The Bible Study Hour

Dr. James Boice: David just can't stay quiet. Today on The Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, David is praising God for his deliverance from the miry pit of sin and despair. David knows that there will always be trials throughout his life, but he also knows that trust and obedience in the Lord brings lasting peace and ultimate deliverance.

Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. David knows from experience that faithfully trusting in the Lord brings comfort, hope, healing, and deliverance. God is good and can be trusted. As David says in Psalm 40, verse 16, "The Lord is great." Grab your Bible now and turn to Psalm 40.

Dr. James Boice: Anybody who has attended church for any length of time at all, has undoubtedly heard this psalm read. And even if you've not heard it read in church, you've undoubtedly heard it reflected in other ways. It talks about a man who was in some desperate straights in life, so bad that he could only describe it as being in a slimy pit, stuck in the bottom, in the mud, in the mire.

Dr. James Boice: But he describes how God lifted him up out of that pit, and this psalm is a reflection on it. The person who had that experience was King David. I suppose that's the most important thing that should be said, that that was David's experience. And that's because David was an extraordinary person. From time to time in history, people emerge that are giants in many ways. There are giants in ability and achievement, and if we're thinking in spiritual terms, giants in devotion, and David was all of those.

Dr. James Boice: He was a man after God's own heart, by God's own testimony. He walked closely with God for nearly all of his life. He's responsible for nearly half of the psalms. So God, God not only blessed him and guided him and preserved him, God also spoke through him. So his spoken words and his written words, such as those we have here, have been a blessing to God's people down through all the ages. And yet it is this David.

Dr. James Boice: David, who was so blessed, describes himself as being in this slimy pit. Now that means that if a person like that could have such an experience, then you and I can certainly have it as well. It's a way of saying that slimy pits are the experience even of the greatest saints, and mud and mire are something that even kings know.

Dr. James Boice: I suppose we should deal with a preliminary question, concerning whether this is a Messianic psalm or not. A number of very important commentators have thought so, C.H. Spurgeon, among others. Saint Augustine, of course, he thought all of the psalms were Messianic. William Pettingill and Harry Ironside and others, the chief reason is because verses 6 through 8 are quoted in the Book of Hebrews in reference to Jesus Christ.

Dr. James Boice: Now, of course, it doesn't make the entire psalm Messianic, and we should be warned against that, because a little later on in the psalm, David confesses his sins, and that at least could not be said of Jesus Christ. We have here, then, is not a psalm which is itself Messianic, as some of them are. That is prophecy of the Messiah who is to come, in which every part of it fits the coming king, but rather a psalm, parts of which have been taken out and used in the New Testament with Messianic meanings.

Dr. James Boice: I think a more interesting question, at least by way of introduction, is the relation of this psalm to Psalm 70. You turn to Psalm 70 and compare it closely with this psalm, you'll find that it's almost an exact repetition of verses 13 through 17, that is, the latter third of Psalm 40. You say, "Well, what's the relationship between the two?" The liberal scholars, for the most part, imagine that an editor took two separate psalms and combined them into this one somewhat awkwardly.

Dr. James Boice: The reason they say somewhat awkwardly is because the first part of this talks about a deliverance that David experienced, a deliverance from the pit. And the latter part of it is looking for another deliverance. They think that's kind of a strange combination of ideas. And yet, as is usually the case, the liberals go astray at this point. They're always trying to out-think the Holy Ghost.

Dr. James Boice: And in this case, they're missing that that is the way many of these psalms are written. The author will describe a situation in which God has blessed him to encourage himself in the present situation in which he finds himself. He's going through trouble, so he'll think back to how God has lifted him out of trouble in the past, and he'll repeat that and explain it for the benefit of those for whom he's writing. And then he'll say, "Because God has done that, I'm encouraged to go out and pray that God will do it in the future." And that's exactly what we have here.

Dr. James Boice: This psalm really falls into three interesting parts, and to a certain extent, you can define them by a reference to the past, and the present, and the future. The first three verses are talking about the past. That's that past deliverance, what God has done. Verses 4 through 10 are dealing with the present because David is commending the grace and goodness of God to those for whom he's writing. He's saying, "You can experience this, too."

