Which would you rather have, a smooth path or a path so rough that the Lord is compelled to show His face to you every step of the way?” – George V. Wigner
Last week Penny had mentioned that we should study the Psalm that corresponds with
our age. It was a fun statement because she knew that I would be turning 40 later this month. Here I am studying Psalms 40 in depth. Don’t you love the timing of the Lord?
I can’t seem to get away from this number 40 this week. In between my time of preparing this bible lesson, I have been working on our churches 40 Days of Prayer prayer chain. In my morning devotional time, I have read about how Noah opened his ark window on the 40th day to see if the waters receded and how Jesus was tempted 40 days and 40 nights.
40 is a significant number in the bible. The Israelites were tested for 40 years in the wilderness wanderings, the Israelite spies searched the promise land 40 days before they brought back fruit, Moses was on the mountain 40 days with God a couple of times, Goliath strutted before the Israelite for 40 days, twice a day before being killed by David’s stone.
40 in the bible is all about symbolizing a period of testing and trial and it is a reminder that is our own day of trial and testing.
“Remember today is your day of trial and how much depends on your obedience.” – Richard Baxter
This is our day of testing of our love for God. Our faith in God. It is being tested every day. We live as the Israelites lived 40 days wandering around the desert before they entered the promise land so they could be tested to see if they would follow God or not.
I think by the time we have turned 40, we have been tested to some degree by life. That is why it is considered the milestone age. The first to mark the middle years. It is a time when many begin to look back and examine their lives retrospectively and then look forward to see where they are going and if this is where they want to be going. When we turn 40. I think we have enough distance behind us, enough historical data behind us, hopefully enough maturity with us, to look back objectively and see some patterns and examine our life and make some necessary changes.
It’s good to turn 40. It’s good for us to examine our lives and to realize we will not live forever. It’s good for us to take notice of the direction we are moving towards. It’s bad if we are not aligned with God, making moving closer to him and his ways our life goal, enjoying the hope of eternal life, secure in God’s life purpose and fulfillment for us and knowing we are only being led closer to Him who is our life end.
Many fall into mid-life crisis and depression when facing forty. They only see the best years as past and think life is found behind them; instead of knowing that life is yet ahead of us, in the next life, the promise land of eternal life.
The truth is, life is hard. This world is painful. Sometimes simply breathing is hard. As I look back, I do wonder where the time has gone. I am amazed that it has gone by so quickly, but I am glad to have made it this far by the grace of God.
I look back at my life and see all the ups and downs through the valley of the shadow of death through which God has led me as a Shepherd and know that I am glad I do not have to return by the same way. I had a lot of great times in these past 40 years and I had a lot of dark times in the past 40 years. There has been continual and regular shifting between light and darkness. There has been continual rising and falling of extreme emotional heights and depths. Some slow and gradual, some fast and sharp. I have learned to expect it and not to be surprised by it.
I have learned to enjoy the heights for the brief moments they last and to just hold on when I am cast down in the depths for the brief time they last, remembering they too are only temporary. They have come to pass. Sometimes when you are tired and worn out and don’t feel like moving, all you have to do is just hold on to God and allow the currents of time to move you forward with it and to eventually lift you up. You will come out of it.
Jesus promises us in this world we will have trouble.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33
Now we have come to Psalms 40. Psalms 40 is all being in a pit. How appropriate! It’s a bit backwards in format. It starts off as a Psalm of Thanksgiving, David praises God for rescuing and pulling him out the pit. David bears witness to God’s work in his life with the intention to praise Him. David accounts of God’s salvation, but then the Psalms turns into a Lament. David pleads to God for help, for deliverance and begs him not to delay. David curses his enemies but expresses confidence in God’s response.
What happened? How did David go from thanksgiving to lament? How did he go from being rescued out of the pit to being back in a pit?
That is the rhythm of life isn’t it? We get rescued from one pit only to find ourselves fallen into another. Life is full of pits. God continually has to rescue us out of them, pull us out of them, as He has to continually seek out his cast down sheep that we learned about in Psalms 23. We are high maintenance. But the good news is that God is up to the task of continually delivering us each time. David looks back at past times when God delivered him, reminding himself of the works of God in his life and it is this remembering that stirs up his confidence to hope in God and express confidence in God’s deliverance of him yet again.
David is in a current pit. He’s in a pit remembering the previous pits he was in before and remembering how God delivered him then which stirs up his faith that God will deliver him now in God’s own timing. No one likes being in a pit. Our first question is always:
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?” Psa. 13:1
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
David starts out recounting how he got out of the pit. He intentionally waited on the Lord. He knew he could not rescue himself. He was completely dependent on the mercy of the Lord.
