Amen, well it's good to see you here this morning and I invite you to take your copy of scripture and turn to Psalm 116. Psalm 116. We are continuing our series in the Psalms. And just so you know, a few of you have asked me, well, how long are we going to go in the Psalms in this series? And we just have a couple more weeks for this series. So we'll look at Psalm 117 and 118 in the weeks to come. And then some of you know that Psalm 119 is the longest psalm in the Bible. We're going to take a break before that psalm, and I've got to figure out how to preach Psalm 119. And then we will come back to Psalm 119 in the future and do another series in the psalms. But we've been in the psalms now for a number of weeks, and we come to Psalm 116. And I'll begin reading for us in verse 1 and read through to the end of the psalm, and then we'll consider it together. So Psalm 116, beginning in verse 1. I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because He inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call on Him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord, O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed even when I spoke. I am greatly afflicted. I said in my alarm, all mankind are liars. What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. O Lord, I am Your servant. I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord." Amen. Let's go to the Lord in prayer, okay? Let's pray. Father we are so grateful for your word. We are so thankful Lord for the psalmist testimony here in Psalm 116. We are so thankful for the way he sets a model for us of faith and confidence in you of praise and of thanksgiving. And Lord, as we turn to your word now, we pray that by your spirit you would take this psalm and apply it to our own hearts, that we also might be a people of faith and praise. And it's through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen. When 1505, Martin Luther was a 21-year-old law student, Luther was traveling home from university and he encountered a violent storm and it was a terrifying moment in his life. In fact, the storm was so intense that at one point lightning struck so close to Luther that it knocked him off his horse. In that moment, Luther feared for his life and he cried out to the Lord and he committed to giving up his law profession and becoming a monk if the Lord saved him from this storm. Well, the Lord in his kindness did save Luther. Luther survived the storm. And two weeks later, to his father's great displeasure, Luther gave up his pursuit of being a lawyer and he committed himself to being a monk. As a monk, Luther devoted himself to the study of God's Word, which led him to challenge the theology and the practice of the Roman Catholic Church, which then resulted in the Protestant Reformation. And the Protestant Reformation not only altered Christian history, but in fact changed the course of human history forever. You see, the reality of death humbled Luther. and revealed to Luther his need for God. And death can have a similar humbling effect in our own lives and awaken us to our need for God. There is a reason why people have observed that there are no atheists in a foxhole. You see, when death seems immediate, when death seems inevitable, even the most strident unbelievers among us often become conscious of their humanity, of their creatureliness, of their frailty, and they cry out to their Creator. Psalm 116 is the psalmist's response to the Lord delivering him from a near-death experience. You see it there in verse 3. The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol, which is a reference to death or the grave, laid hold of me. I suffered distress and anguish. You see it again in verses 8 and 9. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Now I know that some of us this morning might not like to think about death or talk about death. But if believers and unbelievers can agree on anything in this life, it is the certainty of death. If the Lord does not return beforehand, we will all die. And God has given us His Word not only to show us how to live, but also to teach us how to think about and how to relate to death. The title of our message this morning is, Praise the Lord Who Delivers from Death. Praise the Lord Who Delivers from Death. Now before we jump into our psalm, Psalm 116, I want us to think about this psalm from four different perspectives, you might say. So before we walk through the passage as a whole, I want us to realize that there are four different perspectives or vantage points from which we can read and understand this psalm. And I want to mention these just briefly. The first is the psalmist's perspective. We need to read Psalm 116, and maybe this seems obvious but should be stated. We need to read Psalm 116 from the psalmist's perspective. The psalmist here in Psalm 116 is writing about an actual event, a very real event, that occurred in his life in which he feared death. Death seemed immediate. It seemed almost certain. And one of the things you'll notice about this psalm is that Psalm 116 is a very personal account of this experience. In fact, if you scan the psalm, you will see how many times the psalmist makes reference to himself. You'll see the words I