Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 116 | Date: May 31, 2026 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Introduction

Psalm 116. I’ll take the time to read through the entire psalm. 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 call 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, where the Lord has dealt bountifully with you, where 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 men 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 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 his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord. Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, so often these Psalms we have found call us to give praise to our faithful, wonderful God, who has been so gracious to us in rescuing us. We ask that you would turn our attention to that theme again this morning, help us to go from here rejoicing in what you have done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in his name, amen.

This psalm is a song of grateful praise, or as we’ve called them before, an individual song of grateful praise. The Psalter, of course, is filled with praise. In fact, that’s the title of the book in the Jewish synagogue—that’s what they call it today. It’s the book of praises. There are some within that, some psalms, that are given specifically to praise. We call them praise songs or praise psalms. And as sort of a subset of the praise psalms, there are these individual songs of grateful praise. The praise songs, more broadly, give praise to God for his greatness and show his goodness to his people in a broad way.

They focus on God as creator and Lord over all and ruler and things like that. Big themes like that. These individual songs of grateful praise are a bit more narrow. They’re individually focused. It is not just giving God praise generically, but it has a specific frame of reference.

God has done something individually in the life of this psalmist, and the psalmist now turns to give thanks to God, give praise to God for what he has done recently in his own life. Often these individual songs of grateful praise are in response to, or later corresponding to, lament psalms. The psalmist finds himself in a particular situation where he laments the situation, he cries out to God for help, and God answers. And now later, in response to God’s answer, he writes an individual song of grateful praise.

We have some examples of that in the Psalter itself. Psalm 51, perhaps the most famous of it, we have David’s lament over his sin, his petitioning God for forgiveness, and then later, in retrospect in that, he writes Psalm 32, where he delights in the forgiveness that God has given. We have the same in Psalm 34 and Psalm 56. And that’s the situation here. We don’t have a specific psalm beforehand as a lament to which this corresponds.

We’re not given the specific circumstances, but that’s the setting of this. And you’ll remember then, that in Moses’ law it provided for a thank offering—sometimes it’s translated a free will offering—and that is, it’s something that’s prescribed but not required; it’s provided for in Moses’ law. So if God has done something for the Israelite in his experience and that Israelite wants to give God praise, he comes to the temple and he offers this free will offering to God, something that was not required, but out of thankfulness for what God has done he offers this sacrifice of worshipful praise.

And in that setting, we’ve seen that it’s a public setting. This is not just individual. And we find some references to that here, which we’ll see as we go along. These individual songs of grateful praise tend to follow a common form, a common components to it.

First: A Proclamation Of Praise

Typically there’s a proclamation of praise, and then there’s a brief period of reflection on the situation in which he found himself in need, and he reports God’s deliverance that was given. And then in the last part of the psalm we typically have another praise that is given to God, or as in this case, a vow to praise. So we find that general outline here in Psalm 116, verses one and two; we have his proclamation of praise.

I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. He doesn’t give us any particular circumstances, but that’s the context. He was in need, he called on God, God answered, and so he says, “I love the Lord because he has heard me.”

Second: Reflection On The Time Of Danger And Report Of Deliverance

Then verses 3 to 11, we have his reflection on the time of danger and his report of deliverance. Verse 3, the snares of death encompassed me. Verse 4, he cried out to God for help. I called on the name of the Lord. And he’s already told us in verse 1, he heard me, he heard my pleas for mercy.

So we have the proclamation of praise in verses one and two, his reflection on it, and his report of the deliverance in verses three to 11. He doesn’t give us any specifics, just a summary statement only. He was in a time of distress and need, evidently life-threatening. He called on God and God heard him. And so he says in response to that, “I love the Lord.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that only now has he begun and come to love the Lord. It’s just that this new occasion of grace and God’s deliverance has called forth a fresh expression of his love for him.

Verse 3, the snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. So he had faced a time of real need, evidently a close scrape with death of some kind. Verse 4, and in that distress, he cried out to God for help. “I call on the name of the Lord. Oh Lord, I pray, deliver my soul.” And then verse 5 does not say explicitly that God delivered him. He’s already said that in verse 1: “he heard my voice, my pleas for mercy.” He said it in verse 2: “he inclined his ear to me.” He’ll say it again in verse 6: “when I was brought low, he saved me.” But here in verse 5, he doesn’t say explicitly that God saved him.

