Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Psalm 16, the first four verses:
1 Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You.
2 I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.”
3 As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.
4 The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their names upon my lips. (NASB)
Those are the words of David, and we don't know the occasion of his writing those words. We don't know at what time of his life he wrote them. Was this out in the field, watching the sheep, before Goliath? Was it later during the time of Saul's prosecution and persecution of him? Or was it during his reign at some point during those forty years as the king of Israel? We don't know that, but we do know that he was in some kind of danger that he was aware of. He describes later in this psalm his flesh dwelling in safety and security. He speaks in verse 1 of God preserving him and keeping him. So we can deduce that David was aware of some kind of danger, some peril that was afflicting him. And it seems that it could have been even a mortal danger because later on in the psalm he talks about God not giving over his life to death and making known to him the path of life and not abandoning him to the grave.
These words describe David's love and devotion as a man who had made Yahweh his trust and his refuge. And we have in these words a description of David's own faithfulness, his hope, his confidence. We see him describe his devotion and his fealty to the one true God, his confession of love and faithfulness and affection for the God who is his highest good. David describes his love for God and for God's people and his disdain for idols and for idol worship, for those who have bartered for another god.
The reference to refuge in verse 1 takes us back to a common theme that we've seen in the book of Psalms. Psalm 2 ends with that command to the kings of the earth to find their refuge in the Son, who is justly angry with them for their rebellion and their mutiny. Psalm 2:12: “Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” And then we ended Psalm 37 with that promise that “the Lord helps them [that is, the righteous] and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they [that is, the righteous] take refuge in Him” (v. 40). So in Psalm 2, the kings of the earth are encouraged to find their refuge in the divine Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, lest He become angry with them and they perish in the way—that is, seek refuge in Him for life. And then in Psalm 37, we are to take refuge in Him for salvation and for perseverance and preservation in this world. In Psalm 2, the object of their faith is Yahweh the Son. In Psalm 37, the object of their faith is Yahweh, who delivers them and preserves them.
And to place your faith in Jesus Christ is to obey the Father's command in these psalms. And it is certainly to express the type of hope and faith that is expressed in Psalm 16:1 where he says, “Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You.” In other words, all the way through the Psalms, the Psalms and the psalmists encourage us to find our refuge and our safety and our security in a God who is able to deliver us and to keep us safe. And there are all kinds of different ways that this is expressed in the Psalms. I'll give you a few samplings of this.
Psalm 61:4: “Let me dwell in Your tent forever; let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings.”
Psalm 18:30: “As for God, His way is blameless; the word of the Lord is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.” You hear the words refuge and shelter, shield.
Psalm 18:2: “The Lord is my rock”—now listen in this one verse to all of the word pictures that assault our senses, that describe God as our refuge. Psalm 18:2: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” You hear that? Rock, fortress, deliverer, refuge, shield, salvation, stronghold, all of that in just one verse.
Psalm 54:4: “Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my soul.”
Psalm 94:22: “The Lord has been my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.”
Psalm 61:3: “You have been a refuge for me, a tower of strength against the enemy.”
All of these describe the confidence and confession of one who runs to God for help. And that is in fact the very first expression of the cry for help that we have that begins our relationship with God at the moment of salvation. That is what salvation is. Salvation is coming to Christ as a refuge from the wrath of God. Salvation is not coming to Christ for the hope of an easier life or a better time in this world or a better marriage or any of the other material, temporal blessings that people often associate with salvation. Ultimately, the very first act of the convicted sinner is to find their refuge—that is, salvation, shelter, and a shield—in Yahweh Himself and in the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has made atonement for sin.
