Latest / Reformed Thinking / Out of the Depths I Cry to You, O Lord (Psalm 130) | Charles Spurgeon

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Out of the Depths I Cry to You, O Lord (Psalm 130) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there
• 0:02
  was this, this expectation of precision, right?
• 0:05
  Yeah. It's almost like engineering.
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  You know, you break your arm, the X-ray shows that jagged
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  white line, and the doctor just points at the film and says,
• 0:12
  well, there it is broken. Yeah, it is visible.
• 0:15
  The binary nature of physical ailments brings a strange sort
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  of comfort. I think we like things to be
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  categorized and solvable through a clear protocol.
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  Oh, absolutely. But then you step into the world
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  of internal human suffering. Yeah, like the crushing weight
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  of guilt in those dark nights of the soul.
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  And suddenly that X-ray machine is totally useless.
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  Yeah, it really is. We look at a landscape of
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  despair that just defies imaging, so welcome to Reform
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  Thinking podcast. Today we are doing a deep dive
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  into Charles Spurgeon's massive classic commentary, The Treasury
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  of David. It is such a massive piece of
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  work. It really is, and we are using
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  it to run a comprehensive analysis of a single striking
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  text. We're going to map out the
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  anatomy of a human soul moving from absolute crushing despair
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  to total joyous assurance. And we are using Psalm 130 for
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  this, right? Yes, historically known as the
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  Day Profundis or the out of the Depths Psalm that is going to be
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  our road map today. It is a brilliant logical
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  progression to track, especially when you consider how many
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  historical giants leaned on this specific text to process their
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  own theological and, well, psychological crises.
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  Yeah, thinkers like Martin Luther and John Bunyan.
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  And look, whether you are currently sitting in a season of
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  intense distress or you were simply intellectually curious
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  about how these guys processed massive concepts like guilt,
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  substitution, and grace, this source material offers a master
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  class in the human condition. It really covers all the bases.
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  It does. OK, let's unpack this.
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  We are starting right at the beginning.
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  Verse one out of the depths have I cried unto the Oh Lord.
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  That is a heavy start. It is.
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  We begin with this concept of the depths.
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  Charles Spurgeon, who is compiling Centuries of Thought
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  here, makes this fascinating observation.
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  He writes. Pearls lie deep and diamonds
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  sparkle most amid the darkness. Right.
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  And when we look at what these depths actually are in the text,
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  we are not talking about, you know, a bad day at the office or
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  a minor inconvenience. No, definitely not.
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  The commentators categorize these depths into 3 distinct
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  terrifying trenches. OK, lay those out for us.
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  So first you have the abyss of affliction.
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  These are external circumstances that completely crush your
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  physical or emotional stability. Like losing a job or a severe
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  illness, that kind of thing. Spot on.
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  Then second, there is the crush of conviction.
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  This is the sudden, terrifying realization of your own moral
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  failures against a holy standard.
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  Oh wow, yeah. That internal weight.
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  Yeah, and 3rd, the horror of sin itself, the actual state of
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  spiritual ruin. So what stands out to you when
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  you consider a human mind submerged in that specific kind
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  of water? I mean, I think about the
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  physical sensation of drowning, right?
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  The depths usually silence whatever they engulf.
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  You know, water fills the lungs, the pressure crushes the vocal
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  cords. You cannot make a sound.
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  That is a terrifying image. It is the natural response to
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  total ruin is a mute, paralyzing despair.
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  But here the speaker defies that law of.
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  Physics. How so?
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  Prayer lives and struggles beneath the floods.
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  The cry comes out of the abyss. It is an act of violent
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  rebellion against the silence of the grave.
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  That defiance is key. The depths could not close the
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  mouth of the speaker, as one of the scholars notes.
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  Deep places, bigot. Deep devotion.
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  Deep places, bigot. Deep devotion.
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  I like that. Yeah, it is a psychological
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  reality that shallow waters produce shallow cries.
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  But distress that stirs the very bottom of human existence, well,
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  it produces an exceedingly great and bitter play.