This word waiting means, waiting I waited, it means to rely on completely. It’s primitive root meaning is to be held back as if bound, being collected and gathered together as water would pool up and gather together when restrained from flowing and moving forward. When we wait on God, we are often in difficult circumstances, restrained from movement by our circumstances in some cases. Sometimes we have no choice, we are forced to to wait. There is absolutely nothing we can do.
We can feel the walls around us and feel trapped and unable to escape. It can be a circumstance. It can be an emotion. We can be in a pit of anger, bitterness , grief, despair that we have fallen into. We know that we are not supposed to there but there we are. We don’t see any way out of it by our own efforts. We may struggle for some time and exhaust every method to get out on our own and it’s only after we have completely worn ourselves out that God finally lifts us out.
However, sometimes, we have to restrain ourselves from moving, when we know a way out but we also know it’s not necessarily God’s way out for us. There is that still small voice in our conscious that tells us to wait, not to move yet. Perhaps it’s a job choice, a purchase, a marriage decision, but God says wait.
There are so many wonderful promises in the bible specifically directed at those who intentionally wait in God.
but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. – Isa. 40:31
The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. – Lamentations 3:25
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.-Psalms 130:6Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.- Psalms 25:3
Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” – Isa. 49:23
God promises that those who wait on him will never be put to shame. Waiting on God, shows a tremendous faith, confidence and submission to God, especially when other choices and opportunities present themselves to us for deliverance and yet we would seek God’s salvation alone.
The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. – Psa. 37:39
Its times when we can move, but choose not to move that are often the most difficult tests of our faith in God. Jesus was known by the way he waited on God’s timing.
Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. – John 7-6
Our entire life is a life of waiting. Waiting on God and trusting in him. That is the life we are called to. Waiting reminds us that we are not God. It puts our eyes on God and tests and tries our faith in God like nothing else does.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Romans 8:22- 25
David is rewarded for his waiting for his faith in God. “He inclined to me and heard my cry.”
Our God is a God who hears us. Here he bows the heavens and bends their promises and provision towards us.
And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:15
If we know that God hears us, we can have confidence to wait, knowing he will provide what we ask of him. The key is that He hears us. How can we be confident that God hears us? His word.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. – Psa. 34:7
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. – Psa. 145:19
you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. – Isa. 30:19
God promises to hear us. It is faith in God’s promises that we demonstrate by waiting on God that stirs God to answer our prayers.
Yet sometimes God delays….
“Although God may not forthwith appear for our help, but rather of design keep us in suspense and perplexity, yet we must not lose courage, in as much as faith is not thoroughly tried except but by long endurance.” – John Calvin
“God so highly prizes our confidence in Him, it is so essentially the highest honor the creatures can show the Creator, that He will do anything to train us in the exercise of this trust in Him. Blessed is the man who is not staggered by God’s delay or silence by apparent refusal, but is strong in faith, giving glory to God. Such faith perseveres and cannot fail to inherit the blessing.” – Andrew Murray.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
Here we have figurative language. A pit. A pit of destruction. A miry bog. We have synonymous parallelism as David uses different words to describe and paint a picture to us of this pit.
He wants us to know that it is a pit of destruction or a horrible pit as the KJV translates it. The Hebrew word to describe this pit here is sha’own. It means uproar, noisy, destruction. The idea being conveyed is that it is a state of commotion, noise and confusion. It’s a state of violent agitation and disturbance. There is no rest in its depths.
David also describes this pit as a miry bog. This means muddy clay. This is a muddy pit. There is no scaling the walls of this pit. There is no strong support within it. No leaning against its walls for comfort. No foothold for climbing. It’s sticky. It’s dirty. It’s dark.
In the old days, pits were dug and used for dungeons and prisons. Paul knew a physical pit. He was held there until they drew him out to put him to death. The poor prophet Jeremiah was often thrown down into a pit.
“So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.” – Jeremiah 38:6
We may not have to deal with physical pits in our current culture, but we often have to deal with spiritual and emotional pits. We deal with deep emotional distress, depression, depravity, despair, times when we are feeling stuck, as if we are sinking continually, abandoned perhaps, times when we feel insecure without a foothold. We feel the walls around us. It could be circumstances, physical illness, a stronghold in our life. Whatever it is, it’s a place we need deliverance from.