So the condemned, guilty sinner recognizes their sin and comes, confessing that they are in mortal and eternal danger because of the wrath of God that hangs over their head. This is you, believer, if you are truly a believer. You've come to that point where you recognize that the wrath of God hangs above you and that He is justly angry with you because of your sin. And then having been convinced of that, you've also recognized that there is one and only one solution to that problem, and that is in the One Himself who lived and died to make atonement and to pay the price for your sin debt. And then you have understood that the command of that King is to repent—that is, to turn from your sin—and to come to the very One who is angry with you because of your sin and to find refuge in Him. And the promise is that all whom the Father has given to the Son will come to the Son and the Son will cast none of them out. He will receive them all, give them all eternal life, preserve them all until the final day, and raise them all up to life everlasting on that last day. So the very first thing that begins our relationship with the Lord is seeking refuge in the Son. And so David begins this psalm with this prayer and this acknowledgement that he has found refuge in Yahweh.
We are looking today at verses 1–4 and we're going to see that Yahweh is the trust and refuge of His people. And I'm following along with the introduction I gave you last week for the entire psalm, the three Sundays, the three points that all rhyme beautifully in every way. I just want to come back to that because I love the psalm and I love how it is that we're tackling it. We're going to see in verses 1–4 that Yahweh is the trust and refuge of His people. And David expresses his trust in God by describing in verses 1–2—here's our outline for today. In verses 1–2, his dependence on God's goodness. Then in verse 3, his delight in God's people. And then in verse 4, his disdain for idolatry. His dependence on God's goodness, his delight in God's people, and then his disdain for idolatry. And all of these, by the way, are the expressions of a true heart that has found its refuge in God.
Let's begin with his dependence on God's goodness in verses 1–2. Verse 1 says, “Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You.” It's worth noting and recognizing that this is the only request in the entire psalm. Psalms are filled with prayer requests because they are prayers of adoration and thanksgiving and affection to God, but in Psalm 16 the only request is “preserve me.” That's it.
Then, in verse 2, he says, “I said to the Lord,” and then we would be justified to take the rest of the psalm as that which David has said to the Lord. None of it is requests. All of it is David expressing his own confidence and trust in God and in what God has promised and in what God will do. The rest of the psalm is what David has said to the Lord, but the only request is verse 1, “Preserve me.” And he gives a reason—because he has taken refuge in Yahweh. “Because I have hoped in You”—he is asking God to preserve him.
The word translated “preserve” there means to keep or to watch over, to guard something, to attend to, or to protect. Interestingly, it's used in Genesis 2:15, which, if memory serves, is the first use of that word in all of Scripture. It's where Adam is put in the garden to keep it, to protect it, to preserve it, to tend to it. So David is not just asking that God would sort of set him on a shelf and keep him safe over here, but rather that Yahweh would look over him and tend to him and preserve him and protect him and cultivate him and guard him in every way. That's the word that's used there. “Keep me” is how the LSB translates it. “Keep me, O God, for I take refuge in You” (Ps. 16:1).
Remember the end of Psalm 15, the promise at the end of Psalm 15? Verse 5: “He does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.” This is the man that's being described here that can see Yahweh's face, gets to dwell in the tent of the Lord and on His mountain. And the person who does all of these things and is this type of man. Psalm 15, the very end, the very last phrase: “He who does these things will never be shaken” (v. 5). So if you're reading through the Psalms, you get to the end of Psalm 15. You think, I haven't done any of this in Psalm 15. In fact, I violated all of these things on more than one occasion. You get to the end—“He who does these things will never be shaken.” What is our conclusion? I'm going to be shaken, I guess. That's what I'm destined for. Since I haven't done any of these things, I'm not the man described in that psalm. You get to the end of the psalm. If you've done this, you'll never be shaken. Well, I will be shaken.
Psalm 16:1: Preserve me, keep me, protect me, Lord. Make me not a shaken man. In other words, David has no confidence in himself after Psalm 15 that he can be that type of man. So he has to look to Yahweh to preserve him and to keep him. Otherwise he would be shaken. He would be subject to all of the threats and violence and hostility and the frailties of this life that might undo him. So he prays to Yahweh to keep him. Take refuge in Yahweh, David does, as his highest good. The word refuge here means shelter or protection or a shield, and it again tells us that there was some danger that David was facing that he was aware of, and he is asking God to protect him from that danger. At the end of the psalm, it's a physical danger, even a life-threatening one, because he talks about his flesh dwelling securely in verse 9.