and my and actually you. Sometimes he refers to himself in the second person. And in my English Standard Version of the Bible, the ESV, as I read through the ESV translation of Psalm 116, I counted 35 times that the psalmist makes reference to himself. This is a very personal account of this near-death experience that the psalmist had. And some of you have known a similar experience. Some of you have known a time in your life where death was a real possibility and the Lord delivered you. And one of the things we learned from Psalm 116 this morning is that as a result, you should praise the Lord. So we should read this psalm from the psalmist's perspective. We should also read this psalm from Israel's perspective. Now, if you've been here for the series that we've been walking through in the psalms, you might remember that Psalms 113 to Psalm 118 are referred to as the Egyptian Hillel Psalms. These psalms were sung by the Jews during the Passover feast when they celebrated God's deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage and slavery. You also might remember that on the night before Israel departed from Egypt, on the night before they were delivered from Egypt, God threatened to take the life of the firstborn son of every household in Egypt. But God made a provision for the people of Israel. He told them to slaughter a lamb and then to take the blood of that lamb and to spread it over the doorpost of their house. And if they did so, then the angel of death, as he passed through Egypt, he would pass over their home, seeing the blood of that sacrifice. That's why it's referred to as the Passover Feast. And so now you can imagine that many years later as the Jews would gather and they would celebrate this Passover feast, and they would sing these Psalms, and they would sing Psalm 116, they would be reminded that God had delivered their people from death. He had delivered the firstborn son of every Jewish family who put that sacrifice, the blood of that sacrifice on their doorposts. He had delivered them from death, and they would have praised the Lord. So we should read this from the psalmist's perspective. We should read this from Israel's perspective. We should also read this from Jesus' perspective. Psalm 116, again, is a part of the Egyptian Hillel Psalms. And you also might know that before Jesus' crucifixion, on the night when He was betrayed by Judas, Jesus ate the Passover meal with His disciples. So at some point, as they would have been celebrating this meal, it is likely that Jesus and His disciples would have recited or sung Psalm 116. Now think of that for a moment. Jesus sang this psalm just hours before He knew He would be falsely condemned, terribly beaten, crucified, and die. It was in that moment, as he faced death, that Jesus sang this psalm. It was, as the psalmist says here, in that moment where Jesus knew that the snares of death encompassed him and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of him, that the Lord, Jesus, sang this song in faith, believing that the Lord would raise him from the dead and that he would walk before the Lord in the land of the living. So we should read this psalm from the psalmist's perspective, from Israel's perspective, from Jesus' perspective. And then fourth and finally, we should read this psalm from the Christian's perspective. You know, the New Testament often speaks of our experience as Christians, of being converted, of becoming Christians, as an experience of moving from death to life. In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul says that we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked, but God made us alive together in Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And so it is appropriate for us as Christians to read Psalm 116 and to think about our own Christian conversion and how God has delivered us from death and given us spiritual life. Augustine, the early church father, makes this comment on his opening comments on Psalm 116. Augustine writes, quote, "'Let this be the song of a soul on pilgrimage and away from the Lord.' Let the sheep that had strayed sing it. Let the son who had died and come back to life sing it. He who was lost and found again, let our soul sing this song." In other words, if you were a sheep who wandered from the shepherd, and the shepherd came and he sought you out and found you and brought you home, or if you were a son who had rebelled against your father, and you left His home and yet you have returned in repentance and He has received you with grace and with mercy, then you should sing this song with thanksgiving. We should sing this song because God has delivered us from sin and death and a Christless eternity in hell and given us new life, eternal life in Jesus Christ. And therefore, we should praise God who delivers from death. With these four perspectives in mind, I want us now to turn to our psalm. And actually, we're going to look at the psalm in four parts. And this will serve as our outline this morning. First, we will consider, I love the Lord who delivers from death. This is found in verses 1 through 4. Secondly, we'll see who is the Lord who delivers from death in verses 5 through 9. Third, my faith in the Lord who