Delight In Doing God's Will Psalm 40:8

Text: “I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.” 

Psalm 40:8.

                                                                                                     

Good morning, willing Christian!  You experience more consistently the pure delight of the Living Lord God for one essential reason – you are more consistently seeking to do His Divine will, as taught and directed in God’s Word.  God’s Word IS His Divinely revealed and Spiritually illuminated will.  Praise God for His empowerment to desire to do God’s will in our lives, daily!  Hallelujah!  Thy will be done, O Lord God!

When praying the great model prayer Christ taught His disciples to pray, known to us today as ‘The Pater Noster’ or ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ – we find the text from Psalm 40:8 being both sought and prayed for to be done in our daily lives as sincere followers of Christ Jesus.

“…Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven.”  (Matthew 6:10)

 “I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.”  (Psalm 40:8)

A ‘delight’ to do God’s will does not come from within the heart of natural man, fallen in grace in Adam, and unregenerate, ‘…dead in trespasses and sins…’.  No.  Natural man, who has not been ‘quickened’ by God the Holy Spirit, has no delight in seeking to do the will of Almighty God, but is alienated from Him by sin and the love of committing it continually!  There is nothing good, or of good will, in the heart of the unsaved man/woman.  Since Adam’s fall into sin, all humankind are born under that sin, and have a natural tendency to commit sin and be disobedient to the Commandments of the Lord God.

We do NOT have to teach little children to be disobedient, they do so naturally, and from the very earliest age.  We DO have to instruct children in obedience – both socially and Spiritually.  Otherwise we leave them to the mercy of their own fallen nature which will very quickly pull them down into the gravest troubles and grief.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked…” (Jeremiah 17:9)

“But the natural man/woman receiveth (takes in, nor will ever take in) not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him/her: neither can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned.”  (1 Corinthians 2:14)

“Train up a child in the way he/she should go: and when he/she is old, he/she will not depart from it.”  (Proverbs 22:6)

I often personally find that, while studying the Word of God in my KJV Bible, I can get a fuller meaning by reversing the order of the verse as it is written.  For example: our text for this morning’s Bible Lesson reads: “I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.”  However, IF one reverses the this sentence, it becomes thus: “Thy law is within my heart (therefore) I delight to do Thy will, O my God.”

In other words, IF God’s law, as taught in God’s Word, is taken into one’s heart (our deep inner being, not the great blood-pump we each have!) – then it causes us to really ‘delight to do it’!  We are actually learning the way to do things in our lives, and finding great joy, delight, in following the path we already know is correct.  Hallelujah!

Hear John Flavel’s exposition and conclusion on this verse and its concept: 

“Verse 8.  I delight to do Thy will, O my God. Did Christ find pleasure in abasement and torment, in suffering and dying for me, and can I find no pleasure in praying, hearing, meditating, and enjoying the sweet duties of communion with Him?  Did He come so cheerfully to die for me, and do I go so dead-heartedly to payers and sacraments to enjoy fellowship with Him?  Was it a pleasure to Him to shed His Blood, and is it none to me to apply it, and reap the benefits of it?

“Oh, let there be no more grumblings, lazy excuses, shiftings of duty, or dead-hearted and listless performances of them, after such an example as this.  Be ready to do the will of God; be ye also ready to suffer it.  And as to sufferings for Christ, they should not be grievous to Christians that know how cheerfully Christ came from the bosom of the Father to die for them.

“What have we to leave or lose in comparison; there was more bitterness in one of His sufferings than in a sea of ours.  To conclude: your delight and readiness in the paths of obedience is the very measure of your sanctification.”  (Condensed from John Flavel -1627-1691)

Oh that the Spirit of God would infuse us, in this latter-day 21^st Century Church, with even half the passion for Christ that the Puritans and believers of earlier history had!

