Into Your Hands

Selah:

Sacred Songs of the Psalter

Max A Forsythe

^© Anno Domini 2005

From the pulpit at Pilgrim’s Rest

Presbyterian Church in America

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Introduction: The first line in verse five is reminiscent of the punishment David accepted for his census of military might. Given three options of a three year famine, a military fiasco or three days plague, David answered the prophet Gad: “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” And so, the three day pestilence spread across the country until God put a stop to the punishment. This phrase also illustrates the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Faced with the daunting descent into Hades, still He trusted completely in the love and mercy of the Father.

While David’s trials were not so extreme, still they were real enough even as our common problems remain for us day by day. In the last few weeks, very many people waited in uncomfortable circumstances for rescue in New Orleans. A lack of food and water gave rise to despair in many cases. And like countless settles in the colonial era, the rescuers had many miles and obstacles to cover. And even though the rescuers were seemingly delayed, the vast majority of the victims survived their ordeal of storm and flood. Unfortunately, far too many had not the faith and patience of King David.

There is another sense here of being safe in the mighty hands of God. Delitzsch tells us that David’s confidence in this handing over of his spirit, David “gives it over into His hand as a trust or deposit; for whatsoever is deposited there is safely kept, and freed from all danger and all distress.” Even more Delitzsch catalogues the precious hope implied the Lukean passage: “that [Jesus] may not die, but that dying He may not die, i.e. that He may receive back again His spirit-corporeal life, which is hidden in the Hand of God, in imperishable power and glory.”

In the second line of verse five, David realized that his safety was already assured: “You have saved me, O Lord.” And what was the source of his confidence? Look at the precious name by which he knew the Lord God of Israel: “The God of truth.” What we have here in David’s poetry, is a vivid sense of reality. The one true God, as other passages well describe Him, has saved David and has kept David’s cause and person continually under His protection and guidance. This is what sets our God apart from all the other deities which are nothing more than imaginary personages or wishful thinking.

Given the propensity of the human mind to craft religions to serve a person’s vanity – we should realize that any manifestation of our God as He is revealed in the Scriptures must be considered abnormal to say the least. After all, the most popular twist to orthodox theology is to empower mankind to bring common sense into the lime light as it relates to human instead of sovereign election. By that I mean to say that religious inventions give a better place to humanity as well as a means to control their destiny.

Development: Contrary to the ordinary human myths, as we move on to the sixth verse, we see the direction of David’s thinking here. He has known the God of truth and thus he has little patience for all those who worship anything less than the Triune God of heaven and earth.

In my translation, I have used “deceptive illusions” so as to include the heretical ponderings of every age. This phrase applies equally well to the time of David, when carved idols were the normative objects of faith and religious devotion. In addition, it also applies to the philosophic bent of mind, more common to the Greeks and even down into our own day and age.

Few there be today, who will venerate a carved image as anything less than symbolic of a “higher concept.” But imaginations have run riot across the world and we are caught today between a tandem of atheists on one hand who ridicule any object of faith and a Taliban of murderous rogues on the other, who would demand worship of a false God at the point of a sword.

Given the sordid choices of his day, David had no second thoughts. “I trust in the Lord,” he quietly affirms. And why does he do that? He trusts in the Lord, because of his experience with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob over the course of many years and in the midst of many trials and troubles.

Verse seven begins his confession of faith in this portion of the Psalm, and it demonstrates the source of his hope. “I will rejoice and be glad,” he writes cheerfully. How many of the world’s religions are spoken of joyfully? The greater majority are burdensome and expensive to say the least. However, David serves a better deity, the One and only Creator God of heaven and earth. And in the light of God’s unpurchased steadfast love, there is joy and peace in abundance.

1. “ Because You have seen my affliction; and have known the distress of my soul,

2. You have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; and have set my feet in a broad place.”

First, our poet realizes that the Lord God does indeed know David’s pain of a life less holy and even dangerous between the affliction and distress recorded in the last two lines of verse seven. There we have the whole of not only David’s life experience, but also that of all the saints who ever lived. The affliction comes from the world around him, and the distress is that which makes the heart heavy within. We certainly know from biblical history that any list of David’s personal afflictions, are legendary to the extreme. We also know that David’s heart was finely tuned to acknowledge every spiritual implication as well. O Lord, he cries, You have known my troubles and my worries, therefore I can rejoice in the light of Your knowledge. How much more can we appreciate the sufferings of David’s greater Son: the Man of Sorrows, who experienced the depth of distress in Sheol for our eternal salvation.

Application: Our second and final point for David’s confidence is a vivid contrast to verse five. “You have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy,” David writes confidently. After all, since David had given himself over into the hand of God Himself, he had naught to fear and his confidence is increased in the midst of crisis because He has not fallen into the hands of mere mortals. Spurgeon observes: “To be shut up in one’s hand is to be delivered over absolutely to his power; now, the believer is not in the hand of death or the devil, much less is he in the power of man.”

No indeed, we like David may know the freedom of the Spirit in this sense; we are not constricted spiritually in this life. Even if we be locked up in prison like Paul and other saints, in our hearts and minds we are free to explore the broad expanses of freedom in Christ. In the knowledge and experience of this broad place where we may know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are His and He is ours, what more can we desire. Our Lord and God is greater than all of creation and even though we enjoy and appreciate the sweetness of this old green earth, still heaven is our final home and when the call comes to go to Him, or even better – when He comes for us, what a glorious day that will be.

C.S. Lewis, in his Tales of Narnia series speaks of the broadness of heaven in the last volume. He describes a place that is bigger and bigger the further up and in one goes. It is sort of like the phone booth in the old Doctor Who series. On the outside, it appeared as an ordinary booth, about three by three by seven. But once you stepped inside, it opened up to a grand series of rooms. This is what David means by being set in a broad place. Even if it be a lonely dungeon cell, a cave in a hillside or any other less desireable place – it we know the Lord of all the earth – it is in reality a taste of heaven for us in this life.

In the Middle Ages, grand cathedrals were built in Europe to sensitize the worshippers to the grandness of our theme here. And yet, even in our own small sanctuary where sometimes fifty people are crowded, if we know the Lord and worship Him truly – the ceiling may open up and hearing His word and hoping for His coming, we may spiritually step into the broad place of heaven and know the beauty of His holiness. Andy why? All because He holds us in His hand, what a great God is David’s God, and like David: may we give out souls over into His eternal care counting the cost only in the precious blood of Christ. Amen.

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