Psalm 116
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Psalm 116, beginning at verse one. And this psalmist
says, I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my
pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to
me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares
of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol lay hold of
me. I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the Lord. O Lord, I pray, deliver
my soul. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful. The Lord
preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved
me. Return, O my soul, to your rest,
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered
my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in
the land of the living. I believed. Even when I spoke,
I am greatly afflicted. I said in my alarm, all mankind
are liars. What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation.
I will call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the
Lord in the presence of his people. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints. Oh Lord, I am your servant. I
am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed
my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice
of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay
my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people and in the
courts of the house of the Lord. And you’re missed, old Jerusalem. Praise the Lord. Some of you
will remember that after the events of 9-11, September 11th,
2001, when the World Trade Towers were hit by airplanes, the Pentagon
was attacked. The other airplane went down
in the field in Pennsylvania. You’ll remember that for a little
while, everybody seemed to have faith in the Lord. People looked
to the Lord. They called on the Lord. They
affirmed. the Lord. They saw God’s hand of judgment. They saw God’s hand of pardon.
They saw God’s hand of care. And it lasted, oh, maybe about
two weeks. But for those two weeks, we thought,
or some Christians thought, look, there’s revival. Look, there’s
an awakening going on in our land. But it was short-lived.
People were back to profaning God and living a life of idolatry
within just days and weeks. That was a national event. Maybe
you’ve experienced, you’ve seen someone post-traumatic event,
but during that trauma, they say, I’m going to get back in
church. I haven’t been walking with the
Lord like I ought to, but as soon as I get back on my feet,
I’m back in church. I’m going to love the Lord. And
maybe like our 9-11 scenario, we see that their faith is short-lived. but sometimes it’s for real.
Sometimes it’s authentic. This psalm is about a person,
a person in the old covenant who was personally delivered
by God from a bad situation, a near death experience or a
death-like experience. Maybe it was Hezekiah, the occasion
we can read of in Isaiah 38, where he recovered from a great
illness. But the psalmist here does not have a short lived faith,
simply because of some traumatic event. No, this is an authentic
faith and I think we see in this psalm an intense love for Yahweh,
an intense love for God Almighty. Some of y’all may have seen the
poster. probably saw it in your college days or in some trinket
shop the poster 365 reasons to party you’ve probably seen that
maybe the t-shirt you know you you go to the office and we need
somebody’s birthday to have cake or we need a reason to celebrate
or you know if you’re into the whole drinking Scenario you need
a reason to have a drink not just that it’s five o’clock somewhere,
but you need an occasion to celebrate and there’s a sense where every
Sunday when we show up to church there ought to be some milestone
of salvation in someone’s life in the church where we ought
to be Throwing a little Christian type party in the house of God
because someone somewhere in our congregation is was rescued
by almighty God. One of the things you’ll see
in this Psalm, as well as many other Psalms, is people cry out
to God, God hears and rescues, and the person says, when I get
back to church in the assembly of the people, I’m gonna give
testimony, I’m going to give praise to God. I don’t know if
y’all remember this, but at some time in the last year, it was
one of the rare occasions where Gene Parks is able to make it
to church, and you know how difficult it is for our brother, he’s advanced
in age, his Parkinson’s is advancing where it’s It’s hard for him
to get up. It’s hard for him to dress himself. And so when
you see our brother, Jane in church in a suit. That means
he did a whole lot and it was very difficult and he got himself
here. But sometime in the last year, he asked if he could speak.
And so before the service, in the very spirit of something
like Psalm 116, he said, I want to say something to the church.
So I thought it’s biblical. He’s an elder and Gene ain’t
going to mess around. So we said, brother, say something
to us. And I think he stood up and said
something like this. He said, y’all don’t know how
good you’ve got it. God made you, Jesus loves you, you have
a church. And some old guy like me, I think
he said, can’t always make it, but most of you can. And it was
very sobering, wasn’t it? It was very encouraging. I hope
many of you were here and remember that. But that’s in a sense what
the psalmist is saying here is, when I get back on my feet, I’m
gonna tell everybody who will listen what God has done. I’m
gonna pay my vows. I’m going to give my worship.
Now, we come to church and we’re good Presbyterians. We do things
decently in order. Well, should be a little afraid
to say this. I hope we really don’t ever open
it up to, hey, this is a free time to say whatever you want.
