The Soul’s Song (2)

Singing when Waiting on God!

Psalm 40 (NIV)

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 and put their trust in the Lord.

Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust,

who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.

The things you planned for us no one can recount to you;

were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced;

burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.

Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll.

I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, as you know, O Lord.

I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.

I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly.

Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your love and your truth always protect me.

For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.

They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me.

May all who seek to take my life be put to shame and confusion;

may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.

May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!” be appalled at their own shame.

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you;

may those who love your salvation always say, “The Lord be exalted!”

Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me.

You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.

Then I said, “Behold, I have 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.”

I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation;

behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord.

I have not hidden your deliverance 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.

As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me;

your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!

For evils have encompassed me beyond number;

my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see;

they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me!

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 delight in my hurt!

Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you;

may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the Lord!”

As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.

You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!

Hands up those who like WAITING? Those who like queing?

Paitent waiting is not easy. “Patience is a virtue, Possess it if you can, Seldom found in woman, Never found in man.”― Jonathan Morris, The Way of Serenity: Finding Peace and Happiness in the Serenity Prayer

I. IT’S TOUGH TO WAIT ON GOD! (Psalm 40:1)

David says, “I waited patiently for the Lord”

And it was a long wait! The MESSAGE captures the sense of the Hebrew closely when it translates: “I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened.”

And waiting is not easy, The Greek word hupomeno is a compound word incorporating hupo, meaning "under" and “meno” which means "to abide". So literally the term means "to bear up under" or "endure". When Paul says in 1 Co. 13:7 “Love bears all things” he is saying Love is patient - it waits; it endures. It doesn;t give up on the object of its love, easily.

But note it is not passive indiffference or helpless resignation - it is purposeful; submissive; steadfast and enduring. You wait in hope when you are patient; you are prepared to stick it out for the sake of achieving your desired goal.

The Bible does not pretend that patience can be learned easily - 1 Peter 2:20, “But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.”

The Bible speaks of the patience of Job (Jas. 5:11), he learned paitience from his loss and suffering. Even as he was covered in painful sores, and trying to make sense of it all, patience was growing in him as a godly fruit to make Him stronger in His faith!

God does and will keep us waiting and He has a purpose for doing so and the Bible gives us a number of reasons for Him doing so!

It strengthens our faith - Heb. 10:36-38, “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith.” Jas. 1:2-4, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” see also Romans 5:3.

It helps us grow deeper in our relationship with God - 2 Pet. 1:4-6, “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness.”

We are to learn it from Jesus - 2 Thess. 3:5, “May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.” Think of His patience with his family and his disciples; his endurance of suffering at he Romans; his experience of rejection at the hands of the Jews and his terrible suffering on the Cross. Christ patiently endured this, but His learned faith and disciplined strength of character, which he developed over many years of difficulties and hardships.

We are to pray for it - Just as Paul prayed for the Colossians - Col.1:9-14 “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

We will be rewarded for it! - James 1:4, “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

II. IT’S WORTH WAITING ON GOD! (Psalm 40:1-5)

The MESSAGE translates it beautifully:

“I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened. He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.

Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God, turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,” ignore what the world worships; The world’s a huge stockpile of God-wonders and God-thoughts. Nothing and no one compares to you!”

The Psalmist uses metaphor to tell us of the serious nature of his trouble - he is a man who was stuck in a slimy pit, bogged down in mud and mire, but then was rescued by God, who set his feet on a rock and gave him a firm place to stand.

Jeremiah 38 tells of a time when Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern because of his very unpopular prophecies about the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. Fortunately, the cistern was empty of water, so he did not drown but the bottom was filled with soft mud, accumulated over centuries and Jeremiah sank down into the “mud and mire” and would have eventually died, if it were not for a Cushite named Ebed-Melech who went to the king and asked for his release, being granted 30 men who pulled Jeremiah out of the cistern with ropes (Jer. 38:1–13).

Jeremiah was literally placed in the mud and mire , but there is no evidence that David had been through something similar and so we should think of the words pit, mud, and mire as metaphors of the great trouble he was in. He was drowning as it were; up to his eyes in it! And this is good for us because like us, David was going through a period in his life in which circumstances had trapped him so that he was unable to free himself.

We do well to remember that this is David - the beloved king of Israel, who reigned supreme over the Nation and nations for 40 years. The King who was appointed by, blessed by and approved by God, who called him “a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14).

