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These are the words of David: they are the words of all God’s tried and believing people; but above all they are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So complete is the union between Christ and the believer that it is possible to describe them both at the same time. The experience of a child of God, sin alone excepted, is very like the experience of the great Firstborn. But Christ is ever above us, so you will find words in this Psalm which belong to nobody but Jesus in all their fullness. Yet the title of it is “A Psalm of David.”
Psa_40:1. I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
You and I can say that, so could our Divine Master. Oh the wondrous patience of the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer! In that agony in the garden when the bloody sweat showed how great were the wrestlings of his spirit he could then say, “I waited patiently for Jehovah, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry.”
Psa_40:2. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
We can say that too. We remember when we were deep down in the mire, when we found it impossible to rise, for the more we struggled the more we sank. It was clay under us, miry clay. We could not hope for a rescue, but the arm of Jehovah lifted us out of the deep and set us on a rock, and there we stood to sing his praises. Jesus Christ could say the same. He said, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death,” and he cried, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me!” What a very different frame of mind he was in a few minutes afterwards when he said, “Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit,” and shouted, “It is finished!” all his travail was over. Well it is a great thing for us to have fellowship with Christ in his suffering which we could not have had if we had not ourselves been brought up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay.
Psa_40:3. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
Well, God has done that for you and for me; he has put a new song into our mouth which Satan cannot take out of it, and we are singing it today, and others who hear it shall be encouraged to trust in God. But is this true of Christ? Listen to those words at the end of the 22nd Psalm, where beyond all doubt it is the Saviour who speaks; -- “My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation; I will pay my vows before them that fear him.” So the Saviour is the chief leader of the holy song which goes up to God on account of redemption. He sings because God has delivered him and delivered us. Both the Surety and the sinner are now free, and the song goes up from both of them. Again you see what sympathy, what fellowship, we have with Christ.
Psa_40:4. Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
Jesus knew the blessedness of faith. Remember how Paul quotes it, “I will put my trust in him,” as the language of the Redeemer himself. As man he had his fears; as man there was wrought in him a wondrous faith in God. Oh that you and I might have the same trust, and have no respect to the proud nor such as turn aside to lies!
Psa_40:5. Many O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
We are not dealing with a God who never deals with us. Faith in God is no fiction. We have already had from God the most wonderful displays of power. We have been the recipients of great mercy springing from his thoughts of love toward us. It ought to be an easy thing for experienced saints to trust in God and I hope it has become so with us.
Psa_40:6-8. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said, I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
Now we get the words of Christ undoubtedly. Our Lord said these words and therefore he came to fulfill the Father’s will and present on our behalf an acceptable sacrifice, with blood better than that of bulls or of goats. You and I have to say this in a very humble measure. We do not bring to God now any sacrifice of bulls or goats but we do bring our whole heart to him, trusting to be accepted, for he has written on those heart his own law, and it is our delight now to do the will of God. This it the kind of sacrifice that God accepts; true, fervent, obedient hearts. God grant us always to present it.
Psa_40:9-10. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.
What a preacher Christ was! How he told out what he had learned of the Father! How fully, how constantly was he the witness for God to men! Some of us following far behind, with unequal footsteps, nevertheless can say “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation.” It is a great comfort in feeling if you are called to present the gospel that as far as you know, you have preached it and have kept back nothing that God has taught to you. It will be a thousand mercies if any one of God’s servants shall be found clear at the last. When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants, we have only done what it was our duty to do; but still there is a sweet peace about fidelity when in the integrity of one’s heart we can say that we have not refrained our lips as God knows. Then comes the prayer —
Psa_40:11. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.
If you have dealt honestly with God’s word you may expect that God will deal graciously with you. Surely he would not send us to proclaim a message of mercy and then deny mercy to us. That cannot be. But brethren when we have done our best for God and before God, yet we cannot boast, we still want mercy and we fall back upon the lovingkindness of God just as the sinner must do when he first of all comes to God. May we ever be in that true and humble frame of mind which looks for nothing but mercy.
