There is no greater blessing for a straying soul, whether a believer or an unbeliever, than conviction of sin. The writer declares, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee.” Until he discovered his plight, God was not in all his thoughts; at best, he “followed…afar off.” When he found himself in the pit, in the mirey clay, he was moved to cry unto the Lord, and that is a good thing.
It was out of the depths that Job engaged his long and difficult cry to the Lord and came out at last with a vision of God he did not have before. “He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes. I cry unto Thee… [Job. 30:19-20a],” but when the battle was over, he declared, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and Ashes [42:5-6] .” His vision of God’s holiness, a vision many of us lack, emerged from the depths.
Jonah went AWOL from the Lord until he was cast into the depths (literally) but it was there that he was restored to service:
“Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly, And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple [Jonah 2:1-7 italics mine].”
Peter, filled with self confidence, walked on the water until seeing “the wind boistrous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt [Mat. 14:30-31].” There he learned the importance of walking by faith and “having no confidence in the flesh.”
Someone has said, “Every one prays; but very few cry.” The superficiality of our prayers indicates our insensibility to both sin and holiness. It was in the depths that the psalmist discovered and reflected upon the universality and the horror of sin: “If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”
And it was out of that “depth” that he reflected upon the measure of God’s mercy. Thankfully there is with the Lord “plenteous redemption,” (v.7) but It is not until we have been convicted—really convicted—of sin that we discover the significance of God’s mercy. We may sing about it and talk about it, and even preach about it, but we will never really appreciate it until we know the “pit from which we have been digged.” Isaiah cried, “Hearken unto me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged [Isa. 51:1].” The greatest distance in the world is the distance between that Rock and the pit, but we may fail to measure it appreciativey until we have spent some time in the depths.
Finally let us note, “There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.” Conviction of sin resulted in consternation, but through it all there emerged a confidence in God that eventuated in a new and deeper respect and reverence for God. “We love Him because He first loved us,” and the magnitude of our love is the measure of our appreciation for His grace.
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“If ye love me, keep My commandments.”
For His glory and our good,
"Pastor" Frasier
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