And what's interesting about this is we don't typically think of David as a man who, in a cowardly fashion, runs toward some shelter. We typically think of David, and rightly so, as the king who once killed a lion and a bear, who once killed Goliath and stood up to a giant when all of the armies of Israel cowered in fear. And without any military equipment, without any military training, without any military expertise at all, he steps out on the battlefield with a sling and five stones in his pouch and God on his side. And he was willing to take on Goliath. That takes some chutzpah, to quote the Jews. That takes some courage. That takes the heart of a lion. David was a man of such skill and strength and intellect and cunning and abilities and courage. He was renowned for those things. They used to sing of him, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” And just that phrase alone, that song that they sung about David alone, was enough to deliver the hearts of all of Israel into the hand of David. So he was renowned for that strength.
And then you read in Psalm 16:1: “Preserve me, O God.” He runs to Yahweh as a refuge for protection and for keeping. He runs to God for shelter, for security, and for preservation, as if David is aware of his weakness and his need and his vulnerability. Now why would a strong man like David—and David was a man's man. You think of the manliest man that ever “manned” around you. David exceeded him by an exponential amount, by multiple factors. We would all lay our man cards down at the feet of David and say, “You get it.” And yet, is he a coward?
To run to Yahweh as a refuge in this life is not weakness, it's wisdom. See, there are no strong men. There are weak men who know they're weak, and there are weak men who think they're strong. But there are no strong men. David may have been a physical specimen. He may have been a mighty warrior. He may have been courageous by our standards. But David was smart enough to know when he was weak, when he needed help, when he was in danger, and that he was really vulnerable. Resting in God is not the last resort for cowards, it is the first resort for the wise and for the righteous. And David recognized that God was his highest and only good.
In Psalm 16, in these first two verses, there are three different words that are used for God, and I want you to see them. Read the verses with me, 1–2: “Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.’” You'll notice that there's the word God in verse 1, there is the word Lord twice in verse 2. It's actually three different words that are used for God in those two verses, and I think this is significant. David is not just heaping up synonyms for God, but he is actually describing here for us the kind of God that he is trusting to preserve him and to keep him. So he says in verse 1, “Preserve me, O El,” El just being the root word of Elohim, El being a generic word for God that describes a deity, a strong deity, or a mighty deity. So he says, “Preserve me, O God,” in verse 1.
Then in verse 2, you'll notice if you're reading almost any translation except the LSB, you'll notice the word Lord appears twice, once in all caps and once not all caps in verse 2. That's because in verse 2 he says, “I said to Yahweh,” which is how the translators of most modern translations translate YHWH, the Hebrew name for God or the word for God. “I said to Yahweh.” And so the modern translations use all caps to distinguish when the word Lord there is the word Yahweh as opposed to Adonai or some other reference to God. And so whenever Yahweh appears in the King James, the New King James, the NASB, the ESV, the NIV, any of those translations, that is why it uses all caps there, capitalizing Lord.
I would prefer that the translations just use the word Yahweh, which is the Hebrew name for God. By the way, the LSB is I think the only modern translation that does that consistently through the entire Bible. Where the word Yahweh appears, it translates it as “Yahweh” instead of all caps “LORD.” So a couple weeks ago I made the announcement that I was going to be switching over and preaching out of the LSB within the next few months. I'm still keeping to that plan. And a few people asked why the LSB and not the ESV. This is one of the reasons why. I think that this is something that weighs on the equation heavily for me. Two things. Number one, the LSB recognizes that the name of God is not LORD, all caps, the name of God is Yahweh. And it translates it that way all the way through the Old Testament. I think that that is significant. I'm going to read you a verse that shows why that is significant here in just a moment. Second is they consistently translate dulos all the way through Scripture as “slave,” which is what it refers to, and not as “bondservant,” which changes the meaning of that. So for that reason, I'm skipping past the ESV and going to the LSB. And if you want to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord, you will do the same. The last part was a joke.
