Psalm chapter 40. We want to
look at this Psalm tonight and I want to read through it with
you. There are 17 verses and so let's begin by reading from
verse 1. Psalm 40 verse 1. I waited patiently for the Lord
and He inclined to 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. And he has put a new
song in my mouth even praise unto our God. Many shall see
it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man
that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud,
nor such as turn aside to lies. Many, O Lord my God, are they
wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which
are to usward. They cannot be reckoned up in
order unto Thee. If I would declare and speak
of them, they are more than can be numbered. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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! 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 art my help and
my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. All right. Now, this psalm was
written by David. If you look in the very beginning,
it says, to the chief musician, a psalm of David. But if we were
to refer to 2 Samuel chapter 23 verse 1, we learn that David
was the sweet psalmist of Israel. And he was called in that same
verse, the anointed of the God of Jacob. He said, the spirit
of the Lord spake by me. And we know that David was king
of Israel. Now, we also note this about
David, that he was not only the anointed of the God of Jacob
to be king over Israel, and that he was the sweet psalmist of
Israel, and that the Spirit of the Lord spoke by him to point
out this about Psalm 40. that the one crying here in prayer,
the one praising God, is all of these things. He is the anointed
of the God of Israel, He is the King of Israel, and He is the
one by whom the Spirit of God has spoken. Given that, that
this is absolute certain that he who wrote this psalm and the
one that this psalm is speaking of, or rather I should say the
one speaking in this psalm is the anointed of God, the King
of Israel, the one by whom the Spirit of God spoke, therefore
these facts substantiate that these words apply to God's anointed,
the King of Israel, the one the Spirit of the Lord spake by.
And David is therefore speaking in this psalm, as he does in
every psalm, by the Spirit of God of the Lord Jesus Christ,
his son and his Lord. David's son, but David's Lord. And it says this in Psalm 110,
And I want to read this, Jesus Christ, David's son, is David's
Lord. The Lord Jesus himself said so. He told the scribes and the Pharisees,
he said, while the Pharisees were gathered together in Matthew
22, verse 41, Jesus asked them, he said, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? And they said
to him, the son of David. That was true. He said to them,
how then does David in spirit call him Lord? So you can see
that Jesus is also reaffirming that David spoke by the Spirit
of God when he wrote Psalm 110. He said, why does David then,
if he's David's son, and that's it, why does he in spirit call
him Lord, saying, and this is in Matthew 22, verse 44, the
Lord, said to my Lord, sit thou on
my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David
call him Lord, how is he his son? That was the question Jesus
posed to the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
And so we have the clear statements by the Lord Jesus Christ that
David spoke of him because he was speaking in Psalm 110 of
the Lord Jesus Christ, his son, and yet his Lord, and how he
would sit on the throne at the right hand of God. Then again,
also in Psalm 110, In Luke chapter 24, Jesus told
his disciples, this time, not the scribes and Pharisees, but
his disciples. He said to them, these are the
words, referring back to his own crucifixion and death. He
said, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet
with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. And he said to them,
thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer
and to rise from the dead the third day. All right, now, here
the Lord Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and we could say
it very confidently, really, to his church, because they were
given these words to proclaim everything he said in Matthew
28, 18 through 20. Everything I have commanded you,
you tell them. So he said, he told them that
from the scriptures, the Psalms, the prophets, and the law, that
he pulled out of them, explained to them how it behooved Christ
to suffer. It was necessary. And to rise
from the dead the third day. And then on another occasion
in John chapter five, it was a Sabbath day and Jesus raised
up an impotent man who lay at the pool of Siloam for 38 years.
