Empty and Temporary Sacrifices – Hebrews 10:4-10; Psalm 40

And now we turn to the book of Hebrews chapter 10, please. Hebrews 10, and we're gonna read together verses four through 10.

Hebrews 10, beginning of verse four. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold,

I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me, to do your will, O God. After saying above, sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law.

Then he said, behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Let's pray together before we begin. Father, your word is our joy and our delight.

You have put your word in our hearts. You have given us a hunger and a love for truth and for your word.

And we thank you for that work of the spirit of God in us. We pray that you would sanctify us by your word, by your truth.

We pray that your spirit would give us insight and understanding in your word today and that you would make very difficult things become clear to us.

And we pray that through this, your word may be our guide and your spirit may be our teacher. And may your glory be our everlasting concern.

We pray this in Christ's name, amen. This middle section of the book of Hebrews offers a series of comparisons between the work of Christ and all of the forms and features of the old covenant.

We have seen back in chapter seven that Jesus is a superior priest to Aaron. He's a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Then we saw in chapter eight that he has initiated a superior covenant, superior to the old covenant. And now in chapter nine and 10, we're seeing that Jesus has offered a superior sacrifice, a sacrifice superior to the animal sacrifices.

And this superiority of Christ is important for us to understand so that we might know and rest in his sufficiency, so that we may jettison all false views of Christ and his sacrifice that cause us to look to anything and anywhere else other than to Jesus Christ for our hope, for our confidence, for our joy, for our delight in our salvation, for our assurance of salvation.

And so the author all the way through this with every comparison has been showing that Jesus is superior to all of the forms, the features, the functions, and the persons of the old covenant.

And every time he does this, when he tells us that something old has been replaced with something new, on every occasion with the priesthood, with the covenant, and with the sacrifices, the author has made the point that the bringing in of the new has replaced and made obsolete the old.

So every time he says that this new thing has come, which God has promised, that which it replaced is then made obsolete, it's no longer operative, it's not working anymore, it's not functioning anymore.

And we saw this with the priesthood. When Jesus, who is our high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, him having come and done his priestly work, what happened to the

Aaronic priesthood? Was no more, it vanished. I mean, it continued to function for a few years after that, just like a car coasting down when the engine has been suddenly pulled out of it, the wheels continued to turn and it continued to coast until eventually it was completely done away with.

Today, there is no function for the Aaronic priesthood. It's nothing. With the old covenant, the old covenant having been replaced by the new, what does the author say regarding the old covenant?

It's obsolete, right? It was useless, it was weak, it was unable to do certain things, and so now the new has come and the old one has become obsolete.

The sacrifice of Christ renders all the Old Testament sacrifices obsolete.

No more animal sacrifices, no more drink offerings, no more Yom Kippur, no more

Passover events, all of those things have been replaced and rendered completely obsolete by the arrival of the death of Christ, by the sacrifice of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.

So the new has replaced and completely superseded the old. And every time the author tries to make this point that the old has replaced the new, he goes back to Scripture.

Remember, he did it with the priesthood. In order to show that the Old Testament priesthood was eventually to be no more and that it would be superseded by a new priesthood, he took us to Psalm 110, where we read, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

And then he gave us an explanation of Psalm 110 to show us that this expectation that the old priesthood would go away and that a new priesthood would come, it's completely in keeping with everything the

Old Testament taught concerning the Aaronic priesthood. Likewise, with the Old Covenant, in order to show us that the old has been replaced by the new, he took us to Jeremiah 31, where the

Lord promises, this is the new covenant that I will make with the house of Israel and with the descendants of Judah. And then he explains to us the details of the new covenant there to show us from Scripture, from the

Old Testament, that there would be a new covenant and the old would go away. Well, now he's doing the same thing with the sacrifices.

He's told us that the sacrifice of Christ is superior to the animal sacrifices, but now the author needs to make the case that the

Old Testament Scriptures actually anticipated that those animal sacrifices would eventually come to an end.

And to do that, he quotes Psalm 40, which is what we read in verses 5, 6, 7, and 8, and 9.

Those verses there where he is quoting and then explaining the passage from Psalm 40, he's trying to make the case that even in the

Old Testament, they anticipated that those sacrifices would eventually come to an end. So the coming of Christ has put an end to those sacrifices.

His work is superior, and that's what the author is intending to show. Christ had to come in order to provide the good things that were promised to us because those old forms and functions, they were only shadows and could not actually provide anything.