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  So the distress acts as a Crucible.
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  Precisely. You know there's a historical
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  narrative in the notes that perfectly illustrates this
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  defiant cry, taking us back to Martin Luther.
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  Oh, the Coburg Fortress. Story Yes.
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  So the year is 1530. He was at the Coburg Fortress.
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  He was isolated, essentially an outlaw, feeling politically
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  useless while his friends were at the massive Diet of Augsburg
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  fighting for the survival of their movement.
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  He was in a really bad spot. A terrible spot.
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  He was buffeted by severe paralyzing depression and what
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  he described as literal demonic attacks in his room.
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  The darkness was suffocating him.
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  He was in the depths. And what did he do?
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  He would tell his companions to gather around and sing Psalm 130
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  in four parts in derision of the devil.
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  Man, what is fascinating here is the sheer audacity of that
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  musical choice, right? He did not whisper it.
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  He did not sit in silent meditation.
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  He organized a four part harmony to hurl this specific text into
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  the teeth of the darkness. It is so defiant.
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  It is in a medieval worldview where demonic forces were viewed
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  as agents of chaos and despair, producing structural, harmonious
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  music based on the difficult few.
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  Profundus was a tactical strike. He used the Song of the Depths
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  as a weapon of order against the chaos.
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  Which brings up a metaphor for the text that I cannot stop
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  thinking about. It comes from a 17th century
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  thinker named Archibald Simpson. Oh, the architectural concept.
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  Yeah, he uses his architectural idea.
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  He says that when builders want to construct a massive towering
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  palace, they do not just start laying bricks on the soft
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  topsoil. Right, that would collapse.
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  Of course, first they had to dig an incredibly deep, dark, ugly
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  trench for the foundation. So I have to ask you, could it
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  be that the lowest points of human experience are actually
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  just the excavation site for something structurally massive
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  later on? The sources strongly affirm that
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  reading, especially when viewed through the lens of divine
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  sovereignty. Look at the historical patterns
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  mentioned in the text. Like who?
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  While God threw Jonah into the belly of the whale, he allowed
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  Daniel to be cast into the den of lions.
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  Joseph was thrown into a dark, forgotten prison in Egypt.
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  All literal depths. Right.
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  Human logic views those events as the end of the story, as
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  utter destruction. But, the text argues, those
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  horrific, terrifying drops into the depths were the necessary
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  deep foundation for their exaltation.
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  The master builder was digging the trench.
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  The trench has to be deep if the building's going to be high.
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  That entirely reframes the experience of suffering.
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  It is not an accident, it is excavation.
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  The dirt has to be moved so the stone can be laid.
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  It changes everything. It really does, which moves us
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  right into the mechanics of what happens inside that trench.
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  Verses one and two say I cried, Lord, hear my voice the.
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  Desperate cry. But I had to be honest,
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  everything in me pushes back on verse 2.
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  Really. Why is that?
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  When you were in the bottom of a dark pit, this verse seems
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  strangely passive. The speaker is begging for an
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  audience rather than a specific rescue operation.
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  See. What you mean?
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  Why doesn't the psalmist just demand immediate extraction?
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  Like throw down a rope, pull me up?
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  Why is he so hyper focused on just being heard?
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  Well, this brings us to a critical theological distinction
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  found in the commentary, and it addresses the core of how humans
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  interact with an omniscient being.
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  OK, let's hear it. The text argues that it is far
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  better for our prayer to be heard than answered.
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  Wait, better to be heard than answered.
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  Yes, that goes against every instinct I possess.
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  If my life is falling apart, I want the solution, not just a
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  listening ear. I get that.
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  But let us play out the alternative.
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  If God made an absolute promise to grant every request precisely
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  in the manner we demand, it would be an absolute disaster.
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  A disaster? How so?
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  It would cast the dreadful responsibility of governing our
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  own lives entirely onto our own shoulders.
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  We would be dictating our fate with incredibly limited, flawed
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  and selfish vision. Oh, right, because we do not
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  have the big picture. Right.
