Michael Wilcock
Reading: Psalm 130
WE are familiar with what occurred to John Wesley in Aldersgate Street one May evening as he listened to a reading of Luther's Preface to the Romans, but we may not be aware that this was a sequel to his presence that same afternoon in St. Paul's Cathedral where he listened to the singing of Psalm 130. Surely this was all part of the experience that day when his heart was [93/94] 'strangely warmed'. It was there in Aldersgate Street that Wesley's real experience with Christ began, but the way had been prepared already as God had spoken to him in the afternoon by this psalm.
None of us are starting on the experience of the Christian life as Wesley was, but it may well be that with us there is a desire to renew a divine relationship and we can do so by using this psalm as a background and listening to the cry found in it.
1. A Cry out of a Great Need
Lord hear my voice; let thine ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications". (verses 1 & 2)
Three things strike me about the great need out of which the psalmist cries.
i. The need is primary
The psalms have two methods of approach. There is that which begins with human need and goes on to the divine response, and the other begins with the supply in God as it reaches down to meet the deep need of man. Here we have a supreme example of when the need is primary, for it starts from where man is and cries to God out of man's depths. It articulates human predicament and man's heart need and gives us the tremendous advantage of not only being inspired by the need of the human heart but also inspired by the Spirit of God. The psalm does two things at once, it provides a cry which God Himself has inspired the human heart to make. So it is God's Word to us also.
ii. The cry is timeless
Learned commentators may tell us that the psalm was written long after the time of David because of a later Hebrew word. I do not know; in any case it seems immaterial to me for, whether it was spoken by David or in the time of David or whether it was spoken by some other psalmist is neither here nor there, since it speaks of a present need at all times. There is much in Scripture which is timeless in this way. While relevance is important as is also the contemporary context, there are fundamental spiritual factors which are timeless. It follows, then, that while the cry of Psalm 130 may be applied to a particular situation in which the psalmist spoke it, it is applicable to any age, having to do with no particular time, referring to a need which may be as great to us today as ever it was to the psalmist when he wrote of it.
iii. The need is undefined
This is very important; the need is not defined. Some believe that it refers quite clearly to guilt which needed to be forgiven; that the psalmist had a conscience that was bad and he needed to have his sins forgiven. I wonder if that is necessarily all the truth or whether this is one of those instances in which the silence of Scripture is meant to teach us a lesson. The Scriptures teach us by their silence. There is much that is not told us about the life of Jesus, but we must believe that God's purpose in His Word is wise in telling us all that we need to know, then we do not speculate concerning matters which are not told us. The silences of God are quite deliberate.
We can apply this same principle to Paul's 'thorn in the flesh' (2 Corinthians 12:7). This thorn was a great trial but the Lord refused to remove it so that His servant could learn in a new way the sufficiency of divine grace. When we read that passage we naturally ask what exactly was this thorn. Paul, for reasons best known to himself, does not tell us, with the result that all down the ages men have wondered whether it was not their own particular trial. Was this the thing which is causing them so much distress? It might well be.
This is the sort of thing we have here. A cry out of a great need, but we are not told what that need was. Can this perhaps be because this is a deliberate withholding on the part of God who caused the psalm to be written in this way so that the circumstance should not be pinned down to some special need which is not mine but left undefined, so that I can think that perhaps it refers to my own particular need. I may feel the need for forgiveness of sins or a rescue from failure; I may find myself in misery as I am faced with opposition, up against danger or in the depths of weariness. I may be weighed down with sorrow or perhaps in the kind of depths of which the psalmist speaks elsewhere, "I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold" (69:2). We think of the plea of a man who finds himself literally out of his depths. In these two first verses, then, we are directed to a great cry which could be ours and we can take it on our own lips. [94/95]
2. A Cry to a Great God
But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. " (verses 3 & 4)
The psalmist's cry arises from the human heart but it flies straight home to heaven. But who is the God to whom he makes this cry? Is it the God of hope (Romans 15:13)? Is it to the God of peace mentioned also in Romans 15 as well as in many other places? Or is it even more appropriately to the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3)? Remarkably it is not made to that kind of God but to a God of wrath and forgiveness. The cry is made to a God who is described here in moral terms. Might that perhaps seem to be a heartless kind of cry? In the Pilgrim's Progress it was Mr. Worldly Wiseman who sent the pilgrim laden with his burden of sin to the city of Morality, and he almost destroyed him in the process. Surely that is not the way to deal with a heart that is in the depths of need.
No, it is not heartless because whatever the depths out of which the needy may cry, it remains true that the first necessity of the believer is that he should be right with God. Here in these two verses we have both sides of the God of morality. He is a great God and yet He is a God of wrath: "If thou shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord who shall stand?" Just imagine if there were no way for our sin to be dealt with, everyone of us would stand condemned before God. Each one of us stands in need of forgiveness. Whatever our apparent need may be, the basic need is that sin should be dealt with. We tend to stress the need of our emotions and to minimise the matter of our sin. There is always the problem of making sure that we are right with God.
It is possible that we think back even over one day and may be tempted to say or just to think that even if there had been no cross, even if Christ had not gone to Calvary, even if God did mark iniquity, reckoning it up and marking it in His book to be brought out on the day of judgment, well today at any rate things would not be too bad for us. It is as though we felt that perhaps we might just get by, even if there were no such thing as redemption. This is the frightful complacency that threatens every believer, ministers and workers more than most. Professionalism in the things of God is a dreadful possibility. Those who succumb to it find it very easy to see the faults of others and even to blame them when things go wrong and find reasons for troubles in their shortcomings.