Rather what he does is, he simply declares what he has learned about God from that deliverance that God gave. Verse 5: “Gracious is the Lord and righteous; our God is merciful.” So he speaks now in terms of God’s character and what he has done for him displayed in his actions taken on behalf of David. So here he’s learned something afresh about God and now he confesses it before all.

He proclaims it to the congregation. God is gracious. That is, he shows favor. God is righteous. That is, he’s true to himself. He’s true to his word. In this case, God made a promise to David, and he didn’t let that promise fail. He kept his promise. Merciful—that is, he has compassion on his people. God is not cold and indifferent toward his people.

I’ll jump down to verse 11. We have an interesting verse that I think is answered in this kind of context well. He says in verse 11, “I said in my alarm,” or some of your versions, “I said in my haste, all mankind are liars.” What lies behind that? What’s the sense of that outburst here in this context?

It seems that David’s suffering was such that it involved some kind of betrayal, mistrust, misplaced trust that he had on the part of others. We’ve seen that in some of his Psalms, particularly some of the earlier Psalms where David was sick, for example, and others are taking advantage of the situation, hoping to pull off a coup of some kind. Perhaps he’s in danger and he was relying on some to help, and they wouldn’t. But the situation was such that David concluded, “Everybody’s a liar, I can’t trust anyone.” Now evidently God did bring deliverance through the means of others. So he says, “I said that in haste.” In other words, “I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t really right in saying that,” but he had given up on everyone. They’re not reliable. No one will help.

But the deliverance that God sent to David evidently was by means of others. And by that, David then concludes, God is gracious, he’s righteous, and he’s merciful. And so, in verses seven and eight, David calls himself to trust. Now this is important. David calls himself to trust. Verse 7: “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.”

Verse seven is the focal point of the psalm. It’s the pivot of all of it. “Return my soul to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” That expression, “your rest,” clearly has reference to a calm assurance in God’s safekeeping. Return my soul to your rest. Trust God. He’ll do what he said he would do. Don’t get all worked up. Rest in what God has said he would do and rest in God’s character.

In other words then, this experience, David says, taught me afresh to rest in God’s good providence: his character, his goodness, his promise. And so, David talks to himself. He calls himself to rest and to trust accordingly. He finds himself in this situation, and learning now what he’s learned about God, he says to himself, “Calm down. Rest. Rest in God’s care.” Now verse nine takes a further step, and here he makes a vow. “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” That is to say, “You’ve allowed me to live. I’m still on the land of the living. And so for this life that I have, I will live for you. I’ll be faithful. I’ll be obedient.” And so he responds to God and his deliverance with a renewed, not only a renewed trust, but a renewed resolve to live for God faithfully.

Now verse 10 expands a bit. He says, “I believed even when I said, I’m greatly afflicted.” The New International Version here I suspect gets the sense a little bit better: “I trusted in the Lord even when I said I’m afflicted.” The idea here is that at the time when I was being afflicted, when I was caught in the throes of this thing, I called myself to what I believe to be true. I reminded myself of what I know about God. And I called myself to align my emotions with what I believe to be true. And this is just enormously important, enormously practical for all of us. It is at this time when I found myself in the distress that I called myself to rest in God’s safekeeping.

I’ll keep that in mind and keep the passage here at your hand, but look over at 2 Corinthians. We’ll see where the Apostle Paul cites these words with respect to his own experience. 2 Corinthians 4. Centuries later now, the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4 regarding his own experience. His ministry is beset by every kind of setback, like David. And so in verses eight and following, he says, “We’re afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.” Verse 11: “We are always given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” And then verse 13: “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written.”

And here he cites Psalm 116 verse 10. “I believed and so I spoke.” Okay, since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed and so I spoke,” we also believe and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. So Paul takes David’s words here and applies it to his own situation. “Like David, I have a close scrape with death. I’m suffering persecution of every kind, but I continue my preaching and my gospel ministry, not because I think it will make me popular, but I continue speaking because I believe. I believe the gospel is true. I believe these people are lost. I believe Jesus is the savior. I believe that this is the only hope that they have.” And because of what I believe, and because of what I believe to be true about what God will do yet for me—he makes reference to that in terms of our union with Christ in resurrection—because I believe all of that, I speak and I continue preaching.