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  We cannot see the future. We cannot see the unintended
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  consequences of our desires. OK, yeah, we would be terrified
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  to ask for anything knowing our request might be a terrible
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  mistake that gets automatically wherever stands.
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  Yes, it is the classic monkey's paw scenario.
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  Right, we're getting what you wish for.
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  Ends up destroying. You spot on, but by asking
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  simply to be heard, the speaker is experiencing the sense of
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  relief, of trusting a superior wisdom.
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  That makes a lot of sense. You present the agony, you
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  present the raw desire, but you leave the execution to an
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  infinite mind that knows what will actually produce ultimate
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  good. You surrender the blueprint to
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  the architect. That shifts the whole burden of
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  the outcome. It frees you from having to
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  figure out the solution. And there is a physical detail
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  in the text regarding this cry that I found incredibly
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  relatable. The psalmist spoke audibly.
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  He used his vocal cords, right? Out loud.
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  Why? God knows our thoughts, so why
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  make noise? That is a great question the.
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  Commentary points out that the use of the voice assists the
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  thoughts. Think about when your mind is
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  frantic. Maybe it is 2 in the morning and
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  your anxieties are swirling like a tornado.
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  We have all been there, right? The text suggests that speaking
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  your requests aloud forces a chaotic brain into structured
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  sentences. The physical act of speaking
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  puts boundaries on the panic. What is fascinating here is the
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  specific Hebrew word used for Lord in this verse.
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  It is Adonai. Adonai, what does that signify?
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  This title does not just mean a general deity, it signifies
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  absolute lordship and sovereignty over all physical
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  and spiritual hindrances that might block the rescue.
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  Oh wow. Yeah, the speaker is crying out
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  aloud to Adonai, acknowledging that no barrier is too high, no
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  pit is too deep, no political or social structure is too, too
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  strong for this specific kind of sovereign authority to overcome.
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  So the physical voice cuts through the internal mental
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  chaos? Yes, and it addresses the one
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  being who has the authority to cut through the external
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  situational chaos. That is a great way to summarize
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  it. But then, right after this
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  desperate cry, the tone of the Psalm shifts dramatically.
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  Yeah, we leave the watery depths and we are suddenly looking at a
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  terrifying legal reality. The courtroom.
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  Yeah. Verse 3 If thou, Lord, shootest,
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  mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
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  The transition is sharp and jarring.
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  We move from the psychological agony of a pit directly into the
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  stark, unforgiving lights of a courtroom.
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  It is whiplash. It is.
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  The problem is no longer just the circumstance.
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  The problem is the speaker's own standing before the law.
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  Let us vividly recreate the courtroom analogy provided in
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  the text by Emma Michael. OK, set the scene.
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  Picture the highest Criminal Court imaginable, the judge
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  seated on the bench representing perfect, flawless justice.
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  You are the culprit standing at the bar.
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  Sweating bullets, I imagine. Sweating bullets, The witnesses
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  are called, and the evidence against you is overwhelming.
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  The text notes that even a thousandth part of this evidence
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  is enough to secure a condemnation.
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  Just a thousandth part. Yeah, imagine standing in that
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  silent room while an omniscient being reads every single selfish
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  motive, every bitter thought, every failure, every hidden
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  hypocrisy allowed for the official record.
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  The Hebrew meaning of the word mark in this verse makes that
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  image even more intense. How so?
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  Joseph Carroll, one of the sighted scholars, points out
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  that the root of this word signifies a watchtower.
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  A Watchtower. Think of a guard position high
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  on a wall, looking out industriously, recording every
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  single thing that passes by his field of vision.
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  That is terrifying. It gets worse.
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  This guard never sleeps. He never blinks.
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  He is hoarding up all these infractions, laying them up in
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  an internal Ledger. He misses nothing.
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  A watchtower that never blinks is a terrifying psychological
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  concept. It means there is no such thing
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  as a secret. Every thought is public in that
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  courtroom. If we connect this to the bigger
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  picture, we have to look at the divine name used in this
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  specific verse. It is JAH.
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  JH OK. This name represents terrible,
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  overwhelming majesty and holiness.
