Great Help
There is a great quote about help in an 1865 letter from William Tecumseh Sherman to U.S. Grant: “I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come–if alive.”
We can say the same thing about our amazing Father. Except we do not need to worry about whether He is alive or not because He lives forever and has been alive forever.
Jesus was dead but He has risen and is seated beside the Father now.
We can call out to our God and He will hear and we can trust in Him in all our situations.
I am sure there are times that you feel that God is not listening and you cry out over and over to no avail it may seem.
We see in this psalm that very thing happening. David had been delivered from some difficult and bad situations. Yet, he was still facing other situations.
He was in despair at times but he trusted the Lord and He cried out to the Lord and he knew that seeking to do the Lord’s will was what pleased God above anything that any offering or sacrifice could.
This is what is so important about this psalm. David makes it very clear that it is God that delivers and provides and that it is us doing His will that He wants.
To put this another way, trust in the Lord and seek to be obedient to Him and not on what you can do to get yourself through.
Just as Sherman depended on Grant, we need to depend on God.
I want you to keep your eye out for the themes within this psalm. In it we see that we need to Patiently Trust the Lord, Delight in the Faithfulness of God, and God is our Help.
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. 1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 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. 3 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. 4 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! 5 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. 6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. 7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: 8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” 9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. 10 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. 11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me! 12 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. 13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! 14 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! 15 Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!” 16 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the Lord!” 17 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!
Psalm 40 ESV
Such a beautiful text and what wonderful news it is to all who are struggling and suffering. God is good and merciful and has steadfast love for all who seek Him and trust in Him.
This means that we must…
Patiently Trust the Lord (1-5)
When we are patient and wait on the Lord, He will deliver us. He will deliver us anyway as He has planned but if we stay patient and trust in Him, the deliverance is sweeter because we trusted Him all along and did not become bitter or depressed.
He prayed and cried out to God but He waited and received a blessing. He was able to sing a new song because of God making his situation new and intervening.
The word patiently is a good rendition of this situation but it could also read I waited, waited for the Lord.
He was in a strait and he waited on God. He knew God would deliver even if he was to go through desperate times. He waited on the Lord because he knew he could not fix the situation himself.
We too often try and fix situations on our own only to have them blow up on us.
Just think of times you needed help and people were late getting there and you went on and started.
Sometimes it works out okay but usually we get in a bind.
I have I know and I am sure many here can think of a time they did too.
Maybe you needed help carrying something and help was late and you moved it alone only to find yourself down for a week or more because you threw your back out.
Maybe you got tired of waiting and tried to pen some cows alone only to have them run over you and get away and become more spoiled.
Maybe you were tired of waiting in traffic and tried to get around someone only to have a wreck.
This list could go on and on but I think we see that patience is something that helps us to live if we just embrace it.
That is what the psalmist is saying here. God is our help in all things, but we must be patient and wait because His timing is perfect when we are not. We want things now when God says later.
We need to remember that Ps 90:4
4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
Psalm 90:4 ESV
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2 Peter 3:8 ESV
God has perfect timing but it is on a different schedule than our desires sometimes. But when we wait and trust in Him, his deliverance and intervention is so much sweeter than if we try and fail.
The end of verse 3 and the beginning of verse 4 tells us we are blessed when we trust in the Lord and that many people will see this and cause them to maybe believe.
We are blessed because we focus on God and do not seek the world and stray away. When this happens his deeds and wondrous works are multiplied to us. “Those who do put their trust in God will happily find themselves in an advantageous position (blessed). The alternative is to put one’s trust in arrogant people (the proud) or false gods. While, as the prophets teach (Isa. 44:6–23; Jer. 10:1–22), the latter are ultimately impotent, God is uniquely powerful, as he has demonstrated many times.” (Tremper Longman III, Psalms, Tyndale OT Commentaries, Nottingham: InterVarsity Press, 2014, 187.)
We need to proudly proclaim Him and His uniquely powerful works to all because that is what the world needs. Everyone needs to hear this and believe.
Not only do we need to do this but we need to…
Delight in the Faithfulness of God (6-10)
Here the psalmist goes into what the Lord does not desire. He says that he does not delight in sacrifice and offerings but in the one who desires His will and desires to be obedient to Him.
He is not saying that sacrifices and offerings are bad but that “Sacrifices in and of themselves have no value. If one does not obey God from the heart, they are totally useless” (Longman, 188).