Second, they had to be repeated, which was evidence of their uselessness and their inability to accomplish that task.

And now third, the author is going to show us in verse 4, and all of this brings us up to verse 4, that they were merely animal sacrifices.

So now we come to verse 4 and following. They were merely animal sacrifices. So he says, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Now that word impossible, it translates a word that means something is incapable of something, it's unable, it is powerless, it is without strength.

It describes something that has no ability or strength or capacity or power to achieve something else.

It can't happen because the capacity to do it is completely absent. So the word is used in Acts chapter 14, for instance, to describe a lame man who it says has no power or no strength in his feet.

It's the same word, no power and no strength, Acts 14, 8. At Lystra, a man was sitting who had no strength in his feet.

It's the same word translated impossible here. His legs were impossible. To do what?

They had no strength to carry him anywhere. The same can be said of the Old Testament sacrifices. Those animals, it was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

See, the problem with the old covenant sacrifices of the animals was not that they just couldn't find the right animal.

No Jew ever thought to himself, eventually we'll find the right lamb. Eventually we'll find the right bull, the right goat, the right red heifer.

The problem was never with the quality of the animals. The problem was with the fact that they were animals and the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins.

It lacks the strength, the capacity to do so. It's also the same word that's used in Hebrews 6 verse 18 when it says it is impossible for God to lie.

It's impossible for God to lie. He lacks the power, the ability, the capacity to lie.

It's not that God can lie and he just doesn't. It's that there is nothing in God that gives him the capacity or the ability to say falsehood, to speak falsehood.

In Hebrews 11 verse six, without faith it is impossible, no strength to please God. Without faith it's impossible to please

God. The one who lacks faith in Jesus Christ lacks also the ability to be pleasing in God's sight in any way.

No matter what outward forms and functions he might adopt, no matter what he might say or do, no matter what practice he might make his own, he lacks the ability, he lacks the power to be pleasing to God in any way.

Now this is something that we should expect from the context. When he says in verse four, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin, we could look back to verse one and say, that's because the bulls and goats were only shadows of the good things to come and not the things themself.

Those sacrifices of the old covenant only portrayed or pictured what was to come and therefore they lacked the ability to do anything.

You can step out onto a job site on a construction job site and pick up a hammer and stand in the full sun and you can see your shadow there in front of you.

How many nails can your shadow nail in? It's got the shadow of the hammer, right? And the shadow of you and the shadow of your muscles, but can the shadow actually do anything?

The shadow can't accomplish anything. It's the same thing with the animal sacrifices. The animal sacrifices, it is impossible.

They lack the capacity, the strength or the ability. And again, the problem was not that they couldn't find the right animal. The problem was not that they didn't offer enough sacrifices.

The problem was not that they just didn't do it in the right way. The problem was always that the blood of bulls and goats had no strength, no capacity, no ability to take away sin.

And this is what makes the sacrifice of Jesus Christ so utterly unique. And it's what makes his sacrifice so unique than all of the

Old Testament sacrifices in that he offered himself. He didn't offer an animal.

Now, why is it that animal sacrifices had no ability to take away sins? Well, number one, animals are not moral creatures and we have committed moral crimes.

Can you get that distinction in your head? Animals are not moral creatures. They are amoral, not immoral, amoral.

They have no moral capacity. They have no moral conscience. They have no moral ability to understand what is right and what is wrong.

And therefore, when we see a cheetah chase down a zebra and tear it apart and eat it out in the

Serengeti, we don't say that cheetah should be tried for crimes against zebra kind.

We never say that. Why do we not hold animals to moral standards? Because they're not moral creatures.

We are moral creatures. Well, an amoral, not immoral, an amoral creature, a creature without any moral capacity, cannot pay the penalty for the moral crimes of a moral being.

Further, animals are irrational. They don't understand what they're doing. You could bring an animal to the temple to have it sacrificed and offered on behalf of your sin.

That animal doesn't understand it. It wanders up there, it might look around at all the blood and think, hey, is that Billy over there on the table being disemboweled?

He has no idea what's going on. He's not there willingly, he's not there by his own volition, he's not consciously aware that he's about to give his life in your stead.

He has no capacity to understand that. It's an irrational being. And it's different in nature than us.

And so animals cannot pay the price for human sin. Instead, what we needed was one who is of the same nature as us, but unfallen, so that he could be perfect and innocent and holy and blameless.

