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After making it up to the 11th step—so close to the top now—how could the psalmist be saying, “Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD”? (Psalm 130:1)
I think that the more we ascend in God, the more sensitive we should be to any semblance of sin in our lives that would offend Him. The mark of a maturing Christian is one who is constantly closing the gap between sin and confession.
(You can check out all of the biblical references in this post by clicking here.)
I like the bridge in the song I Keep Falling In Love With Him—
When I first fell in love with Jesus,
I gave Him all my heart
And I thought I couldn’t love him more
than I did right at the start.
But now I look back over the mountains,
and the valleys where I’ve been
And It makes me know I love Him so much
more than I did then
Out of the depths—Think how far we’ve come on this climb. In the first Song of Ascent, we were experiencing the woes of being in the valley (Psalm 120:5-7). But now in this song, the feelings of being in the depths are not from someone else’s sinful activity.
The psalmist is pointing out that national sin is the culmination of unrepented individual sins. God addressed this in Leviticus 20:22—Keep all My decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out.
Even in these depths, the psalmist is confident that God will hear—let Your ears be attentive (v. 2). Nehemiah was confident too. Look how he joins his personal sin to the national sin after Israel had be vomited out of the land (Nehemiah 1:1-7).
Our confidence comes from the rock-solid assurance that God completely forgives our sins and then forgets all that He forgives (vv. 2-3; Psalm 103:10-12).
The middle verses (vv. 5-6) have the key words wait, watch, and hope. This middle part comes down to: (1) What I’m going to pay attention to, and (2) What God pays attention to.
God is attentive to our cries for mercy, and He is watchful for our care, not for our punishment!
We are called to wait and watch in hope because God has proven that He is all in for us. Look at this completeness:
- full forgiveness (v. 3)
- unfailing love (v. 7a)
- full redemption (v. 7b)
- all their sins (v. 8)
Notice in v. 7 the phrase “all THEIR sins” is now corporate (not singular, personal as in the opening verses).
We’ve gone FROM my voice, my cry TO your hope, O Israel and redemption of their sins.
If national sin is the culmination of unrepented individual sins, then national revival is the culmination of individuals repenting of their sins!
National revival starts with you and with me.
If you’ve missed any of the Songs of Ascent we’ve looked at, you can find them all here.
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Craig T. Owens 