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  The text explains the philosophical mechanics of this
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  sin is an unequal thing an. Unequal thing?
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  What does that mean? It breaks the symmetry and
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  harmony of creation. It is a direct assault on the
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  character of the Lawgiver. Oh, I see.
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  Therefore, if the creator were to operate strictly on a system
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  of works and pure equity, if he simply read from the Ledger of
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  the watchtower and administered the exact penalty required by
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  perfect justice, not a single human being could make good
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  their 'cause. Right.
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  But you know, why is the law so unyielding?
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  What do you mean? Human judges show leniency all
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  the time. They look at a defendant and
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  say, you know what? You had a hard life.
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  I will let this slide. Why doesn't the judge in this
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  text just wave the Ledger away? Because a human judge operates
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  within a system. But in this theological
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  framework, the law is an exact reflection of God's perfect
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  nature. Oh, so the law and the nature
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  are tied together? Spot on.
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  To ignore a violation of the law is to ignore his own nature.
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  To wave away the Ledger would be an act of cosmic injustice.
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  It would mean the judge is corrupt.
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  That makes sense. If Jah is perfectly holy, he
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  must punish the anomaly of sin. So the human condition,
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  according to this analysis, is entirely destitute of merit
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  before a perfectly holy law. Completely destitute.
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  Who shall stand? The implied answer is absolutely
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  no one. We are completely doomed.
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  The X-ray is clear and the disease is terminal.
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  There is no appeal. It is a bleak picture.
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  Very bleak, which makes the next line of the poem one of the most
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  stunning pivots in literature. Verse 4.
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  Surgeon calls it the blessed but.
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  But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be fear.
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  Just reading those words feels like taking a massive breath of
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  oxygen after being held underwater.
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  But there is forgiveness. It is a total shift.
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  I want to bring in the story from the sources about Doctor
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  John Owen. Oh, the Prince of the Puritans.
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  Yes, Owen was a giant in the 17th century, a brilliant writer
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  and theologian who could parse Greek and Hebrew in his sleep.
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  One day, a young man named Richard Davis asked Owen a
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  simple piercing question. What did he ask?
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  He said pray, in what manner do you think to go to God?
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  Owen was stopped dead in his tracks.
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  You realize that despite all his years of preaching, all his
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  massive volumes of academic writing, he had very little
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  experiential acquaintance with true, peaceful access to God.
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  All that head knowledge but missing the heart knowledge.
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  Right. It was only when a severe
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  illness brought him to the brink of the grave that verse four hit
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  him. This single verse radically
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  altered his entire understanding of how to approach the mediator.
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  The intellectual knowledge of God's majesty had to be met with
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  the experiential knowledge of God's pardon.
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  Exactly. I mean, absolutely.
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  And John Bunyan, another historical figure analyzing this
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  text, had a similar realization regarding the mechanics of this
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  forgiveness. What did Bunyan conclude?
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  Bunyan concluded that God places such an incredibly high esteem
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  on the love of His creatures that He would rather pardon
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  their offenses than go without their love.
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  Wow. Yeah.
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  The Creator desires the genuine affection of the Teacher created
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  so much that He provides the forgiveness necessary to secure
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  it. So what does this all mean?
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  Human logic tells us the punishment creates fear and
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  forgiveness creates carelessness.
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  Right, that is the natural assumption.
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  Think about a criminal justice system.
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  If a thief knows he is going to be let off the hook with a full
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  pardon every time he steals, he's going to break the rules
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  again. Forgiveness, in human terms,
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  breeds presumption. It breeds a lack of respect for
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  the law. Yeah, yeah.
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  This text presents a massive paradox.
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  It says forgiveness is with thee, that thou mayest be
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  feared. Why would receiving a full
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  pardon 'cause someone to fear? This raises an essential
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  question about the definition of fear itself.
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  The commentary breaks this down into two distinct categories.
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  Let's hear them, passive fear and active fear.
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  Passive fear is the terror of the executioner.