One who could obey all of God's law, from the first to the last, comprehensively, and do all the

Father's will so that he has no moral blemish in himself. Who then would willingly say, because sacrifices cannot do this, because these animals can never take away the sin of my people,

I myself will do it. That's what he needed to say. And then he needed to step up and willingly, by his own volition, not as a victim, but as a volunteer, step up to bear and carry away all the sin of his people by offering himself in our stead and shedding that blood, a rational, moral, human person who shares our nature and has the ability to bear our punishment.

That's what we needed. And that's what makes the sacrifice of Jesus so singularly unique. That's what makes it sufficient.

So what was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin, namely, Christ has done. Chapter nine, verse 26.

For this reason, he was manifested. To what? To put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The author here in chapter 10 is just describing that, but he has a point to prove now.

And his point to prove is that you ought not necessarily just believe him because he is saying this, but in fact, the

Old Testament scriptures themselves anticipated this. The Old Testament scriptures actually expected that there would come a time when those animal sacrifices would be no more and another sacrifice would be done that would replace them.

And to make that point, he quotes back Psalm 40, which we read at the beginning of our service.

So you know how you do this? I see some of you already getting ready. Okay, now we're going back to Psalm 40. You're absolutely right. Turn back in your

Bibles to Psalm 40. Because before we jump into the quotation here in Hebrews and how the author here in Hebrews uses this psalm, we wanna make sure that we're understanding what the meaning of this psalm is.

So we're gonna look at the whole psalm, particularly focusing in on the portion that the author of Hebrews quotes, and then next week, we'll come back to Hebrews chapter 10 and we'll take what we learned today and we'll kind of dive into Hebrews chapter 10 and we'll wrestle through some of the issues that are there.

Now I want you to know that there is a lot going on in Psalm 40. And when I say that there's a lot going on in Psalm 40,

I struggle today with trying to organize all of my thoughts and deal with all of the issues that are here.

This was my biggest struggle this last week was trying to find a way to sort of get my head and my arms around everything that is here and how

Psalm 40 is used in Hebrews chapter 10 and what Psalm 40 means. That's the biggest struggle.

So this is going to take a little bit for us to unpack. And when I say a little bit, I don't mean a little bit more of this sermon, but I like a little bit more of this month to unpack as we work through this over the course of the next couple of weeks.

There's a lot going on here because here's what we have. We have Psalm 40, which David wrote in his circumstances.

So in David's mind, he was describing what he was dealing with. And he speaks, as it were, as the author of the

Psalm. But then we fast forward 1 ,500 years. No, 1 ,000 years, sorry.

We fast forward 1 ,000 years to the time of Hebrews and the author of Hebrews looking back on Psalm 40 says, yes, this was written by David, but it is also the

Messiah speaking. So before he, that is Christ, comes into the world, he says, and he takes the words of Psalm 40 and puts them on the lips of the

Lord Jesus Christ in his pre -incarnate state as he is about ready to enter into this creation.

So there's a lot happening. So we actually have multiple meanings and layers in Psalm 40. We have

David's intended meaning and what that Psalm says of what David was going through, what he meant. Then we have the messianic implications, which is like a whole nother layer over top of that Psalm and how the author of Hebrews uses that.

And then we have this radically different citation between what we find in Hebrews 10 and what we find back in Psalm 40.

And it is in that word, well, are you back in Psalm 40? Yes, I am as well, okay. You'll see that the quotation from Hebrews is starting in verse six.

Look at verse six, sacrifice a meal offering you have not desired, my ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Look at the second phrase of that, my ears you have opened. Now, when the author of Hebrews quotes that in Hebrews 10, he says, sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

That's a little bit different, isn't it? No, that's a lot different. My ears you have opened, a body you have prepared for me.

So why is it that the author of Hebrews misquotes, does he misquote Psalm 40 or what's going on there with that, what appears like a miscitation of it?

And some people even said, well, he just had a corrupted version of the text that he was quoting from. Well, if he had a corrupted version of the text that he was quoting from, then we have a corrupted version of a corrupted version, right?

So I don't buy that for a moment. So something else is going on here, but we're gonna unpack that, that's next week. We gotta sort of set the stage for all of that.

And see why this is gonna take weeks to do this? It's not just because I'm lazy. So let's dive in at Psalm 40.

I wanna give you a little bit of an outline here in a moment, but I want you to notice that the prescript, it's written, it says it's for the choir director and it's written by David.

