Our scripture readings this evening will be one from the Old Testament in Psalm 40. I will be reading the 17 verses of Psalm 40, but we will be focusing on verses 1 through 10 of this psalm. And then I will read Hebrews 10 verses 1 through 10. This is the Word of God. 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. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie. You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you. I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, Behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I desire 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 desire my heart, 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. And we turn to Hebrews chapter 10. I will read the first 10 verses. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year make perfect who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings, these are offered according to the law. Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will. He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ, Jesus, once for all. Thus far the reading of the word of God. Let us pray. Our Father, we have heard wonderful things out of thy word. We praise you for revealing Christ by promise and shadow in the Old Testament. We ask that your Holy Spirit will fill us and illumine our minds so that we may understand the fullness of your truth. Amen. Congregation of Christ, as he lay awake deep in the night in a dark, cold cave in the wilderness, David wrestled with his thoughts. It seemed so long ago when he was a young man and the prophet Samuel anointed him to be king of Israel. He asked himself, King of Israel, how can that be? How can be a king now, a fugitive for many years, running from place to place, trying to escape the sword of King Saul? His throne is a rock in this cold, dark cave, and his kingdom, a ragtag band of hungry men. Once he had been a royal, a loyal servant of the king, playing music for him and fighting his wars, adored by the people. Saul has struck his thousands and David his ten thousands, the people sang. Now, after many long years of running for his life, he prays to God. 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. He continues to pray for rescue from his enemies. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether, those who seek to snatch away my life. This is just one of the many scenes in David's life where he could have prayed this kind of prayer. After all, for David, life seemed to be a continuous struggle, a life of persecution and wars and distress before and after he ascended to be king of Israel. As an outlaw, he was pursued by a jealous king. He fled from one place to another. As a king himself, his first son with Bathsheba died as a penalty for his adulterous and murderous relationship with her. Later, his own beloved son Absalom forced him to flee from his throne in Jerusalem and to live once more as a fugitive. Any of these occasions in which God rescued David from the birds of death through sword, hunger, sickness, could have been the occasion for this prayer. But he prays for deliverance, not only from his enemies, but also from his sin. He says, for evils have encompassed me beyond number. My sins have overtaken me and I cannot see. As he prays for deliverance, he remembers how God was faithful and righteous in his wondrous works in the past. So David's prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving to God for deliverance from his enemies and also from sin and misery. And as a thanksgiving, he vows to God to proclaim God's wondrous works, faithfulness and righteousness to others, to the great assembly. He promises to God that he will live in an obedient life, that he desires to do his will, that he will keep God's law within his heart. We also read this evening a section of Hebrews 10, where Psalm 40, verses 5 to 7, is said to be the words of Christ. Hebrews says that, that when Christ came, he says these words, which are in Psalm 40, verses 6 to 8. How can this be? When we read Psalm 40, the words were attributed to David, not to Jesus. And there is one other issue that we will later discuss in Hebrews 10. This is true for many of the Psalms, that the words that are attributed to David are also attributed to our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, former Westminster professor Dr. Mark Furtado says that the Psalms are both the words spoken about Christ and the words spoken by Christ. This is extremely significant because Christ himself on the road to Emmaus said that the law, the prophets and the writings speak about him. All of scripture speaks about Christ. So the Psalms are the words of both the psalmist and of Christ. But the Psalms can also be spoken by us, by God's people. Calvin says, all of our griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities are found in the Psalms. All of our emotions are found in the Psalms. They are the words of God's people in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and the words of Christ Himself. So this evening, we will study Psalm 40, 1-10 under the theme, The Lord's Glad News or The Lord's Great News. First, the glad news of deliverance from sin and misery. Second, the glad news of his wondrous salvation. And third, its proclamation to the great assembly. David's slimy pit is double trouble for him. He says, first, that evils have encompassed me. And then second, my sins have overtaken me. So evil men were plotting against him to kill him. And then, he says this, his sins are multiplied. As David was in the slimy pit, mud and mire, in some translations, of despair and near death. Children, you remember Joseph, Jacob's favorite son, who had a coat of many colors. he was also thrown into a pit by his brothers and sold to slavery in Egypt. Jeremiah, the prophet, he was thrown into a muddy pit because of his prophecy against the evils in the land of Israel. David often portrays death as going down to the pit. For example, in Psalm 30, verse 3, he says, O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Seol. You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. And so when David says going down to the pit or he was rescued from the pit, he was actually being rescued from death, from his enemies. Like David's life, our lives are also like roller coasters of joy and sadness, success and frustration, health and sickness. We all have been to the pit of suffering, despair, and disappointment. When we think of David, we think of all his successes. His defeat of Goliath, his crowning as king of Israel, his recovery of the Ark of the Covenant. He is described as a man after God's own heart. But David is not just a model of success, he also committed serious sins. We all know about his adulterous affair with Bathsheba. He also disobeyed God's command not to conduct