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  It is a criminal trembling before a judge because of the
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  impending punishment. OK, so just being scared of
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  getting hurt. Right, it is selfish.
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  You only care about saving your own skin.
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  Active fear, however, is the reverence and awe of a loving
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  father. It is the dread of grieving
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  someone who has shown you incomprehensible grace.
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  Oh, that's a huge difference. George Swinnick has a brilliant
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  analogy for this in the sources. Lay it on me.
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  He says you can take the heavy hammer of the law and strike the
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  icy heart of a person with terrors and horrors.
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  The hammer might break the ice into 1000 pieces, but it remains
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  ice. It is still freezing cold.
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  Yes, the behavioral compliance might be there out of sheer
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  terror, but the nature of the object has not changed.
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  It is only the fire of unmerited love that actually thaws the ice
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  and turns it into water. The hammer splinters.
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  The fire melts. Precisely.
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  Despair hardens a person against God.
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  If there were no forgiveness, if first 3 was the end of the story
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  and the Ledger just sat there waiting to condemn us, humanity
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  would just sink into a hardened, heatful rebellion.
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  We would hate the judge. Yes, but gratuitous forgiveness.
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  The fire of grace melts the heart into a posture of holy,
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  affectionate awe. You fear losing a single glance
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  of that love. You fear acting in a way that
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  insults the grace that saved you.
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  You are so overwhelmed by the pardon that your greatest terror
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  is the thought of hurting the one who paid your debt.
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  That is active fear that changes a human being from the inside
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  out. It is a complete heart
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  transplant. So having received this pardon,
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  having moved from the trench to the courtroom to the pardon,
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  what is the believers posture in the world?
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  How do they live on a standard Tuesday?
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  That brings us to verses 5 and 6.
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  Right, and we hit this massive theme of waiting.
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  I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I
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  hope my soul waiteth more than they that watch for the morning.
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  It is a beautiful sentiment. It is, but I have to step in
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  here. I despise waiting.
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  Most people do. Waiting sounds incredibly
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  passive. It sounds like sitting in a
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  doctor's office reading an old magazine while someone else
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  controls your schedule. How is this kind of waiting any
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  different from just sitting around in the dark helpless?
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  Because the waiting described in this specific Hebrew context is
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  intensely active. It is not resignation, it is the
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  strenuous discipline of faith. Active waiting.
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  Yes, notice the psychological realism in the text.
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  The psalmist actually has to repeat the phrase My soul doth
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  wait twice. Why repeat it?
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  Because waiting is excruciating, he is convincing himself.
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  He is preaching to his own soul, making sure the work of the
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  waiting. So it is an internal battle.
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  It takes immense internal energy to hold that posture when the
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  circumstances are screaming at you to panic.
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  Furthermore, this hope is not anchored in a specific desired
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  outcome or a timeline we control.
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  It is anchored explicitly in His word.
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  So the promise underneath the waiting is what sustains the
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  waiter spot on. The sources unpacked 2 vibrant
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  historical analogies to illustrate this act of waiting,
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  and they are both visually stunning.
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  The first one takes us to the Sentinels.
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  The temple guards. Right.
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  Imagine the Levi guards stationed in the ancient temple
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  in Jerusalem. It is the middle of the night.
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  The city is pitch black. They're shivering in the cold
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  night dew. A miserable shift.
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  Absolutely. They are standing on the walls,
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  staring out at the eastern sky over the mountains of Moab.
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  They're not just waiting for the sun to come up so they can get
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  warm. No, there is a specific purpose
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  they're. Watching with fervent, desperate
• 19:23
  expectation, because the sunrise means the mourning sacrifice can
• 19:27
  finally be offered, the blood of the Lamb can be shed, and the
• 19:30
  nation's fellowship with God can be maintained, is a holy vigil.
• 19:34
  They are pining for the light because the light triggers the
• 19:36
  mechanism of grace, and the psalmist says he is waiting more
• 19:40
  than those guards. His eagerness for the presence
• 19:42
  of the Lord outstrips the physical exhaustion of a
• 19:45
  watchman craving the dawn. The second analogy jumps forward
• 19:48
  to a gripping moment in more recent history, August 1st, 1830
• 19:53
  in the West Indian colonies. The Emancipation Act.