David uses this same picture of a pit in Psalms 69
Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.Deliver me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.
Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the pit close its mouth over me. – Psalms 69:1-3,14-15
In these verses, we see David’s deep emotional distress. His uncertainty. His feelings as if he is drowning and everything is over his head. There is a strong sense that his circumstances are going to destroy him if he is not rescued. They will suffocate and swallow him up. They will sweep him away. They will seal him away as a grave. Have you ever felt that way?
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
David says God drew him out. He brought him out, caused him to ascend. God set David’s feet upon a rock. David is saying he had solid, secure ground beneath him. Once again David is using figurative language using the strength, dependability and stability of a rock to communicate the confidence that he felt was now beneath him and in the way he walked.
David came a long way from feeling like he was sinking in a mud pit to walking firmly easily on a rock. His steps are confident, lighter and unhindered.
The figurative language of a rock is used quiet frequently in the bible, especially with God our rock.
“There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God. 1 Sam2:2
To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. – Psa. 28:1
Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily! Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me! Psa. 31:2
What is David trying to communicate by calling God a rock of refuge? How is our God a rock of refuge to us?
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
There is no song like the song of the redeemed. In Revelation 5:9 it speaks of the redeemed singing a new song. We talked about how every time a new song is sung, it is because a new act has been done by God. The Israelites sang a new song immediately after crossing the Red Sea after being delivered from Egypt. The Lord loves it when we sing to him. He himself through his wonderful deeds of provision and deliverance plants that song in our hearts and gives us the spirit to sing it. Sometimes it’s an old song that he plants in our hearts that we have sung many times in our lives in empty repetition but because of current circumstances or current deliverance we are able to sing the song in a new way in truth and in spirit for this is the type of worshippers the Lord seeks.
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. (Psa. 23:3)
I will sing a new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you, (Psa.144:9)
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord. (Psa. 40:3)
We also talked about if angels sing or not. There is some question if angels can sing because angels have never known sorrow and suffering like man has. They will one day know the darkness of falling into a deep pit, the fallen angels will, but they will never know what it is like to be redeemed from the pit. Theirs is a hopeless state. W.A. Criswell once said:
Always, the redeemed sing; God’s blood washed sing; God’s children sing; but angels don’t sing. About the best I can find out is this: music is made up of major chords and minor chords. And the minor chords speak of the wretchedness, and the death, and the sorrow of this God-fallen creation. And most of nature moans and groans in a plaintive and minor key. The sound of the wind through the forest; the sound of the storm; the sound of the wind around the house—always in a minor key. It wails—the sound of the ocean, moaning in its restlessness, in its ceaseless trouble. Even the nightingale, the sweetest song of the birds, is also the saddest. Most of the sounds of nature are in minor key; the wretchedness, the despair, the hurt, the agony, the travail of this fallen creation. But an angel knows nothing of it; nothing of the wretchedness, nothing of the despair, nothing of the fallen. The angels know nothing of it. The major key and the major chorus and the major chords are chords of triumph and victory. He hath taken us out of the miry pit. He hath taken us out of the stubborn clay. He hath set our feet upon the rock, and He has put a new song in our souls and new praises on our lips. An angel has never been redeemed. An angel has never been saved. An angel has never fallen and then bought back to God. That’s the only thing that I could think of or find, why angels never sing. It’s God’s people who sing
Just thinking in my mind of a stanza out of Shelley that I haven’t thought of since I was a boy. Our sweetest songs with deepest sorrows are fraught. Somehow, it is the sorrows of life, and the disappointments of life, and the despair of life that make people sing. Either in the blackness of its hour or in the glory of His deliverance; that’s why the redeemed sing and the angels just speak of it. They see it. They watch it. But they know nothing about it. For it takes a lost and fallen man who’s been bought back to God, who’s been forgiven of his sins, who’s been redeemed; it takes a saved soul to sing!. – W.A. Criswell
God puts a new song in our mouth every time He delivers us, we have a new story to tell. A new praise to sing.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
David recognizes that others are watching his response. He also points this out in Psalms 69 that seems to parallel this Psalm so well.
Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
O Lord God of hosts;
let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,
O God of Israel. – Psalm 69:6
There is a deep desire in David’s heart to be an example of one who trusts in the Lord so that others might also trust in the Lord. You see this desire all throughout the Psalms as he calls on those around him to trust in in the Lord and worship the Lord. David has a great evangelistic heart.
