February 9, 2018 - - Psalm 40:11-13, 16-17

Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord;

Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.

For innumerable evils have surrounded me;

My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up;

They are more than the hairs of my head;

Therefore my heart fails me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me;

O Lord, make haste to help me!

Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;

Let such as love Your salvation say continually,

“The Lord be magnified!”

But I am poor and needy;

Yet the Lord thinks upon me.

You are my help and my deliverer;

Do not delay, O my God.

Psalm 40:11-13, 16-17 NKJV

The awesome, terrible, holiness of God means that our own sinful condition is immediately revealed to us. The sins that cling to us and our "go-to sins" are subject to His unspeakable, just, punishment. If we choose to hold onto our sins, we will miss the mercy of our God. The writer of this psalm realized the trapped feeling brought on by this conundrum.

As New Testament believers we know that God's punishment against sin was emptied out onto the body and soul of Jesus Christ at the cross. Those who believe on Him and follow Him, leaving sinful paths, will find God's forgiveness full and free. The Spirit of God applies this to our hearts. The Spirit seals us what is broken in us so that we understand we are held, even restrained from our propensity to wander: by the Word of God, the work of Christ and the Spirit of God. When you realize the depraved inclinations of your heart, when in view of the unendurable holiness of God our Father, you know you need to be rescued, cry out to Jesus. He is the Captain of our Salvation and the Deliverer of those who cry out.

Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O LORD,

my sins, my wrong-doing, my grossly immoral behaviour rise up as a stench around me. Rescue me and deliver me from this sinking sand. I have no other rescue, no other source of help, You are my Deliverer, Jesus, the Only One appointed by the Father to save the sinking and the stinking. Spirit of God, do not delay, seal to my heart the healing ointment promised in the beautiful words of this psalm. LORD of Lords, be magnified! Amen.