delivers from death in verses 10 and 11. And then fourth, my response to the Lord who delivers from death in verses 12 through 19. If you want a shortened version of that outline, it is my love for Him, who He is, my faith in Him, and my response to Him. First of all, let's consider verses 1 through 4. I love the Lord who delivers from death. Now notice there in verse 3, we see immediately the problem, the context in which the psalmist finds himself. We read it before, but notice it again. Look there in verse 3. The snares, which could be translated ropes or cords, the snares of death encompassed me. The pangs or the distress of Sheol, and again Sheol is a reference to death or the grave, laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Now, one Old Testament scholar, Derek Kidner, has written, quote, in Old Testament poetry, death and Sheol are aggressive. That's what we see here in our text. He goes on to say, they are clutching at the living to waste them with sickness or crush them with despondency, end of quote. As some have noted, death and the grave are never satisfied. Death is greedy. It's always grasping for more to take into its possession. And no matter how many it obtains, it is never satisfied with the bounty of its spoil. And the psalmist says here that death had encompassed me, it had surrounded me, it had entrapped me. I felt its tight grip. I was going down. Notice the psalmist's response then in verse 4. Then I called on the name of the Lord. O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul. Now one of the things we see here is that it's not wrong for a Christian to pray for deliverance from physical death. In fact, Christianity teaches us that death is our enemy. And this was the psalmist's cry. This was his prayer in this moment when he faced death. O Lord, deliver my soul. And notice the Lord's response in verses 1 and 2. I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy, because He inclined His ear to me, therefore I call on Him as long as I live. Now that word there, inclined, He has heard my voice, my pleas for mercy, He inclined His ear to me. That word there, inclined, means to stretch out, to extend, to bend down. You can imagine a man or a woman who is sickly, who's laying in a hospital bed and barely able to speak. Or a small child who's fearful and timid and can barely get out a whisper. And you could also imagine then, a friend coming beside that bed and stretching out, extending to hear the voice of the one in the bed who's just barely whispering. Or you can imagine a loving parent coming to that child who is so fearful and tender and bending down to hear them so that they can hear their voice and give them help. This was the Lord's response to the psalmist. He inclined himself to me. He extended himself. He stretched himself out. He bent down to hear my voice. and to deliver me from death. And understand, my friends, this is God's heart towards us. He extends Himself. He stretches Himself out. He bends down to hear our voice and to answer our cry. And it is for this reason that the psalmist then declares that he loves the Lord. He says in the opening verse here, I love the Lord because He has heard my cry and my pleas for mercy. My friends, is that your confession this morning? That you love the Lord because He has heard your prayer? Just prior to our Good Friday sing, Last week, our community group met at RG and Rachel Lamar's house for a meal and we were gathered together in one room around the table, the adults were, and we were eating. And then just to a room adjacent to that, there were the children, the young people, they were gathered together and they were eating. And at one point when we were sitting around the table, the adults, and we were eating, R.G. and Rachel's son, Gaynor, who's three years old, he came into the room and without warning, unannounced, he just declared, Dad, I love you. And then he turned around and walked out of the room. It was really a sweet moment. It was great. And it's an illustration, isn't it, just as of how we should express our love to God, just as natural as it is for a child to declare to their father or their mother, I love you. So it should be natural for the Christian to declare, Lord, I love you. For you have heard my prayer and you have answered my plea. This should especially be true considering that every breath we receive in this life is a gift from God. And of course, some of you are more keenly aware of this than others. Some of you remember perhaps a bout with COVID that sincerely threatened your life or a heart condition that caused you to question whether or not this could be it. Or a car accident that brought you face to face with death. Or a cancer diagnosis that forced you to wrestle with your own mortality. But the Lord delivered you. And here you are this morning. You are here. And it is right and it is good for you to confess, I love you, Lord, because you heard my voice and my plea for mercy. For those of us who are Christians, of course, we always have reason to rejoice. Because as I mentioned earlier, the Lord has raised us from spiritual death and he's given us new life and eternal life in Jesus. And so it is right for us to confess as well. I love