And then the Lord Jesus told the Jews who persecuted him for
that and tried to kill him for performing that miracle on the
Sabbath day. He said in John chapter five,
verse 37, he said, the father himself, speaking of his own
father, his God and father, the father himself, which has sent
me, has borne witness of me. You have neither heard his voice
at any time nor seen his shape, and you have not his word abiding
in you. For whom he has sent, him you
believe not." Now that was the object, that was the result of
understanding the word of God the Father. And he goes on to
expand on that. He says in John 5, 39, search
the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life,
but they are they, or and they are they, which testify of me. This is the scriptures now. And
you will not come to me that you might have life. So the word
of the father, which is scripture, spoke of Christ. If you take
all these things together, it's undeniable that scripture testifies
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that includes the law of
Moses, the Psalms, and the prophets. Now David was a prophet. In Acts
chapter 2, Peter said on the day of Pentecost, David being
a prophet, he was a prophet. And let's see. And not only that,
but God swore to David by an oath that he would raise up Christ
to sit on his throne. And God spoke to David of this
salvation, that he would save his people, these children of
promise, which were called the true Israel of God. And he spoke
to David of Christ's sufferings and of his death and of the glory
that would follow, as it says in 1 Peter 1, verse 11. So that
before we begin this psalm, let us take the very clear and plain
words of scripture from 2 Samuel 23, which are explained to us
by the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 24, and by his apostle in Acts
chapter 2 and other places, and his prophets in Hebrews chapter
1 and so on, that these things are most evidently true. First, scripture speaks to God's
elect people, which are called the church of God, about Christ
in prophecy and in promise. Second, Scripture speaks of His
anointing, His life, His sufferings, His death, and the glory that
would follow His death, His resurrection, and His glory. Third, that the
Psalms themselves are the Word of God concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. and that the prayers in the Psalms
are Christ's prayers in the days of His flesh. As we read in Hebrews
5, where it says that though He were a son, He learned obedience
by the things which He suffered, and when He was in the days of
His flesh, He cried with strong crying and tears to Him that
was able to save Him from death. So we have in Hebrews chapter
5 verses 7 through 9 a clear statement that the Lord Jesus
Christ in the days of His flesh prayed to God to be saved. who in the days of his flesh
when he had made strong cryings in tears unto him who was able
to save him from death." Okay? So these are the words, the interpretation
given in the New Testament of the Psalms. And we read this
in Psalm 22 and Psalm 69 and so many other Psalms very plainly
stated and here in Psalm 40. And so also, this is true, by
the clearest of revelation and explanation, the words of this
particular psalm, Psalm 40, were spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ
concerning the time when he would come into the world to do the
will of God. It spoke of his love of God's
holy law and his love of God's eternal will that he would come
to do it. that He came into the world for
this express purpose, to fulfill the law and the prophets, like
He said He would in Matthew 5, 17, and to finish the work God
gave Him to do, which was to do the will of God. Now, let
us be persuaded that it is this will of God that He gave His
Son, His Anointed, Christ, the Messiah, to do and that the Lord
Jesus actually finished that work. In John 4, 34, his disciples
came back to the well at Samaria and Jesus was there at the well
and they asked him if he had taken any meat and he said, I
have meat to eat that you know not of, for my meat is to do
the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. All right,
that was his will, that was his meat, to do his father's will
and finish his work. And he was successful in doing
that. He actually finished the work. That's why he was raised
from the dead. And his work actually sanctified his people, as we
read in Hebrews 10, verse 10, that one offering, he sanctified
his people by the will of God. It was God's will, his offering
of himself that made his people holy. That's such a fundamental,
important, monumental statement of fact and truth. And that forever,
he forever perfected those that he sanctified by that one offering,
Hebrews 10 verse 14. He was therefore successful and
his work actually accomplished their sanctification, actually
perfected them forever. And it was one offering of himself
to God for their sins, and it was an offering made in sacrifice
of his own blood. It fulfilled all the conditions
of God's everlasting covenant. It put that covenant into force.
