"If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared." (Psalm 130:3-4)

January 31, 2026

Dear friends,

You'd think that the older you get, the more real and close your hope of heaven would feel. Right?

Psalm 130 is one of the Songs of Ascent, which the Israelites would recite as they went up to Jerusalem in pilgrimage. This particular psalm is about hope: "O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption." (130:7) I love this series of psalms!

Yet this psalm opens with a deep cry for mercy. The psalmist sounds almost hopeless: "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!" This psalm was written by a pilgrim near despair, for he is on his way to meet with a holy God. G. K. Chesterton said, "Hope means expectancy when things are otherwise hopeless."

And here's the point: "If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" (v. 3) The older you get the more fine-tuned your sin-o-meter becomes, if I can call it that. In the past people would compliment me for this or that job well done, when I knew I was half-hearted or half-there in the process. People don't know you as well as you know yourself. I remember clearly those mixed intentions and impure thoughts, and I know that the devil delights to bring them up to condemn me, but I also know that those things were indeed wrong, and as the clear light of heaven approaches, they look really ugly and you ask yourself, did I really understand how ugly that comment was, or that action was, or that unholy thought was, and you really feel it deep inside, what the psalmist says... "If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" And over time you begin to feel overwhelmed by the immensity of your own folly.

Who could stand if God numbered them? Who could stand, in light of the sheer volume of our failures, with the depth and complexity of our sin, for coveting and lust involve pride, and pride involves theft of some kind, and in comes anger and resentment, and all this involves dishonoring God. It's never simply one sin. And then I look back and wonder how much of my repentance was fully aware, completely sincere, and in any way permanent? Now, I'm not trying to be overly introspective here, I'm just trying to give credit to the psalmist's words, as well as realizing how blind we are to our own faults and how forgetful we are of God's amazing patience toward us. "Have you forgotten..." are frequent words in Scripture. The goal here is not to cause despair, but bring reality into our thinking, in order to bring us to Christ... “with you there is forgiveness.”

So, here are these two magnificent verses: "But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared." (v. 4) And "...with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption." (v. 7) Christ is to be revered and honored and loved because he alone is the One who forgives. It is not mere time nor our forgetfulness that forgives, but he forgives! With him is eternal love and redemption beyond all that we need. His grace is greater than our sin. If we have acknowledged our sin to be sin in fact -- no matter how immense and deep -- he will be our Savior forever, in fact. Toward the end of his life, John Newton said that there were two things that he was sure of: that he himself was a great sinner, and that Jesus was a great Savior. And when I too pass from this life, the face I shall see is not the face of the Judge of the earth (which I deserve) but the face of my Savior (which I do not deserve). And so, the Psalmist concludes, "...he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities." (v. 8) Not some, not most, but all!

So, for the Christian, "hope" is like being a watchman in the long night, waiting for the dawning of the new day. It's a disciplined waiting: "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning." (130:5-6) The older we get, the more aware we will become of God's holiness and the more we will need to say, "With you, O Lord, there is forgiveness; with you there is plentiful redemption." There is yet a greater grace to cover all our sin, even when we were not aware of how great our sin was, so we can still sing,

"Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace
Freely bestowed on all who believe
You that are longing to see His face
Will you this moment His grace receive?"
(Julia H. Johnston)

IN OTHER READING.

-- Alistair Begg preaching on Ecclesiastes 12, "On Death and Dying", here specifically, on the issue of cremation.

-- I've enjoyed reading George Herbert's poetry. Here's a short one, "The Quiddity". All of his contemporaries traveled or were engaged in business or expensive hobbies. Herbert mainly reads and writes, which enables him to spend time with God, which is the best of all worlds. Here's one analysis.

-- A couple more poems I've been thinking about, by W. B. Yeats.

-- One of the last anti-war protests I was involved in.

-- My 2025 Afterwords newsletters in one collection (PDF) here, along with previous years.

FINAL QUOTES.

"For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." (Romans 15:4)

"From Christ's death flow all our hopes." (J. C. Ryle)

That's it for this week from snowy southwest Virginia! We're certainly getting our full 31-days worth of January!

Sandy

Afterwords is an occasional newsletter on topics of interest to me (Sandy Young) since my retirement from full-time pastoral ministry. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.