Verse 8. “Yea, Thy law is within my heart. No outward form of devotion was rendered by Christ; His heart was in His work, holiness was His element, the father’s will His meat and drink.  We must each of us be like our Lord in this, or we shall lack the evidence of being His disciples.  Where there is no heart work, no pleasure, no delight in God’s law, there can be no acceptance.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 195)

“He (Christ) was as willing to bleed and die for thee as thou art to eat when hungry.  He was delighted as much to be scourged, wounded, Crucified, as thou delightest in meat, when most delicious.”  (David Clarkson 1622-1686)

Thought: Is serving the risen Christ a real ‘delight’ to us, or begrudged as a task?  Let us renew our determination to get out there and proclaim Christ’s Gospel!

"Lo, I come!" Psalm 40:7

Text: “Then said I (Christ Jesus) ‘Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me.'”         

Psalm 40:7.

Good morning, believing Christian!  Ever since God the Holy Spirit opened your ears to hear the Gospel truth from God’s inspired Word (KJV); you have been granted His gift of faith to believe and receive it gladly. 

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”  (Ephesians 2:8)

Of yourself or myself naturally, we could never have heard, nor received the truth of God’s Word, and specifically the Gospel of Salvation in Christ, and in Christ and His full Atonement Sacrifice alone.  Spiritual ‘hearing’ is a Supernatural gift from God to His people.  Fact. 

Hear God’s Word: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual.  But the natural (Spiritually unregenerate) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned.”  (1 Corinthians 2:12-14)

Asking unsaved people to believe that Christ Jesus is God’s Eternal Son; that He came into this world and took on human form to save us from our sins against God; that He was born of a virgin; lived a sinless, perfect, life; did miraculous wonders; went to a cruel Cross and suffered, died, and rose again to free ‘His people’ from our sins – is like talking to a chair, or any other unhearing piece of one’s house furniture!  They will not hear!  They will never understand! 

Without the quickening power of the Spirit of God – sinners are Spiritually dead, and incapable of believing anything about God we say!  This is the truth of God’s Word!  We speak/preach God’s Word, and He grants vital faith to believe it.

“For unto us was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”  (Hebrews 4:2)

It takes Supernaturally given faith to believe and place total trust in a God we cannot actually see, hear, touch, taste, or experience in the natural realm. 

The Lord God Jehovah, Creator of all things, took upon Himself a human body, was born as one of His creatures; lived for thirty-three-and-a-half years in sinless perfection; performed many Supernatural miracles.  He then allowed Himself to be sentenced to death for our sins, since He had none of His own – and was Crucified to death upon a Cross – thus taking our sins upon His sinless Self, bearing the punishment required of the Law for them; shedding His sinless Blood to redeem ‘His people’ who were chosen before the foundation of the world by Divine election grace to be saved.

Believing and trusting these Gospel facts of Eternal Salvation in Jesus Christ alone takes Supernatural faith, without which it would be humanly impossible to do so!  Without such a Supernaturally given faith/trust in Christ – it is totally impossible to please our Holy and Righteous Lord God of wrath against sin! 

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is (that God actually exists at all!), and that He is a rewarder to them that diligently seek Him.”  (Hebrews 11:6)

By the exercise of such God-given faith we receive the full portent of God’s knowledge of the Incarnation – God coming to man in bodily form – as portrayed prophetically in verse 7 of Psalm 40, our Bible text for this lesson today. “Then said I (Christ Jesus) ‘Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me.”

Verse 7. “Lo, I come.  Behold, O Heavens, and thou earth, and ye places under the earth!  Here is something worthy of your intensest gaze.  Sit ye down and watch with earnestness, for the invisible God comes in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an infant the infinite hangs at a virgin’s breast!”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 194)

Can we not see more clearly that, it takes Supernatural faith to believe, and Supernaturally given sight to see and understand such a truly wondrous thing as this?  Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of the Living Father-God, through the power of God the Spirit – took on the flesh of His Created beings, in order that He might fully experience everything that you and I experience in life; and take Adam’s Curse, and our burdens of vile sin upon His own sinless Head, and make Atonement for us with His Heavenly Father.  Now we have peace with God, through and in Him.

