Eyes Fixed on the Morning

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to go overseas, and one of the places I was able to visit was the city of Prague in the Czech Republic. One of the most beautiful cities, I think, in the world, just a fairy tale place. But while I was there, I was able to go and visit the house of an author by the name of Franz Kafka. I don't know if anyone has read his stuff. It's not someone that I've particularly read before, but I was interested in hearing about his life and sort of seeing where this author came from, because he was known in the early part of the twentieth century as a bit of a surrealist.

He had stories and ideas that were just really creative and kind of fantastical. And so I was able to learn a little bit about him while I was there. But one of the strange stories that Franz Kafka wrote is a book called The Trial. And in the story, we find a man by the name of Joseph K, who is arrested one morning out of the blue by some sort of secret police. The problem is, he's done nothing wrong.

He is just arrested, and the police say he's arrested on what they called a serious charge. But that's all that they mentioned to him. They don't throw him in jail either. He exists in some sort of house arrest. And throughout the whole book, no one will tell Joseph K what his charge is.

The whole time, they just say it's very serious. And Joseph K tries to carry on with his life as per normal. But everywhere he goes, he runs into police, mysteriously, around corners and in secret hideouts. He meets lawyers and he meets judges, and they keep telling him that he must be guilty, and that the best strategy is just to admit his guilt. But Joseph K says he has no crime to admit. On and on the story goes, until you have a sense that Joseph K's trial is not an event that's going to take place sometime in the future in a courtroom one day.

His whole life is the trial. Finally, at the end of the book, two black clad police knock on Joseph K's door, escort him down an alley, and execute him for his crime. And that is the end of the story. Now, I told you surrealist, I told you an eccentric sort of guy, but I was fascinated to read, as I heard this story, to read something that unlocks perhaps a part of the meaning of this book written by Franz Kafka, where he once wrote in his diary this sentence. The problem with us modern people is that we feel sinful yet independent of guilt.

We feel sinful yet independent of guilt. There's a profound thought that lines up well with this, with what he wrote, and that is that modern people have developed a deep sense in all of us that something is wrong, even sensing some sort of guilt, and yet we feel that there is nothing that we are guilty of. There can be nothing that we are guilty of. We exist therefore in some sort of cognitive dissonance, where we feel one thing and think something different.

The opposite, in fact. It's something that has marked the postmodern world, where people around us will tell us that we feel guilty, and yet we don't know whether we've committed any crimes. The Bible, however, describes this predicament. And not only does it describe it, it gives the solution. The predicament is, or the reason we experience this is because we try, and we have, escaped our guilt.

A part of us knows the truth, but then another part of us tries to suppress that truth. So this morning, I want to lead us in a reflection on another beautiful bit of literature found in the book of Psalms. It's not written by a twentieth century surrealist from Prague, but by someone who lived three thousand years ago in the Middle East. This literature is a poem, and it expresses some of these themes that even today we realise is true. So if you have your Bibles, let's turn to Psalm 130.

Psalm 130. The psalm writer begins, out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen wait for the morning, more than the watchmen wait for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love and with Him is plentiful redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

So far, our reading. First point I want us to make is this idea of a common knowledge that all of humanity realises. We all know this. There is an overwhelming flood of suffering in life. The psalm opens with two verses that anyone, if you were to give this psalm to anyone, and they read those first two verses, they would understand.

This person is suffering. They begin with, out of the depths I cry. The Hebrew word used here is this idea of flooding chaos. These depths is a flooding chaos, swirling dark waters that have overwhelmed this person. Waves of despair and anxiety and crippling fear have engulfed them.

I dare say whether you are a Christian or not, we've all tasted something of this. We know what it feels like to be sinking. We know what it feels like to be weighed down by worry, or shame, or feelings of inadequacy, or feeling decidedly out of control. But I want to say, and this is only my opinion, that more than any other generation in the world, we've become aware, more and more, of this understanding. We pay authors big money to write us self help books that teach us how to regain control of our lives, because so many of us feel like we're drowning.

