Summer Psalms #14 - When You Wind Up Over Your Head
Psalm 130:1-8
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Sept. 2, 2009
*When I was going to Georgia Tech, I took a swimming class that qualified us to be Red Cross lifeguards. To get an “A” in this class you had to pass three endurance tests in the 15 foot end of the pool. First you had to stay in the water 45 minutes with your feet tied together, then 45 minutes with your hands tied behind your back. Those tests went fine, but the last test was 15 minutes with both your hands and your feet tied together. That test didn’t go so well. I got stuck between the top and the bottom.
*I kept looking up at the guy who was supposed to pull me out. -- I was thinking, “HEY! -- COME GET ME!” He waited about 30 seconds to make sure I was through. It seemed like 30 minutes to me!
*I was over my head! We get that way sometimes in life. This Psalm writer certainly did. What are we supposed to do when we get in deep, over our heads? The Word of God shows us.
1. First: Keep crying out to God in your crisis.
*The Psalmist was certainly over his head in vs. 1&2, but he did not let that keep him from crying out to God:
1. Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord;
2. Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.
*“Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord!” -- What are the depths? Albert Barnes tells us that the depths could be deep affliction, or distress:
-Like sorrow from loss of family or friends or property or bodily suffering.
-Like the depths into which the soul is plunged under the consciousness of guilt.
-Or like darkness of mind, disappointment, the anguish caused by ingratitude, or grief at the coldness and hardness of our lost friends to their spiritual condition. (1)
*This Psalmist felt like he was in the deep waters, in the depths of the sea. Mentally, physically and emotionally this man felt like he was way over his head. He might even have felt like Jonah when he was swallowed by the giant fish. But Jonah cried out to the Lord, as we read in Jonah 2:1-2:
1. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly.
2. And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.”
*Both Jonah and the Psalmist cried out to the Lord. That is exactly what we should do when we find ourselves in a crisis. That word “cry” in vs. 1 is a loud sound. God wants us to keep calling out to Him with passion and persistence.
*“Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.” Supplications are our earnest, heart-felt prayers. It’s the word picture of asking someone superior to us to bend or stoop down in kindness to help us. “Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.” Don’t you know He will!
*During the Civil War a southern sergeant was taken prisoner by the Union army. His name was Horace Lurton. While in prison, Horace developed tuberculosis. His mother came to visit him and was alarmed by his condition. She knew her son would die if he stayed behind bars. So Mrs. Lurton traveled all the way to Washington to beg mercy from the only person who could help her, -- the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
*Lincoln was so moved by this mother’s concern that he sat down and wrote a note to the Union forces in charge of her son’s prison. It simply said, "Let the boy go home with his mother. A. Lincoln."
*Horace Lurton was released from prison. He recovered from his TB, and went on become a distinguished lawyer. In 1909, Horace Lurton was even appointed to be a Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. (2)
*Horace Lurton was way down in the depths. But the passionate, persistent pleas of his mother turned the situation around. All of those blessings came through a mother’s earnest plea to a good and kind leader. How much greater help can we expect from our kind and loving God! When you get over your head, keep crying out to God.
2. And keep standing on God’s salvation.
*In vs. 3&4, our Psalmist stood on God’s salvation, saying:
3. If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
4. But there is forgiveness (or pardon) with You, That You may be feared.
*“If you should mark iniquities Lord, who could stand?” -- Not me. -- Not you either. But thank God we can trust Jesus Christ to forgive our sins! Jesus died on the cross for us, and He will help us to stand, if we will just trust in Him.
*William Waldegrave was the Lord of Radstock, England in the late 1800s. He was a devoted preacher and missionary, best known for his work during the Great Russian Awakening. After preaching one night, William nearly missed his train home. He barely had time to jump on, when a young army officer ran up to the window.
*The soldier said, “Sir, I heard you speak tonight, but tell me, how can a fellow keep straight? As the train started to move, the preacher pulled a pencil from his pocket, laid it in the palm of his hand, and asked, “Can that pencil stand upright?” “No,” said the young officer.
*William then took the pencil in his hand and held it in an upright position. “Ah!” said the young man walking beside the train. “but you are holding it now.”
*“Yes,” said William. “And your life is like this pencil, helpless. But Jesus Christ is the Hand that can hold you.” With those words, the train pulled away.
*Twenty-five years later the same two men met again half a world away in India. The officer told the preacher that he had trusted his life to Jesus Christ on the railway platform that night. And that Jesus had never let him down. (3)
*Jesus will never let you down. We cannot stand in our own strength, but we can stand forever in the Lord. When you find yourself over your head, keep standing on God’s salvation.
