Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we pray that you will quieten our hearts in your presence, that you will clarify our minds by your word, that you will speak into our spirits by your truth, that you will humble us under your mighty hand, that in due season by your grace we also may be exalted. And so, with listening ears and expectant spirits, we wait upon you, O Lord, hereas we pray and speak to us for Jesus Christ our Savior's sake. Amen. As I read the 40th Sam which it will be helpful for you to have opened before you this morning, as I read it, I think of a man in England whom I know, who in the mid-1990s achieved high office in British politics, who served in the conservative cabinet, who was tipped by the media pundits of the late 1990s as a potential Prime Minister. But in those years was also tried for and convicted of perjury. He was bankrupted, imprisoned, and divorced. And later wrote his autobiography, cleverly entitled Pride and Perjury. But in the midst of all this or otherwise I probably would not have mentioned him wonderfully, he became a Christian believer. And I remember him saying how in the darkest days of his life, as everything around him was crumbling, as truly he felt himself to be in the pit and his feet caught in the myri clay. He learned he said in prison to pray the Sam's. Not simply to know the Sam's or to have the Sam's read to him or to recite the Sam's in the liturgy of the church, but to pray the Sam's into his own life, to make them his own. And the 40 of Sam in that context is a particularly remarkable Sam because it is precisely this that the Samist himself is doing. Those of you who are very familiar with the Psalter will know that the closing verses of Sam's 40 reappear later in the Sam as Sam's 70. Although I think quite certainly the 70 of Sam was written before the 40 of Sam. It has evidences here and there of having been written earlier, underlining for us that what the Samist is doing here is the very kind of thing we sometimes do in prayer when as we are praying and expressing our needs and finding words difficult we will default to the Lord's prayer. Oh God, forgive me my debts, lead me not into temptation, deliver me from evil. Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory. We make the Lord's prayer our own prayer. And it is in a wonderful way precisely that the Samist is doing here in the course of Sam's 40. As he struggles with what besets him as he becomes conscious of his need, he reaches into the Word of God that he knows. And particularly as he closes the Sam, he makes the words of God his own words and is essentially saying to the Lord, make this word of yours, my word, make this experience of your grace, my experience of your grace. As we look at the Sam, I think you will notice that while like every other Sam, it's a truism to say, it seems to begin in the first verse, like many Sam's, this Sam begins not in the first verse, but right at the middle of the Sam. It's in the middle of the Sam that he tells us why originally this Sam came into existence. And so the Sam really begins not in verse 1, but in verse 12, where the Samist describes his present spiritual condition. Evil has encompassed me beyond number. Iniquities have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, my heart, fails me. O Lord, be pleased to deliver me. Interesting to notice, like so many of the Sam's, there is no context given for this Sam, because the whole point in writing it is not to describe his particular context, but to help me, to help you, to help his contemporaries in their particular context, to declare God's way of salvation to the whole congregation, as he says. You'll notice how, as is through other parts of the scriptures, their language to describe the human condition and particularly our sinfulness is exceedingly rich. But not only the language used to describe soon, the language that is often used and used here to describe the impact, the effects of sin, the consequences of sin, in the lives of the people of God. And you'll notice how richly he describes it here. He feels himself to have been overtaken, he says, in verse 12, my iniquities have overtaken me. It's the sense we sometimes know of our past guilt, as we say, catching up with us. Of suddenly, unexpectedly, unpredictably, the memories of our past failure entangling us, gripping us, wrapping their arms around us, paralyzing us. And the consequences, he says, that he was also blinded. I cannot see. You know what it is to be so conscious of your need, so conscious of your shame, perhaps, that you do not know where to look. You cannot see a pathway ahead. Your heart says, I don't know where to turn, where to go, to whom I can turn in any sense, whatsoever. I just don't know what to do. And indeed, so gripped, he seems by the many armed octopus of his sense of sin and guilt and need that he finds himself imprisoned by this. They are, he says, more than the hairs of my hair. And this, of course, and it's so important for us to grasp, is not a matter of sentimentalism. This is not the fleeting emotions of a moment so that he can pull himself together. This is a man who, through different circumstances that have brought him down personally, has become profoundly convinced of the fact that the greatest need of his life is the need he has for his sin and his guilt and his shame and his spiritual bondage to be dealt with. And so while the Sam seems to begin at verse 1, the experience actually begins in the description he gives to us in verse 12. And the man as the Sam makes particularly clear needs to learn this fundamental principle, that the person who is overcome with a sense of guilt, a sense of shame, who doesn't know to whom or where to turn, needs to be able to do one central thing. What is it? He or she needs to be able to preach the gospel to themselves. Not simply to hear the gospel preached as many of us have heard it in this room that we will soon vacate some of us for 14 years or so, not simply to know where we can go to hear somebody else preach the gospel, but to know the gospel so personally, so intimately, but in our need, in our shame, in our guilt, in our fears, in our bondage, in our spiritual paralysis. We are able to say to those voices that condemn us