David loved God; praised God; served God and both in writing and worship and speech, regularly and faithfully proclaimed the grace of God to others. But, even David got mired down in a pit from which he was unable to escape! Even a man after God’s own heart can mess up and David did it many times - with Uriah and Bathsheba; with Ammon and Tamar, with Absalom.

And the lesson we learn is that the “muddy times may be the experience even of the greatest saints and slimy pits the lot even of kings and preachers.”(James Montgomery Boice).

What is your slimy pit?

It might be the pit of Sin - David knew that! Uriah and Bathsheba is the best example and Psalm 51 the great plea, “Have mercy on me O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”(vs 1-3). You might be in such a pit! One sin, leading to another then another and the weight of its guilt pulls you down. You need help! And your help an only come from God! Only He has power to forgive sin!

It might be a pit of regret; anxiety and fear - David must have felt this as he was overwhemed by the desperation he was feeling and the factt that he could find no way out; no way of helping himself or delivering himself from the danger! Again, you might know soemthing of this and like David have hopefully disocvered that “when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to a rock that is higher than I”(Psa 61:2).

It might be the pit of Despair - due to ill health; the death of loved ones; or broken relationships, or unfulfilled dreams. David knew this also, particularly in the case of his beleived son Absalom who rebelled against him and sought to take his kingdom by force and in the end, his rebellious army was defeated and he died tragically as Joab and his warriors thrust their javelins into his hanging body - ‘O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you – O Absalom, my son, my son!’(2 Sam 18:33). Circumstances like the ones I have described can lead any one of us into a pit of despair.

God can lift you out of whatever pit you are in!

What Bunyan called a “slough of despond!” in Pilgrim’s Progress:

He descrbes while crossing a plain, Christian and Pliable suddenly fall into a miry bog, called the Slough of Despond in which “they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt” and CHRISTIAN, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in the mire.. They both struggle in the mud, and Christian begins to sink because of his burden. Pliable gets angry; this isn’t the happy journey Christian had promised him. He fights his way out of the bog and returns home.

Christian, however, keeps struggling and eventually a man named Help (the Holy Spirit) appears and pulls Christian out of the Slough, asking: “What he did there? Chr. "Sir," said CHRISTIAN, "I was bidden to go this way by a man called EVANGELIST, who directed me also to yonder gate, that I might escape the wrath to come; and as I was going thither, I fell in here." Help. But why did you not look for the steps? Chr. Fear followed me so hard, that I fled the next way and fell in. Help. Then said he, "Give me thy hand." So he gave him his hand, and he drew him out; and set him upon some ground, and bade him go on his way. “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." Psalm 40:2.

When Christian asks Help why nobody has gotten rid of this dangerous bog, Help explains that it can’t be removed—”This miry Slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore is it called the Slough of Despond: for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place; and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.”

The only hope for Christian is the Cross - Burdens are lifted at Calvary! And when we are likewise deperatye and in need, God can deliver us from the miry clay and the horrible pit - whatever our pit may be!

"Thus far did I come laden with my sin, Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in, Till I came hither. What a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss! Must here the burden fall from off my back! Must here the strings that bound it to me crack! Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be The Man that there was put to shame for me!"

(Christian at the Cross).

Whatever our slimy pit, David advises that when we cry out to God, he will do 5 things for us!

God will turn to us

God will notice what we are going through

God will hear our cry!

God will lift us out of the pit.

God will set our feet on a rock, giving us a firm place to stand, and God placed a new song of praise in his mouth.

And because David knows this by experience he is able to offer a personal recommendation of why its worth waiting on God for help and deliverance - “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.”

God has done great things for his people in the past and this assures us, that God will do great things for His people both in the present and the future and to experience these good things you must trust him. You must “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8).

III. IT COSTS TO WAIT ON GOD! (Psalm 40:6-10)

Once you do “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8) you enter into relationship with Him and it is a relationship that ought to be characterised in a certain way:

It is not something soley based on ritual or expressed in ceremony but rather, expressed in a fully surrendered heart in which obedience takes precedence over sacrifice - “to obey, is better than sacrifice”(cf. 1 Sam. 15:22; see also Isa. 1:10–17; Jer. 7:21–26; Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6–8).

It is to live like Jesus did which is why these words are applied to Him in Hebrews 10:5–10.

So Micah 6:6-8 asks, “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

David says this is what you ought to avoid as well as what you ought to do as you develop your relationship with God (In the words of the MESSAGE).