What this means is that if you are doing things trying to please God and earn His favor rather than seeking to do His will His pleasure is not with that.
This means that we do not say, “But Lord I gave this.”
Or “Lord I did that and helped so many people.”
Or, “Lord I have given all my money and time to serve You.”
Or, “Lord All of my life has been committed to you and I am still facing this.”
This is what Jesus says some will say at the end to him. We read this in Matt. 7:22-23
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Matthew 7:22–23 ESV
They were depending on what they did to get them what they wanted. It was not for the will of God or for His glory.
This is what the psalmist is talking about here. If we are doing things seeking to please God rather than doing His will and seeking to please Him in that, we are missing the point and what God has pleasure in.
When we depend on God for our help and strength, then we will proudly proclaim His help and deliverance, His righteousness to as many as we see.
We will not hold it in and speak like we were the ones who delivered ourselves.
We will not act like it was us who pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. We will give credit to God and tell others proudly it was Him not us.
Like a time when I worked at the RO’s. I was taking horses out to holdup so the men could have a mount swap.
While taking them they were still fresh and wanted to run and run back to Headquarters. We were a long ways from headquarters but they wanted to go that way.
I was running and crashing brush but they were not being cooperative. That was until Cisco Scott appeared from nowhere in front of them and turned them the right way and then he disappeared.
He saw what happened and I did but no one else. I could have said I turned them and got them in where they needed to go, but I did not do that Cisco did.
So, I have told many this story over the years because he did the turning I was just there.
That is like what we should do when God delivers us or saves us or resolves an issue for us. Give Him glory and honor and tell all who will listen.
We do this because God is full of mercy and steadfast love and will deliver it to all who call on Him for it.
This will also keep us dependent on Him and cause us to always…
Deliver our Needs to God (11-17)
When we give everything to God, and pray to Him for future deliverance it is because we have rested in Him and trusted in Him and give Him all the honor for the deliverance and help of the past.
We know He will give mercy and grace and deliverance to all who deliver it to Him to deliver them.
Even if you are like the psalmist in verse 12 and are fully encompassed by evil. Your iniquities have overtaken you and your heart is failing you, God is pleased to deliver you. He loves His own and even those of the world that are not His.
Christ died for the ungodly and that is deep and amazing love.
He died for all who are against Him and those who crucified Him. He died for you and for me.
As such He will give us love and deliverance when we plead with Him to do so.
Just be prepared to be patient and trust Him to do so.
We need to pray that all who are against us and want to wreck us or ruin the faith and claim God is fake and we are bigots or hate-filled people that they be brought to dishonor and appalled because of their shame.
This means we want them to see the wickedness and errors of their ways. We want God to reveal this to them so they may turn and rejoice in the Lord and want Him. This is why it is so important that we always give God praise and the glory for everything good and for the good that comes from anything evil.
Why we need to always trust in Him and have patience for the world to see.
We are all poor and needy but the Lord is our help and deliverer as verse 17 says.
We all need to rely more in that–in Him, than in anything we can do or anything the world can do.
God is good and God is love. Since He is we can depend on Him to be there for us.
Many have been abandoned by parents, spouses, friends, family, and any number of people in the world.
God will not abandon you.
God will not leave you.
Christ has said Heb. 13:5
5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5 ESV
This is cited from Joshua 1:5
And because of this Heb. 13:6
6 So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
Hebrews 13:6 ESV
He will not leave us nor will he abandon us. We can have confidence in that in all situations.
Jesus is with us and we can confidently go into the future knowing even though everything around us may be falling down, we have THE LORD OF GLORY ON OUR SIDE.
He is our help and deliverer. If God be for us, who can be against us?
Trust in the Lord and rest in Him and know He is in control and He will give the help needed when needed.
Out of Gas
One New Year’s Day, in the Tournament of Roses parade, a beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas.
Often, Christians neglect their spiritual maintenance, and though they are “clothed with power” (Luke 24:49) find themselves out of gas.
Don’t be like this. Find your fuel and help to continue on in the Lord and you will have that strength.
You will be able to face anything that comes because the Lord of Glory is your strength and help.
He will give you the help you need but always be patient and trust Him, delight in His faithfulness, and always deliver your needs to Him.
When we do He will delight in you, me, all of us who seek to do His will in all we do.
Our Loving Heavenly Father will send you His help when needed if we just trust him.
Will you place your faith today in Christ so you can receive this amazing blessing of the Lord?