That's more than just an incidental historical novel fact. When we read of something in the

Old Testament that is written by David, we have to keep in mind that David was a significant player in the Old Testament, probably one of the most significant players in the

Old Testament, because God made a covenant with David and not just any covenant or agreement. God made a special covenant with David that David would be the one through whom the

Messiah would come, that that Messiah would assume David's throne, and that that Messiah would rule with that throne over his kingdom forever and ever.

Now those are some really significant promises. So what we find in Psalms, especially when we're dealing with Psalms of David, is we see

David experiencing things and writing things that we can almost put right over top of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Remember when I talked about how the sacrifices were shadows of the substance or the reality?

In many ways and in many instances, David is a shadow of the reality who is Christ. So that the lives and experiences of David and his greater son, the

Lord Jesus Christ, they're mirror images of each other in many ways. So when we read words from David or things that David writes, we also have to keep in mind that sometimes the

Holy Spirit is using David in describing his circumstances to also be describing to us the circumstances and situations of the

Messiah. So there are multiple times throughout the Psalms where David's experiences and his teaching and his

Psalms are actually descriptions of what would come through his later son and his greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So for instance, we have in Psalm 16. Remember that passage that says, Psalm 16, you will not allow your

Holy One to undergo decay? Peter quotes that on the day of Pentecost and he says, this couldn't have been David speaking of himself since David is in his tomb and his tomb is with us and to this day, therefore

David was speaking of one who would come after him. Well, David was in many sense describing himself and his own hope in the resurrection, but Peter sees that as layered over top of that an actual promise of the

Messiah. Same thing in Psalm 22 when David says, all my bones are out of joint. My God, my

God, why have you forsaken me? My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth and for my garments they cast lots.

Psalm 22 is a description in the Old Testament of crucifixion. What was David doing? He was describing his own circumstances and his own feelings, but the

Spirit of God was so superintending what David was saying so that when the Messiah came and he experienced his death, it would be a mirror image of what

David was describing. You see the multiple? What David thought he was writing, the Holy Spirit was writing through David, but the

Holy Spirit was saying, in essence, wait till I fulfill this. Then you're gonna see a whole new meaning and a whole new understanding to this.

And it's not that those passages in David have a different meaning, it's that they have a parallel meaning, a parallel interpretation.

And that's what we find here in Psalm chapter 40. So let me give you an outline of the Psalm before we go through it, and we will go through it, the whole thing,

I promise. Verses one to three, we have David's personal testimony of God's goodness and his deliverance.

That's the first three verses. In verses four and five, we have God's goodness to all his saints. So David describes his own personal little deliverance that God had done for him, and then says, this is because God is good to all of his people.

And he speaks of God's goodness to all his saints. Then in verses six to 10, we have this dedication by David to do the will of God, and that's the passage that is quoted in Hebrews 10.

And then in verses 11 through 17, there is a prayer for deliverance and victory or vindication.

And there are some imprecatory elements in the Psalm, which means, imprecatory, meaning that David here in the

Psalm is actually praying for and asking for deliverance from God's enemies by God conquering

God's enemies on David's behalf. That's the last part of the Psalm. So let's begin at verse one and look at David's personal testimony of God's goodness.

Psalm 40, verse one. I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and will trust in the

Lord. All David's describing there is some deliverance from some historical circumstance that he found himself in, where God delivered him from that distress, his anxiety, the affliction, whatever suffering he was going through.

It seems as if it has something to do with enemies that had allied themselves against David. We don't know exactly what historical circumstance this was, but David found himself facing very difficult and trying times.

And he basically just says, the Lord has delivered me from this. He has taken me out of this pit and he has set my feet on solid ground.

And then in verse three, he describes how this becomes a testimony to others. When God delivers David from something, people see what the

Lord has done in David's life and they can say, yes, God is good. I see God's goodness in the lives of others, and that encourages me to trust

God for the goodness that I also will enjoy. If God can deliver David through this, God can deliver me from my circumstances.

Whatever David was facing, he was delivered from. Whatever I am facing, I can be delivered from, if God should so will.

But then in verses four to five, David switches his focus more generally speaking to God's goodness to all of his people.

So verse four, how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and has not turned to the proud nor to those who lapse into falsehood.

Many, oh Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done and your thoughts toward us.

There is none to compare with you. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count.

What would be too numerous to count? God's thoughts toward us.

Now here, David is just simply describing the way that God approaches or the way that God thinks of and treats the righteous one, the one who has put his trust in the

Lord and not in falsehood or lying princes or powers or courts or anybody else.

