Psalm 40, 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. 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. 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 thy
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, and 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 come
past 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 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."
Now this psalm is very clearly a prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we looked at the passage in Hebrews, the tenth chapter
of Hebrews, where this is quoted, and of course speaking directly
of Christ in that place and I have no doubt that this is the prayer
of Christ. And of course there are some
things in it that become difficult for us to comprehend, but as
we view and understand the humanity of Christ and how human He was,
now it's kind of foolish to say how human He was because somebody's
human You know, they're human. But it's difficult for us, I
suppose the hardest thing for men to comprehend is the humanity
of Christ. Now the unbeliever, he has no
problem comprehending the humanity of Christ because he doesn't
see Him as anything else. So he just believes there was
a man, Jesus, that walked upon the earth and he went about and
he did some things and people didn't like him and they killed
him and that was it. I mean, that's kind of how the
natural man thinks, the unbeliever. But the man who has been caused
to believe and caused to understand the deity of Christ, the fact
that He is God, the very God, that He walked among men and
revealed the Father unto men, it is almost impossible for us
to wrap our head around the concept of the fact that He was human
and how human He was. I mean, he was human. He is human. He is that one who has taken
upon himself the likeness of sinful flesh. Yet we know he
was without sin of any kind, being of his own. But yet, in
all aspects in which a man can be a man, he is a man, and he
has undergone the same thought processes
that the thoughts of men. He learned obedience by the things
which he suffered. Now that's a passage of Scripture
that can cause you to stop and think about things, and how can
that be? He who knows all things, how
could he learn anything? And I know the great scholars,
they've got all these explanations that tell us how that is, Sometimes
when we get too deep into the consideration of how these things
are, we lose the wonder and the amazement that it is so. It is
true that He did learn obedience by the things which He suffered.
He underwent that. Now He didn't do that in order
to gain for Himself, but He did that because of us. All the things
that He bore, He bore for us. He carried our griefs, He bore
our sorrows. And so, He says, Lo, I come,
and the volume of the book, it is written of Me. Now, we must
never forget, and again, this is something that the natural
man will never grasp. That is, the man who has no understanding
of Christ, he'll never get this. He'll look at the book and he'll
read it and he might even find some profit in it. And he'll
look through it and he'll find good advice. He'll find laws
that need to be adhered to. And he'll see all of these things.
But he'll never understand and comprehend that this book is
not just a great piece of literature, which it is. It absolutely is,
in my estimation, the finest piece of literature that has
ever been penned. I mean, there is no book that
is even close in the earth, penned by men, that can match the glory
and beauty of this just from a human standpoint. Now, I do
not know if any of you all have ever read other texts that purport
themselves to be Scriptures. And I'm not, you know, knocking
others or trying to pull them down or anything else, but you
can read some other holy books that people say are, and you
lay them side by side with this, and if you honestly look at them,
you have to say, well, that's a bunch of gibberish. What in
the world could it possibly mean? But this is pretty clear, is
it not? I mean, it's set forth because it is the Word of God.
But he says here, lo, I come, the volume of the book, it is
written of me. From the very first words on
the very first page in this book is speaking of Jesus Christ.
in the beginning God. He made all things as you read
that scripture a while ago, that He created all things. By Him
they were created. For Him they were created. And
the volume of the book, this book, every page in it points
to Christ because it is a book about Christ. It is a book for
Christ. It is a book that sets forth
the glory of Christ in no uncertain terms. Now only those privileged
to see by the eye of faith granted by the Lord can comprehend that. A man without faith, he reads
this book, and like I say, he sees good advice in it. And there
is some good advice in here. You know, if you ordered your
life just from a natural standpoint, if you ordered your life according
to the things that are in this book, you would be a person who
would, if you honestly did do those things, you would have
a wonderful life. Now we know by the reality of
the fact is because of the nature of man, men will not adhere to
this. They will not abide by it, but
we say if they did, because it is good advice. But it's not
advice that men will follow, and therefore, It is in some
ways useless to give it to men as advice, because you can tell
men, love your neighbor as yourself. Now, does that give a man power
to do that? No. I mean, you can know you
need to do that all day long, but that's not going to enable
you to do it. Only the grace of God applied
through the power of the Spirit of God can cause a man to love
his neighbor as himself, and then only imperfectly because
of the imperfect nature that we have. But of course, we know
the Lord Jesus Christ was that One who could truly say, I delight
to do Thy will, O my God. That's what He came into the
world to do, was to do the will of the Father. He said that. He said, I wouldn't do anything
else. He says, I came to do the will
of Him that sent me, and such He has. He says, I have preached
righteousness. in the great congregation. Lo,
I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest." Now, the
Lord Jesus Christ came speaking truth, and He came speaking the
truth to every man, just like we are sent to preach the gospel
to every creature. We are not to pick and choose,
well, I am going to preach to these, but I am not going to
preach to those. He said, preach the gospel to every creature.