How many leaders have ruined their lives and damaged the lives of others through immorality? Character has become a crucial issue today precisely because of the myriad leaders in the political, business, and religious worlds, who have fallen morally. Leaders need to remember that they influence many others beyond themselves; they never fall in a vacuum. They also need to realize that replacing fallen leaders is a slow and difficult process. – John Maxwell
When you are going through difficult circumstances, do you consider those around you who are watching you? How do our responses cause others to fear the Lord?
It’s good for us to want others to see the work of God in our lives. It’s good for others to see how we handle the same circumstances when tried. But our response, must be genuine. Our peace must be genuine. God does not want us to put on a false show of peace and pretend that everything is ok when it is not. We do more damage sometimes then good when we fake a disposition of peace. It turns people away instead of draws them closer to God and to us when they know we are faking it. God wants us to enjoy real peace in the midst of our storm. It’s ok for people to see us struggle sometimes. David is opening his heart here for us to see his own struggle. He feels like he is sinking. He is honest. He is complaining but he is also counseling himself to remember the work of the Lord, to trust in the Lord confidently to bring him out of this pit and deliver him. Sometimes that is our peace, knowing the Lord is going to deliver us from a noisy and tumultuousness situation in our hearts and give us a solid place to stand.
4 Blessed is the man who makes
the Lord his trust,
We have read much about the Blessed man so far in Psalms 1 and Psalms 32, now we see the blessed man again. The Blessed man, the man who is very, very happy is the man who makes the Lord his trust. Who makes the Lord his rock of refuge.
Making the Lord one’s trust is what makes us stand on solid ground. His promises are what give us stability, dependability and confidence in a muddy world that we continually feel like we are sinking in.
Over a year and a half ago Tim and I were both job hunting and it was a very frightening time for me when I felt the Lord calling me to turn in my resignation before I had another position. It was frightening knowing that Tim and I would both be out of work. I felt like I was stepping off a plank. But felt like it was my opportunity to step out of the boat and walk towards Jesus who I knew with a certainty in my heart, that I could not explain or define even now, was calling me to trust him nothing else, not even my own reason.
It was frightening at first, but this is what I had journaled about it:
Just a few more days before my last day at work after almost 15 years. Not sure what I’m going to do next. There use to be a time when I would be absolutely sick with anxiety over being jobless and without a plan, especially Tim and I both being jobless and without a plan together at the same time; but although I am sad and a bit nervous at times, there is a strong indescribable steady peace in my heart.
Every time I look down instead of seeing my circumstances and how far we could fall, all I can see are God’s promises solid and firm beneath us. So many sparkling promises that I am blinded by them. I can’t see all the "what if’s" that lay beyond them because God’s promises continually stand before me and block my vision of tomorrow. I can’t entertain my worries because they are interrupted by God’s promises of his faithfulness invading my thoughts and eradicating them. Last Monday, I thought I was walking off a plank by turning in my resignation in without another job to go to already lined up. It’s something I’ve always been taught to never do! But I’ve never stood on more solid ground then when I stepped out of my comfort zone to stand on faith alone. Psa 32:7 keeps popping up in sermons, bible reading and in my devotionals like little love notes from the Lord hidden along my daily path for me to "accidentally" run across and find throughout the week to strengthen and encourage me that I’m going the right way even though it feels like the wrong way and is much bumpier then I like. Through these hidden little love messages God’s promises truly surround me, stand before me and beneath me. I am truly surrounded by songs and shouts of deliverance every day. I don’t see it yet… would really, really like to see it…but I can hear the shouts! The Lord’s help is just over the horizon.
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.– Psalm. 121:1-2
I share this to demonstrate that Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust. To have God enable us to walk on water as if we are walking on a rock, when our circumstances would drown us is amazing. God’s word acts like a solid rock when we stand on it in wait for him.
who does not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after a lie!
Sometimes when we are in a pit, we would devise our own methods to get out. We would listen to others on what we should do instead of turning to God and waiting on God. It’s being led by pride, turning to those who are proud, who would not risk humiliation to follow God.
Sometimes there is a very large sense of I might be humiliated if God does not answer. In pride, we turn to the proud and follow our own way. Instead of following the truth, we would instead follow a lie. We have the same destination in mind but our route is the issue. It is the godless route.