Because we did that when I was a kid. And it got a little weird,
let’s just say. The admonition was, if you have
something brief, and it never was, if you have something beneficial,
and it never was, and if you have something biblical, and
it never was, this is a time for you to say it. And it was
a time for people to be long-winded. self-centered and not God-glorifying,
but this was the selfie culture before there were selfies, I
suppose. But really, we ought to be in a place of maturity
where we can say, if somebody’s got something to say to thank
the Lord, here we go. But we’re good Presbyterians,
we don’t allow the freedom of the spirit like that or the freedom
of the will, because that just gets into real danger. So what
do we do? We sing songs that hopefully
express what we feel. We sing hymns that hopefully
express based on the teaching of the day, the sermon of the
day, whatever. We build a service that we hope will help you say
what you ought to say to God, because most of us come empty-headed
and empty-handed. We come sliding into the pew.
We’re tired. We haven’t thought a lot about
these things, and so it’s good to have these helps. It’s good
to have these things. But you see what’s taking place
in a psalm like this. God delivers. of the covenant
person who cries out to him. That covenant person says, I’m
gonna serve God forever and when I get to church, I’m gonna tell
everybody who God is and what he’s done for me. So every Sunday
in the Assembly of the Saints, we have something to celebrate.
Deliverances, provisions, providences. It’s a good time for us to think
about what God has done for us. What does that hymn say? Count
your blessings. Name them one by one. I don’t
know about y’all, but sometimes we’re kinda half glass, glass,
how do you say it? Glass half empty people. Right,
our complaint list is longer than our thankful list. Well,
you know, we get a little Eeyore sounding. And it’s really ungodly,
isn’t it? It’s really ungodly to open the
complaint department and to leave the praise department closed. Let’s just take a quick look
at how this psalm goes. It’s 19 verses. The first four
are a prayer to Yahweh. Then the next four, 5, 6, 7,
that’s the next three, speak of the character of Yahweh. And
then the rest, verses 8 through 19, I’m not going to venture
how many verses that is because I’ll get it wrong, are thankfulness
to Yahweh. So prayer to Yahweh, character
of Yahweh, and then thankfulness to Yahweh. Look at what he says
in the first four verses. I love the Lord. because he has
heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. What’s the thing we say
around here a lot? Saved people do what? They sing. If you’re not a singing person,
you need to become one, especially if you’re saved. Because saved
people sing, I love the Lord because he has heard my voice.
There’s an intensity in the psalmist here. I can’t wait. to say I
love the Lord. We’re lovesick for God to be
in his presence, to be in his house, tell other Christians,
because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. He inclined
his ear to me. Therefore, I will call on him
as long as I live. That phrase, I will call on him,
is a worship term. I will praise God as long as
I live. What did Abraham do when he got to Canaan? He built an
altar. What did Abraham do when he moved from one place in Canaan
to the next? He built an altar. And what did he do at that altar
besides burn things? He called on the name of the
Lord. And so this psalmist, we ourselves
should say, God is a hearing God. When I call, he answers. So I will worship him. I’ll call on him as long as I
live. Isn’t it arrogant? I know I’m speaking to the choir
here. Yes, the choir that rehearsed at five, but the Sunday night
people, the choir, Isn’t it arrogant, and you should say yes, to be
so blessed by God and to say, I think I’ll take the day off
from church. Isn’t it arrogant? Shake your
head yes, yes, nod yes, yes. It is. God served me, but I’m
not gonna take a day for you. God, hear my prayers, especially
when I get kind of, you know, come on God, I need you. but
I’m not gonna come into your house. I’m not gonna declare
to others God is good. God is a prayer-hearing God.
He has saved and delivered me. And you know, this isn’t what
goes on in people’s mind. I think I’ll rebel against God today
and not be thankful by not going to church. That’s not what’s
going through their head, but that is what they’re doing, isn’t
it? When a Christian doesn’t enter God’s house on the Lord’s
day with God’s people and say, look at what he’s done. Do y’all
know how spoiled we are? We are blessed. My little list
I gave thanks for tonight. I gave thanks for Caleb. I wrote
it down. I gave thanks for Keith playing
the organ. Our church is 55 years old. We’re ARP. We have hope
in the Lord in 2020. Brenda came home from two trips
to the hospital. Little Eli was baptized. That
was just my little short list. We’re spoiled, aren’t we? And
we have the audacity to just stay at home, not come to God’s
house, not bring a sacrifice of praise, but not the psalmist
here, personally heard by God, personally delivered by Almighty
God. His prayer was answered. Look
at verse three. The snares of death encompassed
me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold
of me, or the nooses of Sheol, it literally says. I suffered
distress and anguish. Some time ago, I think it was
in the early 90s, Lake McIntosh out here was filled up. Now,
I remember in 1993, that’s when I turned 16 and got my license.