We put our trust in the Lord and the Lord delivers his people. Why? Because many are the thoughts of the

Lord towards the righteous. Now this is, I don't want to camp on this even though I think this is worth a whole sermon just to unpack what this means.

But I just want you to hear how comforting this is to realize. From eternity past, if you are in Jesus Christ, from eternity past,

God knew your name. How far back in eternity past can you go in your mind? That's a long ways.

God knew your name. He set his love and affection upon you. And for eternity past, he was thinking about his elect and the

Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit had conversations about, thoughts about and intentions for your good and your glory.

That's a long time to be having conversations and to have somebody on their mind. Is it not?

That's a long time. Then God has planned all of creation and providence around securing your everlasting joy and glory.

So the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in creating creation and in creating Adam and allowing the fall and in intentioning redemption through his people, through all of the

Old Testament, through all of human history, from the moment of creation all the way up until now, the Lord has been thinking about you.

Many are his thoughts toward the righteous, many. And if you would begin to even declare what

God thinks about you, it would be too numerous to even count. Now, I think you could count my thoughts, especially as a man,

I've basically got only one idea going through my head at all times. Whatever it is, and I go from one track to the next track to the next track.

That's just how I, it's easy. My mind is an eight -track tape. So there's eight tracks, you have eight of them all day long.

I think about food, I think about sleep, I think about other things and I think about other things. Okay, so I got eight of them going on.

You can count my thoughts, okay? You can never count God's thoughts. For all of eternity past, and listen, for all of eternity future, while he is your joy and your delight, many are his thoughts toward you.

See, this is comforting to the righteous, right? This is why we can trust that God is a God of deliverances, that he can take us out of the pit and set our feet on solid ground and make us to rest in him and make us to joy and glory in him.

Many are his thoughts toward us. Now, verse six, this is the dedication to the will of God in verse six.

Sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired. My ears you have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Then I said, behold, I come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, oh my God. Your law is within my heart.

Now, that is the passage that's quoted in Hebrews 10 and we'll return to it here in just a moment. Keep going at verse nine. I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation.

Behold, I will not restrain my lips, oh Lord, or Lord, you know. So David is basically saying

I have committed myself to you. I've dedicated myself to you, oh Lord. And so you are on my lips and I am proclaiming your goodness and grace to everybody.

He is dedicated to praise God for his goodness and his deliverances. Verse 10, I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart.

I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great congregation.

David is one who proclaims God's goodness because of God's goodness to him. Many are God's thoughts toward him.

So David says, if God's thoughts toward me are innumerable, if they cannot be numbered, then

I will begin to praise God for all of those thoughts that he has toward me in righteousness. And then verse 11 through 17 is a prayer for deliverance.

And we're gonna return here in a moment back to verse six, but I want you to notice the prayer for deliverance and victory. Verse 11, you, oh

Lord, will not withhold your compassion from me. Your loving kindness and your truth will continually preserve me.

For evils beyond number have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to see.

They're more numerous than the hairs of my head. My heart also has failed me. Now, verse 12, David is obviously aware of his own personal sin, which means that not everything in this

Psalm is about the Messiah. Verse 12 could never be said of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many are my iniquities.

They're more numerous than the hairs of my head. Now, David can count his sins, and truly our sins can be counted.

They can be numbered. We could never number them, but God's thoughts toward us can never be numbered. Notice the contrast.

My sins are numerous. There are many, but God's thoughts towards me are so numerous that they can never be counted.

Verse 13, be pleased, oh Lord, to deliver me. Make haste, oh Lord, to help me. Let those be ashamed and humiliated together who seek my life to destroy it.

Let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, aha, aha.

Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you, and let those who love your salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified.

Since I am afflicted and needy, let the Lord be mindful of me. You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay, oh my

God. Now, notice the first part of the psalm. He says in verse five, God's thoughts towards me are too numerous to be counted, and then at the end of the psalm he says, let the

Lord be mindful of me. Now, that makes sense, the prayer, let the Lord be mindful of me, only if we are confident that the

Lord's thoughts toward us are too numerous to count. David can trust in God's ability to see and understand and comprehend all that he is enduring, only because he knows that the

Lord has set his affection on the righteous, on the man who is blessed because he trusts in God. And for that reason, he asked for God to be mindful of him.