and paralyze us, silence and listen to the overwhelming gospel of God's saving grace. Just as again the Samus does in Sam's 42 and 43 where his problem is, his melancholy and his depression, and all these voices are causing him to despair and he says, listen to the gospel, my soul, hope in God and in his saving grace, hope in his light in your darkness. And that is really what this whole Sam is about. It's a man who is learning in his need, in his sense of despair, so to preach the gospel to himself that he gains confidence in God's sovereign might and saving love, to appeal to him, and to say to him as he does later on in the Sam, oh God, do not restrain your mercy from me, shower it upon, that I may be lifted up out of this Britain from the Miley claim, my feet set again on a rock, my way established so I can see spiritually where I'm going and a new song of praise upon my lips of worship and adoration to you, my God and my Savior. So that is why if the experience begins in verse 12 with the Samus acknowledgement of his spiritual condition, the Sam actually begins in verses one through eleven with the Samus description of the way of restoration. And it's interesting you'll notice this in verse nine, but at the end of this he has so preached the Old Testament gospel to himself that he's able to stand in the great congregation and preach that gospel to others. He says, I've told the glad news, it's the Old Testament language for the gospel, the good news, I've told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation, I've not restrained my lips, I've not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness. The question is how does he how does he arrive at that point that he has so preached the gospel into his own soul, that he's free to speak the gospel to other souls who are in need and say to them, I know where you are, I've been where you're sitting and I know the way forward, I know the way up from the deep and dark pit, I know release from the my replay. Well you'll notice in these verses he says three very simple things in these verses one to eleven. He begins by speaking about how he relied entirely on God's saving grace. Patiently I waited for the Lord, literally waiting I waited for the Lord, and then you notice all of these main verbs have God as their subject. He inclined to me, he heard my cry, he drew me up from the pit, he was the one who sent my feet upon a rock, he put a new song in my mouth. So there is no question, whatever physical circumstances he was in, whether he was ill or sick or whatever was wrong with him, there was no question whatsoever that people would come to him at the end and say I'm so glad you're feeling better, I'm so glad your troubles are in the past. No, no, he says it will be clear to men and women that this is something the Lord has done, many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord and he's understood the gospel, but the gospel is not a lecture telling me to try harder and to be better, but the gospel is that God is willing to save sinners who trust in him, salvation is of the Lord, and so he recognizes the wonder of God's saving grace, then you'll see he says in verses six to eight that he experienced deliverance through God's awakening grace, this is a very intriguing thing here, sacrifice and offering you of not desired. Now it ain't never read his Old Testament, it ain't never been to the temple, did he think that all those sacrifices were displeasing to God, no no, what he is really saying is there has been no point in me going to the temple and watching the sacrifices and hearing the words of the priest and their offer of forgiveness, unless what I've heard with my physical ears has penetrated my physical ears and touched and transformed my heart, but I've not just been a spectator of the message of the gospel, but I've been a heart participant of the message of the gospel, and do you notice how he says, God needed to do this, verse six, sacrifice offering you of not desired, but you have given me an open ear or if you look down at a little footnote, you have doubt ears for me, and you see what he's saying, he's saying I heard it so often with these ears, but God needed to penetrate the canals from my ears to my heart so that I had God speaking to me, God awakening me to my need, God promising to me the forgiveness of my sins. This is later on in the New Testament the Apostle Paul would say in Romans 10 very literally, how can they believe in him, whom they have never heard, you can never believe in Christ, unless you have heard Christ, and this is what he began to understand, this is what we all begin to understand when the gospel comes alive to us and God's grace comes alive to us, that we cease hearing preaching from a human voice and we feel we've started to hear preaching from Christ's voice, it comes right into our hearts, it penetrates into our souls,
I walk the dungeon flamed with light because his eye diffused a quickening ray into my life, and that's what he saw he needed, not just the words of the gospel, not just even the pictures of the gospel that he had in the Old Testament sacrifices, and we have in baptism in the Lord's Supper, but the power of the gospel penetrating the hardness of his heart, the sclerosis of his ears, and then becoming conscious that God was speaking to him, and that the God who was speaking to him was a God of infinitely immeasurable grace, and so he says, it was there I told the glad news of deliverance and the great congregation, I haven't restrained my lips, I haven't hidden your deliverance in my heart, he says, oh God, and you see why, verse 11, as for you, old Lord, as he comes in a penitent manner as a sinner, conscious of his need of grace, he says, oh God, as you see me coming in this way, you do not turn me away, but rather, old Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me, you see the picture, there he is in his hardness of heart, and he's saying it'll be all right with God, because God doesn't really care about it, and God is saying to the angels in heaven, restrain my mercy from him, restrain my mercy, he's not ready to receive my mercy, restrain it, and then God's word breaks his heart, and he turns to God and he says, oh God, be merciful to me a sinner, and it says, oh God, turns to the angels and says, open the gates, and let the mercy flood out into his soul, and he's covered in mercy, he's carried along by mercy, the mercy flows down into the pit in which he sank, and gloriously it begins to raise him to the surface and raises him this flood of mercy so high that he finds his feet set as up there on a mountain top, and he sees where God wants him to go, it's glorious, glorious, glorious, unrestrained grace,
