Sermons of Robert Murray MCheyne 16. The Difficulty and Desirableness of Conversion

Extract

“I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord” Psalm 40:1-3.

There can be little doubt that the true and primary application of this psalm is to our Lord Jesus Christ; for though the verses we have read might very well be applicable to David, or any other converted man, looking back on what God had done for his soul, yet the latter part of the psalm cannot, with propriety, be the language of any but the Saviour; and, accordingly, the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses are directly applied to Christ by the apostle in the 10th chapter of Hebrews: “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not; but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.”

The whole psalm, therefore, is to be regarded as a prayerful meditation of Messiah when under the hiding of his Father’s countenance; for, how truly might he who knew no sin, but was made sin for us, he on whom it pleased the Father to lay the iniquities of us all, how truly might he say, in the language of verse 12, “Innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head; therefore my heart faileth me.”
According to this view, verses 1-3 are to be regarded as a recalling a former deliverance from some similar visitation of darkness, in order to comfort himself under present discouragement . And who can doubt that he who was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, experienced many more …