And there is a prayer here over in these final verses for a victory, a prayer for victory over God's enemies, which ultimately, by the way, the

Messiah himself will accomplish. So this vindication that is coming is not something that ever would have happened during David's days alone, but it is something ultimately which

God will accomplish through the Messiah. God will be vindicated through the judgment that Jesus Christ will bring when he comes back to establish his kingdom and fulfill the promises that he made to David.

He will be vindicated. Now, I want you to notice as we go back to verse six,

I want you to notice the placement of this prayer of dedication. And that's what verses six through eight is, it is a prayer of dedication.

There's a simple progression here, verses one through five, God delivers his people. God delivers those who trust in him, who are dedicated to him, who have given themselves to him.

God is their strong tower and deliverer. That's the promise in verses one through five. Verse six through 10,

David says, I am such a person. I have come to do your will. Your law is written on my heart.

It's not sacrifices which you have desired of me, but it is dedication to you and obedience to your will, and that's what

I have done. Therefore, last third of the psalm, deliver me. Notice the progression. God delivers those who trust in him and are obedient to him.

I am one who trusts in you and is obedient to you. Therefore, deliver me from what? Those who are disobedient to you and do not trust in you.

That's the flow of the psalm. In the middle, it's near this dedication or this prayer of dedication by David to the

Lord, and that's where we pick up in verse six. Now, notice, and I pointed out the different phrase, but a body you have prepared for me is how

Hebrews 10 translates Psalm 40, verse six.

A body you have prepared for me, that's quite different than my ears you have opened, and we're gonna get into why that is different and what accounts for the difference and the significance of the difference, and it is a significant difference.

But the psalmist, sorry, the author of Hebrews takes the words of the psalm in verses six and seven and eight and he puts them on the lips of the

Messiah as if David, even though he is writing these things, is actually writing these things as if spoken by somebody else.

And you'll see the parallelism here as we work through verse six and following. So now in Psalm 40, verse six, sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired, my ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Now stop there for a second. Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, burnt offerings you have not required.

But God did require them, didn't he? Yeah, every morning, every evening, every

Yom Kippur, personal offerings and private offerings and family offerings and feasts and festivals and sacrifices and new moons and animals beyond number and red heifers and cleansing and all of that,

God had required all of that, had he not? So what then does David mean when he says in verse six, sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired?

But God required those things. God demanded those things. It's interesting that the author of Hebrews, and he says something that the author of, that David does not, but the author of Hebrews when he's describing this, he reminds us these things were offered according to the law.

These things which David said the Lord has not desired and he has not required, they were actually offered in obedience to the demands of the law.

So the law did require those things, but what does David mean when he says you have not offered or you have not desired these things, nor have you required these things?

This is where the messianic element comes in here in just a moment. But I want you to understand what David is laying claim to here, what he is describing here is the fact that God himself was not desirous of, nor did he require simply the offering of animals themselves.

It was not the sacrifice just by itself alone without obedience to the commands of God that God delighted in.

God didn't delight in just the sacrifices. What was God after? He was off after the animal sacrifices coupled with, brought with, a pious, righteous, obedient, contrite heart.

That's what God wanted. And David here is getting to the point that the

Lord was not interested in just the outward forms. And the Jews had fallen into, and they did this throughout their history, and we fall into the same trap today.

The Jews had fallen into the mistake, the error, of thinking that as long as they went through the outward forms of the sacrifices, that they were okay.

That they could create, they could commit iniquity, and then they would just say, but Saturday's coming, so I'll just bring another lamb to the altar and we'll cover that up.

Or that they could commit wickedness and then say, but then I'll just repent afterwards. As if God was just delighted in the death of animals.

And here's the point. God does not delight in the death of animals. God didn't just wanna see animals butchered for no reason.

That was not the point of the sacrifices. The point of the sacrifice was for the worshiper to bring the sacrifice with a contrite heart.

Say, this is the cost of my sin, and I grieve over it. God, give me the grace to not do this again.

That's what God wanted. Contrition, repentance, righteousness, justice, a pursuit of holiness.

It was not the outward forms of that. There's a passage, I think it's in the Psalms, I forgot to look it up before this morning.

There's a passage where the Lord says, do you think I just desire your sacrifices? The hills are full of animals that belong to me.

If it's just animals I want, I got plenty of those. If God just wanted to see dead animals, he could create a bunch of animals, killed them all.

That's what he wanted. But that's not what he was interested in. It wasn't the sacrifices that God required of us.

It's the sacrifices coupled with a contrite heart, obedience, and humility.