It was his conquest over our enemies, sin, death, hell, the
grave, Satan, and this world. and even the curse of God's law,
which was against us for our sin. He overcame all of our enemies,
all those who were against us, against our salvation. He stood
for us and answered God, and God required his enemies to be
silent. He put them to shame, he routed
them, he made an open display of them, as we read in Colossians
2, verse 14 to 15. Now, given that, that clear explanation
that this psalm is about the Lord Jesus Christ, these are
his words here, I wanna show you in contrast now a very eminent
theologian, John Calvin, does not interpret this psalm that
way. In fact, John Calvin basically
takes this psalm and he expounds the piety, what would you say,
the godliness of David himself, how he trusted God under affliction
and was patient and spoke so much of his works of providence
and so on and so forth. Basically, he finds a moral object
lesson in this psalm. But how in the world can you
or I take the evidence that God has put in scripture as simple-minded
ignorant people, not theologians? How can we take the words that
we just referred to from Hebrews chapter 10, Luke chapter 24,
and so many other places that we've made mention of, And actually
take verses six through eight here, look at those verses with
me in Psalm 40. It says in Psalm 40, verse six,
sacrifice an offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou
opened, burnt offerings 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 God, yea, thy law is within
my heart." How can those words with without any violence to
scripture be applied to David in any way? How? There's no way. You cannot take those words and
apply them to David personally, not himself. He was never to
offer. He was a king. He certainly wasn't
to offer himself. And how could it be said when
he came into the world that he spoke these words, as it says
in Hebrews chapter 10, where it says, when he cometh into
the world, he saith, you know, a body now has prepared me. And then he goes on using the
same words here. He doesn't delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices for sin. The whole Old Testament priesthood,
according to Hebrews, was done away. It was only set up as a
shadow from the beginning by God And this was all proven by
these words here in Psalm chapter 40. How in the world could anyone
claim to be a theologian and not interpret this Psalm as applying
to the Lord Jesus Christ alone? I don't know. But that is what
John Calvin did. And so what do we learn from
that? Well, first of all, we learn
we have to hold teachers, preachers, theologians. It doesn't matter
how big your reputation or how important your name, and I'm
sure John Calvin himself would defer to anyone giving him accolades,
because he seemed like a very honest man. But how can you,
in honesty, interpret this Psalm as pertaining to anything but
the Lord Jesus Christ, given the New Testament. Secondly,
we learn that he was a sinner. John Calvin was a sinner. And
it's no wonder, because all men, as we read in Psalm 39, verse
5 last week, are but vanity at best. And the Apostle Paul himself
said, I'm the chief of sinners. So how could John Calvin be anything
more than the Apostle Paul? So that's enough said about John
Calvin, but I just make mention of that because we have to keep,
we have to keep, show respect to God's word, even though it
means we have to show disrespect to the interpretations of men.
Now we shouldn't feel bad about pointing out the errors of men
when they, go against the clear teaching of God's word. This
is not like we're being critical of them in some kind of an arrogant
way. No. This psalm is given to God's
church, and he's not going to distort it to keep from embarrassing
some man. He's not going to do that. All
right, so that's all said as by way of introduction. These
words cannot apply to David. They must be understood of the
Lord Jesus Christ alone. That's what I'm trying to say
here. OK, so let's go to verse one now and read this together.
It says in Psalm 40, verse one, I waited patiently for the Lord
and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up also
out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet
upon a rock, and established my goings." Now we see in the
introduction of this psalm really a summary, this is like other
psalms, a summary of the entire psalm in the first two verses.
He claims that The Lord Jesus Christ here, now that we've established
that, the Lord Jesus Christ is saying, I waited patiently for
the Lord. He inclined to me. He heard my
cry. He brought me up also out of
a horrible pit, the miry clay, put my feet on a rock, and established
my goings. What's he speaking about here?
Well, again, verses six and seven and eight of this psalm are the
key that unlocks the psalm. This psalm is about Christ doing
that momentous, that incomparable work, which was to do the will
of God, to offer himself for the salvation of his people and
to the glory of God. Okay? This is why he came. This
is why he came into the world. This is why he was sent. This
is what he was sent to do. The will of God. What is more
momentous than this? First, because it's the will
of God. Second, because it cost God his only begotten son. Third,
because the Lord Jesus Christ came and did it and had to lay
aside his reputation. Nothing can be even closely compared
to the importance of this. And that's why in the first two
verses, he summarizes the whole matter when he said, I waited
patiently for the Lord. He inclined unto me. He heard
my cry. This is speaking of the days
of his flesh when he was here doing the will of God. He waited,
he trusted God under every trouble, in every work God gave him to
do, every part of it. He patiently performed what he
was given to do. He submitted to the will of God,
even though it meant he himself would own the sins of his people
and be reproached in humiliation as the worst sinner. He would
even suffer the sense in his soul of being forsaken by God.
We can't understand it. When he cried, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And yet, that's what he's talking
about here. I waited, he trusted in the Lord,
as we pointed out before. No one else under the chastening
hand of God ever trusted like him. And certainly no one else
under the chastening of God's hand in pouring out the deserved
wrath against sinners on the Lord Jesus Christ would ever
love God for it. But he did those both. So he
heard his cry. Now we can see here that this
is speaking of our Savior in the days of his humiliation.
