FRIDAY 19th
Psalm 40
NIV (vv1-3) – ‘I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the LORD and put their trust in him.’
ESV (vv1-3) – ‘I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. 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.’
We come today to the last of the Psalms in the first section, chapters 1-40, it seems to have been a little like a marathon getting through them! But what good verses to be ending this section with, for David it was his testimony of how the LORD God had come and delivered him from his many enemies, but at the same time it is a wonderful declaration of the testimony of every individual who has put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Think of the words found in verse 2 ‘He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog . . .’ Something similar is found in Psalm 103:4 ‘. . . who redeems your life from the pit . . .’ The term ‘pit of destruction’ is a good description of where we were outside of the grace of God, for we were helplessly stuck, without any hope, and doomed for eternal destruction. It was a horrible place to be, imagine what it must have been like for Joseph when his brothers threw him down into the pit, dark, alone, fearful, and of himself unable to get out, I can imagine he may have tried to grip the sides with his fingers and tried to pull himself up, but every time he seemed to lift himself up a few inches, the pit wall would crumble and he would crash back down to the floor, but help came from an unlikely source, and they paid a price to buy Joseph and they hauled him out and off he went, no longer to do his own thing, for he had been purchased and he now belonged to someone else. And we were in our pit, but thank God that someone came to purchase us and to lift us up out of the pit, any attempts we had made to save ourselves were useless, but a Saviour came who paid the price to redeem us, and he purchased us with his precious blood, and we are no longer free to do our own thing, we belong to him. The good news about Joseph was that he went on to find himself in high places and we too as we have been brought up out of a horrible pit have been lifted to a high place, for we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. (Ephesians 2:6)
But there is more, for we are not only seated with Christ, in the words of the psalmist our feet have been set upon a rock, in fact we need to spell it with a capital R and change it to the Rock, who is Christ Jesus. We are on a secure and solid foundation, in fact if we go back to what David said in Psalm 27:5, we read, ‘. . . he will lift me high upon a rock.’ Our high place is both to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies and to be lifted high upon the Rock. What a place to be found, what a transformation from being in a pit of destruction, surely it is something worth celebrating, and David continued, ‘. . . He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.’ Do you have a song in your mouth? Do you have a song of praise to our God? Every one of us who has been lifted out of the horrible pit should be singing the praises of our God, for he is worthy, he reached down and picked us up, he has done so much for us that he is worth every ounce of praise we can muster up, and so much more. I love singing, my voice might be croaky and ropey, but the words I sing are an outward expression that reflects the joy that is in my heart because of what the Lord has done for me.
‘Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise, the glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace’.
‘Now in a song of grateful praise, to thee, O Lord, my voice I’ll raise: with all thy saints I’ll join to tell, my Jesus hath done all things well.’