Psalm 16 Collection

This is the full collection of articles on Psalm 16 in blended together as one whole piece.

Preserve Me, O God

A Miktam of David.

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you."

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16

I Need God to Keep Me a Christian

I need God to keep me a Christian.

When I consider my mind, my emotions, my desires, or how I am easily drawn into certain things, I know that I could never make myself a Christian. At times, this can become discouraging if I allow myself to wander from the truth. I find that, when I'm alone, my heart comforts itself with Ephesians 2:8:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."

God's preservation of me is through a faith that he himself gave me.

The Psalmist says, "Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge." He is relying on his faith or trust in God as the reason for God to preserve him. Yet God is preserving him through something he gifted him. Even the prayer itself is a motion of the gifted faith. How can anyone desire and seek to be preserved apart from this great gift already available in their hands? Indeed, the prayer itself is a witness to the certainty that he is, and will undoubtedly be, preserved.

We then find the Psalmist doubling down on this thought as he continues:

"I say to the LORD, 'You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.'"

What other words does saving faith utter if not these? What miserable creature, in all his wretchedness, in all his sin, in all his deadness, who is once saved, would not consider the Lord infinitely generous?

The very idea that God allows such wickedness and evil to continue for so long is very astonishing. Man could have been wiped from existence at the very taste of the forbidden fruit. But he wasn't. Grace overflowed onto the canvas of creation and reached out to pitiful men. Indeed, goodness continued to pour out even among thorns and thistles.

Every good thing that was provided and is continually provided to sinful man after the point of rebellion serves as a witness that what the Psalmist is saying is very true.

"I have no good apart from you."

More than that, I have no prayer of faith apart from you. It was God's grace and goodness that even allowed for the gift in the first place. A Christian is completely reliant on the preservation of the Lord in every way.

This is both amazing and humbling.

The Psalmist then thinks of his fellow believers. He says:

"As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight."

If such things are true about God and his gift of faith and preservation, then one must see every fellow believer as a miracle and witness to this beautiful reality. How much of a delight it is to have saving faith yourself, but O, how wonderful it is to enjoy and delight in this faith with another! How beautiful it is for salvation to spread to other men and women who would otherwise have perished.

These truly are excellent ones.

And so, we ought to continually walk in a manner worthy of such glorious preservation and faith. We ought to love one another as men and women who survived the greatest disaster through a Savior of the greatest glory.

But not everyone delights in God. Some run after another god.

Lava for Water

Have you ever tried to eat a bowl of spaghetti upside down? How about drive a car with a blindfold on? Or what about riding a bicycle without wheels?

My guess is that the answer, for most of us, is no.

Trying to do the things in this list would require us to go against natural laws that, though unspoken, we know very well. An upside-down bowl of spaghetti will fall to the floor, a blindfolded driver will crash, and a bicycle with no wheels won't move. Each action requires obedience to a natural order in which these things rightly operate. This goes for almost everything around us, and if we ignore the laws, we will end up either really messy or severely wounded.

For the most part, people understand these things and usually don't argue or fight against them. Indeed, if someone tries to accomplish that which everyone else knows is unlikely, others will either warn them or laugh that the person was silly enough to even try.

Consider the pain and sorrow someone would endure if they decided that lava was better than water.

Take this a step further: what if they decided to do dishes with lava, take a bath in lava, and "water" their grass with lava? Indeed, we know very well what would happen—they would die.

Lava for water is a terrible exchange.

This is all rather obvious, isn't it?

Yet when it comes to God, man has done this exact exchange. Though God is plainly visible through what he has made, and though he has made himself clearly available to us in Scripture, men seek after that which is foolish and even unnatural, and in return, they end up in utter ruin.

More than this, they ask others to join in their foolishness. They try to convince us to ride the bicycle without wheels by trying to convince us of evolution. They try to make us eat their spaghetti upside down by telling us we can live in whatever way makes us happy. They try to make us drive the car blindfolded by convincing us to kill our children, marry the same sex, feed our lust, and believe all religions lead to God.

Indeed, they ask us to partake in their silly worship.

I agree with the Psalmist when he says,

"The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips."

For to live in accordance with the things which are against all rational thought and against the God-given laws is foolish and will lead to death.

The Psalmist has all of his faith and hope in God. He takes refuge in him and enjoys his people; therefore, he will not give way to that which others press upon him. He will not even speak of such things so as to agree with them.

I find his conviction and love for God to be wonderful and emboldening.

May we have the same convictions and love, and let us not be conformed to this world or feel the need to bow our knee to its unnatural claims and demands.

The Psalmist will not take their names on his lips, because he already has something better.

My Portion Forever

One of my favorite passages is Psalm 73:26:

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

At any given minute, our life could be taken or diminished through an accident or disease. With every passing minute, you and I are heading to a time of failure; we are going to physically die.

The Psalmist says, "The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup." He means that God is his share in life. Some people want wealth as their ration in life. Some people want strength. Some people want fame and honor. Men and women have a set bar that equates to "true happiness." For the Psalmist, his is God.