Think a bit. Think of this. Who is it that
David is speaking of? He's talking about God's anointed,
the King of Israel. And notice the place we find
God's anointed. He is waiting patiently for the
Lord. He is crying to his God and he's
waiting and he is in a horrible pit in the miry clay and God
has to lift him up. He has to deliver him out of
that pit, put his feet on a rock and establish his goings. This
is the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ that he submitted to this.
In order for him to be king, he had to first descend before
he could ascend, above all things. He had to descend in humility
and in humiliation. And at this point, I really want
to read John chapter 3 and verses 13 through 15 to you. In John
chapter 3, Jesus talking to Nicodemus, he said this, And we can quickly
see the overlap between these two things and what we just read
in Psalm 40. Let me get there. Psalm chapter
3 and verse 13. He says to Nicodemus, no man
has ascended up to heaven, but he that, notice, came down from
heaven even the Son of Man which is in heaven." He's speaking
about his success and his enthronement, his ascension, as he's talking
to Nicodemus. First, he's talking about his
descension, but he puts his ascension first because in order for him
to ascend, he had to first descend. But having descended, he's talking
about it as if he's already completed that and he is now in heaven
with the glory of his father. But then notice his humility
and his humiliation here. And notice how low the Lord Jesus
Christ says that he went. in John chapter 3 verse 14, and
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. Now this doesn't mean exalted
in the sense that we would think of an exaltation of honor, but
an exalted, I mean a lifting up of humiliation, a lifting
up of cursing, because he says, as the serpent in the wilderness.
And we know the serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness
was a serpent of brass. God commanded Moses when the
children of Israel had sinned against him and spoken against
him and spoken against Moses. And God sent fiery serpents among
them to bite them. And they died. And many who were
bitten, but not yet dead, cried to Moses. They cried out to Moses, we're
dying. And God told Moses, you take some brass, you heat it
up, you hammer it out, you fasten it to a cross, a pole, and you
hang it up and set it in the middle of the camp. And everyone
who looks on that serpent lifted up on the pole will live. And so Jesus applies it to himself. He's the one lifted up as a serpent
by God. And what do we think of in a
serpent? Reproach. We think of something that we
hate. Think of something that's cursed
by God, don't we? This is exactly what it was supposed
to represent. Christ cursed for his people
to redeem them from the law. And this curse came upon him
because he was made sin for us. And then he goes on in John 3,
verse 15, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. This is looking to the serpent,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the substitute, the one who bore our sins before
God. He stood in our place, bore our
sins, received the curse of God upon himself, and was lifted
up by God on the cross of cursing to be set forth for all of his
people to see, all the world to see, as a testimony of the
fact that God had made him to be sin for us. He laid on him
the iniquity of his people, and he was stricken for his people,
as it says in Isaiah 53, six through eight. Alright, so back
to Psalm 40 verses 1 through 2. Now we see here in this part
the Savior. We see our Savior to save us. He's mighty to save by His strength
in humbling Himself. The strength that enabled Him
to suffer humiliation out of the love of His heart for His
Father and for His people. That's what we see here. We see
the anointed of God, the King of Israel, stooping to take the
place of the condemned. What a thing this is. He's joined to our nature, he
goes into this horrible pit, and he patiently endures all
of the weakness of our nature under the affliction of God,
and he makes his supplications to the Lord, trusting his God
and Father in everything, and he was heard. He was heard. It
says so in Hebrews chapter 5, though he were a son, I mean,
in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and
supplications to God with strong crying and tears, and he was
heard in that he feared, he trusted God. Okay? All right. So let's go on. He says, I want
to make this comment too about this. He waited patiently for
the Lord. Think about this. Someone waited
patiently on the Lord. Someone did. Someone waited and
God heard a man. Now think about those two things. He waited. and God heard him,
and he was a man. But he was not just a man, he
was the one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ
Jesus. In 1 Timothy 3.16, great is the
mystery of godliness, without controversy, great is the mystery
of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh. There you have
it, the God-man, God in the flesh. God heard a man, God inclined
to a man, and this man waited patiently for the Lord, and God
heard him, inclined his ear to them. God looked to him. Remember in the sermon last Sunday,
we saw how that when Cain brought his offering, God did not look
to his offering and did not look to Cain. Abel brought an offering. God did look to his offering
and did look to Abel. Here the Lord Jesus Christ cries. He waits patiently. God looks
to him and he looks to his offering and therefore looks to his people.