“Therefore (a conclusion) being justified (just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned) by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by Whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”        (Romans 5:1-2)

Verse 7. “Lo, I come.  Immanuel did not send, but came; He came in His own personality, in all that constituted His essential Self.  He came forth from the Ivory Palaces to the abodes of misery; He came promptly at the designated hour; He came with sacred alacrity as One freely offering Himself.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 194)

Verse 7.  “…In the volume of the Book it is written of Me.  All Old Testament types, illustrations, and prophecies point forward to the Lord Jesus Christ’s coming.  All the New Testament stories point back to what He achieved for us when He came.

Thought: “…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” (1 Timothy 1:12-17)

Open-Eared Christians! Psalm 40:6

Text:  “Neither by the blood of bulls and goats and calves, but by His own (sinless) Blood He entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained Eternal redemption for us.” 

                                                               Hebrews 9:22.                                                                                                                 

Good morning, Open-eared Christian!  Your ears and mine are Spiritually unique, there are no other ears like the God-given ears of a true and genuine, Bible-believing, Spiritually regenerate Christian. 

Your ears and mine were first Divinely opened by God the Holy Spirit in order that we might effectively hear the Gospel message of Eternal Salvation in Christ and in His one-time Sacrifice for sin alone, and be saved.  Once saved, our ears were then, Spiritually, drawn to the Cross of Christ Jesus, and there pierced through.  We were granted the Divine privilege of being willing bond-slaves of our Redeemer King, Jesus Christ.  Hallelujah!  We are bought-and-paid-for slaves of King Jesus!  Yet, our Master and Lord has set us Eternally FREE!  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour!

“What?  Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”     (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

“He/she that hath an ear, let him/her hear what the Spirit (God the Spirit) saith unto the churches.”  (Revelation 2:29)

Verse 6. “Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast Thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required.”  (Psalm 40:6)

All the animal ‘sacrifices’ and ‘sin-offerings’ of the Jewish Nation could never and can never ever take away the guilt, shame, or punishment required of mankind by a Holy Lord God of wrath against all sin. Only a sinless and perfect Sacrifice would do. 

Each and every such animal ‘sacrifice’ or ‘sin-offering’ was a type, a symbolic illustration, pointing forward in the history of God’s chosen people to the real and perfect Sacrifice of Christ Jesus the sinless Lamb of God, upon a cruel Cross at Calvary. 

Only HIS Sacrifice of Himself on that Cross can pay the price required of our thrice Holy Lord God for our sin – original sin inherited from our progenitor, Adam, and the sins we have committed, and continue to commit, in our daily lives.  (1 John 1:10

“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own Blood He entered in once into the Holy Place (Heaven), having obtained Eternal Redemption for us.  For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the Blood of Christ, Who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God?” (Hebrews 9:12-14)

Verse 6. “Here we enter upon one of the most wonderful passages on the whole of the Old Testament, a passage in which the incarnate (God in bodily form) Son of God is seen not through a glass darkly but as it were face to face.

“Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire. In themselves considered, and for their own sakes, the Lord saw nothing satisfactory in the various offerings of the ceremonial law.  Neither the victim pouring forth its blood, nor the fine flour rising in smoke from the altar, could yield content to Jehovah’s mind; He cared not for the flesh of bulls or of goats, neither had He pleasure in corn and wine and oil.

“Typically these offerings had their worth, but when Jesus, the Antitype, came into the world, they ceased to be of value, as candles are of no estimation when the sun has arisen.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 194)

Genuine, Spiritually regenerate, Bible-believing Christians are sinners who have had our Spiritual ears opened, literally ‘digged’, like the willing bond slave of Exodus 21:5-6 (Please read these two verses of Scripture and understand.).

Verse 6.  “Mine ears hast Thou opened.  The literal translation is , ‘mine ears hast Thou digged (or pierced) through’, which may well be interpreted as meaning ‘Thou hast accepted Me at thy slave,’ an allusion to the custom (Exodus 21:6) of masters boring the ear of a slave who had refused his offered freedom, in token of retaining him.”  (Daniel Cresswell1776-1844)

Such ‘open-eared Christians’ have, by God’s quickening power and grace, committed our entire lives to the service of Christ Jesus, our Redeemer King.  We fail to maintain a perfect obedience to His will due to the natural infirmities of our fallen flesh and mind.  However, our committed motivation is to serve the Lord Jesus to the very best of our Spirit-aided abilities, trusting in Him for the Eternal outcome of our efforts, and all to the greater glory of His Holy Name.  The Lord knows the intents of our hearts and minds and rewards us accordingly as our motivation to serve Him remains faithful.  Wow!  What a Salvation plan!  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour Lord God!