Exodus 3:15—the word Yahweh, or this word translated as “LORD” here in your modern translations, or “Yahweh,” is described in the book of Exodus 3 as God's name, in fact as His memorial name. When Moses met God at the burning bush, he said, “When the children of Israel ask me who has sent me, what should I say to them?” And God says, “Tell them that I AM has sent you.” And then in Exodus 3:15 we read this:
And God furthermore said to Moses [listen to this], “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name from generation to generation.”
That's the LSB. Yahweh is My name. God has given to us His own name. So we should refer to Him in that way. This is what David does in Psalm 16. “I said to Yahweh.”
Then there is the third reference to God, which is Lord in verse 2. “You are my Adonai.” That word is the word that describes a ruler or a sovereign or a master, one who controls things or owns things. It's the word we would use to speak of a God who commands our obedience and orders everything in our lives, the one who has ordained all things and commands all things and demands our obedience because He is our sovereign, our ruler, our master, our Lord. So David says in Psalm 16:2, “I said to Yahweh, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.’”
Now all three of those references to God—in verse 1, El; in verse 2, Yahweh and Adonai—all three of those references to God are significant. Because if we are to trust God to preserve us, then we need one who is a mighty God, a mighty deity, not a man. And we need one who is Yahweh, a personal, loving, promise-keeping, covenant-keeping God whom we can know by name and who knows us by name and cares for us by name. And we need one who is Adonai, who commands all things, rules all things, who is the master of all things so His intention to keep us can never be thwarted. Nothing can ever stop Him from keeping His promises. I need a mighty deity who is personal, who loves me, who knows me, whom I can know, and who is sovereign and mighty enough to accomplish everything that concerns me. If you don't have that God, you have nobody worthy of praying to, to ask to preserve you or to keep you. So he says, “Keep me, O God, my Yahweh and my Adonai.” That is the type of God that we trust for our preservation and our safety, the almighty, sovereign, promise-keeping God. In Him we take refuge as our highest good.
Look at the last phrase of verse 2: “I have no good besides You.” Now if you start to compare some of the English translations of the last part of verse 2, you'll notice there's a little bit of a difference between some of the translations. That's because the wording in Hebrew is a little bit challenging. So there are a couple of different ways that it can be rendered. There are a couple of different ways that it could be understood. And I'll give these to you.
First, the King James translates it this way: “My goodness extendeth not to thee,” meaning that the way that the King James translators understood that phrase was this: My goodness contributes nothing to God. My goodness does not extend to God. So if I'm reading Psalm 15 and I say this is the mark of a man who can stand before God, David realizes, I can't. Remember there's a context to this psalm. I can't, and so I will be shaken, so I ask for God to preserve me. Then David confesses, “My goodness extendeth not to thee.” I don't communicate any goodness to God. If I'm good, I don't make Him “gooder.” I don't make Him more good, I should say. We should all say that. I don't make Him more good. If I'm good, my goodness does not translate to God. So all of my goodness, all of my good deeds, does not communicate anything to Him. It doesn't improve Him. It doesn't make Him shine. It doesn't make Him glorious. It doesn't make Him more happy. It doesn't contribute anything to His being. It doesn't make Him more powerful or eternal. My goodness does not add anything to God, nor does my evil take anything away from Him in the sense that He becomes less because of my sin. So that's how the King James translators understood that. We don't impress God with our goodness. Our goodness isn't above or beyond Him. It doesn't extend to Him. He doesn't get anything out of us being good is the idea.
Second, the ESV renders it this way: “I have no good apart from you.” Or as the NASB says, “I have no good besides You.” So the second way of understanding it would be that only God can provide the good things that we enjoy. In other words, one of the good things that I want is for God to keep me, to preserve me, right? That's the context. “Keep me, O Lord. I said to Yahweh, ‘You are my God.’” He's praying for Him to keep him. And then he says, “All the good that I have ultimately comes from this God that I am praying to keep me. So all my good things that I enjoy, all of them come from God's hand.” This is James 1:17: “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” That is to say that we have nothing good that God does not give us because God is the only one who can provide truly good things for us.
