Psalm 16 Devotional:

Psalm 16: 1 David prayeth to God for succor not for his works, but for his faith’s sake. 4 Protesting that he hateth all idolatry, taking God only for his comfort and felicity. 8 Who suffereth his to lack nothing.

Michtam of David.

16 Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I trust.

2 O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee;

3 But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.

4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.

5 The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.

6 The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.

7 I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.

8 I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.

10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

We have noted before concerning this Psalm that David prays with confidence for protection and preservation. That God gives His people grace, and good things to enjoy, that we might bless His name and offer Him Thanksgiving on account of them. Prayer is the way to receive good things and Thanksgiving is the way to keep them. Truly God is good to Israel and to such as are upright in heart. Therefore central to this Psalm is the doctrine of the blessedness of the saints under the watchful providence and provision of God. We also saw that necessary to this is a godly and upright attitude renouncing all merit and self justification and receiving all things freely at the hands of the giving God. For if we pray with the idea that we might deserve it for what we have done, then God is by that doctrine bound and obligated to recompense us with good for the sake of our good. Such an execrable principle is not found in Holy Scripture. God is not obligated to us but we to him. Therefore just after confessing his own unworthiness, David also condemns those who take satisfaction in their own works or lift up their hands to idols, saying “their sorrows shall be multiplied”. For this is an essential element of faith. Not only to plead for mercy at the hand of God, knowing that all good comes from Him, but also to count them accursed who have not this same quality of faith. In the church today, however, you have a maze of contradiction. The Calvinists say yes to free grace, but they allow for free will to be counted as true faith. This is not the example that scripture gives by David, for if man is justified by what he believes, then God is inconsistent to justify another by what he believes differently. So they must hold to one or the other. Either that God justifies those who believe in free grace or free will. But we know that they believe in justification not by faith but by works, and therefore it is no concern to them what the quality of faith is. They cannot therefore say with David, “their sorrows shall be multiplied etc” David then, immediately after confessing the insufficiency of his own works confidently declares that their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god showing that to hold to human merit is to deny the Lord and hasten with both feet to sorrow and destruction. Just as David’s son Solomon in the Proverb also saith, “the blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow to it.”
And therefore I testify to you this day that the Lord maketh His people to rejoice, and that their sorrows are not multiplied who trust in the Lord. We are persecuted, cast out of the company of men, we suffer the diseases and illness others also are privy to, but God giveth us joy in His Son and maketh us taste good in this life, which present enjoyment is but a drop of water compared to the ocean of love we will experience when we behold the face of Christ in glory. Who can say that to serve the Lord is bitter and sorrowful? Nay but to serve false gods brings sorrow. Yea a multitude of sorrows. To serve self and free will one must force themselves to the work with exterior principles having no reigning principle of grace in the heart. But God will bind up and heal the breaches in our soul and cause all those who love His name to sing for joy. Even in trial and adversity, God will cause the lips of the righteous to rejoice. For we prove our sincerity by our thankfulness, our confession of free grace, and our contempt of all other ways to God besides.

David Dickson,
A fourth fruit and evidence of faith, is, the hating of false religion, and counting all followers of idolatry, or worship of another god, then the true God, to be accursed; such a hating of false religion as is accompanied with the discountenancing, open discrediting, and abhorring of all idol service, as David expresseth here in the whole verse. Whence learne, 1. Men as they are naturally averse from following the true God, and the true religion; so are they naturally bent to all idolatry, and zealous in following idols, and any false religion.