We preach the Word of God. We set it forth. The Lord Jesus
Christ preached the Word. The Word was scattered abroad.
Now, only by the grace of God can a man hear the Word. Many
hear the Word. I mean, there is a Bible preaching
going on all over the country today. And some of it might even
be good Bible preaching. A lot of it is. But there is
some bad Bible preaching. I mean, just because somebody
opens up the Bible and starts preaching out of it does not
mean that is good. Does it? Because if somebody
is telling somebody something that the Bible really does not
say, even though they say it says it, it is not good. But
there is. good preaching that goes on.
But dear brethren, preaching without the grace of God to open
the ears of those who He would have to hear it, it falls on
deaf ears, does it not? I mean, they cannot hear the
Word of God except the Lord open their ear to hear it. But that
does not in any wise cause us to be less mindful to declare
the Word of God. I heard a guy say one time, well,
if I knew who the elect were, I'd just go preach to them. Well,
he would be doing the wrong thing, because the Lord didn't say,
go preach to the elect. He said, preach to the world.
You see, we preach to the nations. We declare the Word of God. And
we know, as Luke pointed out there in I believe it was about
the thirteenth chapter of Acts, he said, And when the Gentiles
heard this, they rejoiced, and as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. I've never heard too many preachers
preach on that text. The ones I have usually took
it and tried to make it say something that it didn't say. They said,
you know, those that believed were ordained to eternal life.
That's not what the Scripture says. It's not what it says in
the original language and it's not what it says in the English
language. As many as were ordained to eternal
life believed it. And dear brethren, we know that
when we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, that as many as
are ordained to eternal life shall believe it. They are not
going to get eternal life because they believe it, but they are
going to believe it because they are ordained to eternal life.
Now that is a glorious thing. And dear brethren, if you find
within yourself a heart to believe the Word of God, that's a rejoicing
thing. You need to give thanks every
day that God has given you a mind and a heart to believe the things
that He said. Because all people don't. A lot
of people could care less. They're just going on their way.
They'd rather sleep. 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." I manifested it,
he said. This is the Lord Jesus speaking.
I set it forth. You know, here is a man that
went about doing good. He manifested the righteousness
of God. Isn't that what the Lord said?
He said, I'll make my goodness pass before thee. What has the
Lord shown unto men but His goodness? Every day. I mean, the goodness
of God. The Scripture says that the goodness
of God leadeth thee to repentance. Well, I thought it was hellfire
and brimstone preaching. You know, to tell people that
heaven is so high and hell is so hot and they'll get scared
and then they'll believe. I mean, no, the goodness of God
leadeth thee to repentance. You see, the thing that breaks
a man's heart is the grace of God. When a man is shown the
mercy of God to sinners, that's what breaks a believer's heart,
the goodness of God. And he said, 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. Now
he is not saying that in the fashion in which he considers
that the Lord is going to remove his lovingkindness. See, if we
believe the promises of God, We believe the Lord has an everlasting
love for His people. We don't think that He's going
to remove His lovingkindness from us, but what's our desire?