Now back to Psalm 116. It’s interesting then to notice that because Paul takes David’s words to inform his public ministry, the same principles apply, just a different application. But we should note that David is not talking about public ministry at that point. He’s talking to himself. Verse seven: “Return my soul to your rest.” Now that’s not uncommon in the Psalms, where the psalmist, and particularly we find it with David, reminding himself of what he already knows, reminding himself of what he believes, encouraging himself in truths that he has already embraced in order to strengthen him at this particular time of stress.

Probably the most famous of these is Psalm 42 and 43 where David, again, reasons with himself. “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” He’s talking to himself. “Why are you disquieted within me?” Why are you all irritated like this? “Hope in God!” And he talks to himself, and he encourages himself in what he believes. “Don’t you know who God is? And why are you so upset?” We find that often in the Psalms.

And it’s a good model for us to follow. I can scarcely emphasize this enough in terms of its practical value for us in our own stressful circumstances. When you’re worried, when you’re sad, when you’re depressed, talk to yourself. You know how you want to get some people sometimes and reason with them, grab them by both ears and say, “Listen to me.” This is what he’s doing here with himself. It’s a great model for us to follow. Don’t give in to your emotions. Talk to yourself. Encourage yourself in what you know to be true. Encourage yourself with truths that you’ve already embraced.

We’ve all seen it at times where someone has endured some kind of difficulty, whatever it is, and it all but destroys them. They lie like a lump in bed all day. They become useless to people outside, become a functional invalid because of it all. I know something about suffering. I know something about economic straits. I remember times when my wife would come home from the grocery store feeling guilty because she splurged and bought a pack of graham crackers for the kids that we couldn’t afford. I know something about betrayal and injustice. I know something about prolonged suffering. I know something about loss.

You learn at those kinds of times that you have to talk to yourself. Remind yourself what you’ve already embraced as true. At some point, if you give in to your emotions at those kinds of times and don’t act on what you believe to be true, at some point, it’s a decision that you’ve made. You don’t, after all, believe what you’ve professed to believe. This is enormously practical counseling, enormously practical in your own use. Talk to yourself and call yourself back to truths that you have already embraced, whether it’s illness, bereavement, economic loss, or broken relationships. Not just afterwards, but in the midst of those afflictions. Verse seven: “Return my soul to your rest.” Refocus, reorient your thinking to what you know to be true. Oh, that’s what David is doing here.

Finally: Concluding Praise

And so then in verses 12 through 19, we have his response. This is the praise section of the psalm, and it is David’s response to the experience. And he begins with a question. Verse 12: “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” What can I do for God in response to all of this? He’s blessed, he’s intervened on my behalf, he’s been gracious. What can I do for him? He’s not bargaining with God. Just a sincere pledge. “What can I do?” And he gives two answers.

Answer number one, verse 13: “I will give grateful praise. I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.” The cup of salvation is the cup of thanksgiving. It’s a standard part of the ceremony. This praise, as I’ve said it already, was not to be given simply in private. Verses 17 through 19 show us that this is a public ceremony of praise with a meal, a public meal and a sacrifice at the place of worship. And verse 14: “I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of his people.” That is, in his distress, he made a vow to God that upon deliverance, he would give him praise. And not just privately, but to all the people.

And then verse 15, it’s a rather enigmatic statement. We often hear it cited at funerals for good reason. He says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” How does that fit here? Here David is giving praise to God, and in the midst of his praise for God’s deliverance, he says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” The word precious means just that—it’s highly valued, costly. And if the death of God’s people is costly to him, in some sense, highly valued, well then he doesn’t carelessly allow it. That’s the sense of it, I think.

One major theme of this psalm is God’s protective care, his watchful eye over his people. He often intervenes, he preserves, he helps his people, he’s pledged his steadfast love to them, he works on their behalf. A major theme is God’s protective care and his watchful eye over his people. But verse 15 then, with this otherwise strange statement that comes in out of nowhere, adds an important angle: that God watches over his people, and he does so with a heart of affection for them.

