There is a lot of trouble around us. There may also be trouble and conflict with in us. It is everywhere. This world has always been a place of turmoil since the fall. Adam and Eve where the perfect couple in the garden. They disobeyed God, sin entered, and things went amiss.
Things went from bad to worse after the fall. The downward spiral was so bad that their firstborn son Cain murdered their second son Able for no real reason. In a world filled with trouble and violence we can take refuge in God. We can possess a calm assurance by trusting in God.
For the one who really lives in the light of God’s presence there is a quiet confidence. A calm sense of assurance. This Psalm speaks of the calm assurance of the one who trusts in God. In the New Testament Paul expresses this same calm assurance as a believer in Jesus Christ.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
Now that is a calm assurance and confidence in the Lord. There is reason for a believer who trusts in God to be confident. They do not need to be arrogant, but confident because the believer in Christ knows that God is with him.
The Title of the Psalm is: A Mitkam of David. Most commonly the title translates to a golden poem. The Psalm is pure gold for the believer as it speaks of calm assurance of trusting in God. How many believers have made it through the difficult times by nothing but their trust in God.
With calm assurance comes a trust in God. (Verses 1-4)
Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”
3 I say of the holy people who are in the land,
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their names on my lips. (Psalm 16:1-4)
The Psalm opens with a prayer. Here is the testimony of David’s hope in God. No one can enjoy life in God’s will, apart from a personal relationship with God. It’s not the rich and powerful who possess true confidence, but the righteous.
There is a present and future hope. Verse 1, he says keep me safe God. Guard me because I have put my trust in you. Here he takes refuge in God. That sounds great. Let’s all take refuge in God, but how do we do it?
The answer is in verse 2. Let yourself be totally dependent on God. For Christians it becomes the issue of Lordship to Jesus Christ. This prayer is made in the midst of surrounding idolatry. Verse 3 speaks of the saints, the holy ones, the believers who were in the land.
All of those who made their stand for God, with calm assurance, did so in the midst of those who had been drawn away to something besides God. There is always a substitute, an idol ready to take the place of the true and living God in your life.
Trust in God. David refused to ever speak the name of the false deities. The ungodly exchange the true God for false gods. Instead of confidence those who reject God will have trouble. Any other way but God’s way is asking for sorrows.
With calm assurance comes a delightful in heritance. (Verses 5-8)
Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (Psalms 16:5-8)
Those who trust in God, who dwell in His presence have a calm assurance because they have a spiritual inheritance. There is a reference here to Levitical Priests when the promised land was divided up among the various tribes. The tribe of Levi was allotted no land. Why not?
The LORD said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites. (Numbers 18:20)
They had no land because God himself was their inheritance. That is the idea here. That is not being slighted that is being blessed! David is one who dwelt in God’s presence. God taught David. He received instruction in the stillness of the night.
Because God is always with him and guiding him, David will not be shaken. With his eyes always on the Lord, David is the picture of a man after God’s own heart. David always has his eyes on the Lord. He has set the Glory of God before him and that is the source of his confidence. It is having our eyes set always on the Lord that will give us a calm assurance. We need to pursue our inward desire for intimately knowing God.
Our peace dwells in us when we are always conscious of God’s nearness. This will keep us from being shaken. It will anchor us and we will not be moved. This is not an empty boast for David. It is a confidence based on the fact that God is always near. It reflects the calm assurance of a close relationship with God. When we walk with God, we keep from getting tossed around in the storms.
With calm assurance comes our resting secure. (Verses 9-11)
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
11 You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16:1-11)
This resting secure is the true confidence for us too when we trust in God. This gives a calm assurance even in facing death. We know in Christ that death is not the final word. There is a joy with God, abiding in his presence is unending and lasts forever.
David will not be in the realm of the dead. What does this mean? Didn’t David die and his son Solomon became the king in his place. Yes, he did die, but David was a prophet. He knew God would place one of his descendants on the throne. Peter talks about this in the Pentecost sermon.
Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. (Acts 2:31)
Peter preached about Psalm 16 in his Pentecost sermon and Paul preached on Psalm 16 on his first missionary journey. It was the calm assurance that was instilled into the birth and growth of the church. Paul preached with this calm assurance that death cannot harm us. It made the religious leaders so angry that they stoned him to death. They left him for dead and he got back up and continued his ministry.
So it is also stated elsewhere: “‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’36 “Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. (Acts 13:35-37)
What a blessing of the calm assurance we have. We have a calm assurance because of the resurrection. We have a calm assurance because we are promised eternal life. It is the supernatural aspect of this calm assurance that physical death cannot interrupt the eternal life of the believer. All that David writes in this golden Psalm is fulfilled perfectly in and through Jesus Christ.
This means we can have calm assurance even when we face the grave. That confidence exists when we trust God. That calm assurance is for us when we are abiding in Christ. How are we going to have this calm assurance? We must abide in Christ. The confidence of this Psalm flows from closeness to God.