We know it’s not the truth we are following, but we justify it, rationalize it, excuse it, dismiss it and take the “safe” way. Is anyway that is not God’s way ever safe? God’s way through the valley of the shadow of death may look unsafe but the safest place ever to be is in his presence. Going astray after a lie, would be choosing the “safe” way that did not include God or need God. Choosing God’s way, there is an overwhelming sense of the need for God every step of the way. If he doesn’t help us we won’t make it. It may feel dangerous, but it is the safest place to be and the safest route to take
“Which would you rather have, a smooth path or a path so rough that the Lord is compelled to show His face to you every step of the way?” – George V. Wigner
5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told.
David is astonished at the works of God when he mediates on them. They are more then he can comprehend. More than he can think about. He makes a commitment to proclaim and tell of the works of God but there are too many. He echoes John:
“Now these are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:21
John attempted to write the works of Jesus and was left with a sense of being inadequate of not even completing the tip of the iceberg. Yet both did it to the best of their ability, however limited their ability was and so should we.
I think it feels overwhelming sometimes. How does one communicate the greatness of God, his wonderfulness? It’s infinity? Any attempt to communicate it, put a frame around a portion of it, leaves much to be desired. It’s too big of a task for one person, let along every person in the world at the same time would still be inadequate to communicate the greatness of God and his wondrous deeds. They are more than can be told. More than we can comprehend. But that doesn’t stop us from trying.
6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”
What pleases God? Is it sacrifices, offerings and burnt offerings? No. Many would attempt to attain righteousness and gain God’s favor through sacrifices and offering in great number but these are not what God wanted. They were never what God wanted. Sacrifices and burnt offerings and sin offerings were set in place because of sin. Because of sin man had to sacrifice animals in order to find forgiveness and peace with God.
“Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”. – Hebrews 9:22
However, these sacrifices and offerings never had the ability to make anyone righteous. They simply dealt with the sin. They dealt with the symptoms of the problem but never touched the root of the problem, man himself. Man sins because he is a sinner by nature. He is a sin factory. You can destroy the product as it comes out of the factory but unless you destroy the factory itself, you have no hope of ever stopping the production of sin. If God would rid the world of sin, he would have to rid the world of man.
Man’s eternal situation is that of one of being stuck in a pit of destruction. He is born under the wrath of God. He has no hope of every pleasing God because his entire nature is set against God from birth.
“Man is an enemy to the law of God and cannot please God. He does not even desire a guide. If someone directs him into the right way he becomes angry. He is dead in his trespasses and sins. (Eph. 2:9) He is worse than dead. His life is alive to resist and rebel against God. What a miserable, wretched creature man is! There is nothing in man’s nature to carry him to grace. In conversion, God must work or he can never be renewed.” – Thomas Morton.
In God’s great mercy, instead of destroying man, God provided a remedy for man’s redemption through the sacrifice of His own son as the once for all sin offering for all mankind. Through the death of Christ, God satisfied the righteous requirement of the law, through Christ fulfilling the will of God perfectly.
Hebrews 10:1-18 explains Psalms 40:6-8:
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”17 then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
It is God’s will being done that God desires more than sacrifices and burn offerings. 1 Samuel 15 tells the story of Samuel confronting Saul after Saul disobeyed God by keeping the best of the spoil that was devoted to destruction from his raid on the Amaleks as a sacrifice to God.
Samuel tells Saul in verses 22-23,
““Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
Obedience to the will of God is what God desires. Obedience is what pleases God. One more thing to note is how Psalms 40:6 and Hebrews 10:5 are quoted slightly differently.
Psalms 40:6 says “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.”Hebrews 10:5 says, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;”
Why this subtle difference?
The Hebrew word for open in Psalms 40:6 is karah, meaning to dig, to pierce, to bore, or open. Exodus 21 explains the laws about slaves. Hebrew slaves were to serve 6 years and then in the 7th year they were to be set free. If they had a wife when they came in, they could leave with their wife. If their master had given them a wife, then the wife and children stayed and the slave had to leave alone. If the slave was happy with his master and wanted to stay, he could give his entire life to his master and make a commitment to be that masters slave forever. The way this commitment was made was by having his ear pierced through with an awl. The slave would then obey this master forever.
then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever. – Exodus 21-6
In Psalms 40:6 David is making reference to the obedience to God’s will that God delights in. He draws on a picture of a slave having his ear “opened” to belong to his mater forever. David knows that animal sacrifice is not what pleases God, obeying God’s will is what pleases God.
In Hebrews 10:5 draws on this and explains it with Christ. It starts off the same, that it was not sacrifices and offerings that God desired, God prepares a body for him, a body that would also be pierced, bored through on the cross as Christ came to fulfill the will of God.
9 I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.
KJV – I have preached righteousness in the great congregation.