you, Lord. because you have heard my voice and my plea for mercy in Christ Jesus. Secondly, I want us to see in our text who is the Lord who delivers from death. So first, I love the Lord who delivers from death. Secondly, who is the Lord who delivers from death? You see this in verses 5 through 9. Now, I noted earlier that this psalm is a very personal psalm. So, the psalmist makes mention of himself some 35 times. But at the same time, Psalm 116 is undeniably focused on the Lord. So you'll notice that the personal name for God here in Psalm 116, it's the name Yahweh, and it's represented in your translation by the word LORD in all caps. And if you scan the psalm, you'll see that the name for God, Yahweh or LORD, is mentioned approximately 17 times in just 19 verses. And here in verse 5, the verse that we're looking at now, the psalmist tells us who the Lord is. He writes, gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful. Now these words actually sound very familiar to God's revelation of himself to Moses at the burning bush. Actually, it was later than the burning bush. It was later in Exodus, in Exodus chapter 34. But in Exodus chapter 34, verse 7, the Lord declared to Moses, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Now what the psalmist says here in verse 5 of Psalm 116 may seem kind of, it may seem confusing to a sinner who is under conviction. The psalmist says, as we just read, gracious is the Lord and righteous our God is merciful. So on the one hand, gracious and merciful make sense. Righteousness makes sense. But gracious, merciful, and righteous How does that work? In other words, will God be gracious and merciful to the sinner and pardon them? Or will God be righteous to the sinner? He do what is right, do what is just, and judge them. This is actually the great dilemma of the Bible, and it is the dilemma that is only resolved in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. When Jesus suffers on the cross, the righteous judgment of the law that we deserve, so that God's righteous standard is met, so that when we look to faith in Jesus, then God might pour His mercy and grace out upon us in Him. Notice that the psalmist then goes on, though, to describe further who the Lord is. Not only is He righteous and gracious and merciful, but look there in verse 6, the Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, He saved me. Isn't that remarkable that the gracious and righteous and merciful God of the Bible preserves the simple and saves the low? That word simple there often appears in the book of Proverbs. The word can be translated simple or naive. And sometimes it seems that those who are simple bear responsibility for their simple-mindedness because their simple-mindedness is a result of rejecting God's Word and walking in folly and foolishness. Other times, those who are simple-minded, it doesn't seem that it's a consequence of bad character, but rather it's a natural deficiency of youth or inexperience. But either way, it's remarkable here that the psalmist declares that the Lord of heaven and earth preserves the simple. And not only does he preserve the simple, you notice that he saves the low. Not the high, not the mighty, not the great, not the impressive, not the big shot or the top dog or the baller or the high roller or the blue blood or the heavy hitter, but the low. The psalmist confesses here, when I didn't know what to do, when I was at a loss of how to save myself or how to improve my situation, when I was simple-minded and confused, not when I was at my best, but when I was at my worst, not when I was on top of my game, but when I had no game, the Lord heard my cry for mercy and He preserved my life and saved me from despair. And God did so because this is who God is. This is His character. This is what He does. He hears the cries of His people and He delivers them. And when we know God like this, do you know what it leads to? It leads to rest. Do you see that in the text? Look at verses 7 and 8. Return, O my soul, to your rest. Why? For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. And in this specific situation, what did it look like for the Lord to deal bountifully with the psalmist? For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I know that the term PTSD, I know it's a very real phenomenon, and I also know that it's oftentimes overused. But sometimes when we go through a particularly difficult time, it's like we experience some form of PTSD. So that even after all the dust has cleared, it's like we have to talk ourselves down. It's like we have to intentionally, purposefully relax. It's like we have to remind ourselves that it's okay, it's okay to take a deep breath and to rest. And this is what the psalmist is doing here in our passage. He's talking to himself, right? Return, O my soul, to your rest. In other words, it's OK. You don't always have to be on high alert. You don't always have to be intensely anxious and overwhelmed. The Lord has been good to you. The Lord has dealt bountifully with you. This is who he is and you can rest in his salvation and in his deliverance. So we see, I love the Lord who delivers from death. We see who is the Lord who delivers from death. Third, notice my faith in the