So every good thing that I enjoy comes from His hand because He and He alone and no idol, verse 4, no idol is able to give me the good things that I enjoy. I owe and can thank every good thing that I have to one Being and one Being only. That is God. The good that I enjoy with my spouse, the good that I enjoy with my children, the good that I enjoy with my friends, with my church, with my family, in my neighborhood, in this country, every good thing comes from His hand, and nothing good that I have ever received ever came from anybody else's hand. That's the idea. “I have no good besides You”—that is, God is the giver of every gift, and the kindness or the benefit, his welfare, ultimately depends on God and God alone because worthless idols can provide no good thing. And that's the point of verse 4: “The sorrows of those [contrasted with the good] who have bartered for another god will be multiplied.” So other gods provide nothing but sorrow. Yahweh and Yahweh alone provides everything good that I enjoy.
This seems to be the sense of it, not only that He Himself, that our God, is the source of every good thing, but that our God is the ultimate good thing. This is actually what Psalm 73 says. Verse 25: “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.” Psalm 73:28: “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.” So God is the giver of every good gift and God is ultimately the ultimate good gift.
In the gospel, God gives us Himself, and with Himself He gives us every good thing. He doesn't give us a bunch of good things because He is over here and He's just dispensing benefits and blessings to us, like on a list or like in a shopping cart full of stuff, just giving us one thing after another. But in the gospel, God gives us Himself. And because He has not withheld Himself from us, He will ultimately give to His people every good thing. This is why the psalm ends with him saying, “In Your right hand there are pleasures forever” (Ps. 16:11). Because to have Him is to have every ultimate good thing. So He is our ultimate good.
There is a third way of understanding it, and this one is suggested not in any modern translation that I could find but in a commentary by James Hamilton. He has a great two-volume set on the Psalms. And he offers this translation of the last phrase of verse 2: “My good things are not above You.” It's a viable option as well. My good things are not above You. That is to say, David is saying, “I have not placed my good things above God.” In other words, the good things that God has made and given to me, those good things have not become for me an idol. David is asking God to preserve him because he has not placed the good things that God gives in a position above God and thus made good things his God.
This would fit the context since verse 4 says, “The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied.” So this fits the context of idolatry. David is saying that he is a faithful Yahweh worshipper, and so the good things that Yahweh has provided for him, he has not placed them above Yahweh Himself. But instead, he has kept even the good things that God gives in their appropriate place and not made the good things his idols and thus traded them for God.
This is what idolatry is, by the way. Idolatry is not bowing down to a stone image or a relic necessarily. It can be that, but it's not only that. Ultimately, idolatry is taking good things that we might enjoy and that God gives to us and turning those good things into idols that we are willing to sin for in order to get. That's the heart of idolatry. I want this thing that God has offered to me. It's a good thing, but I want it so much that if I don't get it, I am willing to sin either because I don't get it and can't have it or I'm willing to sin in order to get it. That's what idolatry is.
So David is saying the good things that God has given to me, I've not placed them above God Himself, which is to say that obedience is, for the faithful believer, obedience is the highest good because it is to always—as believers, here's what we are always doing. We’re coming up to the shelf and ripping down our idols. That's what mortifying sin is. That's what putting sin to death is. Here's something I want. I'm willing to sin to do that. I'm going to grab that idol. I'm going to tear it down. I'm going to grab this other idol and tear it down. We just do this constantly, pulling down our idols. And as fast as we can pull down our idols, our heart churns them out and puts them up on the mantle. That's what we do. And so David is saying, “My good things, they're not above God. All those good things are in their place. Yahweh is my highest good.”