That's what God wanted. And so you see, and David really is identifying the very thing that is behind the sacrifices, the very things that the sacrifices were to point to.

And that is the contrition, and the repentance, and the worship, and love, and obedience of the worshiper. So we read through the

Old Testament on multiple occasions where the Lord reproves the Jews for bringing their sacrifices.

Listen to this, Amos chapter four, verses four and five. Enter Bethel and transgress. Here's what the prophet says.

You go to this city and sin. Wait a second, is the prophet commanding people to sin? No. Enter Bethel and transgress.

In Gilgal, multiply transgression. How are they doing that? Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days.

Offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened. Proclaim freewill offerings. Make them known for so you love to do, you sons of Israel.

And what was Amos saying? Every time you come and you offer up these sacrifices, the sacrifice is sin.

The sacrifice ought to be the thing that you offer because you have sinned, and now your sacrifices have become sin.

Why? Because they made such a loud proclamation of all their sacrifices, and the holiness, and what they were doing, and freewill offerings, and tithes, and grain, and wine, and all of this stuff.

And they would bring it all to the Lord with prideful, rebellious, and disobedient hearts.

And the Lord says, when you do this, you transgress. Amos 5, verse 21. I hate,

I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,

I will not accept them, and I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. Take away from me the noise of your songs.

I'll not even listen to the sound of your harps, but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever -flowing stream.

Close quote. What did the Lord want? Justice and righteousness, not the sacrifices. 1

Samuel 15, 22. Do you remember the incident where David came and confronted Samuel? Samuel was supposed to go in and slaughter the

Amalekites, and then he was supposed to destroy everything. He wasn't supposed to keep back anything, and Samuel said, that was good instruction, but I think

I know better. So he kept back the best of the flock and started offering sacrifices when Samuel didn't arrive.

And so what did the Lord say through Samuel to Saul? Does the Lord delight in sacrifices and offerings?

It's not that. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.

Psalm 51, verse 17. David said, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh

God, you will not despise. Listen to Isaiah chapter one. What are your multiplied sacrifices to me, says the

Lord? I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle, and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats.

When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer.

Incense is an abomination to me, new moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.

I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts. They become a burden to me. I'm weary of bearing them.

So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen.

Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from my sight.

Cease to do evil, learn to do good. Seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

Close quote. What is the Lord saying? Not interested in all your religious doings? You disobedient and stubborn people.

Give me obedience, not your sacrifices. The sacrifices were supposed to be an expression of that obedience, but they had become a replacement for that obedience.

And so the Lord says, I don't desire your sacrifices. David said, it's not just sacrifices per se that you require of me, but instead he says,

I have come to do your will. And this is what the Lord was after. Micah 6, six through eight.

What shall I say? With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves?

Does the Lord take delight in the thousands of rams? In 10 ,000s of rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has told you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your

God. It's not the sacrifices. It's not about the sacrifices. It was never about the sacrifices. And that's what

Psalm 40 is saying. In verse six. Sacrifice a meal offering you have not desired.

My ears you have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. God wanted obedience.

So David says then in verse seven. Then I said, behold, I come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me.

I delight to do your will, oh my God. Your law is within my heart. Now here is David's prayer of dedication.

I want you to see how verse seven and eight can be spoken from David's perspective. He says to the

Lord, it is not the sacrifices which you want in and of themselves. What you really want is an obedient heart.

Therefore, I come. And you can picture David almost coming to the temple himself and saying, I come to you, oh

Lord. In the scroll of the book it is written of you that I would do your will, and that is what

I want to do. So your law, verse eight, is within my heart, and I delight to do your will, oh my God.

That is what God is after, the heart. God wanted that heart from David. And David recognizes that. So he commits himself to be obedient to God.

In terms of this prayer being spoken from the mouth of David, there's a question. What does it mean when he says, in the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your will, oh

God? What would that scroll refer to? Well, if we just take this from David's perspective of how David would have been describing this, it very well may be a reference simply to, in the books of Scripture, which

David had at the time, it is required of us that we be obedient. So he would be looking at the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses, and be able to say, in those books, obedience is required of me.

So in the scroll of your books, this is what is required, obedience. Not the sacrifices, obedience.

And so that is written of me, just as it is written of all God's people, this is what God requires. God requires obedience.

And so David would be saying, in that scroll it is written of me and all of God's people that we ought to do your will.