John Calvin,
The Psalmist now describes the true way of maintaining brotherly concord with the saints, by declaring that he will have nothing to do with unbelievers and the superstitious. We cannot be united into the one body of the Church under God, if we do not break off all the bonds of impiety, separate ourselves from idolaters, and keep ourselves pure and at a distance from all the pollutions which corrupt and vitiate the holy service of God. This is certainly the general drift of David’s discourse. But as to the words there is a diversity of opinion among expositors. Some translate the first word of the verse עצבות,atsboth, by idols, and according to this rendering the meaning is, that after men in their folly have once begun to make to themselves false gods, their madness breaks forth without measure, until they accumulate an immense multitude of deities. As, however, this word is here put in the feminine gender, I prefer translating it sorrows or troubles, although it may still have various meanings. Some think it is an imprecation, and they read, Let their sorrows be multiplied; as if David, inflamed with a holy zeal, denounced the just vengeance of God against the superstitious. Others, whose opinions I prefer, do not change the tense of the verb, which in the Hebrew is future, Their sorrows shall be multiplied; but to me they do not seem to express, with sufficient clearness, what kind of sorrows David intends. They say, indeed, that wretched idolaters are perpetually adding to their new inventions, in doing which, they miserably torment themselves. But I am of opinion, that by this word there is, at the same time, denoted the end and issue of the pains which they take in committing it; it points out that they not only put themselves to trouble without any profit or advantage, but also miserably harass and busy themselves to accomplish their own destruction. As an incitement to him to withdraw himself farther from their company, he takes this as an incontrovertible principle, that, so far from deriving any advantage from their vain superstitions, they only, by their strenuous efforts in practising them, involve themselves in greater misery and wretchedness. For what must be the issue with respect to those miserable men who willingly surrender themselves as bond-slaves to the devil, but to be disappointed of their hope? even as God complains in Jeremiah, (Jeremiah 2:13,)
“They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

Therefore as separated from the wicked in the world and giving thanks to God for delivering us from the misery due to mankind for sin, we come before Him to hear His word and pray for his kingdom to flourish. 

Lesson 4. The society of the Christian family and the idolatry of success in the world which is the breaking of God’s covenant for fellowship with devils.

1. The author having bewailed the great distractions, corruptions, and divisions that are in the Church, he thus represents the cause and cure: 2. Among others, a principal cause of these mischiefs is the great and common neglect of the governors of families, in the discharge of that duty which they owe to God for the souls that are under their charge, 3. especially in teaching them the doctrine of Christianity. 4. Families are societies that must be sanctified to God as well as Churches; and 5. the governors of them have as truly a charge of the souls that are therein, as pastors have of the Churches. But, alas, how little is this considered or regarded! 6. But while negligent ministers are (deservedly) cast out of their places, the negligent masters of families take themselves to be almost blameless. They offer their children to God in baptism, and there they promise to teach them the doctrine of the gospel, and bring them up in the nurture of the Lord; but they easily promise, and easily break it; 7. and educate their children for the world and the flesh, although they have renounced these, and dedicated them to God. 8. This covenant-breaking with God, and betraying the souls of their children to the devil, must lie heavy on them here or hereafter. They beget children, and keep families, merely for the world and the flesh: but little consider what a charge is committed to them, and what it is to bring up a child for God, and govern a family as a sanctified society.

Intro.
From general principles to rebuke.
1. The church today is distracted, corrupted and divided.
[1] They pay mind to differences only to boast over others.
i. The PRC.
ii. The PCA.
[2] They teach false doctrine and accept into their fellowship those who are utterly without the fear of God.
i. Common grace.
ii. The free offer.
iii. Communion with Arminians, the enemies of God.
[3] They are divided by many denominatons yet united against the gospel.
i. Despite being divided they call each other believers.
ii. Often they will not even condemn Mormons and Catholics but only those who preach against their idolatry.
iii. They are all united against the gospel by common consent.

2. A great cause of mischief in the church is lack of Christian education.
[1] Historically the Reformed church was sound in profession.
[2] False teachers crept in and corrupted the gospel.
[3] Christian families teaching their children the truth are a means to prevent apostasy from the gospel.

3. That which we are to be most carefully concerned about is the doctrine of Christianity.
[1] The church today being legalistic stresses the importance of works.
Christians today are lazy and ungodly?
Christians are like the world and make no progress in the faith?
[2] The antinomians escape the boiling pot and fall into the fire by teaching grace without works.
[3] The doctrine of the gospel opposes both of these.