• 19:56
  Yes, this is the day the Emancipation Act was to take
• 19:58
  effect. The text describes how thousands
• 20:01
  of enslaved people did not go to bed that night.
• 20:04
  They gathered together in chapels and open fields.
• 20:06
  Waiting for midnight. Waiting for dawn, They sent
• 20:10
  spotters up to the highest hills to watch the eastern horizon.
• 20:14
  The legal decree was already signed in London.
• 20:16
  The law was secure, but they were looking for the very first
• 20:19
  streak of physical dawn. The light that would visibly
• 20:22
  signify they were free men. Yeah.
• 20:25
  If we connect this to the bigger picture, waiting for God is
• 20:29
  accurately like watching for that dawn.
• 20:32
  It is the expectation of guaranteed liberation.
• 20:34
  It is guaranteed. The sun is going to rise.
• 20:37
  The legal decree of freedom has already been signed in the court
• 20:39
  room in verse 4. The darkness of the current
• 20:42
  moment cannot stop the rotation of the earth.
• 20:44
  The light is coming. It is a mathematical certainty.
• 20:47
  That completely reframes the experience of being in the dark.
• 20:51
  You aren't trapped in a sealed tomb.
• 20:52
  You are on a hillside waiting for the sunrise.
• 20:55
  The darkness is temporary. It gives purpose to the
• 20:57
  darkness. It does, and just as we graph
• 20:59
  that incredible image, the Psalm shifts gears again.
• 21:03
  We reach this is 7 and 8. Suddenly the camera angle pans
• 21:06
  out. Right, the focus changes.
• 21:08
  For the entire text up to this point, the language has been
• 21:11
  fiercely individual. I cried.
• 21:13
  My voice, my soul. Now we get a wide shot.
• 21:16
  Let Israel hope in the Lord. He turns to the entire
• 21:20
  community. The personal experience of grace
• 21:23
  naturally flows outward. He has found the solid ground.
• 21:27
  He survived the depths. He survived the watchtower.
• 21:29
  He received the pardon and now he is calling everyone else onto
• 21:33
  the solid rock. Come join me up here.
• 21:35
  Yes, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous
• 21:39
  redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
• 21:43
  I want to zoom in on that phrase.
• 21:44
  Plenteous Redemption. Sir Richard Baker provides a
• 21:47
  brilliant analysis of this in our sources.
• 21:49
  He asks a highly practical question.
• 21:51
  He. Does he asked what good is a
• 21:53
  royal pardon if the prisoner is still kept in a dungeon because
• 21:56
  he cannot pay the jailer's fees? Right, the fine prints.
• 21:59
  In the older English legal system, you could be pardoned by
• 22:02
  the king but still rot in a cell because you owed money for your
• 22:06
  room and board in the prison. A partial bailout leaves the
• 22:09
  person trapped. It is a cruel tease, but plenty
• 22:12
  of redemption is comprehensive. Comprehensive.
• 22:14
  I like that word. Baker notes that it does not
• 22:17
  merely deliver a person from a dungeon, it places them in a
• 22:20
  palace. It does not just clear them of
• 22:22
  captivity, it makes them heirs. That is a massive upgrade.
• 22:26
  It is the king pays the ransom, clears the debt, provides the
• 22:30
  royal carriage, and sets a place at the banquet table.
• 22:33
  That is what makes it plenteous. It is not just the removal of
• 22:36
  the negative, it is the bestowal of the positive.
• 22:39
  It is an overwhelming abundance of grace, and it covers
• 22:43
  everything the text says. He shall redeem Israel from all
• 22:46
  his iniquities. All of them.
• 22:47
  JC Philpott, another voice in the commentary, provides a
• 22:50
  rigorous, almost uncomfortable inventory of what all actually
• 22:53
  entails. It gets very specific.
• 22:55
  Very It is easy to say all sins and keep it abstract, but
• 22:59
  Philpott forces us to look at the granular details.