“Doing something for you, bringing something to you— that’s not what you’re after. Being religious, acting pious— that’s not what you’re asking for. You’ve opened my ears so I can listen.

So I answered, “I’m coming. I read in your letter what you wrote about me, And I’m coming to the party you’re throwing for me.” That’s when God’s Word entered my life, became part of my very being.

I’ve preached you to the whole congregation, I’ve kept back nothing, God—you know that. I didn’t keep the news of your ways a secret, didn’t keep it to myself. I told it all, how dependable you are, how thorough. I didn’t hold back pieces of love and truth For myself alone. I told it all, let the congregation know the whole story.”

Now note verse 6, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced,”

This may allude to the practice of voluntary enslaving, where the ear of the slave would be pieced and attached ot the door as a symbol of belonging to the Master of the house. It is described in Exodus 21:1–6, where a slave had a good master and wanted to remain with him even after the legal 6 year term of his slavery ended. The master was then required to take him to the judges where he would declare this intention and as a result one of his ears would be pierced, indicating that he had become a servant for life. In the same way those who enter into relationship with the Lord become His bondservants, glady submitting to His will and ways.

However, it might refer to the fact that the David’s ears have been opened to God, to His word of instruction. The Hebrew word, translated “pierced” is literally “dug out” in the sense of removing debri (wax) that blocks them and prevents clear hearing. And this is suitable for the context which refers to the scroll that has been opened and he hears it and understands it and can say, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

Those who are in right relationship with God have their hearts right!

Their hearts beat for God, as Jeremiah says: “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people’ ” (Jer. 31:33). Having the law in our hearts is a proper definition of what it means to be in a right relationship to God.

Jesus, said the same thing! He taught His disciples that the greatest of all commandments is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).

So what is your hearing like? Are your ears open to God or do you have blocked ears? Are you God’s willing servant or are you resisting him and still wading in the miry clay and in danger of drowning in your own pit of sin and despair?

IV. THE HOPE IN WAITING ON GOD! (Psalm 40:11-17).

Remember that the Psalm opened with a song of deliverance where he recalled being rescued from a terrible situation, and here us he is again crying out to God for help! (Again in the words of the MESSAGE):

Now God, don’t hold out on me, don’t hold back your passion. Your love and truth are all that keeps me together. When troubles ganged up on me, a mob of sins past counting, I was so swamped by guilt I couldn’t see my way clear. More guilt in my heart than hair on my head, so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out.

Soften up, God, and intervene; hurry and get me some help, So those who are trying to kidnap my soul will be embarrassed and lose face, So anyone who gets a kick out of making me miserable will be heckled and disgraced, So those who pray for my ruin will be booed and jeered without mercy.

But all who are hunting for you— oh, let them sing and be happy. Let those who know what you’re all about tell the world you’re great and not quitting. And me? I’m a mess. I’m nothing and have nothing: make something of me. You can do it; you’ve got what it takes— but God, don’t put it off.

What I love about the Psalms and it is clearly expressed in this Psalm is that the language is raw; full of questions and honest confession which lead to uncertainyt and insecurity and fear about God and His ways!

The cry of the Psalmist is viceral - “Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord. For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. Be pleased, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me. O my God, do not delay (vv. 11–13, 17).

When Eugene Petersen was asked about why he translated what became the MESSAGE, he said it all started as a Pastoral ministry of transalting a Psalm for a lady in his congregation who was struggling with the more formal language of the Bible they has in Church. In explaining the Psalms he said: “I think people need to be given permission to do it, to find a language of hate, disappointment, retaliation, and get that out. People who repress all those emotions often get sick, depressed. Learning how to express our fears, our discomfort, our hate, if you will, it’s often very freeing.”

As John Calvin once put it - “I am in the habit of calling this book … “The Anatomy of all the parts of the soul,” for not an affection will any one find in himself, an image of which is not reflected in this mirror. Nay, all the griefs, sorrows, fears, misgivings, hopes, cares, anxieties; in short, all the disquieting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated, the Holy Spirit hath here pictured.” (A Commentary on the Psalms of David. Oxford: Tegg, 1840), 1:vi.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that just because we may have been in a situation which was desperate and troubling we are not then excluded from any future circumstances which are equally as difficult!

Instead, if we are called to endure again some tragic or difficult circunstabce we have the reminder of the God who brought us through be fore and will bring us through again - “O God our help in ages past, our hope in years to come. Our shelter from the story blast and our beloved home!”