And so whether you consider yourself spiritual or not, we all know this suffering. But Psalm 130 has decidedly a different approach into where we can go for our help. Notice the object to which they direct this cry. Out of the depths I cry, it begins, to you, O Lord. That's unusual for us.

2020, Australia. It's not out of the depths I cry to you, Doctor Phil. It's not out of the depths I cry to you, Jordan B Peterson. Psalm 130 starts with the premise that anyone can relate to this overwhelming sense of suffering, and there is nothing special in knowing that you're suffering. You aren't more enlightened to know that you are suffering.

You aren't more self aware than other people in knowing that you're suffering. A person three thousand years ago, very unmodern, knew that they were suffering. But here is the greatest difference between that person and you. The target of their cries for help is different. The Bible here gives us the inside perspective of what's going on in the human heart, and that is a heart that's realised that it has tried to muster inner resources to climb out of this deep pit.

And they've come to know that this effort will never work. The truth is, if we have been looking at ourselves or other people for help, we've been looking in the wrong places for solutions. The crazy thing is the heart may not even be suffering in any sort of verifiable sense, and yet, we feel and we know that we are suffering. Think about it. Depression, anxiety, and so many forms of mental health conditions can be summed up in this way.

There is nothing verifiably wrong with me, with my life. And yet, we feel like Joseph K, that we are sinners and yet independent of guilt. We feel like we've done nothing wrong. Or maybe when we feel we have done something wrong, nobody is willing to tell us what. The shared human condition tells us we all know something.

We can all empathise with this person somehow. But Psalm 130, verse one, makes a huge step in a different direction that many of us will follow. It's a cry for help to God. But then the second question we have to ask is, what is the content of this cry? What are they saying to God when they cry?

What are they hoping for when they cry to Him? Well, essentially, it's a cry for forgiveness. And that leads us to the next point. We know that this person is going through an overwhelming sense of suffering, but the second point is, we don't know, but somehow we must realise that our suffering is tied with guilt. Our guilt.

Go to the next point, please. We don't know what we must realise, which is our guilt. It's a question that many Bible scholars and even everyday Christians of Psalm 130 try to come up with. What exactly was the context for this person's suffering? Some have said, maybe it was that they were ill, they were sick, and they were at death's door, and that's where they cry out from the depths.

Others have said, maybe it's because of, they were in physical danger. Others are saying, maybe they were wrestling with depression. What exactly is the cause of this distress? Well, quite frankly, Psalm 130 answers that. And it's got nothing to do with any of those things.

The cause of this person's suffering is tied with their guilt before God. Verse three, have a look at it in your Bibles. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Now far from the pious, woe is me cliche that sometimes us Christians can throw out, where verse one, verse two gives us a premise that any human beings can relate to, God, out of my depths I cry, but I'm crying because, you know, you are so great and I'm so small.

What we see here is in fact an answer that some of us will believe. And that is that we all need to know that God forgives. And only some of us in this life will believe that. I wonder if you thought when you read this psalm that out of the situation of suffering, expressed in verses one and two, why does it move to an expression of guilt in verses three and four? I mean, again, if you're suffering, then you're like, God, help me out of this situation.

Change my situation. If I am in this deep pit, take me out. If I'm sick, heal me. But he goes to confession of guilt. Well, rather than some cause and effect understanding, like some people and some Christians even hold to, that God punishes us directly for individual sins, like, you know, in my life, I once committed adultery, now I have diabetes.

And there are people that will argue that. We know that in other parts of scripture, like John 9, Jesus says that sin doesn't have a causal relationship with our suffering in this sort of way. Although, of course, there may be natural consequences for sin. The reality is God is right now delaying His judgment of you and me. God is right now patiently enduring what we decide to do every day.

Whether you are a Christian or not, whether you believe in God or not, you are experiencing His patient grace and not punishing you for your sin, yet. But here in Psalm 130, the psalmist is telling us, our hearts and our minds somehow know that the worst suffering in this life is the suffering of a guilty conscience. Time and time again, I hear stories of people, some of whom are in the harshest place on earth. Places like central Afghanistan under the crushing weight of Taliban rule, where men and women experience the most miserable forms of suffering, and yet they live as though there is not a care in the world. And then we look around us, in the affluent Gold Coast, with seemingly not a care in the world, and we see men and women doubled over in suffering and pain.