Now let's look at his delight in God's people in verse 3: “As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.” Notice verse 3 and verse 4 are a little bit of a contrast. In verse 3, David describes his orientation toward those who are God's people. And then in verse 4, he describes his orientation to those who have bartered for another god—in other words, idolaters. So he is contrasting. In verse 3, he's swearing allegiance and delight in those who are Yahweh worshippers. And in verse 4, he is expressing his disdain for the works of idolatry and what that creates.
He identifies with the saints here in verse 3, saying that he delights in these, as the NASB says, and the LSB, “majestic ones.” The ESV says “excellent ones,” and the NIV calls them “glorious ones.” That's quite a description of saints, isn't it? Majestic ones, excellent ones, glorious ones. Is that how you would describe the saints, the person sitting next to you? Majestic, glorious, honorable, noble ones? Is that how you describe the Christian neighbor across the fence whose dog continues to wander into your yard and do its business? Is that how you would describe that person? Probably not. It's certainly not how we would expect saints to be described after Psalm 37, right? That they are the oppressed ones, the hunted ones, the persecuted ones, the hated ones, the ones who seem to be abandoned in this world. This is quite a different perspective. You get to Psalm 16 and they're the majestic, the glorious ones, the noble ones.
The saints in this world are few in number, but David is saying it is not their wealth, it is not their skill, it is not their intellect, it's not their means, it's not their prosperity that makes them noble. It's certainly not our reputation or our status or our power or position. Why is it that David would describe the saints who are in the earth as majestic and noble? The excellency and majesty of the saints does not rest in what we are, it rests in the God we worship. Because the Yahweh worshipper does not place his good things above Yahweh but keeps Yahweh at the center of that, exalting Him, honoring Him, loving Him in faithful obedience, that is what makes them majestic.
You could never describe those who have bartered for another god, verse 4, that way. Never describe them that way. But what makes the saints majestic is the fact that they are Yahweh worshippers. The fact that we will be exalted to inherit the land—remember Psalm 37:34? “When the wicked are cut off, you will see it,” when He exalts you to inherit the land. We are promised in Psalm 37 that God is going to give us the precious and sure promises of David and of Abraham, that we get the land, we get the kingdom, and with it we will delight ourselves in abundant shalom forever. That's how this psalm ends, by describing that abundant shalom that we get to enjoy with God in His presence at His right hand forever.
How else would you describe people whom God is ultimately going to exalt to His right hand and give to them the kingdom and every good thing that has ever existed? He's going to hand it all to us and remove from us every bad thing. You know how you would describe them? As majestic ones, as exalted ones. And I want you to be careful that you don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Because I'm not all of a sudden switching into Joel Osteen mode and saying iron on your permagrin and saying, “God just loves you, and you are so special, and nothing about you can ever make God in any way displeased with you. You need to just enjoy God and enjoy all those blessings and keep your smile on. If God had a refrigerator, there'd be a picture of you right there on the side of it. That's how absolutely fascinated He is with you.” That's not what I'm saying. But I am saying that this is God's description of His saints.
And I would go further. I would suggest to you that this is actually how the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate subject of the psalm, this is how He feels about His people. They are the majestic ones in whom is all His delight. Remember I mentioned last week that the end of this psalm, Peter and Paul in Acts 2 and Acts 13 respectively, that they say the Spirit of God was speaking through David, but David is speaking on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, that verse 10 can only be spoken by Christ, but the rest of the psalm can also fall off the lips of the Lord Jesus. I would suggest to you that this being a messianic psalm, that verse 3 is exactly how the Lord Jesus feels about the righteous ones who have not made their good things their idols. Those Yahweh worshippers, He delights in those majestic ones.
That is not to say that the Lord Jesus Christ makes us His idol. But I would suggest to you—is there anything else that it would be righteous and appropriate for the Lord Jesus Christ to delight in? Should He delight in those who have bartered for another god? Would He delight in them? Should He delight in those who have made their good things idols? Should He delight in the impenitent wicked? Should He delight in the impenitent evil people? Should He delight in any of that? No, the Lord Jesus Christ would delight in those who delight in the law of the Lord and in its way meditate day and night. He would delight in those who will not take their good things and make them idols.