Precious, costly to God is the death of his saints. He’s not calloused or indifferent toward his people when they are in these situations facing death. Now in this particular circumstance, God in fact did not allow the death. And David is giving praise for that. It was a costly thing for God. And because of his affectionate heart for me, he intervened.

But the point of it is more broad than that. This God who rules over all, in whose hands are all of life and death, is not indifferent toward the suffering and the death of his people. If he allows it, it will be for his purpose. Yes, of course. But for God, it’s not just another item on his work list to check off. It’s a costly thing, it’s precious to him.

In this case, as I say, God didn’t allow it. And David responds to say, “It’s evident that God cares for me. I was gone, there’s no hope. God intervened.” And that ought to give us confidence in either case. God is not cold toward our sufferings. He’s not indifferent toward us when we face the hour of death. In fact—and this is not reading too much into the psalm, at least prospectively—in fact, to save us from death, God himself succumbed to it. And that’s difficult to say. God is immortal. God is unchangeable. God is unaffected by anything outside himself. God of aseity, self-existent.

And yet I said, he himself succumbed to death. That’s the whole rationale of the incarnation. That God the Son would come as one of us to take our sin to himself—sin, the cause of our death. And by his death, defeat sin, which is the cause of our death, and then undermine by it the power of death. And in his resurrection, in his resurrection, he gives us hope that we follow him in his.

We’ve seen in the Psalms that David is prospective of his greater son. We see that over and again, the words of David cited in the New Testament, the words of Jesus, the words of David put on the lips of Jesus in the New Testament, the actions, even the route that David will take sometimes, the route repeated by Jesus. David is prospective of his greater son. God had made a promise that his greater son would come and fulfill all the promises that he had given him.

And we find another example of that here in Psalm 116. Won’t take time to work through all of it, but notice the language of verse three: “the snares of death, the pangs of Sheol.” Verse 16: “you have loosed my bonds.” The Apostle Peter picks up that language exactly in his Pentecost sermon in Acts chapter two and says, speaking of Jesus, “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” That is what we have seen over and over again.

David’s near-death experience becomes, in a way, prospective of the experience of Jesus. And David’s deliverance, prospective then of Jesus’ own deliverance as well. Although when it comes to David’s greater son, his deliverance from death was on another level. Andrew Bonar refers to Psalm 116 as “the Redeemer’s resurrection song of thanksgiving.” The Redeemer’s resurrection song of thanksgiving. That is to say, He, Jesus, is the one rejoicing in God’s rescue from death.

All of that perspective here patterned for us ahead of time before the Lord Jesus came. If then, if then, this is in some way prospective of Jesus and his rescue from death, then of course it’s prospective of ours as well. That’s the New Testament treatment of Jesus’ resurrection over and again—that Jesus died, he died on his own, he died alone under the judgment of God, but in another very important sense, Jesus was not alone. You’ve heard me say it many times: we were there riding piggyback on his shoulders as it were. He’s bearing our sin, taking the curse of our sin and the judgment that we deserve.

And in his resurrection as well, he came out of that tomb in a very important sense, not just alone, but as the forerunner of his people, bringing us eventually with him in resurrection. And so Psalm 116 is a song of grateful praise that we all sing.

Verse three: “I was lost. I was a goner. The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me.” But verse five: “God in grace and mercy and righteousness delivered me.” He didn’t just overlook my sins. He dealt with them. He dealt with them in justice. He gave me a substitute, the Lord Jesus, who paid the penalty of sin and God raised him from the dead; and because he was raised from the dead, we who are his by faith will be raised with him. And so death will not have the last say for us. All of that to say then, yes, you may be assured that God cares for us deeply even in the hour of our death. The death of his saints is for him a costly thing.

So he asks the question in verse 12: “What shall I render to the Lord for all of his benefits to me?” First answer: “I will give grateful praise and I’ll do so publicly and I’ll itemize the reasons for praise.” Answer number two, verse 16: “I will give myself. Oh Lord, I am your servant.” This is really the same as what we saw in verse nine, his vow: “I’ll walk before the Lord as long as I can live.” The idea here is, “You’ve allowed me to live. I’ll live for you faithfully and obediently and I won’t allow my circumstances to lessen my resolve. I said it at the outset and I’ll say it forever: I love the Lord because he heard me.”