a military census and that resulted in the death of 70,000 of his own people. So he was in the muddy and miry pit, not just because of his suffering from the hands of his enemies, But he was also there because of his sin in his life. Think of a muddy pit as quicksand. The more you struggle, the more you sink in. You can't extract yourself from it. You have to be rescued from it. So when you find yourself sinking in the muddy pit of sin, you struggle against it like Paul did in Romans 7.15. I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. Sometimes we even compound sin with sin. And then it's extremely hard to extract ourselves from the mud we put ourselves into. That's what happened to David in his sinful relationship with Bathsheba. He tried to cover up his sin, but the result was even more sin. And so he cries out to God to rescue him from the muddy pit of sin into which he put himself. But the world is much different from us and we are to be different from them. Unbelievers don't struggle against sin. Mostly they like being in the muddy pit. They wallow in it. They don't want to be rescued from it. Boys and girls, in the Philippines, there are great big animals called water buffaloes. They have great big horns and great big bodies. They are used to plow the fields. And then after they're done with their work, they wallow. They love wallowing in the mud to keep their bodies cool. And so it is with this world. Paul says that in Romans 1, that the unbeliever suppresses God's truth. He does not worship God. Instead, he worships himself and his prosperity. And not only does he practice godliness, ungodliness, and unrighteousness, he encourages others to do the same. This is what we see all around us today. The unbeliever mocks God and his people and openly displays his evil deeds on TV, in the movies, and in the newspapers. Unbelievers wallow in their muddy pit of sin. In the Garden of Eden, a Garden of Gethsemane, Christ felt the same sorrow and pain that David felt. He was going down to the very bottom of the pit. He knew that he will be suffering physically and spiritually, that this is a sacrifice for the life of his people. But unlike David, his suffering was not for his own sin. David says in verse 12 that, My sins have overtaken me and I cannot see. But these are not the words of Christ. And so if we say that these are the words of Christ also, these sins are not pointing to his sin, but to the sin of his people, which were taken by Christ to the cross. Because Christ was tempted in all ways like us, but he had no sin. He lived a perfect and obedient life all the way to the death. So how different it is with a Christian. He deals with suffering and sin in a different way, not like the world. In sorrow and pain, the Christian cries out to God and waits patiently, waits and waits for God's deliverance. He trusts in God's loving kindness. He knows his suffering is part of God's refining and shaping him to be more like Christ. When he sins, the Christian cries out to God for mercy, for forgiveness. He accepts God's justice for his sin. And he asks God to help him avoid and resist sin. So like Jonah in the belly of the big fish, David prayed for deliverance even while he was still in the pit. So should we, while we suffer in this veil of tears, we are to cry out to God to rescue us from sin and suffering. So we come to the second point. Deliverance is wondrous salvation. How does our deliverance come? Not through our own efforts, but through the death of His only begotten Son, a sacrifice for our sin. God is the one who pulled David out from the pit of destruction. This is why Paul exclaims in joy, Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And when God's deliverance comes, our night of weeping turns into a morning of joy. When God's deliverance comes, He not only pulls David out of the muddy pit, but He sets him on solid footing. He sets him on a solid rock. The psalmist then contrasts the muddy, murky pit from a solid rock. A person on a solid rock cannot be moved. Even a big earthquake doesn't usually move a big rock unless it's a real big quake. And the person standing on the rock remains secure. And so when we're in the midst of lives, storms, of suffering, we might suffer for a while. But God, the rock of our salvation, our fortress, has set our feet on Him and we will not be moved. This rock is our hiding place and He preserves us from trouble. We stand on the solid rock and not on sinking sand. So that when the rains fell, when the floods come, and when the wind blows, we do not fall. And as we travel in this world as pilgrims and strangers, God secures our walk, our steps. We do not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Our steps are established by the Lord when we meditate on His Word day and night and when we delight walking in His way. Not only does God rescue us from the miry pit, not only does He set our feet on solid ground, but He also puts a new song in our hearts. If you read the Psalms, many of them start out with a lament, a cry for help, a plea for forgiveness. But then, you read that there is usually a shift to praise and thanksgiving to God for His deliverance and forgiveness. For example, if you read Psalm 13, the first part is a lament, and then you come to the last two verses, it's a prayer of thanksgiving. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? And then the last two verses, it says, But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me. Our song of grief in the midst of suffering should turn into a new song of praise after God pulls us out of the muddy pit. This is why the Psalms often speak of a new song. Not because the psalmist composes a new song every time he feels like it or he feels bored with all the old songs, but because His life has turned from singing a song of grief to a song of joy, from destruction to salvation, from a song of mourning to a song of dancing. And notice that God Himself is the one who put the words, put the songs of praise in His mouth. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself had a new song after His sacrificial death on the cross. After He suffered on the cross, He came to life, back to life. And in Isaiah 53, verses 10 to 11, we read that God has put Him to grief. But after His sacrifice, it says, The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. When God rescinds us, he sets our feet on solid rock. He also turns our grief into joy. And finally, God's deliverance causes us to proclaim his wondrous deeds to others. In verse 3, when others see our salvation and the joy that we have in our lives, Psalm 40 says that many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. Then David says in verse 5, that he will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. These wondrous deeds are more than can be told. We cannot count all of them when God delivers us. So, our mouths are to proclaim God's salvation. We were chosen by God to proclaim His excellencies. David says in Psalm 51, 13-14, that God's forgiveness will cause him to teach sinners God's ways and to sing aloud of God's righteousness. Christ Himself appointed ministers to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. This is why our church has sent and supported many church planters and missionaries all over the globe. There's church plants in San Diego County in North America. We learned this evening that there's a church plant in Iowa. We have missionaries in Latin America. And we have a missionary in Asia. Because of the proclamation of God's glad news of deliverance, this is the result of being rescued from the muddy pit of sin and destruction. No one will hear of the good news if there is no preacher of the good news. And Paul says that the preacher is sent by God through the church. We are not to restrain our lips, like David says, from proclaiming the gospel to others. We are not to hide God's deliverance within our hearts. We are to speak of God's faithfulness, salvation, and steadfast love to others. David's words are also our words. But as I mentioned earlier, David's words are also Christ's words in this psalm. The writer of Hebrews says that when Christ came into this world, he spoke the words of verses 6 to 8 of Psalm 40, if you look at it closely. But notice that the quotation of Hebrews 10, verses 5 to 7, is not exact. In fact, the writer seemed to misquote or maybe even change the words. So in Psalm 40, verse 6, the first part, it says, Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but you have given me an open ear. And then in Hebrews 10, verse 5, a quotation of the same verse, it says, Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. And so, you have given me an open ear, was changed to a body you have prepared for me. How is that? What happened here? One scholar said that this is probably an error in copying by the scribe. But the Hebrew writer was actually quoting the Greek translation or the Septuagint of Psalm 40. The Septuagint translated the Hebrew words, you have given me an open ear, into a more understandable body you have prepared for me. The Hebrew words used for open ear means digging or hollowing the ear so that the hearer will hear very clearly what God is saying to him. In the scriptures, an open ear usually means to listen intently with understanding and obedience to God's words. For example, Proverbs 22, 17 to 18. It says, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your heart to my knowledge. For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips. So it encompasses everything, not only the ear, but the heart and the lips. And so it is our whole being that inclines to God's words. Believers here understand and obey God's words, but not for the unbeliever. So digging the ear is equivalent to fashioning and preparing the body to do God's will. So it is making the ear equivalent to the whole person or to the whole body. These verses harmonize very well with the rest of Hebrews 10. In verse 11, it says that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. In verse 7, it says that Christ has come to do God's will perfectly as it is written in Scripture. So God prepared a body for Christ, a body that will obey God's will and a body that will be offered as a sacrifice for his people. So Christ came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. He offered Himself as a perfect bloody sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away. So in the Old Testament, God has always intended that bloody sacrifices be accompanied by repentant hearts, by contrite hearts, like in Psalm 51, 17. It's almost the same thing that it says here in Psalm 40. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise. It is not that God did not accept sacrifices in the Old Testament, but God intended that all these sacrifices be offered with hearts that are right before God. They were acceptable only when the people offering these offerings had their lives and their hearts right with God and walking God's way. And this is true for us today. The Lord is not pleased when we go through the motions during Sunday worship services. Do you worship on the Lord's day with hearts full of songs and prayers of thanksgiving, repentance, and faith? Do you come to the Lord's table worthy of the body and blood of Christ? Do you listen to the preaching of the word with the intention to know God's will and to obey it in your lives? Do you offer yourself daily in your lives as a living sacrifice to God with minds that are renewed by God's words? Then and only then will our thanksgiving and our offerings and our sacrifices of thanksgiving will be acceptable to our Lord. Like David and Paul, we fail time after time after time. But remember that the words of Psalm 40 are not only David's words, they are not only Christ's words, but they are also ours. When we find ourselves deep in the muddy pit of sin and misery and suffering, cry out to God for mercy and deliverance. then He will incline His ear to you. He will teach you what His will is and He will help you obey that will. Then you will remember His wondrous deeds in the past that He has done for you. He forgave you of your sins. He saved you from your enemies. He is merciful and faithful to you. But this is only possible because of Christ's wondrous work of obedience all the way to the cross. Because everything you do, everything that you desire to be and to do as a Christian, Christ has done perfectly. Our desire to do God's will, Christ obeyed this will perfectly. Keeping God's law in your heart, Christ kept it perfectly. Triumph over your enemies, Christ's complete victory over our enemy, Satan. Proclaiming the good news of deliverance, Christ preached faithfully and boldly. And as we proclaim Christ's glad news of deliverance from sin and suffering, we can sing a new song of praise to the Lamb, together with all the saints in heaven. Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. And we can sing a new song with the hymn writer. He calls his chosen from afar. They all at Zion's gates arrive. Those who were dead in sin before by sovereign grace are made alive. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have taught us to always cry out to you for forgiveness and mercy in our lives. We thank you that you hear our cries for help. We thank you also that you hear our praises and our thanksgiving to you. Thank you for giving us our high priest, Jesus Christ, who delivered us from sin and suffering. Help us by your Holy Spirit to proclaim your wondrous deeds, Your faithfulness and Your steadfast love to all nations. In Jesus Christ's name, Amen.