Psa_40:12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
Now here is a passage in which the Master is not to be seen but only the servant. This is the man that said than God had put a new song into his mouth. He is a true child of God to whom God had had respect and whose prayer God had heard, yet see what a plight he has come in to. Dear friends, you and I may have to undergo this trial. Happy shall we be if we have such faith in God that even when innumerable evils compass us about we shall remember the innumerable mercies of God, such mercies as the Psalmist had spoken of in the fifth verse. When our iniquities take hold upon us what a mercy it is to think that Christ has taken hold upon us too, and will never let us go. When our sins seem more than the hairs of our head and our heart is failing us, it is very sweet to feel that the depths of eternal love and of atoning merit have drowned even our innumerable sins; they are cast upon the head of him that said “Lo, I come to do thy will;” they are carried away and they have ceased to be, through him whose precious blood and glorious righteousness have made us accepted before God.
Psa_40:13. Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.
You may pray like that and yet be a true believer, the man that is not in haste to be saved does not want to be saved at all. He that can put it off till tomorrow knows nothing about it. True believer when he is crying for mercy cries “My case is urgent, help me now, make haste to help me;”
Psa_40:14-17. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, “Aha, aha.” Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. But I am poor and needy; yet the LORD thinketh upon me: thou are my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
“But I am poor and needy; yet” — oh blessed “yet” — “Yet the Lord thinketh upon me.” He does not throw me a penny and pass on as we often do to the poor and needy, but He stops and thinks. Yet He makes no tarrying. He answers the cry of his people and comes in haste to deliver them.
If our hearts are in trouble, as his was who wrote this Psalm, may we be able to act as wisely and as well as he did, and so obtain a like deliverance!
Psa_40:1-2. I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
God does nothing by halves; if he brings people up out of their sorrow, or their sin, he takes care that their feet shall not slip back again into the mire. David says, “He set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” What a blessing that last little sentence contains! God does not set our feet upon a rock, that we may afterwards slip off, and finally fall, but he establishes our goings, he makes our footing firm, so that we do not perish after all.
Psa_40:3. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, —
Such a song as I never sang before; for I had never been in such trouble before, and therefore had never experienced such a deliverance as the Lord has now granted to me. “He hath put a new song in my mouth.” With that sweet songstress, Ann Letitia Waring, I can say, —
“
I will give thanks and sing;
My heart is at the secret source Of every precious thing.
“And ‘a new song’ is in my mouth,
To long-loved music set;
Glory to thee for all the grace I have not tasted yet.”
You know that this Book of Psalms has many benedictions in it. It begins with a blessing upon “the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful;” but here it has a blessing for the believer: “Blessed is that man that maketh Jehovah his trust.” As for the proud and the false, may God preserve us from ever paying any regard to them; for, if not, they will lead us into some such mischief as that into which they have themselves fallen.
Psa_40:5. Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done,
“Thy works in creation, in providence, and in redemption,” —
Psa_40:5. And thy thoughts which are to us-ward:
God is always thinking of his people, and his thoughts are wise, and kind, and practical, for, when he thinks of doing anything for us, he speedily performs it.
Psa_40:5. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
Think of that! You cannot count God’s thoughts of you. If he were only to think of us once, in tender mercy, that one thought would run on throughout eternity, for he does not retract either a thought that he thinks or a word that he utters. Instead thereof, one gracious thought is followed by another, swiftly as the beams of light flash from the sun, so that it is impossible for us to number them. Thus thinking and writing concerning God’s work, the psalmist is carried away, as it were, into a vision, in which he sees Christ, and speaks in the name of Christ: —
Psa_40:6. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire;
The blood of all the bullocks, rams, and lambs offered in sacrifice, had possessed no real efficacy in putting away sin. They had no virtue except as types, and symbols, and prophecies of the one great sacrifice that was to come.
Psa_40:6. Mine ears hast thou opened:
Probably alluding to the ceremony of boring to the door-post the ears of those who determined to remain as slaves to their masters when they might have gone free. So Christ was ready to be the servant of his Father, and the Saviour of sinners; he voluntarily undertook to bear all that this would involve.
Psa_40:6-8. Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
He was the perfect One, coming to do God’s will for us, and offering himself as the truest sacrifice that could ever be presented to God. So we may rightly picture our great Lord and Master uttering these words when he came to die.
Psa_40:9-10. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.