so he describes his spiritual condition, he describes the way of restoration, and it's only then you see that he calls into his life the words of the 70th Psalm, and in verses 13 to 17 now says the third thing that he wants to share with us, as he expresses his confident petition, oh God, I have been overtaken by sin and I need your forgiveness, oh God, I feel that I am surrounded, constrained, and paralyzed by my enemies who mock me, and I need your deliverance, and you see what it is that gives him confidence to pray this, he mentions it in verse 17, as for me, Lord, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought, for me, or the Lord cares for me or perhaps even literally the Lord feels for me, there we are with the disciples as it were, and we are in the storm, and it seems that he is sleeping and we shake him awake, and we say Lord, don't you care, don't you feel, have you no thoughts for me? And he rises and he says to us, I am in the boat because I care, because I feel, because I have thoughts for you, I'm going to the cross because I care, because I feel because I have thoughts for you, and now the psalmist himself understands that the Lord has thoughts for him, oh my dear, lonely soul, he has thoughts for you, you who are paralyzed by a sense of guilt and shame and unworthiness and failure, he has thoughts for you as you come to him in your need, as he makes the 70th Psalm his own, but I wonder if these words in the Sam ring other bells for you, because you see, just as this psalmist in Psalm 40 made the words of Psalm 70 his own, in the New Testament letter to the Hebrews, the author picks up these words in the middle of the Psalm, and they makes these words Jesus own. You have noticed that reading through the letter to the Hebrews that these words in verses 6 through 8 are cited in Hebrews chapter 10, but they are actually put into the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ, because the author of Hebrews saw something in the Psalm that David couldn't yet have seen, that the reason ultimately the sacrifices and blunt offerings and whole offerings and sin offerings of the Old Testament would not be desired by God, would because someone else would come and say Lord I have come in the scroll of the book, it is written of me I desire to do your will, oh my God, your laws within my heart, and as he looked to his heavenly Father and said Father what do you want me to do for them, he said my son I want you to go down into the pit and the my reclaim, I want all my billows and my waves of divine judgment to wash over you, I want you to get under their sense of losing heart and know what it is to say to your disciples my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death and even to cry out to me my God my God I am forsaken why and all of this although he did not yet fully understand it, David is speaking as he takes hold of the 70th Psalm and you may well wonder therefore how it's possible for the Samus to say as he does in verse 14 deliver me but let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire my heart let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me aha aha could Jesus ever say that, well you see he did say exactly that but he used different words he said to his disciples when my spirit comes he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment and on the cross he prayed Father for give them because they do not know what they are doing and when the spirit fell on the day of pentacost these men and women were crying out what must we do to be saved from the judgment of this God and the answer was look to him who has said Lord I have come to do your will in the volume of the book it is written of me sacrifices and offerings of these kinds you no longer desire because I am the sacrifice I am the final offering that will take away and satisfy your wrath for all the sins of all those who come to put their trust in you and what David saw only in picture you and I see in the deep reality of Jesus Christ but our experience is one and the same
that it says we come to him in our bondage in our need in our shame in our guilt in our fear in our failure and say to him oh God have mercy upon me in Jesus Christ that he says to the angels of heaven open the floodgains because I'm thinking about him I'm thinking about her and pour out the mercy that will lift them up and put a new song of praise to their God and to their Savior upon their lives my friends isn't it the most glorious thing in the world to believe this gospel and to preach it to yourself and to preach yourself out of the pit and to have it preached to you by Jesus Christ himself so that you are able to go out into the world with your head held high and say it is the most glorious thing to belong to Jesus Christ where do you know anything of that as we vacate this building for many months you think of all the times you have heard the gospel preached in all its different strands and graces from many different voices of your ears been unstopped of you pled with God for mercy of you come to Jesus Christ nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling naked come to thee for dress helpless look to thee for grace out of the
foul eye to the fountain fly and he will wash me he will lift me he will save me oh let's trust let's trust with all our hearts in our great Savior Jesus Christ heavenly Father if there are any of us today in the pit for whatever reason open the floodgates of your mercy and lift us up higher and bring us all we pray is in an ongoing way we are so conscious of our sin and our frailty and our need and our many failures and how often our Christian lives are paralyzed pray that you would deliver us from lift us up and put a new song of praise in our mouths to our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we pray Amen