Psalm 40

40       Thanksgiving (individual)

            O God, I Patiently Wait on You

            1 I waited patiently for the LORD;

            And He inclined to me and heard my cry.

·         Deliverances are generally such as to show that none but God could have wrought them.

·         When will the world learn that forms and ceremonies, though ordained by God, are wholly inefficacious for salvation? Baptism and the Lord’s Supper can do no more good than sacrifices and circumcision did of old. To despise any ordinance of God is certainly sin; but to put an ordinance in the place of hearty piety towards God is to despise God himself; and to put any ordinance in the place of Christ is to become a thief and a robber.

·         “When the law of God is written in our hearts, our duty will be our delight.” (Henry) Then also it will be the delight of God.

·         Though our views of sin may through life be inadequate, yet we have no reason for believing that our sanctification will progress rapidly, or ever be perfected without our experiencing a deep sense of personal vileness and ill-desert. A perfect view of his iniquities would sink any man in despair, unless he had far clearer apprehensions of God’s mercy in Christ than are attained by the majority of converted men. Let us ask for such a sense of our sins, as we can bear, and as will make the cross of Christ most dear to us. “Nothing can so empty a man, and lay him low, and fill him with confusion of face, as his sin pursuing him.” (Dickson) Whatever thus abases him is useful to him.

·         Our low estate is not despised by God. He as readily goes to a hovel as to a palace. He has powerful leanings to the poor and sorrowful. Nor will he make any tarrying, when the right time for their deliverance comes.