With what indefatigable earnestness, with what indomitable courage, with what sacred faithfulness, with what holy tears, did Christ preach the truth while he was upon earth! He was ever the Prince of preachers; so, when he was dying, he could plead this fact with his Father. —
Psa_40:11-12. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have compassed me about:
Was it not so with Christ? The evils of sinners seemed to compass him about, and, like wild beasts, to hunt him to the death; and the saints of God, in their measure, may often use similar language to that which the psalmist here, prophetically, used concerning Christ.
Psa_40:12. Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
We could not apply this language to the Saviour except as we spoke of the sins of ourselves and others which were laid upon him; but we may apply this language, and ought to apply it to ourselves when we are sorely beset by sin. Have not even you, who are the dear children of God, sometimes felt as if you could not look up, and dared not look up? You were so desponding, so downcast, that there seemed no help for you, even in God. Your sins, your cruel sins, your fierce tormentors were; and therefore your heart failed you.
Psa_40:13-15. Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.
So will it surely be, for the enemies of God’s people are God’s enemies; and Satan and all his host, who seek to destroy the souls of the Lord’s chosen, shall be driven backward, and covered with eternal shame.
Psa_40:16. Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified.
Are you content to bear your present trial, dear friend, so that God may be magnified? Are you willing to be reduced, by infirmities and weaknesses, to a condition of absolute nothingness, so long as God is exalted? If you are, then you will be saying continually, “Let God be magnified in my weakness, let his majestic love be seen amid all my sorrows.”
Psa_40:17. But I am poor and needy;
A double expression for a poverty that is doubly felt; — perhaps, poor in temporals; certainly poor in spirituals; poor, and full of needs, yet with nothing to supply those needs: “I am poor and needy;”
Psa_40:17. Yet —
That is a blessed “yet” —
Psa_40:17. The Lord thinketh upon me:
That is enough for me; if he thinks upon me, his thoughts are so kind, and generous, and wise, and practical that he will help me.
Psa_40:17. Thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. If I were to read this Psalm all through as referring to Christ, and to Christ only, I should be correct in so doing; but still, there is such a unity between Christ and those who compose his mystical body that, what is true of the Head, is true of the members. What is true of the Vine, is true of the branches. What is true of Christ, is true of those who are in him. Therefore, this Psalm relates to David as well as to “great David’s greater Son”, and it also concerns every one who is of the royal seed, every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the Psalm begins :—
Psa_40:1. I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
“I waited.” Do not beggars wait long at a fellow-creature’s door for some pitiful alms, and should not I be content to linger at Mercy’s gate for such great boons as I am craving? “I waited patiently.” Well may we tarry in patience till Jehovah’s time to help, since we know that “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; and if he be pitiful, we can well afford to be patient, “I waited patiently for Jehovah.” Those who have been most mighty in prayer have sometimes had to wait for the answers to their supplications. Do not expect the Lord to hear thee today or tomorrow. He may hear thee before thou speakest, according to his promise, “Before they call, I will answer;” but he may, for the trial of thy faith, make thee wait. Art thou able to wait? Then thou art certain to receive a great blessing. “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me,” bowed down out of heaven, inclined unto me, stooped to me, thought well of me, and of my prayer also, “and heard my cry.”
Psa_40:2. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
This is a wonderful song, full of rapturous joy. You know how Orientals were accustomed to cast their prisoners into pits, and those pits were often horribly deep, and dark, and damp; and the mud at the bottom would be such that a man would sink in it. David sings of the Lord, “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay.” What a wonderful up-bringing was this; and, as God never does anything by halves, he did not let his servant slip back again, for David added, “and set my feet upon a rock.” “He set my feet.” When God sets a man’s feet, those feet are well set; there is no sliding, no slipping, then. The Lord set’ David’s feet upon a rock; and, more than that, established his goings, made them firm, so that when he stirred he did not stumble.
Psa_40:3. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God:
Sing, then, believer! Thou didst groan often enough in the pit; sing now that thou art on the rock. Thou wast desolate enough in the dungeon; sound aloud thy grateful thanksgivings now that thy goings are established.
Psa_40:3. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
There you have a picture of a sinner’s conversion and its effects. The man sees the Lord’s goodness to the child of God in distress. He fears; that is, he stands in awe of the great God; and then he also believes, he trusts in the Lord. One saint makes many; one child of God brought up out of the horrible pit leads to the bringing up of a great many others in the same way.