“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind (past failings?), and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  (Philippians 3:12-14)

Thought:  “My sheep hear My voice…”  Open-eared Christians not only hear with the physical ear, but listen and understand with a born again heart.  Obedience is better than sacrifice.  Let us go forth and serve the Christ of God more obediently?  The Lord bless your every new day, amen.

God's Works and Thoughts Psalm 40:5

Text: “Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to usward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.”

                                                                                                                     Psalm 40:5.

Good morning, watched-over Christian!  You and I, because of Christ’s Sacrifice for us at Calvary’s Cross over two thousand years ago outside the City of Jerusalem, are constantly worked for and thought of by our Sovereign Lord God.  Now, this is something to get excited about this morning!  God thinks on you and ME personally!

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon Him; for He careth (cares, and continually cares) for you.”  (1 Peter 5:6-7)

Psalm 40:5 continues the theme of ‘The Christian & the Christ’, as the Spirit of God reminds us of the ‘works’ and the ‘thoughts’ of Almighty God, in Christ Jesus.  The Eternal Son of God, Christ Jesus, portrayed in John’s Gospel as, ‘the Word made flesh and dwelt among us…’, IS the Creator Lord God!  I am often amazed at the number of sincere Christians who seem oblivious to this Scripturally based fact – Jesus Christ Created the world at the behest of the Sovereign will of His Father!  Check it out!

Verse 5.  “Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done.” “In the beginning was the Word (Christ Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…He was in the world, and the world was made by Him…” (John 1:1;10)

And again in the book of Hebrews: “And Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the Heavens are the works of Thine hands…”     (Hebrews 1:10)

“God, Who in sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by Whom (Jesus Christ) He made the worlds.”    (Hebrews 1:1-2)

The works of Christ Jesus, the Eternal Son of the Living Lord God, Jehovah – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – are clearly seen by everything that has breath.  His work of Creation declares plainly and irrefutably His Divine and impeccable glory. 

“The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament (earth, stars, and sky) showeth His handiwork.”  (Psalm 19:1)

In spite of what foolish ‘scientists, so-called, believe and proclaim as observable fact, you and I and every other genuine Christian are granted faith to believe the truth – God is the Creator Lord of all, and, in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ, all was created that exists today. We have God’s own inspired Word on this vital matter:

“Unto me (the apostle Paul), who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, Who created all things by Jesus Christ.”           (Ephesians 3:8-9)

So we can clearly see that Psalm 40:5 continues the Divine theme of God’s wonderful works and thoughts towards mankind, and especially towards the Spiritually regenerate (born again) Christian.

Verse 5.  “…And Thy thoughts which are to usward.”  The Christian heart is constantly warmed by the fact that the Lord God Almighty condescends to actually think about him/her!  What a blessed thought!  God is continually thinking about you and me!  Wow!  Furthermore, His thoughts concerning us are Divinely good thoughts, thoughts about how much He loves us and is preparing for us day by day, and in Eternity.  Hallelujah!  Now this is what we would define as a GREAT EXPECTATION!

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”  (Jeremiah 29:11)

“And ye shall be My people, and I will be your God.”  (Jeremiah 30:22)

Verse 5.  “Many are…Thy thoughts which are to usward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.”  God thoughts concerning us, ‘His people’, are innumerable!  Even if one might think of the highest number, and multiply that number by the highest number – even that huge number would not be greater than the number of the Lord’s Divine thoughts towards us, ‘His people’.  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour Lord God!

“But we (born again, Bible-believing Christians) speak in the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory…But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.  But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”  (1 Corinthians 2:7-10)

Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living Lord God; the Creator Lord of all things; has made a written promise to you and to me as ‘His people’: “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”  (John 14:2-3)

Thought:  The Creator Lord Jesus has promised us a mansion in Heaven – He’s been away more than 2000 years preparing it.  Are you ready to go there today?