Lord who delivers from death. We see this in verses 10 and 11. Actually, the first phrase there in verse 10, I believed even when I spoke, this verse here, this phrase is actually cited by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And it's interesting because when the Apostle Paul cites this in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he actually cites it in the context of speaking about death and life. He cites these words here when he's speaking about his own experience of always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in my mortal flesh. In a similar fashion, we see here, right, the psalmist in the original context, he's speaking about this experience of death and life and the tension between the two, and he's fearful that he may succumb to death. But here the psalmist confesses that he believed in God, he trusted in the Lord, even as he honestly acknowledged the difficulty of his situation and his deep disappointment in others. You see it there in verse 10. I believed even when I spoke, I am greatly afflicted. I said in my alarm, all mankind are liars. Now we don't know the particulars, all the specifics of the situation that the psalmist found himself in, but as he experienced this near-death reality, something was going on where he was one, experiencing great affliction as a result of this, and also there was some type of dishonesty or perhaps betrayal that had led to him being in this situation. But he says, Even when He bemoaned His difficult circumstances, I am greatly afflicted. And even when He was profoundly disappointed in the dishonesty and unfaithfulness of others, all mankind are liars. Even then, He believed and trusted in the Lord. I find this so encouraging because sometimes when we feel deeply the pain and difficulty of our situation, Or when we grieve deeply the dishonesty or betrayal of another, we might doubt whether we believe. We might wonder to ourselves, well, if I really had faith, if I had real faith, then maybe I wouldn't feel this way. Maybe I wouldn't be bothered by these difficult circumstances. Maybe I wouldn't be fazed by the dishonesty of a friend. But that's not what the psalmist says here, right? The psalmist looking back on this experience says, upon further reflection, I realize that I did believe, I did in fact believe. And maybe his faith wasn't perfect, but it was genuine, it was sincere. And so we see here from our text, my friends, that to acknowledge our difficulty, to acknowledge our grief and our disappointment is not always inconsistent or incongruent with faith. So faith in the face of death, does not always look pretty. It doesn't always look perfect or pristine. It doesn't always look like without struggle or grief or confusion. Rather, faith in the face of death often coincides with struggle and grief and confusion. But that doesn't make it any less real and genuine. In fact, I imagine when we look back on our lives we'll discover that it was often in those moments when we were so deeply struggling that we had the greatest moments of faith. C.S. Lewis in his classic entitled Screwtape Letters, he writes this kind of humorous account of a demon who is training another demon in how to tempt Christians and lure them away from their faith. And so, Screwtape is the senior and Wormwood is his understudy. And at one point, Screwtape is advising Wormwood and he says, quote, do not be deceived, Wormwood. The devil's cause is never more in danger. than when a human intending to do God's will looks around the universe and every trace of God seems to have vanished, and he asks himself why he has been forsaken and still obeys." Screwtape says this is the greatest challenge. This is the greatest danger to the cause of Satan. That the Christian would look around the universe and it seems like he's been forsaken. And in that moment, he would still believe and he would still obey. My friends, this is what we see the psalmist doing here in Psalm 116. It seems that death has entrapped him. It seems there's no hope. Great is my affliction. All mankind are liars. And even then he obeys. He stared death in the face and his faith may not have looked impressive, but it was genuine. It was real. And the Lord received it. Fourth and finally, let's consider my response to the Lord who delivers from death. So I love the Lord who delivers from death. Who is the Lord who delivers from death? My faith in the Lord who delivers from death. And then fourth, my response to the Lord who delivers from death. Look there in verses 12 through 19. Now, having reflected on the Lord's deliverance from death up until this point, in verse 12, the psalmist asks, what shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? And this is a natural question, right? The Lord has been so good to me, he's been so kind to me. What shall I render to him? How shall I respond to the Lord? And what follows is the psalmist's answer. You notice that the psalmist's first answer is celebration and dependence. This is what he will render to the Lord, celebration and dependence. Notice there in verse 13, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. And then again in verse 17, I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. So you see