Psa_40:4. Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
If you trust in God, you will have no reverence for the proud, nor for those who turn aside from God’s Word, and teach falsehood. If you really fear God, you will have no fear of men.
Psa_40:5. Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
The child of God, reviewing the Lord’s great goodness, feels that he can never count the mercies of God to him; and, as to telling them out, that can never be, It will be, perhaps, a part of our eternal employment to tell to angels, and principalities, and powers in the heavenly places the story of the lovingkindness of the Lord which we have experienced here below. If we had no troubles, we should have nothing to tell; but now that we are led in a strange way, and into very difficult places, we can write another page in our diary, which will be worth reading in those days when fictions shall all have been consumed in the fire, but the great facts in the lives of the Lord’s people shall make God to be admired in his saints for ever and ever.
Psa_40:6-8. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
Spoke I not truly when I said that the Christ of God is here? To whom is this passage one hundredth part so applicable as to the Lord Jesus himself? Does not Paul dwell upon this passage as teaching the putting aside of the old covenant law, and the bringing in of something better, even the obedience of Christ our Saviour? However, this evening, I wish to read the Scripture in reference to the saints, the Lord’s own people. I trust that many of us, seeing that God does not delight in ritualistic performances, and in the externals of religion, so much as he does in the obedience of the heart, can come to him, and declare with David, “I delight to do thy will, O my God.” Beloved friends, you are not what you ought to be; you are not what you want to be; you are not what you shall be; but, tell me, are you ever happier than when you are consciously doing the will of God? Do you not find misery in sin, and delight in holiness? If you can say that it is so with you, then you are bound for the kingdom; you are on the way to complete victory over sin. Be of good cheer; he who has wrought in you this selfsame thing, to delight to do the will of God, will grant you grace to do it. He will bruise Satan under your feet shortly; and your inbred corruptions shall yet be uprooted by the Spirit of his grace.
Psa_40:9. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
This is what Jesus can say. He was the Prince of open-air preachers, the Great Itinerant, the President of the College of all preachers of the gospel; and I trust that many of us here can also say that, according to our ability and opportunity, we have tried to tell of Christ to those round about us.
Psa_40:10. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.
If any of you have done so, if there has been a sinful reticence about the things of God, if called to preach, you yet have not preached the full gospel of God’s grace, the Lord forgive you, and bring you out into a clear manifestation of what he has written within your hearts! We cannot tell what we do not know, and we ought not to try to do so; but what is graven in our hearts by the Holy Spirit we are bound to tell to others. This gas was lighted that it might shine; and you received the divine fire that you might shine to the glory of God. It may be that, in some dark hour, it shall afford you at least a little comfort to be able to say, “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation.” You may be able to use it as an argument in prayer, as the psalmist does: “I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation, therefore,”—
Psa_40:11. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord; let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.
Depend upon it, God will take care of us, if we take care of his truth. If we, from cowardly reasons, keep back any part of the gospel, God may leave us to defend ourselves; but if we conceal nothing that he has revealed to us, if we are faithful to the truth committed to our charge, that truth will itself preserve us, and we shall know more and more of the loving-kindness of the Lord.
But what a sad verse is the next one, if it describes the experience of any one of you who have known the Lord!
Psa_40:12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
If that is the condition of any one whom I am addressing, be comforted by the remembrance that another has been along that dark road where you now are found, and follow his example in praying to the Lord to deliver you. —
Psa_40:13. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me.
Thus did David cry unto the Lord “out of the depths.” Imitate his example if you are in similar circumstances. Say, with good John Ryland,— “Out of the depths of doubt and fear,
I cry; my voice, O Jesus, hear,
And come to my relief!”
Here is comfort for all poor trembling seekers; they are only seekers, but let us thank God that they are seekers, and let us say with the psalmist, “Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee.” All true Christians, those who have found Christ, are still seekers; for, after finding Christ, they do their souls inflame to seek him more and more. So that our prayer also is, “Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee.”
Psa_40:16-17. Let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
The Lord bless to us the reading of this precious portion of his Word, for his name’s sake! Amen.