• 23:02
  He lists the sins of the eye, what we choose to look at, the
• 23:05
  sins of the ear. Listening to gossip, slander or
• 23:07
  destructive talk. Passively absorbing poison.
• 23:10
  The sins of the lips. Carnal conversation.
• 23:13
  Snapping at a spouse. Lying to a boss.
• 23:15
  He goes deeper, past the external behaviors into the
• 23:18
  internal landscape. Oh yeah, the internal stuff is
• 23:20
  worse. He lists the workshop of
• 23:22
  thoughts. Think about the sheer volume of
• 23:24
  bitter, greedy or vain thoughts a human mind produces in a
• 23:28
  single hour. Too many to captain.
• 23:30
  He mentions the imagination, where the mind plays out
• 23:33
  scenarios it would never act on. Enjoying the fantasy of revenge
• 23:36
  or lust, he targets the memory, recalling past wrongs with
• 23:41
  fondness or nursing old bitterness.
• 23:43
  Folding onto grudges. Right.
• 23:45
  And he points to the feelings themselves, the sudden flare of
• 23:48
  pride when someone else fails, the hypocrisy of pretending to
• 23:52
  care, the self righteousness of judging a neighbor.
• 23:55
  When you lay out the inventory like that, it is absolutely
• 23:57
  horrifying. The Watchtower Guard has every
• 24:00
  single one of those internal and external moments written in the
• 24:03
  Ledger. It is a mountain of debt.
• 24:05
  But the promise of verse 8 is that every single trace, every
• 24:08
  shadow of these iniquities is swallowed up by the plenteous
• 24:11
  redemption. Every single trace.
• 24:13
  The text uses an old Exodus metaphor.
• 24:16
  When Moses led the Israelites out of slavery, he told Pharaoh
• 24:18
  that not a single hoof of their livestock would be left behind.
• 24:21
  In Egypt. The liberation is total.
• 24:23
  Plenteous redemption leaves nothing in the hands of the
• 24:26
  enemy. So if we trace the entire
• 24:28
  progression of this text, we see a stunning trajectory of a
• 24:31
  soul's rescue. Let's recap it.
• 24:34
  It begins in the terrifying depths of conviction and
• 24:37
  affliction, where a defiant cry is launched upward through the
• 24:41
  suffocating water. Right, the first trench.
• 24:43
  It moves into the stark exposing light of the Courtroom of
• 24:46
  Justice, where the Ledger demands A condemnation that
• 24:49
  seems absolutely certain. The blinking Watch each tower
• 24:52
  guard. Yes, then the entire legal
• 24:55
  reality is overturned by the blessed herp, but of
• 24:58
  substitutionary forgiveness. A forgiveness that creates A
• 25:02
  deeply reverent, active fear instead of careless rebellion.
• 25:06
  Melting the ice with fire. Spot on.
• 25:09
  This pardon state leads the soul into a posture of patient,
• 25:12
  hopeful watchfulness, anchored securely in the word of a
• 25:15
  sovereign Lord. The Sentinels on the wall.
• 25:17
  And it culminates in the total, plenteous liberation of the
• 25:20
  entire community. We're not single trace of the
• 25:23
  old chains, the old guilt, or the old thoughts remains.
• 25:26
  It is a complete architectural rebuild of a human being,
• 25:29
  starting from the muddy trench and ending in the palace.
• 25:32
  It really is. Think about the watchers for the
• 25:34
  morning we discussed earlier. What if the darkness you are
• 25:38
  currently sitting in isn't the darkness of a tomb, but the
• 25:41
  darkness of a theater right before the curtain goes up?
• 25:44
  I love that image. The sun is already scheduled to
• 25:47
  rise. The legal decree of your pardon
• 25:50
  has already been signed. The only question is whether you
• 25:53
  will spend the night dreading the shadows or leaning forward
• 25:56
  to catch the first streak of light over the mountains.
• 25:59
  Well, thank you for joining us for this deep dive.
• 26:01
  We will catch you next time.