Delight Ourselves in the Lord — Chuck Smith

Welcome to the Word for Today, the broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture through the entire Bible, and on today's edition of the Word for Today, we'll be encouraged to delight ourselves in the Lord as we turn in our Bibles to the 40th Psalm, beginning with verse 1.

And now, with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith.

Psalm 40 is another one of the Psalms which are known as Messianic Psalms. That is, it is a psalm that has prophecy concerning Jesus Christ that was fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus Christ. The New Testament recognizes David as a prophet.

It also recognizes the words of David as being inspired by the Holy Spirit. As Peter said, and David by the mouth of the Holy Spirit spake, saying. And David prophesied, it said. And it was recognized that David was a prophet.

And many of the Psalms have references to Jesus as Messiah. This is another one of the Messianic Psalms, and the basic prophecies of this psalm are in verses 6, 7, and 8. However, there are those that see verses 1 and 2, and they see 2 as a prophecy, a prophecy concerning the resurrection, where it is, as they see, Jesus speaking and declared, I waited patiently for the Lord.

He inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. And so there are those who see that as prophetic of the resurrection.

David’s Prophecy of Christ’s Resurrection

There are other psalms in which David did prophesy the resurrection. Peter, in chapter 2 of the book of Acts, quotes one of the psalms of David concerning the resurrection, where he said that David, by the mouth of the Holy Spirit, said, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou allow the Holy One to see corruption.

And he said, I testify to you that David was speaking not of himself. His sepulcher is still here, but he was prophesying of Jesus Christ. And we declare that God did not leave his soul in hell, neither did he allow the Holy One to see corruption.

When Jesus died for our sins, when God placed upon him our guilt and he died in our place, his spirit descended into Hades, or Sheol, or what is commonly known as hell in our English language. It was a place that was in the center of the earth that was divided into two compartments.

The righteous dead and the unrighteous dead. The righteous dead with Abraham, waiting for God to fulfill his promise of salvation. And so Jesus talks about this in Luke's gospel chapter 16, when he gives to us the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and how that Lazarus died was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom.

Moreover, the rich man died and in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torment. Seeing Abraham afar off and Lazarus there being comforted, declared, Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus unto me that he might take his finger and dip it in water and touch the tip of my tongue, for I am tormented in this heat.

And Abraham said, Son, remember that you in your lifetime had the good things, Lazarus the evil. Now he is comforted while you are tormented. And beside that there is this gulf that is fixed between these two places where you can't cross over one from the other.

And he said, I pray thee then if he cannot come to me, send him back to the earth, that he might warn my brothers, lest they also come to this awesome place. And Abraham said, They have the law and the prophets.

If they will not believe them, neither will they believe, even if one should come back from the dead. And so Jesus descended into hell. He who has ascended, Paul tells us in Ephesians 4, is the same one who first of all descended into the lower parts of the earth.

But when he ascended, he led the captives from their captivity. So Jesus descended into hell. He preached to those souls that were in prison. When Jesus rose from the dead, Abraham and all of those righteous saints rose with him into the glorious, eternal kingdom of God.

And so the promise of Abraham to the promised, though, was to him by the Father, I will not leave your soul in hell. I will not allow you to see corruption. So this I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined unto me and heard my cry.

God’s Power to Transform a Life

Now it is possible that this is prophetic. It is also very true though of so many, many people. As we have waited patiently for the Lord, but we have seen the answers to our prayers. And we have seen, and so many can say, God took me out of a horrible pit, that life of the flesh, that life in bondage to sin.

And he brought me out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay. And he set my feet upon the rock, even upon Jesus Christ. And he has established my goings. And thus he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.

And many shall see it in reverence and shall trust in the Lord. And so we see how that the work of God in a person's life, the transformation, how when God lifts a person out of that horrible pit of sin, out of that miry clay in which they are sinking.

And he sets their feet upon the rock. He establishes them. And we see the stories. We see the lives that are so transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. People who were going nowhere. People who were bound in drugs and alcoholism and the other evils.

And you see them set free. And you see the change of their countenances, their lives. You hear now the new song that they're singing. The transformed life. The mouth is cleaned up. And the whole life is transformed.

And people see it. And they say, well, there's got to be something real. You know, you just don't change like that. And they recognize the power of God. And they see it. And they come to trust in the Lord.

Many people are brought to Christ through the witness of a changed life, of a friend who has been so transformed by the power of the Spirit. Blessed are all the blessed happiness of that man that makes the Lord his trust, or the man who puts his trust in the Lord.

God’s Wonderful Works and His Thoughts Toward Us

All the blessed happiness of committing ourselves to him and respects not the proud nor such as turn aside to lies. Many, O Lord God, my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done. Understatement for sure.

Look around and see the wonderful works that God has done. And then he said, and your thoughts which are toward us. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

The amazing thing is that God thinks about us. David said, when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him?

Who am I that God should think about me? And yet he does not do what he does. In fact, the psalmist said, if I tried to number his thoughts concerning me, I couldn't do it. They are without number. In Psalm 139, David said that thy thoughts concerning me are as the sand of the sea in number, are in number as the sand.

And so God continually thinking about you, his child. The thing that Jesus taught us concerning God is that though he is God over the universe, God over creation, he as the creator, he is the God over creation.

He is mindful of his creation. He's mindful of the birds of the air. He is mindful of the grass of the field. His creation, he's mindful of it. And he takes care of it. He watches over it. Jesus said, there's not a sparrow that falls.

He talked about sparrows. They're cheap little things. And so for three cents, you can buy a couple of sparrows. And yet he said, there's not a sparrow, as common as they are, that falls to the ground, but what your father doesn't notice it.

