40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.<\/p>\n
40:2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.<\/p>\n
40:3 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.<\/p>\n
40:4 Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.<\/p>\n
40:5 You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.<\/p>\n
40:6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.<\/p>\n
40:7 Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.<\/p>\n
40:8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”<\/p>\n
40:9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.<\/p>\n
40:10 I have not hidden your saving help 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.<\/p>\n
40:11 Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.<\/p>\n
Psalm 40 is a heartfelt psalm written by someone who was in a dire place and then was redeemed by the Lord. Steven J Cole wrote a bit on Psalm 40 and what it means to wait on the Lord while you are in the pit. Let us take a look at the wise words from Mr. Cole.<\/p>\n
David says (Ps. 40:1<\/a>), \u201cI waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.\u201d Waiting on the Lord is a common theme in Scripture. For example,\u00a0Psalm 37:7<\/a>: \u201cRest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.\u201d Again,\u00a0Psalm 37:9<\/a>: \u201cFor evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.\u201d And again,\u00a0Psalm 37:34<\/a>: \u201cWait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.\u201d But, what does it mean to \u201cwait\u201d on the Lord? Our psalm gives us at least seven clues:<\/p>\n The Hebr<\/span>ew of verse 1 is an intensified form of the verb, literally, \u201cWaiting, I waited.\u201d The New English Bible translates it, \u201cI waited, waited for the Lord.\u201d It\u2019s not a passive, ho-hum kind of waiting, like you do at the doctor\u2019s office when you thumb through a bunch of magazines to pass the time. Rather, it is an intently active time when your situation in the pit tunes your heart to the Lord in ways that you would not normally experience. It means to wait expectantly as you hope for God\u2019s promises to be fulfilled on your behalf. The more intense your situation, the more intently you wait upon the Lord to fulfill His promises.<\/p>\n God\u2019s timing often does not coincide with our timing. We want it done instantly, but God has other purposes. But when you\u2019re in a pit, there is a sense of urgency. In verse 1, David mentions his\u00a0cry<\/em>, which may have been as simple as, \u201cHelp, Lord!\u201d In verse 13, he directly cries out, \u201cBe pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; make haste, O Lord, to help me.\u201d In verse 17, he repeats, \u201cSince I am afflicted and needy, let the Lord be mindful of me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.\u201d<\/p>\n One reason we often do not cry out to God for deliverance is that we do not see ourselves as afflicted and needy. This is especially true in the case of those who do not see their own need for salvation from God\u2019s judgment. They\u2019re like the guy I mentioned last week, who saw himself as a \u201cgood sinner.\u201d Good sinners may admit that they need a little assistance now and then, but they don\u2019t need a Savior. You don\u2019t need a Savior unless you are helpless at the bottom of a slimy pit. Because our tendency, even after salvation, is to think that we can do it ourselves, the Lord graciously keeps putting us in one pit after another, so that we cry out to Him.<\/p>\n In verse 3, David expresses his hope that because of his testimony of waiting on the Lord, others will also come to trust in Him. In verse 4, as we\u2019ve seen, he mentions how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust. In verse 11, some versions translate it as a prayer. The NIV, for example, translates, \u201cDo not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your love and your truth always protect me.\u201d But Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72<\/a><\/em>\u00a0[IVP], p. 160) says that unquestionably it is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0a prayer; it\u2019s a statement or reaffirmation of trust: (NASB) \u201cYou, O Lord, will not withhold Your compassion from me; Your lovingkindness and Your truth will continually preserve me.\u201d Waiting on the Lord means, \u201cLord, You\u2019re my\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0hope for deliverance.\u201d<\/p>\n So waiting on the Lord is not just a passive biding your time. It is an active crying out to the Lord, trusting Him to answer because of His love and compassion.<\/p>\n Waiting on the Lord gives you time to think. But you\u2019ve got to direct your mind to think about the right things. If you think, \u201cOh no, God has abandoned me! I\u2019m doomed!\u201d you will either panic or turn to the world for help. But if you think about God\u2019s many wonders and how He has worked in the past to deliver His people, you will wait with expectant hope in Him.<\/p>\n As David waits on the Lord, he thinks about who God is and what He has done. He says (v. 5), \u201cMany, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count.\u201d Maybe David was thinking about the wonders of creation (see\u00a0Ps. 104<\/a>). God established the earth so that it is hospitable for us to live here. He placed the earth at the proper distance from the sun, so that we do not burn up or freeze. He waters the earth, providing crops for our food. He preserves us from many catastrophes that we don\u2019t even know about. I heard recently that a meteorite came uncomfortably close to earth. If it had hit, it would have wreaked major damage. And yet I never heard any newsman giving thanks to God for preserving us from destruction!