What's the difference? One group has come to realise that they need forgiveness, and they know where to go for forgiveness. And one group hasn't. Psalm 130 tells us our greatest suffering is not from a lack of wealth, or security, or a lack of health even. Even those things can produce incredible pain. Our greatest suffering comes from the guilt we have standing before a holy God when everything is exposed.

This is the terrifying realisation he makes. Lord, he says, if you were to write out all of my transgressions, how could I stand in your presence? Who in the whole world could stand in your presence? That's a terrifying thought. A few months ago, and you may know of whom I'm talking, I'm not going to mention their name, but a famous preacher passed away.

A man who was well known in our circles. And it was a sad shock to the Christian world that he passed away. There was a huge outpouring of grief and loss. But since his passing these past few months, reports have come out of certain cases of infidelity in his life, of propositioning women that weren't his wife. And they have now, those reports which are being investigated, mind you, have tarnished a forty plus year ministry.

And they're causing many people to consider whether they can continue to listen to good messages that he preached, and good truths that he wrote in books. In painful contrast, his sins have now been projected into the world as much as his accomplishments were. Everyone knows. Have you ever wondered what it would be like for God to take every sin that you have committed and somehow project them along all these walls as you sit down this morning, with your friends around you, in some grim horrific museum? What would your reaction be?

I know that even as your pastor, my sins, the thoughts in my heart, if they were to be projected here, I'd be running with my head down cowering for what your reactions may be, let alone the horror of the weight, the immensity of those truths exposed. The weight of a guilty conscience is a terribly heavy thing to bear. And so I have to tell you that one day God will judge all the world. Every human soul who has existed in the past and in the future, the secrets of our hearts will be laid bare, and we will be naked, we will be without excuse standing before the maker. It'll just be Him, and it'll just be me.

And in the flash and the blink of an eye, our guilt will be exposed. And when all is said and done, friend, what will you say to that maker? What will you say to the one who has given you the law of life by which to live by? What will we do when the sins that we have downplayed and rationalised and avoided stares us in the face? The psalmist says, none of us will stand.

And yet, that is not where the psalm finishes. This is a psalm of hope. It's categorised as a psalm of ascent, putting our hearts and our minds on something great. It is a psalm of hope. And verse five begins with that hope.

He says, I will wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in His word, I put hope. Why? Verse four. Because of this attribute he's recognised in God, but with you, there is forgiveness.

This is the great irony of the human condition. Even as we somehow know that we are sinful, and yet claim that we are not guilty of anything, we try to outrun guilt. We try to avoid it, to reinvent the truth of morality, to apply certain things to our lives and reject other things. Why? Because we think guilt is a downer.

We think guilt is a drag. But the paradox of God's word is that realising and acknowledging guilt is actually the opposite. Something in us wants to believe that guilt will drag us down into the pit, but the word of God says, we are already in the pit. It's only recognising our need for forgiveness, which will bring us up out of that pit. The author, stuck in this hole of deep and swirling waters, cries out to God, and what does he cry?

He says, God, I am guilty before you. How can I stand with all my guilt? But here is my hope. With you, is forgiveness. In fact, it's only because he's come to know God as the God of forgiveness, he says, that he can acknowledge God in faith in the first place.

He says, with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Or we can translate it, therefore, you are feared. With you there is forgiveness, therefore, you are feared. The very reason that God forgives us is what causes us to come into a deep, true, humble love for God. Reverential.

That's the fear that was being talked about here. Reverential love. And so our greatest suffering in this life and the next does not come from sickness. Our greatest struggle does not come from relationship breakdowns, it comes from our sin. And not simply a cause and effect relationship, like I do this, now God will do that.

So that we might say, if I cut this out of my life, then everything should be fine. The weight of knowing that if someone, especially God, could keep a record of all my sin, that I would become undone with that truth. That I would curl up and die when my truth was laid out, that I would realise that there is no mitigating factors, no excuses that I can use anymore. I would have to admit, and I would like I would have to let the record show that K.J. did these things because he wanted to. We all know suffering, and yet we must realise this.