Now, the argument was always from the lesser to the greater when Jesus was using the birds and the grass and the flowers. For if your father will take care of the birds and feed the birds, and if your father will clothe the grass of the field, how much more will he take care of you because you're his child?

And I love that argument. I love the analogy there. My father watches over his creation, but I'm his child. And as a child, I have the rights of sonship. And if he takes care of that, which is just creation, not related to him, how much more will he take care of me as his child?

I love it. And so he thinks about me. To Jeremiah, he said, I know my thoughts concerning you. They are of peace and not of evil. Satan would have you think that God only thinks of you in a negative way.

He only thinks of you in the terms of judgment or punishment or whatever, not so. God says, my thoughts are to bring you to the expected end. God thinks of you in the eternal. And this is where the problem arises.

Living From God’s Eternal Perspective

As God is thinking about me and dealing with me, he always deals from the eternal perspective to bring you to the expected end. He looks down at the end of the path, the end of the road, and God deals with me from the eternal values and the eternal good.

Now there are some things that I may desire for a temporal advantage, but they would be bad for me eternally from a spiritual standpoint. They could be destroying. They could be damaging. And so God withholds many times the temporal because he is considering the eternal, that expected end, that down the road, where will it lead?

And thus we sometimes find ourselves not understanding the ways of God within our lives because it has brought me temporary discomfort. I don't like this discomfort. God, why do you allow this discomfort if you really love me?

God's looking down the road, what it's going to work out of me and what it's going to work into me of his likeness as he's molding me into his image. And so how vital and important that is. And God looks at that end result and he's always interested in the end result.

That's the folly of man. We do so many things without considering the end result. So many things that are destructive because we don't look down the road, we don't see what it's doing. And sometimes you want to shake these kids and say, wake up, can't you see what you're doing?

But Satan is always living for now. You know, eat, drink, and be merry. Tomorrow we die. And it's living for the moment where God wants us to live for the eternal, that expected end. Now we get into the prophecies concerning Jesus.

Christ as the Servant Who Fulfills God’s Will

Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire. This is quoted in the book of Hebrews as referring to Christ. It is interesting that this was written by David at a time when the sacrifices were probably their most meaningful in the history of the nation of Israel.

The temple worship had, or the worship of God, and of course David in the tabernacle, had pretty much come to a peak. It was not until Isaiah's time, after the spiritual declension of the nation, that God spoke of his feelings concerning the sacrifice.

Turn to Isaiah chapter 1 and in verse 11 the Lord said, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and of the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats.

When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons, the Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with.

It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They are a trouble unto me. I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands I will hide my eyes from you.

Yea, when you make many prayers I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood. So God speaks of that time that came in the nation's history where he was just sick of their sacrifices. You see it is possible to start out in a real worship and move of God and to continue in a form but to lose the power, the meaning.

Israel had offered the sacrifices to the Lord which the Lord required. But it came to the time when they were just perfunctory. They weren't meaningful any longer. And God said they are an abomination to me.

Don't bring me any more sacrifices. So here David is saying sacrifice an offering you did not desire. Burn offerings and sin offerings you have not required. God says stop them, away with them, I am through with them.

This my ear hast thou opened or pierced. We read concerning Jesus in Philippians chapter two, who though he was in the form of God and thought it not something to be grasped, to be equal with God, yet he humbled himself, took upon the form of man, came in likeness of man, as a servant, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

So Jesus took upon himself that of a servant. This ear, my ear have you opened or my ear have you pierced. Under the Jewish law, if you because of debts that you caused to others, if you could not pay, had to be sold as a slave in order to pay your debts, you would only be required to serve as a slave for six years.

In the seventh year it was required that they set you free. However, if during that tenure of time that you were a servant, you really enjoyed your position, then you would come to the master and you would say, look, I enjoy serving you, I don't want to be set free, I'm secure here, I enjoy the circumstances here, I want to become your slave.

He would take an awl and he would go to the door of the house, and there on the door post, they would drive the awl through your ear and pin you to the door post. And then when they would take the awl out, they would put the gold ring in, a slave by choice.

And so Jesus was a servant by choice. He said, I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. He humbled himself and became a servant, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

So my ear have you open is a prophecy of the fact that Jesus came as a servant to do the will of the Father. As when in the garden he prayed, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not what I will, thy will be done, submitting unto the Father as a servant, my ear have.

You open. We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse.

Venture through the Bible in our next lesson, as Pastor Chuck guides us through the study of the Psalms. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message, or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one, you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives, and they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details.

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That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. And now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith with today's closing prayer.

A Closing Prayer for God’s Guidance and Strength

May the Lord bless you and keep His hand upon you, guide you with His counsels, and keep you in His strength. May you rest upon Him and may you experience His strength and His love. And may God help you to really come into a full understanding and knowledge where it isn't just hearing Him with the hearing of the ear, but is really coming to apprehend, to see God, to see the truth of God.

You might be strengthened knowing that God is with you and shall sustain you as His child.

Listen and read along as Pastor Chuck tells the greatest story ever told, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each book contains an audio CD of Pastor Chuck reading this story, featuring the voice talents of Skip Heitzik.

But I will come back again on the third day. Greg Laurie. It's Jesus. Hi Peter.

Raul Rees. See, it's really Jesus. Yeah. Cheryl Brodeson. The stone was rolled away. The tomb is empty.

There are angels. And so many more. To order your copy, call the Word for Today at 800 -272-WORD. To see a sneak preview of the story of the resurrection, visit us online at thewordfortoday .org. Again, the number to call is 800 -272 -9673.

This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today in Costa Mesa, California.