<\/p>\n David also was probably thinking about God\u2019s many wonderful acts of delivering His people from trouble. He brought them out of Egypt in the Exodus. He preserved them in the wilderness. He enabled them to conquer the powerful Canaanite nations and occupy the Promised Land. He saved them time and again from powerful foes that threatened to destroy them. On the personal level, David had seen God deliver him from the bear and the lion, not to mention from Goliath and from Saul\u2019s repeated attempts to kill him. If you have known the Lord for any length of time, you can think back to many times when you were brought low and the Lord delivered you. So as you wait on Him now in whatever pit you may be in, recount His many wonders and His kind thoughts toward you. Truly, there is none to compare with Him!<\/p>\n \u201cSacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; my ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required. Then I said, \u2018Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The thought of verses 6-8 in the context is (I am following J. J. S. Perowne,\u00a0The Book of Psalms<\/em>[Zondervan], p. 335), \u201cMy heart is full of Your abundant goodness towards me. How can I express it? In times past, I might have thought that an offering was the proper thing to do. But now I realize that what You really desire is an obedient heart that delights to do Your will.\u201d In other words, David is affirming what Samuel told the disobedient King Saul (1 Sam. 15:22<\/a>), \u201cHas the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.\u201d<\/p>\n As you know, the author of Hebrews applies these verses to Jesus (Heb. 10:5-7<\/a>). There, the author quotes the LXX, which translates the second line of verse 6, \u201ca body You have prepared for Me.\u201d This was apparently an interpretive paraphrase, where they used a part (the ear) and expanded it to the whole body (F. F. Bruce,\u00a0Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews<\/em>[Eerdmans], p. 232). The Hebrew text (of\u00a0Ps. 40:6<\/a>) is literally, \u201cMy ears You have dug.\u201d It has wrongly been interpreted to refer to the master\u2019s piercing the servant\u2019s ear with an awl (a different Hebrew word;\u00a0Exod. 21:6<\/a>;\u00a0Deut. 15:17<\/a>). But the idea here is that God opened the ear of His servant so that he would be obedient to His Word, which was in David\u2019s heart. Applied to Jesus, that obedience was unto the cross (see\u00a0Isa. 50:5-7<\/a>).<\/p>\n The application for us is that when we\u2019re in a pit, we must focus on continuing to obey the Lord, even if He does not deliver us quickly. The devil will tempt us to give up trusting in the Lord and to seek fulfillment in other ways. He will whisper, \u201cGod isn\u2019t meeting your needs. If you want to get a mate, why keep waiting on the Lord? Look at all these nice, available non-Christians who could meet your needs!\u201d Keep obeying God\u2019s Word as you wait.<\/p>\n \u201cLet all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; let those who love Your salvation say continually, \u2018The Lord be magnified!\u2019\u201d In this context, seeking the Lord is a synonym for crying out to Him in expectant prayer. If you\u2019re seeking the Lord and not just deliverance from your pit, you won\u2019t forget about God after He delivers you. Sadly, many \u201cuse\u201d God like Aladdin\u2019s Genie and put Him back on the shelf when they get what they want. But here, the reason that David waits on the Lord and seeks Him is so that He will be magnified, or glorified. If David turned to some human scheme for deliverance, then David and his ingenuity would get the credit. By seeking the Lord alone, when the Lord answers, He gets the credit.<\/p>\n No doubt, David was rejoicing and glad about his deliverance when it came, but he makes the point here to rejoice and be glad\u00a0in You<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cin the Lord\u201d). The joy is not just in the deliverance, but in the Lord who delivers. It means finding God as our eternal treasure, so that we rejoice in all that He is, as well as in all that He does for us.<\/p>\n So when you\u2019re in the pit, wait intently on the Lord. Don\u2019t turn to the world for answers. Turn to the Lord. Waiting on Him means crying out to Him; trusting Him; recounting His many wonders; obeying Him; seeking Him; and rejoicing in Him.<\/p>\n (Source: Bible.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n [Featured image from mygodandmydog.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scripture Reading(s) Psalm 40:1-11 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 40:2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. 40:3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2280],"tags":[6955,35,6110,6111,2410,2286,2346,5551,2344,5552,2284,2281,5550,2285,302,6112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}(1). WAITING ON THE LORD IS INTENTLY ACTIVE, NOT PASSIVE (40:1).<\/h5>\n
(2). WAITING ON THE LORD MEANS TO CRY OUT TO HIM FOR DELIVERANCE (40:1, 13, 17).<\/h5>\n
(3). WAITING ON THE LORD MEANS TRUSTING HIM ALONE (40:3, 4, 11).<\/h5>\n
(4). WAITING ON THE LORD MEANS RECOUNTING HIS MANY WONDERS AND HIS PROVIDENTIAL CARE (40:5).<\/h5>\n
(5). WAITING ON THE LORD MEANS OBEYING HIM (40:6-8).<\/h5>\n
(6). WAITING ON THE LORD MEANS SEEKING HIM (40:16).<\/h5>\n
(7). WAITING ON THE LORD MEANS REJOICING IN HIM (40:16).<\/h5>\n
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