So this is very important. Someone waited, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Someone was heard. God heard a man, our Savior,
our Mediator. He heard Him in the will that
God gave Him to do. He heard Him when He entered
into the pit to save sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ wasn't
thrown into the pit. He went down into the pit. And
if God hears my advocate, if he hears my intercessor, the
one mediator between God and men, and he hears my surety,
the Lord Jesus Christ, then he will deliver me because he heard
him. That's the gospel, right? We
didn't suffer for our own sins. This is the gospel. Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried. He
rose again the third day according to the scriptures. That's what
this scripture is telling us here. Okay? So, he waited in several ways. He waited under persecution.
He waited under God's chastening hand. He waited when he suffered
for sinners. He waited when he substituted
himself by the will of God to do all that he experienced as
the sacrifice for our sins. He waited. He waited. He waited. He just waited on the Lord. That's
trusting. that's waiting for God's will
to be done, to execute all that God was pleased to do in afflicting
him for his people. He waited patiently in order
to finish that work, and then he waited again to gather the
people that he died for. He waited until God would send
laborers into the harvest, and he waited patiently in the long-suffering
of God as he put up with this entire human history in this
world in order to save his elect. He waited. He waited. He waited
patiently. He waits for God to conform his
people into the image of his own dear son. He waits. He waits. And he knows that God will do
all of his will, and so we see our Savior in this. God hearkened
to a man, and he would not hear angels, he would not hear devils,
he wouldn't hear men. But he heard this man, didn't
he? He waited, and he heard the Lord Jesus Christ waited patiently. And then we also have, of course,
the Lord, our Master, whose example we follow. Now, he waited. the anointed of God, the king
of Israel. He waited. What are we who are
subjects in his kingdom? Are we above him? No. We also
have to wait. We also have to trust under all
these things God's will for us to do, God's will for us to endure. All of it, we wait. We wait on
his grace. We wait for his word. To come
to us, we look for it, we anticipate, we long for His comfort, we want
to see Christ. We want to see our Savior and
our salvation in Him. And so we daily wait for God's
Word like those who waited in the wilderness for manna from
heaven. We wait on God. And so we have
to wait. His troubles far exceed our own,
immeasurably so, and yet he waited. His afflictions were so much
more intense, and yet he trusted. And if he, the anointed and king,
trusted, then our comfort is that he trusted as our captain. He trusted as the one who stood
for us. And this also is our warrant
to trust him as those over whom God appointed him as captain.
Remember, he says in John 14, he says, you believe in God,
believe also in me. Do we need anything greater to
give us confidence that we can trust God, but that the Lord
Jesus Christ himself waited? And if we're his people, then
we ought to wait also. He was willing to stoop, willing
to serve, willing to give himself for his people, and he trusted
God in all that he did. So ought to we, okay? But when we do it, don't forget
this, just as the Lord Jesus Christ waited on God to give
him the time and the strength to do what God gave him to do,
so much more we need grace and strength to do God's will, to
believe on his Son. and to love him. Don't you pray,
I find myself so often praying, Lord, cause me to believe, cause
me to love the Lord Jesus Christ and all that that means. Okay. Verse two, he brought me up also
out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet
upon a rock and established my goings. What is this horrible
pit? What is this miry clay? Well, it's the bitter cup that
he drank, that God gave him to drink in Matthew 26 when he was
in the Garden of Gethsemane or in Isaiah 53 when it says he
was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with grief,
or in Philippians 2, where it says, he humbled himself. He
made himself of no reputation. He took on the form of a man
and a servant, and he obeyed, he submitted himself in obedience
unto death, even the death of the cross. And suffering is the
name of our Savior. He was a man of suffering and
sorrow. What a name for the Lord of glory. Remember Joseph? His brothers
hated him, they envied him, they accused him falsely and they
threw him into a pit. They didn't have any water and
then they didn't want him, they threw him into the pit because
they hated and envied him because he spoke of God's will in dreams
that they would bow to him. This is precisely what the Lord
Jesus, God gave him to do. He revealed that God's will was
to exalt him after having done the will of God and his own people. hated him. He came to his own,
his own received him not. Just as Joseph's brothers cast
