Expository - Songs of Degrees

Psalm 130

Out of the Depths

If we want to go further with God, we must realise that He is not just there as a convenience for us, for when it suits us. We must come to the realisation that He is everything and we are nothing. It is a process which sometimes takes a long while. Think of Job, a righteous man who, throughout his trials, maintained his integrity. Yet at the end, before God he must confess, "I am vile." So often, even in spiritual exercises and service for God, self can raise its ugly head when we talk about MY ministry, MY revelation, and the doctrine that I believe.

God opens our eyes that we might see at the last, that when we have done all, we are but unprofitable servants, but servants nevertheless that yearn for communion with God. All we can do, despite all our experience, is cry out to Him from the depths.

The Darkness of Separation

In Genesis 15, when God was about to appear to confirm His covenant with Abraham, Abraham was going to enter into a very close communion with God. The sacrifice was prepared and laid out. All that had to be done, had been done. Then Abraham waited and waited. When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and a horror of great darkness fell upon him. At that vital moment, Abraham experienced the darkness of separation. Why was that? It was to ensure that what happened would be entirely of God; there would be nothing of Abraham, even though it was all for him.

In the Song of songs 5 vv 5,6 we see the bride, a type of the soul moving on to full communion with the Lord: "I rose up to open to my Beloved; my hands dropped with myrrh, my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh." All was wonderful; there was adoration in the heart for the Lord, but there were still things of self there. There had previously been a reluctance to move, so that when, eventually, she did go to open the door, her Beloved had withdrawn Himself and was gone. She sought Him but could not find Him; she called Him but He gave her no answer. She seemed to be forsaken. Why? The Lord had withdrawn to make her seek Him more, with her whole heart. The end that the Lord had for her and also has for us, is to draw us to Him to know full communion.

That I May Know Him

We have been crucified with Christ: it is done. The old nature is dead: it is done. We are new creations in Christ Jesus; old things are passed away. It is done; but we have got to move by faith in the experience of it. Stop clinging to and relying on fleshly ways and trust Him completely. "This one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Paul knew that he had to press on the upward way. If I know Him fully today, I want to know Him more fully tomorrow.

The Psalmist cried out of the depths. He seemed to be forsaken. Having pressed on the upward way himself he comes to an awful realisation of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the vileness of the flesh. From that dark experience he cries out to the Lord, "Lord, hear my voice: let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications." The Lord to whom he calls, he knows to be a pardoning God, not one who marks iniquities, otherwise who would be able to stand? Forgiveness is with the Lord. Here we are talking about practical experience of the grace of God. So much of what we know about mercy and forgiveness could just be theory, but the Psalmist is entering into a real experience of the mercy and grace of God. Such experience causes us to rejoice in mercy and to shun all the ways of the flesh. We too have to come to that place where we realise it is all of Him or nothing.

A Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit

Jonah had his own way of serving God. He did not actually forsake God, but he ran away from the will of God; he wanted to do his own will. Later, in the belly of the great fish, he cried to God. Out of lowest depths, the very belly of death itself, he cried to the Lord. Did God hear him? Most certainly: "I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell (Sheol) cried I, and Thou heardest my voice." Jonah 2 v 2. How did Jonah get into the depths? Well, he declares that the Lord had cast him there. And what was the reason? It was so that Jonah might learn to trust and obey the Lord, to do His will, and to have no confidence in the flesh or the will of the flesh. When Jonah cried out to the Lord, the Lord heard, forgave and delivered. The whole point of the story of Jonah is that God is so forgiving that He is concerned about an enemy people, the Ninevites, even the welfare of their cattle, as well as for a disobedient and unworthy individual. Praise the Lord!

Whether it is our fault, as it was in the case of Jonah or in the case of David when he sinned in the matter of Bathsheba, or whether it is not through any fault of our own but because of what others have done or are doing, as when David was running away from Saul, we must look up and seek the Lord alone. When we are in that situation of being in the depths, in the place where it seems momentarily we are forsaken, we learn to be broken and contrite. We learn to call out to the Lord for help and salvation. In Psalm 51, which David wrote after his sin with Bathsheba, he explains: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." Then in Psalm 34, written when David was running away from Saul, it says, "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."

In Proverbs it says that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. God would bring us down to the depths that we should not trust in those things but always look upward to Him. If we will allow God to deal with us, then we will know full communion with Him and there will be no possibility of relying on our own strength any more.

In 1 Peter 4, Peter passes on his experience that he had learned: "Forasmuch then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that has suffered in the flesh, has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." If we let God deal with us, He will bring us through to that place. Later on Peter gives a word of encouragement: "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy... Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing as unto a faithful Creator."

Waiting on the Lord

Remember, it is those that wait upon the Lord that shall renew their strength, that shall mount up with wings as eagles, that shall run and not be weary, that shall walk and not faint.

In waiting on the promises of God, there is no room for impatience. Impatience comes from the old nature; it is of the flesh. Thus, we must wait on the Lord. When Christians wait on the Lord, it is not an aimless waiting, but a waiting in hope. And this hope is not a vague hope, but a certain hope, as verses 5 and 6 reveal: "I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord." In other words we are not waiting for something which will never arrive, but for something which God has promised. God has promised that we should enjoy a rich and full communion with Him. At the moment He just wants to deal with all those things that are getting in the way. If we draw nigh to God, He will draw nigh to us. That is His promise. Wait expectantly!

This is how the Psalmist waited on the Lord: he waited more than they that watch for the morning - and in case you did not get it the first time, he repeats it. Those stationed on the city wall who, in ancient times, watched for the morning, were watching with a purpose. They longed for the night to be past, when unseen enemies might strike. They longed for the life-giving and life-filling activities of the day. They longed for the fellowship of family and friends. Did they wait in vain? Certainly not, for they knew the morning would come; however, in patience they had to wait for it. The Psalmist, therefore, waited with a stronger hope and a surer certainty of God's word being fulfilled. Now how more certain can you be than being sure of the morning's coming? That is how sure we may be of all God's promises.

Conclusion