By painful expeirence we have come to know that our “God is a strong tower; the righteous run into it, and they are saved!”(Proverbs 18:10).

Life is full of trouble!

We shouldn’t be surprised at this? Ours is a sinful, evil world. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble.” But he added, “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We need to remember this! The world can offer us temporary pleasure but it cannot guarantee us exemption from trouble! This is why we must trust in God and put our hope in Him for only He can ultimately deliver you and I!

We will have trouble but we don’t need to be despairing. There is no room for pessimism in the Christian vocabulary:

“Though Satan should buffet; though trials should come;

Let this blessed assurance console;

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well with my soul!”

“There can be no pessimism for us, because Jesus has overcome the world and we are now destined to be more than conquerors in him.”(Montgomery Boice).

We may be discouraged and desperate at times but we can cry out to God for help, and as we do, we can then wait patiently for Him to answer and deliver us, “poor and needy” as we are!

Lord, “you are my help and my deliverer. O my God, do not delay.”

Are you weary, in trouble, desperate? God calls us to be patient but for HOW LONG?

How Long must we wait? How long must we endure injuctice and oppression; war and famine; pain and loss; grief and despair; trouble and fear? How long, Lord?

How Long?

I can never read this song without thinking of U2 who for many years closed their concerts around the world with this! U2, 40 is the tenth and final track on their 1983 album, War. The band would leave the stage one-by-one as the audience continued to sing the refrain "How long to sing this song?".

The lyrics are a modification of the Bible's Psalm 40. The song was completed within the last few hours of the recording sessions for War. After working all night on the album in the studio, the band found themselves at 6 a.m. feeling that they were still one song short.  In search of lyrical inspiration, Bono opened the Bible and found Psalm 40, on which he based his words. It was written in 40 minitues! As soon as his vocals were recorded and the song mixed, the band immediately exited the studio, completing the sessions for War - https://youtu.be/1XzHlySYR_Y

Bono visited Eugene Petersen at his family home in Montana as Bono was a big fan of the Message and Eugene’s other works. Reflecting on their friendship he said, “Bono is singing to the very people I did this work for. I feel that we are allies in this. He is helping get me and the Message to the very people Jesus spent much of his time with.” Note: U2 have released 15 studio albums and are one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide. They have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, and in 2005, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility.

“Let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its laws.” (Andrew Fletcher, Scottish Nationalist Politician : 1704).

Fletcher was a forerunner of the Scottish National Party in fighting for Scottish independence. Politicians are used to writing and promoting legislation but he recognised the power of song to capture and mould people’s imaginations and attitudes to life.

And so the concert crowd sing, “How long to sing this song… How long to sing this song!” The amplified chorus of men and women embedded in the miry pit of Psalm 40, sing of a reality that few of them know nothing about nd yet they sing to a God who longs to recue them

But what of us, those of us who have tasted and seen the goodness of God, how loud do we sing our songs as we wait on God, covered by the precious blood of Christ and declaring the power of the gospel.

Psalm 40 speaks to the deep yearning and crying out of the heart and soul to the God who made us! It is found in every human heart whether they appreciate it or not - when all else fails in this world. There is a God to whom the soul can sing - HOW LONG? We know not but we praise Him who has delviered us from the pit of miry clay and set our feet upon a solid foundation, in Christ!

Revelation 6 gives us a glimpse of Heaven in which the Lamb of God, Jesus is opening the seals of seven scrolls in judgment on the earth and there you hear this cry in response to those who had been “slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained” - “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”(v10) and the answer was “wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.:(Rev 6;11).

How Long is a cry of Lament but also one of hope! God when will you punish the wicked? When will you bring an end to thye cycle of vioence and injustice, oppression and exploitation that torments the earth? This a practically valuable for our praying for as Gordon Wenham in his commentary on the Psalms observed from his own practice: “if we care about the suffering of our fellow Christians, we should pray these psalms. There is a Christian charity in Britain called the Barnabas Fund, whose purpose is to channel aid to suffering Christians. The Barnabas Fund also issues a daily prayer diary to encourage prayer for persecuted Christians. One typical entry describes Ribqa Masih, a twenty-two-year-old Pakistani Christian who was drugged, kidnapped, and raped by three Muslim men. They also threatened to kill her and her whole family unless she recited the Islamic creed. Various other horrific details follow in the diary. How does one pray in such a case? I at least have found the lament psalms a help.”

How long, O Lord? - We continue to sing our souls songs whilst we “wait for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ”(Titus 2:13).