how that's repeated again in verse 17. So this lifting up of the cup of salvation could be similar to kind of a modern-day expression of a toast, a way to honor and celebrate the Lord and His salvation. But it seems there's more to this cup of salvation. Not only is it a way to honor the Lord and His salvation, but it also seems that this cup of salvation is an expression not only of honor, not only of celebration, but also it's a cup of dependence. expressing the psalmist's need for the Lord. Because you notice in the very next line he says, and call upon the name of the Lord. And he says it again in verse 17, and call on the name of the Lord. And so this is what it seems to be communicating here with this idea of the cup of salvation. He's lifting up the cup of salvation to honor the Lord, to celebrate his salvation, but also to ask the Lord for more, to fill his cup. My friends, it is a precious gospel truth to understand that one of the best ways we can honor the Lord for His provision and His grace in our lives is to ask Him for more. The psalmist says, what shall I render to the Lord for the benefits that He has given to me? And the first thing is not to give, but the first thing is to receive more. And why is that? Well, think about it. How do you convey the worth of a well that is full of life-giving water? Do you convey the worth of that well by pouring more water in? No. You convey the worth of that well by going to that well every day and drawing out more and more and more and more and drinking. And in so doing, you communicate the depths of that well, the limitlessness of the resources of that well, the satisfying life that the water of that well provides. And here the psalmist lifts up the cup of salvation to celebrate, to honor the Lord's salvation, and also to ask, Lord, fill it full, overflowing once again. Notice the second response that the psalmist provides us with here in this section. The second answer, the first was celebration and independence, the second answer to this question is to pay his vows. What will he render to the Lord for all his benefits? He will pay his vows. Look there in verse 14, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people. And again in verse 18 and 19, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people. He repeats it again, right? In the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Now I don't know specifically what vows or promises that the psalmist has in mind here in Psalm 116. I mentioned earlier in our sermon when Luther was thrown off his horse and feared for his life, he in that moment made a vow to the Lord that he would forsake law and he would become a monk. I wouldn't recommend that you make spontaneous vows like that in the moment. Oftentimes such vows are ill-advised. But there are certain vows, there are certain commitments that we can humbly and confidently make before the Lord. Namely, those things that God has directly commanded for us to do in Scripture. Like committing, vowing to regularly spend time with the Lord in His Word and in prayer. Or committing, vowing to consistently give a portion of our income to support the causes of Christ and His church and the spread of the gospel. Or like committing, vowing to be faithful to God's church and faithful to the gathered worship of God's people. In these ways and more, we can say to the Lord, Lord, out of a heart of gratitude, out of a heart of thanksgiving, by the power of your Holy Spirit, I will set myself to fulfill these commitments, these promises that I have made to you. It's really like Paul speaks about in Romans chapter 12, where we offer our lives as a living sacrifice to the Lord. And notice also here that this is not only a personal matter for the Apostle Paul, but it's a public commitment. Do you see that in the text in verse 14? I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people. And again, in verse 18 and 19, he stresses this point. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. And then he goes on to say, in the courts of the house of the Lord, this is where they gathered for worship. In your midst, O Jerusalem, this was the city where God's people were gathered for times of feasting and for worship. You see, my friends, the Lord has always intended for us to live out our faith in Him in the context of His people, the church. And so personal devotion, I will pay my vows. And faithful commitment to God's people in the presence of all his people are not at odds with one another. Rather, they are compatible with one another. They compliment one another. They support each other. And this is what the psalmist commits himself to in these verses. to celebrate the Lord, to depend upon the Lord, and he vows himself to the Lord and to worship the Lord with his people. The final thing I want to show you here in this psalm is that the psalmist answered here in verses 12 through 19 that we've been looking at. So he asked this question, what will I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I want you to notice, and we've looked at several of the things the psalmist has said here in response to that question, I want you to notice that the answer to that question comes with a certain structure, an intentional