So we come before you, and you come and be obedient to give ourselves to you, oh Lord. But there is obviously a whole nother layer here to David's meaning when he is saying this, because the author of Hebrews sees this not just as David's words, but also the words that could come from the mouth of Jesus.

So from the mouth of Jesus, it's easy to see the messianic overtones of the passage, is it not?

When we read in verse six, sacrifice a meal offering you have not desired, my ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you have not required, or verse six, a body you have prepared for me, you can see the messianic overtones here.

Then I said, behold, I come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me. Now let's imagine that verse six is spoken by the

Messiah. Spurgeon pictures it this way when he's preaching on this passage. He said, it is as if these words come from the mouth of the

Messiah as he is stepping up to the edge of heaven, about to enter into this world at the incarnation in the womb of the virgin.

And this is what he says to the father. It's not sacrifice that you have required of me, animal sacrifices, it's not burnt offerings that you're asking me to give, but instead in the scroll of the book, in all of the

Old Testament, it is written of me. I then will do your will. And what does he mean?

What would the Messiah mean when the Messiah would say, in the scroll of the book it is written of me? He would mean the same thing that he meant when he was with the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection.

And he went to Moses and the prophets and the Psalms and he showed them the scriptures, all the things concerning himself.

He would mean the same thing that he meant in John chapter five when he said to the Jews, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have life and they are those which testify of me.

And if you believe Moses, you believe me because Moses wrote about me. That's John five. All the

Old Testament is about him. So the Messiah, recognizing the second person of the Trinity, recognizing that all of that Old Testament text was about him, he would step up to the edge of heaven and say, the

Father has not required me to offer a burnt offering. He has not required me as a high priest to offer an animal sacrifice.

Instead, knowing full well what it was that the Father was expecting him to do, to come into this world and to live a perfect life and then to give his own life as a sacrifice on the cross, the

Son said, that is what the Old Testament says of me and I delight to do the will of the Father. And so he comes into this world knowing that a body has been prepared for him, for him to come and offer that service and fulfill that act of obedience.

So you can see how verses six through eight would really, in a fuller sense, in a better sense even, refer to the

Messiah and be able to be something that he would be able to utter. Because the Lord did not require that priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, to step into this creation and then offer another animal sacrifices.

That's not what the Father required of him. The Father didn't ask Jesus to come and go to the temple and offer up a lamb or a bull or a goat, but the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit had agreed together before any Adam was created, before a single angel was created, was that the

Son would come into the world and offer his life. He would make a sacrifice, but it wouldn't be an animal sacrifice.

And the Son, in verses six through eight, not David, but the divine

Son says, Lord, it's written in the scroll in all the Old Testament of me, and I will go and I will do your will.

And he comes and he does the will of the Father. And that obedience really, that obedience of the

Son is the model for us. That is what we are called to follow after. That is the example that we are to follow.

Does God desire our acts of worship? Just the forms, just the functions, just the outward show?

Is that what God really wants? Or is God after something entirely different? Does he want the rituals?

Or he wants righteousness within? He wants righteousness within. He desires obedience to his commands, a broken and contrite heart.

And without those things, all the externals are just pomp and circumstances.

It's just a show. And the Lord would say, that's not what I desire. You see, when we come and we do the outward thing, without the inner heart of obedience and commitment to the

Lord, it is just as odious to him as a wicked Jew bringing an animal sacrifice and thinking that this is somehow gonna pay the price for his iniquity.

That's not what the Lord desires. Next week, we'll take a look at Psalm 40 again, but this time we'll see how the author of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 10 uses it.

Let's pray together. Father, you have been so merciful to us.

So gracious to us to not count our sins against us, but instead to reckon and credit all of our sins to the account of the

Lord Jesus Christ who bore them in full. And even our empty worship and our platitudes and our outward religious activities that we are guilty of, we do it without even thinking about it.

We pray without even realizing what words we are saying. We go through the motions of worship because they can become habitual without any inward reflection of the heart of worship and obedience.

And of those things we repent and we recognize our weakness and our frailty. And we thank you that even those sins you have laid upon your son so that he has died for even our outward and shallow worship.

We thank you for such grace. And we thank you that that sacrifice is sufficient to pay the price for all of our sin and all the sin of all who will believe.

We love you and we rejoice in that sacrifice. And again, we rejoice in the confidence that all our sin is gone.

Create in us clean hearts, create in us obedient hearts so that we may love and honor and worship you with great affection and with great joy and may it ever be increasing so that we are constantly growing in our love and affection for you and in our obedience to your commands.