In other words then, David’s praise is not just verbal, much less just ritual. His praise entails a pledge to give himself always to live for God faithfully. And so verse 19 concludes, not with a proclamation of his own praise, but with a call to the congregation to join him in giving praise: “Praise the Lord.” So David was in crisis. He prayed. He vowed to the Lord that he would give him praise and serve him if he would deliver him. God, in fact, brought deliverance. And now in the aftermath of it all, David gathers with the people of God and he voices his praise, reaffirms his vow, and pledges himself anew to serve the God of grace.

Well, at that point, this psalm seems rather familiar. This isn’t so distant. It might be from many centuries ago, but this matter of public praise, for example, in verse 13 and following: “I’ll lift up the cup of salvation.” That’s public praise. Verse 17: “I’ll offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving.” That’s the reading of the Hebrew. The reading of the Greek and the Septuagint here is “the sacrifice of praise.” “I’ll give the sacrifice of praise.” And that’s what the writer to the book of Hebrews was reading when he cited this verse in Hebrews 13 and verse 15: “To him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips that acknowledge his name.” So this tradition of rendering grateful praise to God in the presence of the congregation goes way back and it continues today. Congregational praise in song, congregational praise in testimony for what God has done—that is simply this sacrifice of praise in New Testament form. A prominent feature of Old Testament worship, a prominent feature of New Testament worship as well; our sacrifice of praise that God has saved us from sin and death. And so, what is the song that we sing? We come together, we open our hymnals, we sing. What’s the song we sing? Well, look back through the Psalm again.

Verses one and following. Our song is a song of grateful praise. What we sing is, “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.” Verse three: “the snares of death encompassed me, the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me.” But, verse five, God in mercy and grace and in righteousness delivered me through Jesus Christ. It’s a song of grateful praise. A song that dominates our singing still today. It’s not just a song of grateful praise. Verse seven, it’s a song of renewed trust as well. We sing to ourselves, verse seven: “Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” Even what God has done for us in Christ already, we calm our hearts with a sense of confidence in God’s careful care over us. Christ has saved us from sin. He saved us from death. He’ll bring us with him in resurrection.

Calm yourself in what you know to be true about God. This really is, in essence, what we find over and again in the New Testament. Romans 8, verse 32: God has given us everything in Christ. Don’t fall apart in this circumstance. Return, my soul, to your rest. Trust in what God will do. This in essence is what Paul tells us repeatedly in his letter to the Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord. Remember what you know. Remember the truths that you embraced. Remember what Christ has done. And return your soul to that rest.

And so we sing when we come together a song of grateful praise. We sing a song of renewed trust. The latter part of this psalm then takes the theme of willing service. We sing that too. Verse 12: “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” Answer, verse 16: “Lord, I’m your servant. I’m yours. I’ll live faithfully. I renew my resolve now to live obediently in the service of the Lord.” This is precisely our response when the Lord first saved us. What we responded to then was, “Oh Lord, I am your servant.” That’s what we testified in the waters of baptism. We made a pledge. This isn’t a parent’s pledge for the children. This is the one being baptized, his pledge: “Jesus has saved me. I’ve fallen under his lordship and his leadership and I pledge from here forward to live for him. I belong to him.” It’s a public confession of God’s saving goodness, and our baptism is a pledge that we will give ourselves wholly to him.

Actually, it’s not difficult at all to see this psalm lying behind other New Testament passages, famous ones like Romans chapter 12, verses one and two: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,” because of what God has done, I beg you, exhort you, “present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God, which is your reasonable service. Don’t be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This is 2 Corinthians 5, verse 14: “For the love of Christ compels us,” it constrains us, because we concluded this, Paul says, “if he died for all, then all died with him. And we died with him so that we who died with him will henceforth live for him.” That’s Psalm 116. This is a psalm of grateful praise and it is a believer’s response to what God has done. Response to what God has done for me. I will give him praise and I’ll live for him as long as he gives me life. Amen.