Because of the work of Jesus, Jesus and the apostles now teach and preach to us what righteousness is, true righteousness that pleases God, not sacrifices and offerings, not righteousness according to the law but Christ’s righteousness is preached, Christ’s obedience to the will of God.
The great congregation would include both Jews and Gentiles through the sacrifice of Christ.
This is Jesus’s own prayer to God the father. Jesus held nothing back. He did not hide the deliverance of God in his heart, but made it known. Jesus revealed God’s faithfulness, steadfast love and salvation. The apostles and disciples followed in his footsteps to make God’s faithfulness, steadfast love and salvation known to the great congregation, even though it would cost them their lives. Yet they did not hold back. They did not hide God’s deliverance within their hearts or restrain their lips despite the threats they received and the imprisonments and pits they were thrown into. They told the glad news of God’s deliverance through Jesus Christ.
Once more there is glad news to be delivered. There is the wonderful works of the Lord that are too many to tell!
11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
ever preserve me!
12 For evils have encompassed me
beyond number;
my iniquities have overtaken me,
and I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head;
my heart fails me.
Now David considers himself, as he has considered God’s faithfulness, steadfast love and mercy being poured out on others, now he prays to God, that God would pour out this same faithfulness, steadfast love and mercy on him and would not restrain it from him in his time of need.
David complains that he is surrounded by evil. This is his pit. He is enclosed in on all sides. This evil is his own iniquities. He feels like they are innumerable, beyond number. As God’s wonderous works are beyond number so is the measure of David’s own personal sins. They are beyond count. More than the hairs on his head, They feel like a flood to him that has overtaken him and have caused him to go blind. He cannot look up because of his sin. His eye are cast down. His sins prevent him from seeing God’s light. They are ever before his eyes and block his view of God. They cause his heart to sink to great bottomless depths. His own heart abandons and forsakes him. He cries out to God to save him from his sins!!
13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!
O Lord, make haste to help me!
14 Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether
who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who delight in my hurt!
15 Let those be appalled because of their shame
who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”
Verses 13-17 are found in Psalms 70 which is broken off as a Psalm all by itself.
David cries out to be delivered from his sins and their impending punishment. He cries out that his enemies would be put to shame. In verse 4 it spoke of those who did not turn towards the proud and we spoke about how it is our pride that often causes us to go astray after a lie. We sometimes get these thoughts that our our enemies or other people speak them to us saying what fools we are for following God and not taking the reasonable safe way.
This is a verse basically saying to put those thoughts and those voices, that would laugh at his calamity and tell him I told you so, and call him a fool, to shame. David says put them to shame those who would say “Aha, Aha!. David prays let them be appalled at their foolishness. Let them be brought to dishonor or find joy and entertainment in his pain. In other words let them fall in their own pit.
The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness. – Proverbs 11:5
16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
say continually, “Great is the Lord!”
17 As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God!
David prays that all who seek God would find their joy and gladness in God. David prays that their prayer would be one that continually says “Great is the Lord!” He prays for the satisfaction of those who love God’s way of salvation that they would satisfied. Far from those who would laugh at the poor plight of others, David is a man and a heart who continually seeks the benefits of others. He seeks their benefit when they are watching him, he is careful of his own actions in case he should cause another to stumble and to fall.
David recognizes his poor and needy position before the Lord. He recognizes his helpless condition. But since the Lord has inclined toward him and heard his cry,taking thought of him, David is actually far from being poor and needy, when he is rich towards God. He is only poor and needy in himself, his own resources. He looks to God as his strength and provision.
David prays to God reminding him that He is his help and his deliverer and not to delay his rescue. Sometimes it feels like God is delaying when we are waiting on him. Every minute feels like an hour when we wait. This is a continued test of our trust in God and his perfect timing to discipline ourselves to continue to wait on the Lord.
Waiting! Yes, patiently waiting!
Till next steps made plain will be;
To hear, with the inner hearing,
The Voice that will call for me.
Waiting! Yes, hopefully waiting!
With hope that need not grow dim;
The Master is pledged to guide me,
And my eyes are unto Him.
Waiting! Expectantly waiting!
Perhaps it may be today
The Master will quickly open
The gate to my future way.
Waiting! Yes, waiting! still waiting!
I know, though I’ve waited long,
That, while He withholds His purpose,
His waiting cannot be wrong.
Waiting! Yes, waiting! still waiting!
The Master will not be late:
Since He knows that I am waiting
For Him to unlatch the gate.
J. Danson Smith