3. And keep looking for the Lord to help you.
*The Psalmist was looking for the Lord’s help in vs. 5: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope.” “Wait” is the word picture of binding something together, tying our hopes to the help of God, expecting Him to come to our rescue.
*Then in vs. 6, “My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning I say, more than those who watch for the morning.” It’s the picture of soldiers on the wall at night, longing for the safety of the light. This verse reminds me of the “Star Spangled Banner.” Francis Scott Key was held captive on a British ship in Chesapeake Bay during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814.
*Through the night he strained his eyes to see if our army in Fort McHenry had survived the battle. Francis Scott Key was waiting, waiting, and watching for the morning. Get a sense of the passion in his words:
-“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
-What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
-Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
-O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
-And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
-Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
-Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
-O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
*Francis Scott Key was waiting and watching. -- Then God came through. Listen to two of the verses we almost never sing:
-On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
-Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
-What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
-As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
-Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
-In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
-’Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
-O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
-Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
-Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
-Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
-Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
-Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
-And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
-And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
-O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! (4)
*Francis Scott Key would tell you: “Keep looking for the Lord to help you!” Be like the Psalmist who said:
5. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope.
6. My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning I say, more than those who watch for the morning.
*When you wind up over your head, keep looking for the Lord to help you.
4. And keep holding out hope to others.
*In vs. 7&8, the Psalmist endeavored to hold out hope to his countrymen:
7. O Israel, hope in the Lord; For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption.
8. And He shall redeem Israel From all his iniquities.
*The Psalmist may have still been in the depths, but he didn’t just selfishly care about his own situation. In vs. 7&8, he is concerned about other people. He is concerned about his family, his community and even his nation. God wants us to have the same concern.
*When I am under the water, it’s easy just to think about me. But God wants us to always be holding out His hope to others! “For with the Lord there is mercy,” the mercy of the cross, God’s merciful kindness to all who will trust in Him.
*Hold out hope to others. “For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”
-The Lord will redeem His people from all of their sins. He paid the ransom; He paid the price to set His people free, when He died on the cross for our sins.
*I love stories about the lengths God will go to in order to redeem the lost. In the mid-1800s, a teenager in Scotland left his home to attend college. His name was William Mackay. William’s mother was worried about his spiritual life. She gave him a Bible and printed a verse of Scripture on the first page.
*William soon discovered college life to be a time endless parties. He spent all the money he could get on partying. One time he needed money for whiskey, and pawned his Bible for some money.
*Somehow William eventually made it through college and became a doctor in a large hospital. One day, Dr. Mackay treated a dying patient who knew that he was dying. He faced his death without fear, but asked for his “book.” After the man passed away, Dr. Mackay noticed the man’s “book” among his effects. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the same Bible his mother had given him years before, with his name and the verse of Scripture she had written. William went back to his office and began poring over the Bible. Several hours later he knelt and asked Jesus Christ to be his Savior and Lord.
*Dr. William Mackay later became a preacher, and wrote a hymn we have sung many times:
-We praise Thee, O God!
-For the Son of Thy love,
-For Jesus Who died,
-And is now gone above.
Hallelujah! Thine the glory.
Hallelujah! Amen.
Hallelujah! Thine the glory.
Revive us again. (5)
*William Mackay was in the depths when he didn’t even know it. -- But the Lord used his Godly, Christian mother to help William find true hope.
*God also used a total stranger to help William find true hope.
-And God wants to use us too. -- Even when we are over our heads.
*Someday you are going to wind up over your head.
-Maybe physically, emotionally or spiritually.
*Don’t give up! -- Here’s what to do:
-Keep crying out to God in your crisis.
-Keep standing on God’s salvation.
-Keep looking for the Lord to help you.
-And keep holding out God’s hope to others.
1. Adapted from Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible - Psalm 130:1
2. Ewing, James, “It Happened in Tennessee” (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1986), pp. 63-64. (Found in ChristianGlobe.com sermon “So, You Want to Know About Love?” by King Duncan - John 13:31-38) (For corrections and more info see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Harmon_Lurton)
3. Adapted from SermonCentral illustration contributed by Ted Sutherland, more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granville_Waldegrave,_3rd_Baron_Radstock
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner
5. Adapted from Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations & Quotes, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers - 2000) - More information on William Paton Mackay at http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/m/a/c/mackay_wp.htm