The greatest suffering is the suffering of a guilty soul before the God who knows all. But, thirdly, what we put our hope in is the opportunity for full redemption. The psalm writer goes in, and this is our final point in verse five, to say, 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 for the morning. More than watchmen wait for the morning.

Even as his heart is anxious and his conscience is burning within him, he holds on to a hope. His eyes are fixed on the horizon like a guard that keeps his post, keeping an eye on the sun to rise up over those dark valleys. And he's already hinted to the fact of why he is hopeful. He says, with God, there is forgiveness. But what does that mean?

What does that mean? Does it mean that, well, God can forgive, and then I just go back to sinning, and I just go through this complete cycle again that just destroys me again and again? Does God forgive me so that I can be crushed again by my conscience? No. He says, O Israel, hope in the Lord.

Verse seven. For with the Lord, there is steadfast love, and with Him, there is plentiful redemption. He calls on his neighbours. He calls on his whole nation of Israel to share in this hope. There is hope in the Lord, for with Him there is a faithful love, steadfast.

With Him there is plentiful redemption. That word plentiful in the Hebrew means full, complete. With Him, there is full redemption. What does that mean? It means that we are not simply forgiven, and that our sins are just overlooked and excused.

We are forgiven in order to be redeemed. To be redeemed means that we are washed clean in order that we can be brought out and be shown as being spotless. It means that we are unbroken, repaired. My friend, is this not the desire of our heart? To be made unbroken?

There is an opportunity for us, according to God's word, to be unbroken. And that opportunity comes to us in the form of Jesus Christ, the one who came in order to take away our sin. A man by the name of John the Baptist, one day realised this, and in a way that's almost very similar to Psalm 130, directed people's attention to the source of redemption. John 1:29, it says, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him, and he said to the people, behold, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Behold, look, fix your eyes on the object of your hope.

There is Jesus, he says, who will be the penalty to pay for your sin. Now, it's, I think, worth mentioning that Psalm 130 actually has a recurring theme of vision or sight, especially in the Hebrew, that's not so well translated in our English. There's a recurring motif of seeing or beholding. So first of all, in the depths of verse one, the idea of darkness, the idea of not being able to see because it is murky and dark and confusing. But then in verse three, where he asks, Lord, if you could mark my iniquities, who could stand?

That Hebrew word there actually literally translates, Lord, if you kept your eye on my transgressions, how could I stand? If your eyes were fixated on the things that I've done, how could I survive? And then in verse six, the author indicates that he is longing and hoping like a watchman watches for the morning. It's about who and where we place our eyes. Friends, we must fix our eyes on Jesus.

We must behold Him, not just see Him. We must know that He is the Lamb who takes away our sins, and in Him, there is full redemption. The chance to be unbroken. In the overwhelming floods of suffering, may we realise that there is no suffering greater than the knowledge of guilt before God. But when we feel that weight, may we fix our eyes on the horizon where the outline of the cross stands against the shadow of darkness.

Fix your eyes on Jesus Christ because in Him, you come to know that there is a God who forgives. And because He forgives, He deserves your love. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that, Lord, we can come to the Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, we see the outline of the gospel of grace.

We see that even as a man wrote three thousand years ago that there is a hope in God who forgives, he was pointing ahead to a thousand years later where that God would come to offer, to guarantee full forgiveness. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are our sacrifice. We thank you that in our place, you were crushed by our guilt. On you were placed the cascade, the horrific slideshow of our sin.

On you, the judgment of a holy God fell. But you were crushed for our iniquities, that by your wounds, we might be healed. Lord, may we never forget this, and may we draw strength upon strength, hope upon hope, even as our conscience will try to drag us down, even as Satan will come to convince us that this is not true, even as the world will try to drag us to the hopelessness that it only knows. Lord, fix our eyes upon you. We pray this in Jesus' name, by the power of the Spirit working in our hearts. Amen.