The Lord Jesus Christ would delight in those for whom He has died. It's His bride. We are the bride of Christ. His people are His bride. Of course He delights in His people. Of course He delights in the majestic ones, the saints. In him is all His delight. Why? Because in him He sees His own righteousness and His own goodness imputed to them. He sees the one whom the Father has given to Him as a love gift, the one who He is going to receive and to save and to secure and ultimately raise up and bring to the Father's right hand as a joy and rejoicing for all of eternity. And so the saints are the ones in whom the Lord Jesus Christ delights.
They are also the ones in whom we should delight. In fact, that's the mark of a righteous man, that the saints are the ones in whom we delight. The saints are the ones that we share every good thing and every great thing with. We have a Lord in common, a Savior in common, truth in common, convictions, affections, delights, priorities, joys, our inheritance, our destiny, our glory, pleasures forevermore. If you are in Christ, you share that together. You ultimately share the kingdom. And one of the evidences of your salvation will be whether you delight in the law of the Lord and in His law meditate day and night and whether you delight in God's people. By this “we know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14). This is the evidence of salvation.
Do I love the saints of God first and foremost? If believers are the last people I want to be around and unbelievers are the first people I want to be around, that is indicative that your heart has never been changed. You cannot love the Lord Jesus Christ and not love those for whom the Lord Jesus Christ has died. Christ’s view of His own people is that we are the ones in whom He delights, the majestic ones.
Third, I want you to notice David's disdain for idolatry in verse 4. First, verses 1–2, his dependence on God's goodness and his delight in God's people. And verse 4, his disdain for idolatry. Psalm 16:4: “The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their names upon my lips.” I would submit to you that you cannot really truly love unless you also have with it a corresponding real, true hatred for something else. One who loves one thing must hate something else. I can't love what is good if I don't hate what is evil. There has to be a corresponding side to that. You can't say that you love what is good and true and righteous if you do not at the same time hate that which is false and evil and unrighteous. Psalm 97:10 says, “Hate evil, you who love the Lord.” The love of the Lord, the love of Yahweh, brings with it a corresponding hatred for those things that dishonor Yahweh.
And that's what David is describing in verse 4. “The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied.” And he says, “I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their names upon my lips.” That is an expression of disdain and hatred for that which dishonors his God, the one who he has prayed to in verse 1 and committed to His eternal life and His goodness. The One who he loves and truly loves is deserving of his honor, deserving of his praise, deserving of his delight, and therefore anything that dishonors that God, David must despise.
The words barter for another god in the NASB are also translated in the ESV “run after another god.” That word that's used there can describe either hastening after something or it can describe the act of acquiring something by paying a price for it. Depending on sort of the Hebrew stem and how it is used, it can describe running after something, chasing, hastening after something or being willing to barter for or to pay a price for something in exchange for it.
It seems that what David is describing here is an offering of wealth or a price to a false god or paying an offering since in the context he is describing here his worship. “I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their names upon my lips” (v. 4). He's describing worship. I will not commit idolatry for any good thing, and I will not take those good things and put them above Yahweh, and therefore I will not exchange Yahweh for any other god. I will not barter for a false god. And those who do that, their sorrows will be increased.
He's describing here apostates, idol worshippers, those who have traded the one true God for any idol and the work of men's hands. They multiply sorrows, he says in verse 4, their physical afflictions, their emotional pain, the anxiety that idolatry brings, the disappointment, the discouragement, but ultimately the anguish of judgment that falls upon those who have bartered for another god. Chasing after those things that are not God simply brings us dissatisfaction, and suffering and affliction and the grief and the sorrows and the pain of those who do so is multiplied in a multitude of ways. And so David says, “I would have no part in this.” Verse 4: “I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their names upon my lips.” In other words, he would not participate in their worship. He'd have nothing to do with their worship.
