Come Quickly to Help, Lord!

 Psalms 40:11-17

11 Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O LORD;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.

12 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.

13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me;
O LORD, make haste to help me!

14 Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion
Who seek to destroy my life;
Let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor
Who wish me evil.

15 Let them be confounded because of their shame,
Who say to me, "Aha, aha!"

16 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
Let such as love Your salvation say continually,
"The LORD be magnified!"

17 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.

The psalmist finishes this song of faith’s perseverance in trials by asking for tender and caring mercy from the LORD, and for His lovingkindness and truth to keep him.  He tells his God in prayer how evil surrounds him and that sins have overrun him, bringing shame and defeat all together to bring him down.  These sins were so many that he compared their number to the hairs on his head, impossible to accurately count, but covering his head as he considered them all.  This made him want to give up hope.  But he also trusted in God’s forgiveness in mercy and grace to want to forgive him when he had no right to be forgiven.  What did he do?  He cried out for help to be given quickly in order to alleviate the suffering and the offense.  He also prayed for the defeat of his enemies.  David prayed that they would be driven to confusion, scattered from their purpose to destroy him as one of God’s whom He loved.  He prayed specifically for their dishonor in being driven backwards from their evil attempts, and that they would be stunned and desolated for their slander and taunting attacks.  Yet he also prayed good for those who sought the LORD, specifically that they would be joyful and glad in their God, the ones lovingly seeking to appreciate His deliverance.  He prayed that they would join him in praise to confess and wish that God would be exalted.  In the end, the psalmist realized how poor and needy his state was, and yet in grace how the LORD had stopped to think of him for good (Psalm 70:5, Matthew 5:3, Romans 8:28).  He came boldly to that throne of grace as we can also (Hebrews 4:16), based on God’s mercy to consider him and to save him from defeat and death, a picture of Christ delivering us from eternal death and punishment demanded by divine and holy justice.  These are examples of how to pray for our enemies and for God’s merciful grace to deliver us, and how to stay the course in walking by faith, trusting in God’s goodness towards us.  This psalm reminds us in the midst of trials and tribulations, and even our own sins, to cry out in faith, “Come quickly to help, Lord.”  Do not delay, O my God, Maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22, Revelation 22:20)!