The Lord don't remove your lovingkindness from us. I mean, it's like when
somebody that we love, we believe they love us, but we want them
to love us, do we not? I mean, that's our desire. That's
the thing that's within us. A man can't make that up. Let
thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me. Keep
me back from my secret sins. That is what David prayed. Withhold
not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord, for innumerable evils
have come past me about. Now you think that you are beset
by troubles in this world You have never been beset by anything
compared to that which the Lord Jesus Christ was beset by day
after day after day after day. Every day of His life He was
acquainted with sorrow because of the opposition and the sin
that was laid upon Him. You see, the opposition of men
to Him as a perfect man and as the perfect Lamb of God, but
yet being in his mind and in his soul weighed down with the
sin of those whom he came to bear. See, by that he bore the
sin. I do not know if we get that,
that every day the weight of sin was upon him. Every day the
sorrow caused by sin was upon Him. He bore it. He felt it. He knew it. Far greater than
any of us should ever know. For innumerable evils have come
past me, about mine iniquities have taken hold upon me. How
could He say that? Because He took our sin upon
Him. He imputed our sin to Himself. He took it. into its bosom, mine
iniquities are taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look
up. They are more than the hairs
of mine head." If you think your sins are more than the hairs
of your head, think of the sin that was laid upon the Lord Jesus
Christ as He bore the sin of all of His people. Not just yours, not just mine,
but each one. for whom he came to save. Therefore
my heart faileth me." Now, the scripture says that no man
took the Lord's life from him, but he laid it down. But it was
his heart that quit. Now they say, And, of course,
this is getting in some more to some of man's scientific thought
and process, and when they pierced his side that the water and blood
came out of his side, and some have said that that's a classic
sign of when a heart fails, that that's the way that it is, the
fluid builds up in the chest. I don't know about all that,
but I do know this, the Lord Jesus Christ did indeed die with
a broken heart, because He ultimately bore our sorrow. And it pressed
upon Him, and He was as one in a vice. He was crushed in that. Therefore my heart faileth me.
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me, O Lord, make haste to help
me. Would not a man whose reliance
is totally upon the Lord say such a thing? I mean, what else
would he pray? I've got it. I'm fine. I'm doing
great. No. He said, Lord, help me. I can't do this alone. Now, a
lot of the preaching that goes on today is certainly encouraging,
oh, you can do this. You know, you can do it. You've
just got to have faith. You've just got to get with it
and stand and do all these things. Well, dear Brian, you can't.
I'm here to tell you. We can't. And if you rely on
your own strength in any sense, you will fail. It's not you,
but it is His strength alone that can cause you to stand.
Oh Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed. and confound
it together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them
be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil." Now
who did he pray that prayer for? He prayed that prayer for us.
He prayed that prayer because, you see, he being a perfect man,
he being that one who is robed in the righteousness of God,
He has the right, does He not, to breathe out just judgment
upon His enemies? Yet He told us to pray for them
which despisably use us. And He did indeed pray for those
that despisably used Him, but He also, to show that He is that
One who is the righteous judge, He commences with this word of
judgment, and He said, that let them be ashamed and confound
together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Now, he said that
his life, he laid it down, but he said wicked men, according
to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, did indeed
crucify him. So you see, It is the wickedness
of man that put the Lord Jesus Christ to death, even though
He laid down His life. And as He told Pilate, you don't
have any power at all over me. He says, I've got power to lay
down my life and to take it again, and there's not a thing in the
world you can do about it. Let them be desolate for a reward
of their shame that say unto me, Aha! Aha! Now sometime back,
had written one of the Grace Gazettes and mentioned something
of this in there. Men often talk about the Lord's
sense of humor. Now, I'm not going to get into
all that, but the Scripture does speak about the Lord laughing.
But the laughter that the Scripture speaks about the Lord doing has
nothing to do with humor. He shall laugh at them. He shall
have them in derision. The Lord takes delight in the
destruction of His enemies. Now, if He doesn't have, does
it take place? If it's not according to the
good pleasure of His will. Now see, we get uneasy when we
start because, you know, men think they can sit in judgment
on God, and they say, well, it would be alright if God does
this, but I mean, if He did like this, it wouldn't be right. Whatever
heaven and God will do according to His will, an army of heaven
among the heavens and the earth, and there is not even a place
of standing wherein you could cast one aspersion against Him. Is it not right for Him to do?
Will not the judge of all the earth do right? Of course he
will. But he'll do right according
to his standard of right, not yours, not mine. In other words,
I can't say to God, well, you shouldn't do that. Well, that
wouldn't be right if God did this. See, a lot of people say,
well, that's not fair. You know, God's not fair. Who
gave you the place to say what's fair and what's not fair? I mean,
you see, God is the absolute judge. And He said, let them
be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto Me, Aha!
Aha! Those that say, Aha! Aha! Look
at you! And did they not mock? Well, the Lord said, I will mock
when your fear cometh. And those that have said, Aha!