him into a pit without water and lied to their father about
what they did, and just as He cried that they would bring
him out of the pit, but they wouldn't hear him. So the Lord
Jesus Christ here, he was thrown into this pit, this horrible
pit, this miry clay under the persecution of men, under the
cruel, merciless persecution of men by the will of God. By the will of God, it was God's
predetermined counsel and foreknowledge, Acts 2.23, that he suffered these
things in order to save us from our sins. That was the will of
God. He didn't. And so we read about
the sufferings of Christ throughout scripture. Lamentations 1.12
is one place where he says he's suffered more than any man. More than Job, more than any
man. Now remember Jonah? He cried
when he was cast into the sea and the great fish swallowed
him up. In Jonah chapter 2 it says, Jonah
prayed to the Lord his God out of the fish's belly and he said,
I cried by reason of mine affliction to the Lord. He heard me out
of the belly of hell, I cried. And thou heardest my voice, thou
hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the
floods compassed me about. All thy billows and thy waves
passed over me, and then I said, I am cast out of thy sight. Yet
I will look again toward thy holy temple, the waters compassed
me about, even to the soul. The depth closed me about. The
weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of
the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. Yet, thou hast brought up my
life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee,
into thy holy temple." Salvation is of the Lord. Okay? So what's
he saying here? Remember what Jesus said about
Jonah? As Jonah was three days, three nights in the belly of
the whale, so the son of man must be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth. He's talking about his own experience
in this horrible pit. Joseph, Jonah, all pointing to
the Lord Jesus Christ under his sufferings to make atonement
for our sins, to offer himself to God according to what he says
in verse 6, 7, and 8 here. So we see that the first two
verses here are not disjointed from the rest of the psalm. They're
a summary of it. They're recalling to mind how
he waited patiently under this. He came to do God's will. He
did it and waited patiently in order to receive what God had
promised to him in the gathering in of his people. And then how
he came and did the will of God. It was in the horrible pit and
a miry clay. The comparison there is made
in order to do the will of God for us to save us for our sins.
OK. All right. Now, I want to point
out here, too, that since this is the anointed king, the king
of Israel, God's anointed, that was thrown into a horrible pit,
this teaches us something about what happens to us in life and
what happens a lot of times when we're reading scripture. I want
to show you this in a couple of Psalms. The point here is
that the king of kings was made a man of sorrows. The Creator
became the crucified. You see this? The Holy One was
made sin for us. The Lawgiver came under the curse
of His law. The Lord of all became a servant
to His people and gave His life a ransom for many. And He alone,
whose right it is to rule, made obedience in submission to the
will of God His rule of life. Think about those things. Why
does God, think about this question, why does God promise so much
that's unfailing and eternal and unchanging in his promises
of life and blessings on his people and all the good that
he would bring them and then in scripture and in our own experience,
why then does it seem the very opposite happens? where we receive
suffering and trouble and disappointments and frustrations. It seems like
there's a dryness in your soul, a thirst, when it should be rivers
of water springing up in your belly, all these things, right?
Why does it seem like the very opposite of what God promises
in the scripture, and scripture itself tells us this, happens
to God's people, and let me give you a couple of examples of this.
Look at Psalm 89. In Psalm 89, and the reason I
mention this is because that's what's happening here in this
psalm. The anointed king has made sin, and he is offering
himself in sacrifice. Psalm 89, this helps us to interpret
not only scripture, but also to see the glory of God in what
He did here and in our own lives. In Psalm 89, look at verse, you
should read the whole Psalm to get the sense of it. But in Psalm
39, it says, 89, I'm sorry. He says, verse 35, listen to
this. Psalm 89, verse 35. Psalm 89
is God's promise concerning Christ. Once, God says, once have I sworn
by my holiness that I will not lie to David. That's speaking
of Christ. His seed shall endure forever. His throne as the sun before
me. It shall be established forever
as the moon and as a faithful witness in the heaven, Selah. Now look at verse 38. The very
opposite of what he just said seems to be what he's about to
say here. But thou hast cast off and abhorred. Thou hast been wroth with thine
anointed. Thou hast made void the covenant
of thy servant. Wait a minute. God just said
he swore with an oath. He's not going to lie to David.