Dr. James Boice: And then the latter portion of this, verses 11 and following, including the verses that are repeated later in Psalm 70, are verses in which David looks to the future and says, "I need deliverance from God in the future as well." In my judgment, what has happened here is that David wrote this psalm, and then at some later point in history, an editor extracted the latter part in order to be able to use it in a more general way in the service of the congregation.

Dr. James Boice: And perhaps the placing of Psalm 40 here in the earlier part of the Psalter, where we have most of David's psalms, and the other one later in a more eclectic section, indicates that kind of interpretation.

Dr. James Boice: Well, we look at the first part, and here's where he describes his deliverance from the pit. Jeremiah was delivered from a literal pit. You may know that story. It's in the 38th chapter of his prophecy. He was very unpopular in Jerusalem because he'd been given the true message of God, which contained a large measure of judgment in those days, and that kind of a message is never popular.

Dr. James Boice: And Jeremiah was saying that the city was going to be handed over to the Babylonians, and some of his enemies said, "Look, this is demoralizing. The soldiers won't fight if they're told something like this. You have to get rid of Jeremiah." So they threw him in a cistern. A pit, a literal pit, a dug well where they used to store water. And the story is rather grim. Jeremiah, we're told, sank down into the mud at the bottom of the pit. It didn't have water in it, or he would have drowned, but it had all of this accumulated mud and muck from the centuries. And there he was stuck at the bottom of the cistern.

Dr. James Boice: Now, he would have died there of starvation if it weren't for a foreigner, a man from Cush, Ethiopia, who was in the city, went to the king and explained the situation, and the king said, "Yeah, get him out." So they took 30 men, and they went, and they pulled him out of the cistern. Now that was a literal slimy pit. No reason to think that what David is talking about here is a literal pit. And that is worth saying because if it is not a literal pit, it's a metaphorical pit.

Dr. James Boice: And if it's metaphorical, it's meant to describe the kind of pits that you and I experience. We're thinking about some of those. One kind of pit I think of is the pit of sin. Some people are caught in the mud and the mire of sin. David himself had been, at one period of his life. You know the story. He stayed home in Jerusalem in the season, we're told, when it was customary for the kings to go to war.

Dr. James Boice: While he was there, he saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof of a house near the palace. He inquired after who she was. He found out she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and that didn't deter him. He invited Bathsheba over, he slept with her, and when he discovered later that she was pregnant, he had Uriah killed in battle by giving Joab instructions to put him in the forefront of the army and advance on the city they were attacking. And then as soon as the soldiers began to fire back to withdraw the troops and allow him to perish. And that's what happened.

Dr. James Boice: That was certainly a pit of sin, and David was caught in it. He continued in that pit for nearly a year until God sent Nathan the prophet to bring it into the open. And David confessed the sin and got back on track, but it certainly was a grim time in his life. Now, some of you may be caught in something like that. It's the way sin operates. It's not surprising, you see. It's why you can't ever in your life say, "Well, why isn't it all right for me just to sin a little bit?" You know, it's just, I know it's wrong, but it's just a little something I'd like to do. And if I do it, then I'll, I'll get back out of that and I'll go on in the Lord's way. It doesn't work that way. It's like flypaper.

Dr. James Boice: Romans 1 describes that. You ought to know it. It's when you run away from God, you start on a downhill path, and the way Romans 1 talks about that, there's no bottom to the path. It's a way of saying, not only is it a pit, it's a bottomless pit. And you know that's the phrase the Bible used to describe hell. It's a bottomless pit, something out of which you can't escape.

Dr. James Boice: Now, I say, if you're stuck in that kind of a pit, you know it if you are, how are you going to get out? Well, you're certainly not going to get out by yourself. You can't do it. You cannot overcome sin by yourself. And that's why you need a savior. It's why David, regardless of what he's describing in these particular words, called on God.

Dr. James Boice: That's not the only kind of pit we get stuck in. I can think of another example. Some of us get stuck in a pit of defeat. That is, you've tried to do something and you've failed at it, and then that failure has been followed by another failure and another failure. I've talked to people in counseling sessions when they say, "My whole life has been one long defeat."

Dr. James Boice: Now, I don't want to make light of that. There's a tendency to do that sometimes in preaching, to say, "Well, you know, God will make it all better if you just surrender it to him." It may not happen quite that way. You may be in an area where you're not going to succeed, and I don't want to pretend that a solution in a case like that is easy, but I will say this: God does have victories for you.

Dr. James Boice: It may not be in the area in which you're currently working, but he certainly has things for you to do and victories for you to achieve. What you have to do is stop and begin to listen to him and call upon him and wait patiently for him and find that that's what he will do with you in his own time. Notice that that's the way David begins the psalm. He says, "I waited patiently for the Lord."

Dr. James Boice: And it was after he had done that that God turned to him and heard his cry. Again, I say, I don't know what David is describing here from his own experience, but there was a period in his life where he had a lot of defeats. It was when he was a young man. He had a great future before him, but Saul was against him. And no matter what he did, he couldn't please King Saul.

Dr. James Boice: Finally, Saul tried to take his life. He tried to do it more than once. David had to run away, and he had the existence of a hunted man for years while the king of the country sought him down and hounded him nearly to death. David would certainly have said at that period, "I'm just not succeeding at anything. Nothing I do seems to work." And yet he waited patiently upon the Lord then, and in God's own time, he brought him to the throne.

Dr. James Boice: Well, let me give you a third example of some of the pits we get into. That's the pit of bad habits. Some people are stuck in something like that. We know habits that are terribly addictive, and so that kind of pit is obvious. People get stuck on drugs and can't get off of them. Sometimes it's alcohol. Sometimes it's habits like smoking. That also is addictive.

Dr. James Boice: Some things aren't quite like that, but we build them into our lives in such a way that it really is almost impossible to break them. Things like overeating, not terribly bad in itself if it's done once or twice or occasionally. But when it becomes a habit, it's something that you get stuck in. Some people develop the habit of self-pity, always feeling sorry for themselves. Then, of course, it warps their entire personality, and years down the road after they practice that, they just can't get out of that.

Dr. James Boice: Where are you going to break those bad habits? Where are you going to find the new habits that you need to go on and live a prosperous life? You're going to get it from God if it's going to happen. I say that because I recognize how difficult the problem is. What you need is to wait patiently on God and allow him, bit by bit, to lift you out of that pit of bad habits and set you on a rock where you begin to go in his way and break those things which are so destructive.

Dr. James Boice: Well, let me suggest in the fourth place that sometimes it's the pit of circumstances, and for an example here, I think of Paul. What Paul describes concerning the trials that he went through when he was trying to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. He talks about it in the Corinthian letters, especially in Second Corinthians. Now those weren't bad habits, they certainly weren't sin. It was just the opposite case. Paul was experiencing these things because he was trying to be faithful to Jesus Christ in the gospel. And yet, when he describes it, listen to this. Five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked.

Dr. James Boice: I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep. I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food. I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily pressure of my concern for all the churches.

Dr. James Boice: I don't think it would be stretching the psalm for Paul to have prayed in those circumstances, "O Lord, lift me out of this pit." The interesting thing is that God didn't do that. As far as we know, this is the kind of thing that Paul experienced to the very end of his life. It was the calling God had for him to glorify his savior in those circumstances.

Dr. James Boice: God did hear him in the circumstances because Paul, when he's writing about them, can also say, not only does he describe them how bad they are, but how God gave him victory even in the midst of such things. Second Corinthians 4:8 and 9, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed."

Dr. James Boice: You might be experiencing circumstances in your life that are like that. I want to assure you that if they're coming into your life because of your faithfulness to Jesus Christ and the gospel, then what Paul describes here is going to be your case as well. You're going to be beaten down, but you're not going to be destroyed by those things because God is going to hold you up in them in order to glorify himself in the middle of the suffering.

Dr. James Boice: All of these things, you see, we can look at and say, "Well, they are examples of what David is talking about in the psalm." And at some point or another, every one of us can identify with what he's saying. I want you to see that what he's really saying is not that he was in the pit, but that the Lord delivered him out of the pit. Isn't that interesting? You look at those first three verses, that's where he talks about his past deliverance, but he only mentions the pit once and the mud and the mire once, and what the verses are really filled with is what God has done.

Dr. James Boice: I see five things that he says that God has done. He turned to me, that is, he noticed me. He lifted me out of the slimy pit. That's the second thing. Number three, he set my feet on a rock. Number four, he gave me a firm place to stand. And number five, he put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Isn't that wonderful? That we have a God like that.

Dr. James Boice: A God who notices us, first of all. Why should he notice us? He's the great, sovereign, marvelous God of the universe. We're a little speck. We're less than a speck. We are a small portion of a speck in God's great universe. Why should he be concerned at all whether you and I get into slimy pits? This great big cosmos that Carl Sagan thinks is so wonderful, all that ever was and all that ever will be, isn't taking any notice of you if you fall into a pit.

Dr. James Boice: But the great God of the universe does. He is not the God of the Greeks who was unmoved by the affliction of his creatures. God is one who takes notice of you, no matter what you're going through. He sees you. He knows your suffering. That's the first thing David says. The second thing is that he lifted him out. He couldn't get out by himself, but he lifted him out. He lifted Joseph out, literally, on one occasion.

Dr. James Boice: Joseph had been thrown into a pit by his brothers, and God sent the Midianites by, and as a result of that, they sold him to the Midianites, and that's how he got out of there. And God has done that in different ways with his people all down through history. Many of his people can say, "Yes, I was in a pit, and God lifted me out. I was in a pit of sin, and he lifted me out. I was in a pit of self-pity and other bad habits, and he lifted me out. I was in a pit of defeat and discouragement, and he lifted me out."

Dr. James Boice: That's what David is speaking of here. Not only did he do that, he set my feet upon a rock, he gave me a firm place to stand, and because of that, he put a new song in my mouth. The new song in my mouth is a song of praise to him for that deliverance. Now, that's what he says as he's reflecting on the past.

Dr. James Boice: The next section of this, as I said, is a present tense portion of the psalm, in which David is looking out now to the people to whom he's speaking, and in which he reflects on God's past goodness for their benefit. It falls into three sections itself. Verses 4 and 5 are the first, and what he does in these verses is to recommend his own trust in God to other people. He does it in the form of a beatitude.

Dr. James Boice: Verse 4, "Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust and does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods." It reminds us of Psalm 1, doesn't it, the way the Psalter began. "Blessed is the man who does not associate with the ungodly, but studies the word and sinks his roots deep into God's teaching, the teaching of scripture." That's the kind of thing David is saying. Now, we want to ask at that point, "Why is a man like this blessed? A man who makes the Lord his trust." The answer is obvious in view of what has come immediately before.

Dr. James Boice: The reason a man who trusts God is blessed is that God is a God who can be trusted. God is a good God. His character doesn't change. And because he's been good to his people in the past, we can know that he's going to be good to his people in the future. In an earlier psalm, in Psalm 34:8, David said, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." That's what he's saying here. You want to know how good God is, you need to trust him. When you trust him, you'll find out how blessed is the one who actually trusts in God.

Dr. James Boice: You have to taste God to see how good he really is. I suppose somebody could invite you to a banquet, and it might be the most splendid banquet that had ever been spread for anyone. And yet you'd never know that or benefit from it if you sat there and didn't eat what was set before you. In order to understand how God is, you have to try him out. God doesn't mind that. It's not testing God, it's just trusting God. And that's what David was doing.

Dr. James Boice: The second section of this middle portion of the psalm is in verse 6 through 8, and here he's talking about the proper relation of a trusting person to God. You see, he's described what God's done, he's broken out into song. He says, "Look, I recommend this relationship of trust to you, but now he says, "Look, let me carry it a bit further. Here's what's involved." What you have to do is obey God, and obeying God is far more important than sacrificing to him.

Dr. James Boice: What he says in verse 6 is a statement that we find all through scripture. You can get out a concordance, look about obedience and sacrifice and all of that, and you'll find that again and again in the Bible God says that obeying him is far more important than sacrifice. It's a way of saying that heart religion is more important than external religion. It's good to come to church because you hear the Bible taught. It's good to fellowship with other people. It's good to take part in the communion service and all of those things, but you can do that and if you're not obeying God, it doesn't count for anything at all. As a matter of fact, it counts for worse than what's good because it's only hypocritical.

Dr. James Boice: On the other hand, when you obey and you come to God, then the other things become the blessing they're meant to be. Verse 6 is a bit of a puzzle for commentators. "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. What did you desire? My ears you have pierced." Now, what does that mean? Well, the Hebrew word there is actually the word "dug," D-U-G. It literally means, "My ears you've digged."

Dr. James Boice: That doesn't seem to mean a whole lot, so because that word can also mean pierced, it's been translated that way. And the reason is that in the Book of Exodus, there's a description of how a servant, a slave who has fulfilled his maximum seven years of servitude to a master, but who wants to stay with his master, could go through a ceremony by which he became a slave of that good master permanently.

Dr. James Boice: And what's described is this. The master is to take him to the judges of the city. He's to declare his intention, and then they're to pierce his ear with an awl, that is, making a small hole in one of his ears as an indication that he is now a voluntary servant or a voluntary slave. Now, a number of commentators have looked at that and said, "Well, that's what it's talking about here." And of course, that makes good sense in the context, doesn't it?

Dr. James Boice: David's talking about the right relationship of a trusting person to God, and he's saying, "Look, what that would mean is that you are a voluntary servant or slave of God who is your master." We can understand that. We're servants of Jesus Christ in exactly the same way. But there's a problem with it, and the problem is this. In that ceremony described in Exodus, only one ear was pierced.

Dr. James Boice: And here he's talking about two ears. "My ears you have pierced." That doesn't bother some people. They say, "Well, he just wanted to be doubly sure of it, so he said, 'Do my other ear as well.'" Well, I can imagine that an individual might do that, but it isn't the way you would normally refer to it in a psalm. It would be exactly the way it's described in Exodus, and it's not done that way here. For that reason, most modern commentators think that it does mean something else.

Dr. James Boice: To dig the ear was a Hebrew idiom which meant to unplug the ear. We can understand that. You go to an ear, nose and throat man, and the first thing he does is examine your ears and he digs out any obstruction that might be there, accumulated wax and such a thing. And most of the modern commentators say, "Well, that's what David is talking about." He's saying, "You've cleaned out my ears so I can hear what you're saying." And, "Look, that fits the context too, doesn't it?"

Dr. James Boice: It could be either way. David is talking about the law of God when he says in verse 7, "Here I am, I have come. It's written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God." What he's saying is, "I find your will in scripture. And that's what I want to do." And so, if that's the case, what he's saying is, "You have given me ears to hear." So I might not perish, and that theme, of course, is throughout the word of God as well.

Dr. James Boice: Well, let me amplify upon that. There are a lot of people who have ears, but they don't hear. And I know some of them. Sometimes when I'm preaching and I don't prepare sermons with anybody's particular problem in mind, as a matter of fact, if it occurs to me, I generally back away from it because I don't like to be that direct. Usually, I avoid talking specifically to somebody's problem from the pulpit, though I'll do it personally. But sometimes when I get into the midst of something, the Lord is bringing to my mind that that fits somebody who is there exactly.

Dr. James Boice: And I say to myself, "That's exactly what they need to do. That is God's word to their exact situation." And when I talk to them afterwards, they didn't hear a word of it at all. Their ears were plugged. What they needed was their ears to be digged. They need their ears unplugged. And I only know one person who can do that, giving hearing to the deaf, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. James Boice: You and I need to have unplugged ears so we hear what he has to say to us when the scriptures are read. And if we're going to have that done, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to have to do that to us. I suppose at that point we could go back to verse 4 where it says, "Blessed is the man," and we could say, "Blessed is the man who can hear." Blessed is the man who can hear what God actually says to him when he speaks to him through the scripture.

Dr. James Boice: Well, there's a final section to it, and that final section, the final section of the middle portion is what you find in verses 9 and 10, and what David is describing there is his testifying to these things before the assembly. "I proclaim your righteousness in the greatest assembly. I do not seal my lips. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart. I speak of your faithfulness and salvation."

Dr. James Boice: Jesus said that when he was talking about the human heart. He said, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Ever wondered, when you're with people, why some people have such vile speech? Very simple answer, they have a vile heart. They speak what's in their heart. But it works the other way, too. You see, if your heart is filled with the goodness of God because he's delivered you in the way that this psalm is describing, then you're going to speak about him.

Dr. James Boice: And Christians should be doing that. You see, I don't know whether you have actually experienced these pits that I've talked about, the pit of personal sin and pit of bad habits and defeat and circumstances, but you and I, if we're Christians, have all been lifted out of one pit, and that's the pit of the sin that's keeping us from fellowship with God. And Jesus Christ removed that by his death on the cross. That is the greatest of all deliverances.

Dr. James Boice: And if you and I have experienced that, then we should be able to do what he's talking about here in verses 9 and 10. We should be willing and able and actually proclaim what has happened. I think as I read that, that David is actually thinking of silence as a sin. And what he says in these verses is that he's not going to be silent.

Dr. James Boice: Well, we come to the end, the last section, beginning with verse 11. And here David begins to pray for a future deliverance. That is, he's still in trouble and he wants God to deliver him in the days to come. I find that interesting. Here he has described in the opening verses a great deliverance that God has given. We don't know what it is, but God gave him a great deliverance in some way.

Dr. James Boice: It's a marvelous thing. He's testifying about it. He wants everybody to know. It's an example of the goodness of Almighty God. Now, we get to the end of the psalm, and what do we find? We find he's in a pit all over again, and he needs help. It's a way of saying, isn't it, that life is one long trouble? Even Jesus Christ said, "In this world, you will have trouble."

Dr. James Boice: Can't be any other way, can it, for Christians? What kind of a world do you think it is? It's a sinful world. It's a world that's in rebellion against God. We, we have this, this idea, kind of this, this false kind of spirituality in the evangelical church that because I'm a Christian and because Jesus is taking care of me, everything's going to be all right. I'm not going to have any problems at all. That's a lie.

Dr. James Boice: You're going to have problems because it's a sinful world. Jesus Christ is going to take care of you in it. You're going to have troubles as long as you're here. Jesus Christ said, "You will have troubles. In this world, you will have troubles." But you know what else he said? Just after he said that, he said, "But take heart, I have overcome the world."

Dr. James Boice: And what he means by that, you see, is if you're joined to him in saving faith, as you are, if you're a Christian, then you're not going to be discouraged even though you have the troubles. And if you find yourself in a pit, as David did, and if you find yourself in trouble currently, and you're looking for a future deliverance, you're going to have trouble and you're going to be dismayed by the trouble. But you're not going to be utterly cast down or pessimistic while you're going through it.

Dr. James Boice: Troubles, yes, but pessimism, no. I think that's the tone as we come to the end. David is expressing himself very clearly, and he's having grief, but he's not pessimistic. And the reason he's not pessimistic is that God has been with him in the past. He's delivered him before, and therefore expects God to deliver him again. The cries are rather plaintive.

Dr. James Boice: But nevertheless, they're cries that are founded upon a sure and certain hope. Look at verse 17. "Yet I am poor and needy." May the Lord think of me, poor and needy. Are you poor and needy? Of course you are. We're all poor and needy. We are poor, weak, sinful, needy, failing, lonely, uncertain individuals. But you see, that doesn't matter because we have our God.

Dr. James Boice: What is David doing when he comes to the very end of the psalm? The answer is he's doing exactly what he was doing at the beginning. What was he doing at the beginning? Verse 1, "I was waiting patiently for the Lord." And here you get to the very end, and he's waiting patiently for the Lord again. I suppose you can wait and not wait patiently. You can wait patiently but not wait for the Lord.

Dr. James Boice: But the right combination is all three. To wait patiently for the Lord, and therefore to wait hopefully because he is the Lord. "You are my help and my deliverer." And that is true. So my God, prays David, "Do not delay." Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this psalm and for the way David handles these difficult moments in his life. We find a pattern for how we can deal with them as well because we all certainly have difficulties of one sort or another, and in some cases, for some of us, at sometimes, they become so intense and so hopeless that a slimy pit is actually the way to talk about them.

Dr. James Boice: And yet what are slimy pits to you? You are a God who is able to lift your people out, and you do do that and have done it and will do it again. Father, we commit these things to you and we pray for any who may be suffering in that way, that you'll give them while you have them in that circumstance, a sense of your presence, and the grace to wait patiently and call upon you. And then also the grace to praise you rightly, adequately, and boldly when you finally reach down and lift them out. We pray these things in anticipation of what you're going to do in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Dr. James Boice: Thank you for listening to this message from The Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith, and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a Reformed awakening in today's church. To learn more about the Alliance, visit Alliancenet.org. And while you're there, visit our online store, Reformed Resources, where you can find messages and books from Dr. Boice and other outstanding teachers and theologians.

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