4. The family is a living society.
[1] Husband and wife.
i. Modern dating a sign of depravity.
That God caused a sleep to fall on Adam, and made it a deep sleep, that so the opening of his side might be no grievance to him; while he knows no sin, God will take care he shall feel no pain. When God, by his providence, does that to his people which is grievous to flesh and blood, he not only consults their happiness in the issue, but by his grace he can so quiet and compose their spirits as to make them easy under the sharpest operations. 4. That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved. Adam lost a rib, and without any diminution to his strength or comeliness (for, doubtless, the flesh was closed without a scar); but in lieu thereof he had a help meet for him, which abundantly made up his loss: what God takes away from his people he will, one way or other, restore with advantage. In this (as in many other things) Adam was a figure of him that was to come; for out of the side of Christ, the second Adam, his spouse the church was formed, when he slept the sleep, the deep sleep, of death upon the cross, in order to which his side was opened, and there came out blood and water, blood to purchase his church and water to purify it to himself. See Ephesians 5:25; Ephesians 5:26.
-Matthew Henry
A wife is a priceless treasure that God has given to man, therefore as men endowed with grace and the capacity to receive and appreciate God’s good gifts, husbands are called to glorify God by admiring her beauty vocally, enjoying her personality happily, cherishing her company contentedly, loving her soul fervently, considering her frailties delicately, listening to her grievances attentively, defending her honor faithfully, protecting her sanctity valiantly, covering her sins compassionately, correcting her faults tenderly, leading her in true religion authoritatively, remaining loyal to her unceasingly, and giving yourself wholly to her affectionately.
Husband is provider of protection, (emotional and material) wife is provider of comfort (affection and physical). Let both remain in their places.
The sin of husbands towards their wives is to berate and scold with bitterness.
This is not providing emotional security.
The sin of wives towards their husbands is to nag and complain.
This is not providing affectionate comfort.
The husband is to provide a home in love, the wife is to adorn that home with love.
Daily communication in love produces love and mutual agreement.
The Christian family is the true society.
Many of these principles apply to fathers and mothers as well.
[2] Father and mother.
Father – authority in law, Mother – nurture in education.
[3] Brothers and sisters.
Learning to live and love with others in society, in communication, mutual support and benefit, friendship and patience towards each other’s faults.

5. Fathers and mothers have as truly a charge of the souls of their children as pastors do the members of their church.
[1] The Preaching of the word is ordinarily on the Lord’s day.
[2] During times of revival and blessing it is every day.
[3] Parents are with their children every day in private devotion morning and evening.

6. Negligent and deviant ministers ought to be thrown out of office.
[1] If they fail to teach of the way of salvation.
[2] If they teach another way. (which is not another)
[3] God will not acquit. They will be cast into hell. Negligent pastors and parents.

7. It is the judgment of God to raise your children for the devil and the world.
Ezk. 20
[1] The most common manner of raising children is to send them to secular authorities that they might succeed in the world.
[2] The result thereof is spiritual degeneracy.
[3] The devil is called the prince of this world.
Gen. 4. Ex. 20:5
[4] Therefore to give your children to the world and for the world is to sacrifice your children to the devil, even as Israel to Molech.
[5] When God means to destroy men He gives them leave to do what they will to their children.
[6] Seeing the majority of men in America send their children to secular authorities and banish them from the home when they come of age, how great the wrath of God is upon this nation and how must His hatred burn towards them.

8. Repentance is the only way to deliverance.
[1] Our sins and the sins of others must lie heavy upon us if they are to be lifted. Ezk. 9:4
Isaiah‬ ‭55:7‬ ‭
“let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
[2] Those who do not feel their sins now will feel them hereafter. Ezk. 33:10-20
Matthew Henry,
Those that despaired of finding justice with God are here answered with a solemn declaration of the rule of judgment which God would go by in dealing with the children of men, which carries along with it the evidence of its own equity; he that runs may read the justice of it. The Jewish nation, as a nation, was now dead; it was ruined to all intents and purposes. The prophet must therefore deal with particular persons, and the rule of judgment concerning them is much like that concerning a nation, Jer. 18:8-10. If God speak concerning it to build and to plant, and it do wickedly, he will recall his favours and leave it to ruin. But if he speak concerning it to pluck up and destroy, and it repent, he will revoke the sentence and deliver it. So it is here. In short, The most plausible professors, if they apostatize, shall certainly perish for ever in their apostasy from God; and the most notorious sinners, if they repent, shall certainly be happy for ever in their return to God. This is here repeated again and again, because it ought to be again and again considered, and preached over to our own hearts. This was necessary to be inculcated upon this stupid senseless people, that said, The way of the Lord is not equal; for these rules of judgment are so plainly just that they need no other confirmation of them than the repetition of them.
Objections concerning Ezekiel 33.
i. Denial of reprobation.
ii. The righteous apostatizing?
iii. There is no return from apostasy. Heb. 6.|
True repentance is,
i. A sight and sense of sin.
ii. A hatred of sin.
iii. A turning from sin to righteousness.

Conclusion.

YouTube Audio: https://youtu.be/WOA8MXK93VQ