Psalm 40 - A Song of Resurrection

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.
Psalm 40:2-3

The Holy Spirit spoke marvelously through David, causing him to record his own experiences and yet express truths that were beyond his experience. His language grew greater than the event he was trying to describe. The only ultimate fulfillment was to be in those coming days when the Messiah would appear among men in the flesh. Psalm 40 is, in a sense, our Lord's own autobiography. He Himself tells us why He came to earth, what was accomplished, and what His experiences were.

This is a description of resurrection. "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire" or, as the Hebrew has it, "out of the pit of tumult," out of a terrible experience, out of a place of desolation and despair and death.

Life is often filled with death. Every experience that is opposite to what God has designed for us is an experience of death. Bitterness and shame and sorrow, hate and greed and loneliness, are all forms of death that come into our lives right now. That is what our Lord was experiencing. He understands these things because He has been through them Himself. Ultimately they led Him, as they will lead us, to that final moment when life ends and death is before us--the deep, dark desolation of death. But, He says, the Lord drew me out of that. He lifted me up from a slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, and set my feet upon a rock and made my steps secure.

That is a beautiful description of the experience of resurrection. None of us has ever been resurrected. There is a great difference between what happened to Lazarus and what happened to Jesus. Lazarus was really resuscitated; he was restored to this life almost as though he had been given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But Jesus was resurrected. He was the firstborn from the dead. He stepped into a whole new experience of life that God had designed from the beginning for humanity. That is what the Messiah is describing here. The result is, "He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God."

A new song describes a new experience. When God does something great for you, you do not sit down and recite a proverb or compose a paragraph or devise a recipe. You write a song, because singing is one of the best ways we have of expressing what is happening to us. And so He has a new song to celebrate a new kind of living, resurrected life. The effect of that resurrection life, He tells us, is going to be widespread. "Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD" (Psalm 40:3). The effect of the resurrection of Jesus was that the story of Christianity, the message of the Christian gospel, exploded in the Roman world as the church literally thrust out in every direction and shook the world of that day.

Prayer: Oh Lord, You have the power to bring life from death. Thank You that through the resurrection of Jesus You have given me new life. May I proclaim Your saving acts to others. May I not hide Your righteousness in my heart but speak of Your faithfulness and saving help. I love you Jesus. Amen

Life Application: Bitterness, shame, hate, sorrow, and loneliness are all forms of death. Do we believe and act on His indwelling Presence to dispel every form of death we experience?

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