But here he says, he made void the covenant of thy servant.
Thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.
Thou hast broken down all his hedges. Thou hast brought his
strongholds to ruin. All that pass by the way spoil
him. He is a reproach to his neighbors. Thou hast set up the
right hand of his adversaries. Thou hast made his enemies to
rejoice. Thou hast also turned the edge
of his sword and has not made him to stand in the battle. And
we could just keep going through this. Look at verse 44. Now has
made his glory to cease and has cast his throne down to the ground. Wow, this seems very opposite,
doesn't it? It is. Why? Why is this the opposite? Well, look also at Psalm 44,
same kinds of thing. Psalm chapter 44. You can hold
your place in Psalm 89 if you want to. Psalm 44, let's see
here. In Psalm 44, I wanna point out
in verse four through eight, look at this. Psalm 44, verse
four. Thou art my king, O God. Command
deliverances for Jacob. Through thee will we push down
our enemies. Through thy name will we tread
them under that rise up against us, for I will not trust in my
bow, neither shall my sword save me, but thou hast saved us from
our enemies and has put them to shame that hated us. In God
we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever. Selah. Okay, the very same Psalm now,
look at verse nine, the very next verse, but thou hast cast
off. and put us to shame, and goest
not forth with our armies, thou makest us to turn back from the
enemy, and they which hate us spoil for themselves. Thou hast
given us like sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered
us among the heathen. And then look at verse 22, we'll
get to the point here. Yea, for thy sake we are killed
all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Now,
why does God do this? Why does God, in His own word,
make promises which are eternal, immutable, of good and of blessings,
swearing by an oath, and in the next verses, immediately following
in the same context of the same psalm, says the very opposite
is happening. Why does He do this? Isn't it not for this reason,
and you can apply this to your own life, as this verse here
in Psalm 44, 22 says, we're counted as sheep for this love. Isn't
it for this purpose? Isn't it because God created
the world for the cross? in order to show His glory in
His condescending, saving grace and mercy in incomprehensible
love, to bring us up from the pit of our sin by laying all
of our sin on the Lord Jesus Christ in truth and righteousness
and justice and in power to deliver him and us from sin and death,
Satan and this world, that he might show his great mercy to
his people in their undeservedness, and also his power over the enemy. And all of it is by His wisdom,
according to His holiness, and to the praise of the glory of
His grace. If this is God's way, then we
see Him and we know Him in the valley as well as on the mountain,
in the dark as well as the light, in the night as well as the day. Don't we? God doesn't change. He is the same. And He is eternal. And His word is true from the
beginning. Every one of His righteous judgments
endures forever. God will save. He sets forth
the cross as His glory. He sets forth Christ in submitting
to that, trusting Him and patiently waiting on His God. and His answer
to Him as our salvation. Now, we're gonna have to stop
here. I don't wanna rush through the
rest of this psalm. I thought we were gonna actually
get through the entire psalm tonight, but I so far misunderestimate. Let me note here that I'm on
page six of my notes, so next time when I write up the Bible
study, I'll only write six pages. I'm just saying that as an aside. Okay, this is a glorious psalm. No doubt, this is one of the
preeminent psalms in all of Scripture. Psalm 110, I think, is mentioned
more than any other psalm in Scripture. It's about Christ,
our High Priest, who is David's Son and David's Lord. and his
gathering of his people and his own glory in their salvation.
Psalm 44 is the same subject. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, our
King, God's anointed, stooping to take our place under our sins
in the reproach and humiliation of his sufferings and death at
the hand of God, by the will of God, that he might exalt his
justice and righteousness and truth in our salvation. What
a glorious psalm it is. And we're gonna hopefully see
more of it next week. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your great glory in the cross of our Savior. You set forth
your wisdom and holiness, your truth and righteousness and justice
right alongside without compromise, but in the magnifying of your
grace and mercy and truth in these things to save your people
from their sins and silence their enemies. and all for our eternal
blessings to bring us as your sons, to conform us to the image
of your dear son. We pray that you would make these
things true to our hearts by your Holy Spirit, so that we
might, like the Lord Jesus Christ, wait patiently for the Lord, bring our cry and our supplication
to him, knowing that in Christ he has heard us, inclined his
ear to us forever. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.