I attended one time a Catholic funeral for somebody who was attending our church many years ago. And sorry, I should—that's going to need some clarification. The Catholic funeral was for the mother of this person who attended our church some years ago. So he wasn't a Catholic. OK, you got the clarification. So I attended a Catholic funeral for this person because my friend was there. It was his mom who had died. And I walked in kind of wondering what I was going to—I kind of knew what I should expect with this. But there came a point in the funeral where I said this is idolatry and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I was the only guy, I stood up, and I walked out. And it is that picture that is in my mind when David says, “I shall not pour out their blood offerings, and I will not take their names upon my lips.”
You can't join in prayer with that. You can't join in worship with that. You can't have an ecumenical service with that. You can't join your purposes with that. You can't link arms with that. That is idolatry. Ecumenism is idolatry. It is bartering the truth for another god. And therefore, we cannot participate in that whatsoever. We cannot pour out their drink offerings of blood nor take their names upon our lips.
I wish that Solomon had read this psalm and really made Psalm 16 the meditation of his heart and his mind. The nation of Israel might've turned out a little differently than it did. But the record of Solomon—listen to this in 1 Kings 11:1–8. This is David's son Solomon, who took over the throne after David. 1 Kings says this:
1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,
2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love [that is, the women].
3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not follow the Lord fully, as David his father had done.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
8 Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to other gods. (NASB)
Solomon multiplied gods in Israel, and David said, “There is no good thing I will put above Yahweh, I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, and I will not take their names upon my lips.”
Now when David says that, when Scripture says that—I do not take their names upon my lips—that doesn't mean that we should never utter the name of a foreign god, that we should never say the word Thor or Zeus or Molech or anything like that. There's no magical power in those words. That's not what the psalm is prohibiting. In fact, I just took those names upon my lips, didn't I, reading from 1 Kings, because Kings does that. Chemosh, Ashtoreth, Milcom, Molech, those were all false gods. Detestable idols, Scripture calls them, but it uses their names.
What does David mean when he says, “I will not take their names upon my lips”? It means I will not praise those gods. I will not speak highly of those gods. I will not swear by those gods. I will not sing to those gods. I will not bless those gods. I will not credit those gods with anything because the gods of the nations are idols. And he refuses to take the name of idols upon his lips in any way which might lend any kind of credibility to them. Those who have bartered for another god, their sorrows would be multiplied. And David says he had such disdain for idolatry that he would not participate in any of their worship, nor would he take their name in any positive way upon his lips whatsoever.
It's almost like that is what Kings is doing. Did you hear it when I read it? They went after the detestable idol, Molech, and Ashtoreth, that detestable idol, just over and over again. It's just despicable, demonic false gods. That's how Scripture describes them. Can't say anything positive about them. Why? Because false gods cannot do us any good. They cannot give us the inheritance that verse 5 of our psalm describes. They cannot give us the counsel of wisdom that verse 7 describes. They cannot provide stability and security that verses 8–9 describe. False idols cannot save us from death and damnation like verse 10 describes. False idols cannot raise us up on the last day like verse 10 promises. And false idols cannot give us life and joy and eternal glory like verse 11 describes. And therefore, there is no good thing that we should put above Yahweh.
This is what we have to ask ourselves. Is this good thing that I want worth me disobeying the Lord of hosts for. It's the heart of idolatry. That's the heart behind every sin. Am I willing to exchange my God for satisfaction, security, comfort, ease, convenience, pleasure, fulfillment? Am I willing to exchange my God for any of those things? Here's the truth of the matter. Everything for which we are willing to exchange the honor and glory of God, all of it will be burned up and will perish. And we're just bartering away an eternal inheritance for a bowl of soup. We're worse than Esau because we trade eternal pleasures and eternal joys for temporal pleasures and temporal joys. This is what disobedience offers us.
Ultimately, our rest and our security and all that is provided for us is provided for us through the grace of Christ. Our eternal joy is secured by the Son, who loved us, who lived for us, who died for us, who rose for us, and who was our representative in all of His doing and in all of His dying.