I remember riding out there. You’ve got to have somewhere
to drive, so I wanted to ride out there. And I remember the
lake was full. They said it would take about a year, but it did it in about
two months. But do you all remember one of the first deaths in that
lake was a young man who went swimming off his grandparents’
lot and disappeared. He drowned. He couldn’t swim,
so he drowned. And when they went looking for him, he was
found entangled under, you know how it is when they build a lake,
they basically bulldoze everything but they leave it there. But
he was found entangled. in the underbrush, the undergrowth,
the remaining forest that was just laid there and the floods
came over it. And that’s in a sense what this
is like in verse three, that the cords, the snares of death
encompassed me. I cannot imagine the terror someone
must go through. I think some years after that,
a group of Elon students were doing the bridge jumping there. And one jumped from the bridge
at Huffman Mill Road. And you gotta jump in deep water
that’s deep enough not to hit bottom. But I think the lake
was so fresh when he jumped, he landed and he stuck. You know,
that’s what this psalmist is delivered from. It’s not, oh
God, I’m crying out because I scuffed my finger, plow in the back 40.
Well, that may hurt and be significant. This is a serious, serious, near
death, close to death, maybe come back from death experience
in verse three. And he ends, verse four, I called
on the name of Yahweh. Oh, Yahweh, I pray, deliver my
soul. And so we have the prayer to
Yahweh, but notice in verses five, six, and seven, the character
of Yahweh, and this is what we ought to zero in on when we pray. And it’s why adoration comes
before supplication, right? Adoration, confession, thanksgiving,
supplication, what do we tend to do? We tend to supplicate
before we adorate, right? Those are the right ways to conjugate
those verbs. They’re probably not, but you
get the picture. We like to supplicate, ask, but we ask better when it’s
based on the unchanging God, who according to verses 5, 6,
and 7 is gracious, righteous, compassionate, That compassionate
word is his covenant love. He’s a deliverer, a saver. He’s
a provider. He is worthy to be trusted. So
when you’re in hot water, it’s good to pray to him because he
can rescue you. Gracious is the Lord and righteous.
Our God is merciful, says verse five. The Lord preserves the
simple. Not the one with the low IQ,
though in some places that’s what’s implied there. That’s
what you would find in The book of Proverbs, now this is the
one who has no guile, in him is no guile found, he rests on
God. We say a lot of times, particularly
on Sunday mornings at the confession assurance time, brothers and
sisters who by faith receive Jesus and what? What’s the other
R word? Rest. Rest in him alone for your
salvation. Hear God’s words of assurance,
that’s the simple. You know you don’t have what
it takes, right? but God does and so you rest. The Lord preserves
those who rest in him. When I was brought low because
I rested in him, he saved me or literally this is where the
little sermon title came from. He kept ministering salvation
to me. I think in Sunday school today
we were talking about Bible verb tenses and we were talking about
some, some Bible verb tenses have our past actions with ongoing
even eternal benefits. And that’s kind of what you have
here in verse six. I was brought low, but he kept ministering
salvation to me. He never stopped delivering me,
saving me, providing for me, being covenantally compassionate
and merciful and righteous and gracious to me. And then he says
in verse seven, return all my soul to your rest. What happens
when you go through a stretch of hardship? you know, you get
in a car wreck, you get sick, you get in the hospital, you
know, your basement or your house floods, your tree falls on your
roof. It takes a little time to get over it and get through
it. And then what do you do? Well, things are back to normal.
That’s what verse seven is sort of saying. Return, oh my soul,
to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. Now
in verses eight through the end, he’s going to explain why he’s
thankful. And he’s going to talk a little bit about his, his difficulty,
why he was in a stretch of unrest. He says in verse eight, you have
delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from
stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in
the land of the living. He’s glad to get out of the hospital.
He’s glad to leave his tent. Verse 10, I believed. This is
an interesting verse. I believed even when I spoke,
think Job here, I am greatly afflicted. I believed, verse
11, when I said in my alarm, all mankind are liars. What is
this saying? Through the thick of his distress
and his near death experience, he never stopped believing. Now
he said some stupid things, some foolish things, some ungodly
things, we’ve read Job, right? It’s basically 37 chapters of
wearing you out. And God finally saying, Job,
I’m here. I’m God. You’re not. Trust me.
