Bible Commentaries

Assurance in God

Psalm 16:9-11

The very sight of the tremendous and irresistible power of death draws one to think of its weakness and limitations. We have here a saint of old who had no such light as ours in the very act of rising by virtue of his religious experience to the loftiest elevation of triumphant confidence.

I. The Grounds of the Triumphant Confidence.—The realization of Jehovah's presence at his right hand; the blessedness and stability which flowed therefrom; these are the facts which lead the singer to grasp the confidence that he will never die.

(a) The capacity to commune with God is surely an indication of something in humanity which is not born for death.

(b) The exercise of that capacity makes it for the man himself an absolute impossibility to conceive that such a thing as death should have power over it.

II. The Contents of the Triumphant Confidence.—(a) In a very real sense we see here the religious life abolishing death even while it did not see the way in which its confidence was to be fulfilled.

(b) The whole course of the devout soul will be in the way of life in the deepest sense. Mors janua vitae; the road to life leads through death. That thought was trembling on the Psalmist's lips.

III. The Fulfilment of the Confidence.—The Psalmist's hopes were not fully realized because his communion was not perfect. But Christ has conquered death for us all, and now with the light of His resurrection we can take the words of the text with deeper meaning.

—Alexander Maclaren.

References.—XVI:8.—M. R. Vincent, God and Bread, p59. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No1305. Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii. p18. W. F. Shaw, Sermon-Sketches, p37. XVI:8-10.—Archbishop Thomson, Lincoln's Inn Sermons, p62. XVI:8-11.—A. Maclaren, Sunday Magazine, 1881 , p738. XVI:9.—A. R. Ashwell, God in His Work and Nature, p1. XVI:9 , 10.—"Plain Sermons" by contributors to Tracts for the Times, vol. ix. p120. XVI:10.—J. Keble, Sermons for Easter to Ascension Day, pp74 , 128. C. Stanford, From Calvary to Olivet, p24. Expositor (3Series), vol. v. p308. Ibid. (2Series), vol. vii. p40.

Emotions of a Saint in Heaven

Psalm 16:11

Heaven is the Christian's goal.

I. He has been made the subject of a change that affects everything connected with him save his identity.

II. The unencumbered action of the spirit.

III. The friendships of heaven will be of a higher order than those of earth.

IV. He will stand in the presence of Christ.

This faint view of the joys of the redeemed inspires two reflections:—(a) That excessive grief over the departed is unwarranted.

(b) That we should make sure of our inheritance with the saints in light.

—A. S. Gardner, Pulpit and Grave, p251.

References.—XVI:11.—H. Moffat, Church Sermons, vol. i. p49. XVI.—International Critical Commentary, vol. i. p117. W. F. Shaw, Sermon-Sketches, p37. J. Hammond, Expositor (1Series), vol. iv. p341. I. Williams, The Psalm Interpreted of Christ, p279. XVII:3.—H. P. Liddon, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii. p193. XVII:5.—Parker, City Temple, vol. i. p60. XVII:7.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p141. XVII:8.—F. W. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i. p190. E. A. Bray, Sermons, vol. i. p114. G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi. p244. XVII:13.—E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons, vol. ii. p128.