He will gladly waste away physically, financially, and even socially, because as long as he gets God, he's supremely happy.

He says, "You hold my lot."

In biblical times, a "lot" was the way men let God make the decision for them. They believed that God controlled the outcome. Proverbs 16:33 says:

"The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord."

More than that, Proverbs 18:18 adds:

"The lot puts an end to quarrels and decides between powerful contenders."

For the Psalmist to confess that God "holds his lot" is for him to intensify his statement about God being his portion. Not only does he find complete satisfaction in having God, but he also finds satisfaction in God having complete control over his life.

He says, "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places..."

The control of God reached back to the time of the Psalmist's birth. It reached back to where God had placed him to be. God allowed the Psalmist to live in the exact place where God would allow for him to know him. He placed him where he would hear about God and where he would believe in God.

We hear this kind of control in Acts 17:26–27 when it says:

"And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us..."

For the Psalmist, God's sovereignty was a beautiful thing. He loved and embraced God's tender control over his life. He loved having God as his own, and he loved all that God had in store for him.

He concludes his thought with "I have a beautiful inheritance."

Indeed, all who have the gift of faith that leads them to love and trust in Christ can enjoy the things the Psalmist enjoys. Whether our bodies are useless for us at the moment, whether we're sick, broken, or close to death, if we have the Lord, we have a beautiful inheritance.

Indeed, we have everything we need.

I Shall Not Be Shaken

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;in the night also my heart instructs me.I have set the LORD always before me;because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

As the Psalmist has moved from his longing for preservation, his evidence of saving faith, his deep love to behold and attain such a prize as the one true God, and his enjoyment of his God's control, he now basks in the bold expectation of his God's comforting nearness.

His God is not distant in his orchestration or care. He is like a loving father, holding the hand of his son, guiding him as he fears the thought of going down uncertain terrain. He stares into his father's eyes with trust and intensifying boldness. His gaze is fixed and rests firmly on his father's wisdom and strength to uphold him through the severest opposition. He is like a man who, upon finding himself in a great storm, finds a brilliant light which will guide him to shelter. He is like a young boy who, though lost in the forest, finds no anxiety in his heart because of his father's thorough instruction.

He knows what to avoid, what to eat, where to find water, where to rest, and how to get home.

As he lies in his bed after every hard and passing day, the words of his God flow through his heart and soul like scaffolding in a tabernacle, which is the frame of his very body. As his bones give stability to his otherwise feeble flesh, so the words and promises of God give stability to his soul and hope of a glorious future.

The Lord is always before him, and he is always before the Lord.

As the waves control the movement of a large ship, so his God's power moves him toward the destination of great joy. Though life seems to toss him, his God guides the wind and currents of his everyday life. He holds and is being held by the hand which formed him, gave him life, and sustains him, a hand which makes him more stable than a mountain, gives him more strength than a bear, and builds in him the confidence of an eagle in flight.

The Psalmist always has his Lord in front of him so as to avoid becoming distracted by the worthless things around him. He sees his father's back and stays close to the dust which flies from his father's steps. This is his delight, and this is his safety.

He is certain of his future, and nothing around him can convince him otherwise.

Fullness of Joy

As we come to the end of this Psalm, we find an unbelievable joy rising up in the Psalmist's heart.

His conclusion is:

"Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure."

This conclusion is flowing from his faith that has played itself out through verses 1–8. Indeed, it's a faith that is rooted in a never-changing God. The Psalmist's joy is overflowing because he knows that whatever may happen to him, his life continues because God is with him.

But he isn't simply celebrating God being with him until his life is over; he's pointing to a future resurrection. Peter pointed to the Psalmist's hope in the resurrection in Acts 2:27. He says:

"For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption."

He was quoting verse 10 of this very Psalm. Peter pointed to Christ's resurrection, and his basis was the words of David.

The Psalmist's thoughts about God's preservation, his gift of faith, his high view of God being the one true God, his obsession with God being his ultimate satisfaction, all of these are things which will never come to an end. His God is one that allows his joy to never end.

Other religions spill into a bucket with no bottom. They terminate and even deteriorate at the point of death, maybe sooner. This is because their hope and joy are entrusted to something that can't uphold or give what they desire. Indeed, they are not founded on the one true God.

The Psalmist and Peter have the same hope in the same God for their never-ending satisfaction. In 1 Peter 1:3–4, Peter spills out his worship when he says:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you..."

Peter, with these words, even answers the Psalmist's glorious statement in 16:11.

The Psalmist says:

"You make known to me the path of life..."

The path of life was found through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

If only the Psalmist could have heard the conversation in John 11 between Jesus and Martha, I think his joy would have exploded all the more. It says:

"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?'" (John 11:25–26)

I think the Psalmist believed, or at least would have believed, this, maybe not in the same light as Martha, yet definitely in relation to all the light given to him in his life. He could only see a blurry image at first. But when he met his glorious God face-to-face, he saw the full picture, and he sees clearly. Indeed, he knows well what it means to experience the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore in the presence of his glorious and clearly visible Savior.

Cling to Christ!