Walk with me. Hardship comes. I’ve got a purpose
in it. And this is almost here, verse
10. I believed even when I said some unfaithful things or I was
shaken, I was alarmed, but I never lost it. I never wavered. And
then verse 12, what shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits
to me? If you’re gonna render something
to the Lord for all his benefits, don’t you think it would be good
to make a list of those benefits? Remember when Turkey Day got
started? People actually sat down and
had a meal, looked each other in the eye, cut the turkey and gave
thanks to God for all his providences. Remember the pilgrims? They were
thankful just to be alive. They made it through winter.
They made it across the sea on a rickety old boat. They were
pioneers. They were pilgrims. They made
it. And what do we do? Well, we hastily eat a meal and
we’re off to Black Thursday, Black Friday, cyber whatever. We are so unsettled and really
so unthankful at times that we don’t stop and render to the
Lord for all his benefits. And so I said a little bit earlier,
isn’t it arrogant? You said, yes, thank you. When
we don’t come to church on Sunday and give thanks to God, don’t
you think it’s a little arrogant? Since it’s an American tradition,
when you don’t sit down at the table on Thanksgiving Day and
say a little something to your family, they may not care, but
still say it. Hey, family, I know y’all don’t
care. I know you’re reading the circulars and heading off to
Best Buy and whatever to get an $80 microwave. Whoop-dee-doo,
right? But that’s where their heart
is. I want y’all to know that I’m thankful. God’s taken such
good care of me. Be leader, step up, do what the
psalmist says here. Do it on Sunday in church, but
do it at Thanksgiving. Do it at other times, maybe your
birthday. Make your family sit through
your little painful speech. Be good for you, good for them.
But that’s what he says he’s gonna do. What shall I render
to the Lord? Verse 12, for all his benefits to me, I will lift
up the cup of salvation. I will call on the name of the
Lord. He keeps giving me this cup. I keep taking it. I keep
drinking it. It never runs dry. I’ll pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of His people. When I go to worship, I’ve got
something to say, something to sing. Notice verse 15, a little
interlude, so to speak. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of the saints. Don’t you think he thought about
dying? The cords of Sheol wrapped around him. He thought of death
and he thought, you know, even if I die, God is not gonna forsake
me. Even if I die, God still loves
me. And then there’s some interesting
covenant language in verse 16. Oh Lord, I am your servant. You’ve
delivered me, I’m your servant. I’m bound to you. I couldn’t
help but think of when, It’s terrible to mention Andy Griffith.
But when the service station caught on fire and Gomer or Goober,
whichever one was in there, and Andy rescued him, and so what
did he do? He came over and chopped wood. You know, Andy, I’m your
servant. You saved me from the fire. So
what does Andy do to get Gomer off his back? He creates a scenario
where he has to save Andy so he can say, we’re even. Leave
me alone. But here, this says, as the psalmist,
God, you’ve saved me. I’m gonna serve you forever.
I’m gonna be your child, your servant. You’ve been such a blessing
to me. I’ll do whatever you need. Your
kingdom cause, I’m there. But think for a moment, too,
about precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the
saints. What did Jesus do as soon as he heard about Lazarus? He went and he wept a death in
the sight of God is not insignificant, but is a tragic thing because
of sin, but a wonderful thing because we are brought into his
glorious presence. Verse 17, he picks up on the
theme of worship again. I’ll offer to you the sacrifice
of thanksgiving. I’ll call on the name of the
Lord. I’ll pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of his people,
in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, old
Jerusalem, And there’s the Hallel part, the hallelujah. This is
one of those Hallel Psalms. It ends with praise the Lord,
praise Yahweh. So here’s a question for you.
Do you or will you give thanks to Yahweh for his little deliverances,
but most of all for the big one, that he saved you in Christ Jesus
at the cross? Let’s look to God in prayer.
Lord, we give you thanks for these Psalms that teach us much
about what went on in someone’s life, and it can help us think
about what goes on in our lives. We do ask, Lord, that you would
help us to remember all your benefits, all your covenant love
and blessings, your grace and mercy, your righteousness, your
kindness. It keeps coming. You keep serving it up. We keep
taking it. Lord, help us to be thankful.
Help us to be full of worship, full of joy for your little and
your great salvations that are ours by faith in Jesus. We ask for your help in Christ’s
name we pray, amen.