm 28, hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help. As I lift up my hands toward your most holy place, praise be to the Lord for he has heard my cry for mercy. In my alarm I said I am cut off from your sight, yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help. I was interested to see that the book War and Grace was recommended the other day. It's available on the back book table. I very much appreciated that book. And one of the chapters in that book is about a man named Rupert Lonsdale. He was a man very familiar with the depths. He was a submarine commander in the Royal Navy. In World War II, he served as captain of a submarine named the Seal. But he knew of depths other than those in the seas. His first wife died in giving birth to his only child. And after the war, his second wife died of cancer. And then later, his third wife died of a brain tumor. Over his desk in his study was a painting. And underneath were written the words faith sees through tears. And Lonsdale could live that way because he was a Christian. He was the son of believing parents, and he himself repented and trusted in Christ as a teenager. His faith was tested in dramatic fashion in early May 1940. The SEAL, of which he was then the commander, was assigned to lay mines in the dangerous body of water between Denmark and Sweden, known as the Kattegat. And remarkably, the crew completed their dangerous mission and were returning to port when they were spotted by enemy aircraft. And the SEAL dove, but then was pursued by German UJ boats, special submarine hunters. And playing a deadly game of hide and seek, being submerged for 16 hours, the seal eventually eluded her pursuers. But after all that, just then, a mooring cable of a floating German mine tore open the rear of the seal's hull. The badly damaged sub sank 27 meters to the bottom of the catagap. The two rear compartments were flooded with 130 tons of water. And when the order to surface was eventually given, the submarine started to rise, but then eventually sank back down into the muddy seabed and became stuck at an angle of 25 degrees. The boat would not budge. The air became stale, eventually threatening the crew with carbon dioxide poisoning. The boat and its crew had, by that point, been 23 hours in the depths. And there was nothing anyone could think to do. They tried everything. But it was then that Rupert Lonsdale announced, we have tried everything we can think of to get to the surface, but without result. None of us can think of anything else. We have all run out of ideas. So I am going to call the crew together, and we shall pray. Our object will be to ask God to help us. Two men of the 59-member crew refused to pray. I don't consider you can surface a boat by praying, one of them retorted mockingly. But Lonsdale undeterred began to lead the crew in prayer. And like a Jonah in the belly of a fish, Lonsdale in the belly of the seal prayed. And this is what he said. Dear God, we have tried everything in our power to save ourselves, and we have failed. Yet we believe you can do all things that are impossible to men. Please, O Lord, deliver us. He then joined the crew in praying together the Lord's Prayer. Immediately after they said Amen, Lonsdale had an idea. A rope was rigged along the length of the submarine And all the men were ordered to make their way up as far as possible to the bow of the boat, the front of the boat. Some of them just barely being able to crawl along the rope. And after the men had done so, the order was given to surface. And the seal shuddered as she broke free from the mud, leveled out, and slowly began to rise to the surface. Now the sub was eventually captured and Lonsdale himself was taken prisoner. You'll have to read the rest of the story, but their lives had been spared. Rupert Lonsdale knew God had heard and answered his prayer from the depths. He eventually became a minister in the Church of England and preached the gospel to sinners who were mired in the depths of sin and misery. He died in 1999 at the age of 93. You can read his story in more detail, written in 1960 in the book called We Will Not Fear, words from Psalm 46. So what can you do in the depths? You can pray. You can pray. But what if, unlike Lonsdale, the answer doesn't come so quickly? or clearly. Beloved, praying is the preeminent way that we live by faith and not by sight. You may be tempted to ask in the depths, what good can prayer do? There are all kinds of reasons to quit praying, to give up. And instead of encouraging us all the more to pray because of being in the depths, the devil can tempt us in the depths to abandon hope and to abandon prayer with it. You remember in Luke 7, we read of someone in the depths. It was a mother. And she was in the depths for her child. Many of you can identify the depths a parent can endure for a child's well-being, physically and especially spiritually. But in Luke 7, that mother prayed. Christ was there physically, but the entreaties were nonetheless supplications to the Messiah. They were her prayers to Jesus. and think on that occasion of the potential obstacles to her prayer from the depths. That mother had to persevere through a silence from Jesus. He answered her not a word. And sometimes in our prayers, it seems like that. God answers us not a word, but we must persevere. Jesus spoke of grace to Israel. She was a Gentile, yet she pleaded and persevered. You know, when blessings seem to be going to others and not to us, you're in the depths. Someone else is in the depths. They prayed. You pray. They are lifted. You remain. And you see it. And you're tempted to give up. At least, it's the least of the temptations sometimes. It'd be easy to give up or become bitter or angry, but we must persevere, we must continue to worship and cry out to the Lord in mercy for his help. She went on, she wrestled thirdly with the word of Christ. She accepted his assessment, yet searched for a foothold for faith. Might there be a blessing falling from God's table even for the little dogs? She had literally mega faith, and it showed itself in persistent prayer. From the depths, we must persevere in prayer, trusting that in the mercy of God in Christ, that mercy is deeper than the depths we are in. There is no depth so profound, said Winslow, no darkness so dense, no need so pressing or perplexity so great, but from it you may cry unto God, the Lord inclining his ear to the softest, faintest breathing of your soul. At those times, then let Christ be your example. as well as your righteousness. As one writer said, he had cried, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And now, having received an answer, he cries in triumph, it is finished. And in doing so, bids us also, ask and it shall be given you. Jesus has proven the power of prayer. What do we do in the depths? We pray. What do we do in the depths? We persevere in prayer. But what about when the depths we experience are so deep we no longer even know how to pray? Well, here, as Stanley said this morning in the Psalm Sing, we have the Psalms, and that's such a blessing. I think every thoughtful Christian in the depths has, to one degree or another, a concern in our prayer not to cross a line. not to cross a line in our prayer as we experience those deep and dark providences, not to cross the line into saying something that was inappropriate or saying something that was irreverent before God. But we have the Psalms, and we can pray them confidently. I was speaking to someone at the conference earlier, and they mentioned how helpful Psalm 13 had been as they have been going through and continue to go through the depths. You can pray it as the inspired word of God. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts? And every day I'm sore in my heart. How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O Lord, my God. Give light to my eyes or I will sleep in death. And the enemy will say I have overcome him and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me. Or the young man in our congregation who recently lost his mother at the age of 53 to malignant melanoma. And he told me how helpful Psalm 77 had been. I cried out to God for help, I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord. At night, I stretched out untiring hands, and my soul refused to be comforted. I remembered you, O God, and I groaned, I mused, and my spirit grew faint. And then the questions, that I don't think we dare to pray, really, unless they were here for us. Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion? But then I thought, to this I will appeal, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and writhe. The very depths were convulsed. The clouds poured down water. The skies resounded with thunder. Your arrows flashed back and forth. Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. What a blessing to have the word of God when we don't know how to pray. What about those times when you're so low you can't even pray at all? Some of you have been there. The psalmist in Psalm 119, 131 says, I opened my mouth and panted. The word means to gasp, to breathe heavily. No words. I opened my mouth and all that came out was a sigh and a groan. We groan. But Thomas Manton said, a dumb beggar gets alms at Christ's gate if he can but make signs when his tongue cannot plead for him. So Spurgeon said, sit down at mercy's gate and show your sores and groan and sigh. Wounds are eloquent orators with a tender-hearted surgeon Expose your wounds to Christ. Misery is mercy's best constraint. Spread your misery before the eyes of mercy. We have such great encouragement as we come in prayer before our Triune God because we pray to our Heavenly Father in the name of His Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. In your prayer, remember the mediation of Christ your great high priest. Remember his righteousness and his death. Remember your justification and your adoption. That the depths don't argue against those things, cannot nullify those things in the gospel. Our children are our children before they even learn to speak. And remember the intercession of Christ. He ever lives to make intercession for you. Peter, Satan desires to sift you like wheat, but keep praying, Peter, and you'll get through it. No, but I have prayed for you, the intercession of Christ. When by reason of the anguish of your spirit, the cloud veil of your mind, and the infirmity of your body, you can neither think nor pray, let the reflection cheer you that Jesus is thinking of you and praying for you. As Winslow said, when I cannot think of Jesus, said a sick one whom he loved, Jesus is thinking of me. Oh, happy thought. And remember the compassion of the Father. Record my lament, Psalm 56, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record? And remember thirdly and lastly, as we conclude the ministry of the Holy Spirit, We have the intercession of the Spirit Himself for Christ's sake. Because as God promised to the house of David, I will pour out a spirit of grace and supplication. We pray because we have the grace of the Spirit and the grace of supplication given to us in the gospel. But further in Romans 8, in the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness, we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans, and he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. You know, beloved, in the depths, but at all other times, what John Bunyan said remains true. You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. And we pray to a merciful, triune, saving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Psalm 69 is what we sang yesterday. I'm going to conclude as we hear the words of verses 13 through 17. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord, hear my voice. But I pray to you, Lord, In the time of your favor and your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire. Do not let me sink. Deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. Do not let the floodwaters engulf me, or the depths swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love. In your great mercy, turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant. Answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. Let us pray. How thankful we are, O Lord God, that in the spirit, for the sake of Christ, for the sake of your great name, your ears are open to our cries, and you are attentive to us. And so, Lord, in the depths, out of the depths, from the depths, we cry unto you. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. Not because of our righteousness, but because of your mercy and because we bear your name, Christian. as we pray and live and move and have our being in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's remain standing and we'll sing once again in closing Psalm 130. Psalm 130, we'll sing the B selection and the tune Humility 100. The tune Humility, the words of Psalm 130 B, let's stand as we sing in praise to God. On to my supplications voice, give an attentive ear. ♪ If thou, O Lord, should spark iniquity ♪ ♪ But death with thee forgiveness is ♪ ♪ That fear thou mayest be ♪ For God, my soul, doth wait. My hope is in His word. More than laid back for mourning was, My soul waits for the Lord. I say more than they have to watch the morning Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with him ♪ Redemption is ever found within ♪ ♪ And from all his iniquities ♪ ♪ He Israel shall redeem ♪