Aha! to Him, He will say, Aha! Aha! to them in that final day. Let all those that seek Thee,
however, Rejoice, and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy
salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, The Lord be magnified. Because you see, that's
the place, is it not, when a man loves the salvation of God, is
that not, and he knows it's the salvation of God, Does he not
want the Lord to be magnified? I mean, do you want somebody
to pat you on the back? Well, brother, I'm glad that
you let the Lord save you. No, dear brother, we know we're
snatched as brands from the burning. There's nothing that somebody
can pat us on the back and say, well, you did a good job. I mean,
we're going to put you up here in the hall of fame of faith
because of all this that you have set forth to do for the
Lord. No. Let all that such as love
thy salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified. Who else would we want to be
magnified? Who else would we want lifted
up? to have our name put on the end
of the pew. Old Brother So-and-So, he was
faithful, and he came to church every week. And here he is, and
we put a name up on a plaque in the back, and we have, you
know, the roll of honor. Do you want your name on there?
On your tombstone, he was a faithful servant. Is that what you want
on there? Let the name of the Lord be magnified. Let the name of men be forgotten.
I mean, just let us all just go into the dust and let Christ
be magnified. Because He is the only one worthy,
dear brethren. Where would we be had not Christ
come? We would have been destroyed. I mean, we would have just been
a blimp. You know, that would be it. But
because Christ came. We have life. And we have that
life abundantly. Oh, that His name might be magnified. Let such as love thy salvation.
The world is not going to do that. I mean, the world wants
people to remember Him. Oh man, you know, they want a
bridge named after Him, or they want a building. All these politicians,
you know, they tell us we are such servants and all this, and
behind the scenes they are working to have all this stuff done so
people won't forget all the things they did. Well, I hope people
do forget the things I've done. I hope it just goes in the ground
with me. But oh, that the name of Christ
would be exalted, that what He's done might be remembered, the
Lord be magnified. But I am poor and needy, yet
the Lord thinketh upon me. Dear brethren, that is those
whom the Lord thinks upon. the broken and the contrite heart,
he will not. The Scripture says he will not
despise. He dwells. The Scripture says
he inhabiteth eternity, but also with those of a broken and contrite
heart. The Lord will not forget the
poor needy. When the Lord preached the Sermon
on the Mount, the first thing He said was, Blessed are what? The poor, for theirs is the kingdom
of God. Blessed are the poor. Oh, to
be found among the poor and the needy. See, not the powerful,
the mighty and the greedy, but the needy. See, people don't
like to think of themselves as needy. Well, I'm not needy. I've got something to offer to
the Lord. Why, I can do things for the Lord. I'll show folks
what all I can do for the Lord. I'm going to do it for the Lord.
Well, dear brethren, the Lord loves those who fall before Him,
crying out to their to Him as ones who are in places of need.
I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me." Now here's
the Lord Jesus Christ confessing that He's poor and needy. And
yet He owned all things. He had everything. Who was He
poor and needy for? For you and I. He said, Lord, I'm poor and needy. Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. O swiftly arise, dear Lord. Come,
save us, help us. And the Spirit and the Bride
say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. The Lord is the Savior of sinners. And He, save as such, has called
upon His name. What a glorious Lord we have. He said, I'll be gracious to
whom I will be gracious. Now some people take a front
at that. They say, well, what do you mean
you'll show mercy to whom you will show? We're all worthy of
mercy. Have you ever thought of yourself
as worthy of mercy? I mean, what a contradiction
of terms. I mean, if you're worthy of mercy,
then it can't be mercy. See, mercy is shown to those
that aren't worthy of it. And when you know yourself to
be unworthy of the least of the Lord's mercies, then and only
then can you rejoice in the abundance of His mercies, even as the Lord
says here, 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." Now, merch is often made of the
words, and I can't even remember if this was Festus or Felix or Agrippa. It was one
of them anyway. And they said to Paul, He says,
almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And some folks
say, well, you know, he almost talked him into it. Well, here's
the thing. When the Lord begins to work
in a man's heart, he won't be like that. He won't be saying,
well, I'll hear about this later. But he's going to be more like
the old jailer who rushed in. to that cell and he said, Sir,
what must I do to be saved? Oh, make no tearing, oh my God. Come unto me. Help me, Lord.
Blind Bartimaeus, as he sat by the roadside, and they said,
quiet down. This is Jesus passing by. Quiet
down. Jesus! Our son of David! Have mercy on me! Help me! You see, when the Spirit of God
comes upon a man, it won't be a nice little thing. It will be him crying with all
that's within his soul, O God, help me. Save me, Lord, or I
perish. That's Peter when he sunk beneath
those waves. And he saw himself in no situation
other than in a place of need before Almighty God. Or that
the Lord might give us a heart to call upon Him. He saved us
such as call on His name in time of need.