structure. You may have noticed, and I've tried to point out, that several of the things we were looking at here in this section repeat themselves. So notice, in verse 12, the question is posed, what shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? And then if you look at the very last line of verse 19, I think this corresponds to verse 12, he declares, praise the Lord, or hallelujah, praise the Lord. So I think those two statements there correspond with one another. Then look at verse 13. And we read these words, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. And then skip down to verse 17. Notice what he says there, I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. So these two statements correspond with one another. And then if you look at verse 14, the psalmist goes on to say, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. And then skip down to verse 18 and 19, we read, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem, praise the Lord. So these statements correspond with one another. And what does that leave us with? Well, it leaves us with two verses right in the middle. Verses 15 and 16. And this seems to be the center of the psalmist answer and what he's focused on. If you didn't follow all that, that's OK. Just focus on verse 15 and 16 right now. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Oh Lord, I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. This seems to be at the center of the psalmist's answer. This is the principle that's driving the psalmist as he praises the Lord for deliverance from death. That precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. And in this context in which the psalmist has been delivered from death, it seems that what this statement is getting at is that the Lord will not allow His saints, because they are precious to Him, the Lord will not allow His saints to die prematurely. The Lord will not allow His saints to die by accident. But rather, as the great evangelist George Whitefield declared, we are immortal until our work is done. We are in the hands of a faithful creator and while he has work for us to do, we are invincible. When he has no more work for us to do, he will call us home to himself, end of quote. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints. The Lord will not allow us to die prematurely. He will not allow us to die by accident. And when it is time for us to go home, because actually the psalmist is recognizing here, right, that the saints are not always delivered from death. There does come a time where the saints will yield to death, where the Lord will say, your time on earth is up. But when that time comes, it will be a precious time in the eyes of the Lord, because the Lord loves His saints. And even in that hour, perhaps we could say especially in that hour, the Lord will be near to His own. Charles Spurgeon writes, quote, the Lord watches over their dying beds. He smooths their pillows. He sustains their hearts. He receives their souls. Those who are redeemed with precious blood are so dear to God that even their deaths are precious to Him, end of quote. This is why the psalmist goes on to delight in the fact that he is a servant of the Lord. Do you see that in verse 16? He says in verse 16, O Lord, I am your servant, I am your maidservant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. You see, I'm yours, I belong to you. I am your servant. Just as my mother before me was your servant and she was faithful to the Lord and she taught me your ways, I too am your servant. Because he is the servant of the Lord, he is the saint of the Lord. He is one of the Lord's saints. The two are parallel, right? In 15 and 16, the saints of the Lord are the servants of the Lord. And David is saying, I'm your servant. I'm one of your saints. And therefore I know, precious in your sight is both my life and my death, and I trust you with both. My friends, can you say this morning that you are a servant, a saint of the Lord? You can be through faith in Jesus Christ. If you look to him in faith who died the death you deserved so that you might be forgiven and have eternal life. And if you trust in him then you can be confident that you are immortal in this life until your work for the Lord is done. That in this life God views your life and your death as precious and he will keep you He will keep you until He calls you home. And when He calls you home, He will not leave you or forsake you, but He will bring you to Himself. Amen. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank You and praise You for Psalm 116. Lord, we thank You that You have revealed to us in Your Word over and over again the reality of our own mortality, our frailty, the reality of death, so that we might be reminded of our need for You. And Lord, in that need, we thank You that You reassure us again and again and again of Your love and Your faithfulness, that You have made a provision for us in Jesus, and that in Jesus You will love us to the end. Father, I pray that you would use this psalm to encourage our faith. And I do pray that we would be a people who praise you because you are the God who delivers from death. And it's through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen.