Latest / Reformed Thinking / I Love the Lord Because He Heard My Voice (Psalm 116) | Charles Spurgeon

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I Love the Lord Because He Heard My Voice (Psalm 116) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine walking toward your own execution.
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Yeah, you know, the sheer unmitigated agony waiting for
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you in just a few short hours. You know the betrayal that is
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about to happen. It is a terrifying.
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Thought it really is the physical torture and the total
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abandonment by your closest friends.
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What is on your lips in that moment?
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Well, you would expect panic, right?
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Is it begging? I mean, is it a desperate
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attempt to bargain your way out of the inevitable?
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Usually, yes, we expect screaming.
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But when you step into the biblical narrative and look at
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Jesus Christ walking out into the night toward the Garden of
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Gethsemane in the cross, you see something staggering.
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Absolutely. He had a song on his lips.
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He was singing a hymn. It is such a striking contrast.
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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is an intensive analysis
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where we take a massive stack of source material and we unpack it
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for you. In this case, we are looking at
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Charles Spurgeon's legendary commentary, The Treasury of
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David. Yes, alongside the brilliant
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theological minds he quotes, our mission in this deep dive into
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the source material is to extract the absolute best
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theological meat from Psalm 116. We want to help you grasp the
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believer's response to God's saving grace.
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Spot on, and we are looking at this text strictly through the
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lens of Reformed theology, holding firmly to the
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Westminster Confession. That means we are fixing our
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gaze on God's absolute sovereignty.
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Yes, in the specific targeted nature of His grace as well as
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the undeniable perseverance of His people.
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So to truly understand the weight of that contrast we just
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mentioned, we have to establish the historical context of what
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we are reading today, right? The background of the song
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itself. Precisely this text, Psalm 116,
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is part of what is known historically as the Paschal
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Hellel. These were the specific psalms
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sung by the Jewish people during the Passover feast.
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Yeah, they were ancient songs of deliverance, explicitly designed
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to recall the Exodus from Egypt. To call to mind the shedding of
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the Lamb's blood and the rescue of God's people from bondage.
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But the context becomes infinitely heavier when we
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realized that Jesus Christ himself, as a devout Jew,
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observing the Law perfectly, saying this very hymn with his
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disciples in the upper room. Wow, He sang these precise words
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right before getting out in tonight toward the darkest hours
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of human history. He was singing about death,
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about the sorrows of hell, and about divine rescue.
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Yeah, while actively walking into the greatest suffering any
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human being would ever face. He was singing about the
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Passover lamb while walking out to become the Passover lamb.
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Absolutely. When you keep that historical
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reality in mind, the words of this text carry a theological
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mass that demands our complete attention.
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That context changes the entire landscape for you when you read
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this text. Yeah, because when we look at
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the opening of this Psalm, the 1st 2 verses, it begins with a
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blunt, abrupt declaration. Yes, I love the Lord.
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It is so simple, yet so intensely concentrated.
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Well, William Gouge, one of the Puritan commentators Spurgeon
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highlights in his work, brings out a fascinating point about
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the original Hebrew here. The Puritans were obsessed with
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linguistic nuances. Right, they really were.
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And Gouge points out that this phrase is actually a single
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abrupt word in the original language.
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Just one word. Yeah.
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He argues that when a persons heart is completely inflamed,
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when the soul is overwhelmed by a sudden apprehension of some
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extraordinary massive favor from God, the affection actually
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causes an interruption in speech.
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Makes stops. Precisely.
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A neat, tidy, formal sentence simply cannot contain the
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pressure of the emotion. So this concise single word
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burst shows an overflowing infection breaking through the
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syntax. That is right, but then Spurgeon
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makes an observation that I find even more compelling.
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He argues that Christian affection is never a blind
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emotion. It is not irrational.
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No spudgeon states that this love sustains itself with rigid
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logic. We we love God because He has
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heard our voice and our supplications.
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Which is interesting because human love is so often portrayed
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as blind, illogical, or based on pure feeling without any recent
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foundation. Yeah, we see that all the time.
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So why is it a good thing that the psalmist's love requires a
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reason? Think about a parent leaning
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over the crib of a sick child. OK, I am picturing it.
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The child is so weak, fighting a massive fever, and they could
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barely whisper. They can only make a faint
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groaning sound. Yeah, that is a heavy image.
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But the parent bows down, inclines their ear, and strains
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to catch every single faint sound coming from that crib.
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The child loves the parent because the parent responds to
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that fragile whisper. That is the logic of love
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Spurgeon is talking about here. That analogy of the parent
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bending over the crib is precisely the mechanism the text
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gives us to understand God's condescension.
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Because in the second verse the text says, Because he have
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inclined his ear unto me. Yes, and we have two
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commentators in our source material, Wolfgang Musculus and
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Sir Richard Baker, who provide incredible insight into the
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mechanics of this phrase. Oh so.
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Well, they contrast it with human hierarchies.
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Great men on earth, kings, magistrates and politicians do
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not typically listen to the poor needy directly.
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No, they use intermediaries. Yeah, they use officers,
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servants and massive bureaucratic systems to hear
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complaints. If you want a King's ear, you
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have to fight your way through a dozen layers of administration.
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And even then, your plea is just summarized on a piece of paper.
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Spot on. But the Creator of the universe,
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the Sovereign God, who spoke billions of galaxies into
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existence and holds the atomic structure of the universe
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together by the word of His absolute authority, does not use
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bureaucrats to hear the cries of His people.
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Wow. He bends down.
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He inclines his own ear to the believer immediately and
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personally. The infinite God localizes his
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attention on the finite broken center.
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And because he bends down in such a personal, intimate way,
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the believer makes a highly logical resolution.
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Yes. Therefore, will I call upon him
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as long as I live? It is a reason to calculate a
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response to an objective reality.
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God listens, therefore I will speak to him until my dying
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breath. The logic is completely
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unbreakable. But we have to ask where that
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intense logical love is actually forged.
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Right, the environment matters. It is not born in a vacuum of
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comfort, sitting in a reclining chair.
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It is forged in the fires of extreme, terrifying distress.
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Absolutely. If you ever felt the kind of
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absolute, inescapable panic where your own resources are
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completely exhausted, that is the exact space this text enters
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into next. We see this clearly in the 3rd
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and 4th verses. The psalmist describes his
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situation with language that should make us stop in our
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tracks. He says the sorrows of death
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compassed me, and the pains of hell get hold upon me.
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I found trouble and sorrow. We really need to look closely
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at the mechanics of the Hebrew linguistics here, relying again
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on William Gouge. What does he say about the word
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sorrows? Well, it is highly metaphorical.
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In the ancient world, it related to the heavy cruel chords used
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by creditors to bind debtors so they could not escape to another
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city. So it is about being completely
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trapped. Yes, it is also the same word
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used to describe the intense, inescapable physical pains of a
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woman in childbirth. There is no backing out.
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The event is happening. Precisely.
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And then another scholar, Joseph Carroll, notes that the phrase
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get hold upon me or found me is very specific.
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What kind of language is it? It is the specialized language
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of an arresting officer finding a fugitive.
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The affliction arrests the believer.
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There is no escaping it, no running away, no bribing the
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officer. And, you know, this creates a
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massive theological friction. How do you mean?
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Well, if the believer is justified, if they are legally
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hidden in Christ and adopted by God, why do they still feel the
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pains of hell? Why do they feel that terror?
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That is a very fair question. I look at it like a person who
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has already been fully pardoned by a judge.
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The paperwork is signed, the seal is stamped.
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They're legally a free citizen. OK.
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But they're still sitting in the dark, freezing jail cell,
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waiting for the guard to walk down the hall and open the iron
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door. Yeah.
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The environment hasn't changed. Yet exactly.
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I mean, absolutely. While they wait, they suddenly
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experience the sheer panic of the environment.
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The pardon is legally the absolute, but the sensory
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experience of the cold prison walls is also very real to them
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in that moment. Yes, that is the tension.
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And that tension between the legal reality of our pardon and
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the experiential reality of our suffering is a core component of
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the Reformed understanding of the Christian life.
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How do the commentators address that tension?
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Well, William Hill Tucker provides A synthesis here that
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connects us right back to the Upper Room and the Passover
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context we started with. Bringing it back to Christ.
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Yes, He connects these pains of hell to Christ's experience in
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Gethsemane and on the cross. Because Christ acted as the
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federal head and substitute for his people.
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Right. And he actually experienced the
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literal pains of hell. He experienced the full,
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unmitigated wrath of God. He took the literal bands of the
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grave. He took the full arrest from the
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demands of the law and he took the full sentence.
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So because he absorbed the totality of that wrath, what
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happens to the justified believer?
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When the believer feels the pains of hell surrounding them
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in this life, they are only ever experiencing the shadow of them,
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never the substance of eternal condemnation.
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The substance was entirely absorbed by Christ.
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Spot on. Charles Spurgeon often noted
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that a shadow of a dog cannot bite you and the shadow of a
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sword cannot kill you. Wow, that is a heavy, comforting
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truth. So when the believer is arrested
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by these terrifying shadows of affliction, the appropriate
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response is modeled brilliantly in the fourth verse.
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It is not a long, eloquent theological dissertation, is it?
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No, not at all. It is a short, breathless,
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desperate prayer. O Lord, I beseech thee deliver
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my soul. It is the cry of a person who
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has absolutely no resources left.
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Appealing entirely to the sovereign mercy of the one who
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holds the keys to life and death.
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And righteous. Yay, our God is merciful.
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Now, on the surface, placing the words gracious and righteous
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right next to each other creates a severe theological problem.
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It really does. How can a holy God be completely
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righteous? Meaning He is perfectly just
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demanding perfect flawless payment for every single
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infraction of His law and simultaneously be gracious to
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guilty filthy sinners. It sounds impossible.
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If a human judge in a courtroom looks at a guilty murderer and
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says I am full of grace today, you are free to go.
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We do not call that a righteous judge.
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No, we call that a corrupt, wicked judge who needs to be
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removed from the bench. A righteous judge must punish
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crime. So how does God do both?
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Spurgeon answers this apparent contradiction with an image that
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is just staggering. He says the sword of justice is
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scabbarded in a jeweled sheath of grace.
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Scabbarded in a jeweled sheath. Yes, justice is not ignored,
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swept under the rug or relaxed. It is fully satisfied and then
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it is sheathed within the grace provided.
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And then the sixth verse introduces who receives this
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specific grace. Yeah, the Lord preserveth the
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simple. What does simple mean here in
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this context? Well, it does not mean someone
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who lacks intelligence, right? It means those who are stripped
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of worldly craft, manipulation or guile.
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It means those who have 0 backup plans.
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William Gouge explains the metaphor for the phrase brought
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low in this text, which relates perfectly to that idea.
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What is the metaphor? It comes from the Hebrew concept
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of a pond or a brook that is completely, entirely dried up.
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Yeah, when the severe drought comes, the water vanishes, the
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mud turns to dust, and there is nothing left but dry, cracked
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earth. That is the simple person.
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Their own internal resources are bone dry.
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Precisely. They cannot scheme by or talk
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their way out of their affliction.
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They bring nothing to the table. The Westminster Confession of
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Faith provides the precise structural theological
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architecture to understand. This doesn't.
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It it absolutely does, it shows how God can be both entirely
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gracious and entirely righteous to that dried up simple
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believer. And it is found in the mechanics
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of the doctrine of justification, yes.
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We have to assume a basic understanding of justification
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here, but we really need to look at the mechanics of imputation
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to see how the sword is sheathed.
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God does not justify sinners by lowering His standard or
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relaxing His law. No, He justifies them through a
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double imputation. He imputes the believers sin to
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Christ, and he imputes Christ's perfect, flawless righteousness
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to the believer. But we must remember that
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Christ's work was twofold, His passive obedience and His active
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obedience. Right.
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His passive obedience means he willingly absorbed the penalty
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of the broken law on the cross, taking the wrath we deserved.
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He cleared the Ledger of our debt, but.
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Clearing a Ledger only gets you to zero.
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It does not make you righteous. That is where Christ's active
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obedience comes in. Precisely for 33 years, he lived
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a life of flawless, perfect submission to the law of God.
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He earned a Treasury of Merit. Because the penalty was fully
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paid in blood on the cross and simultaneously the justifier of
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the one who has faith in Jesus. The Sword of Justice finds its
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terrifying mark in the Substitute.
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Which allows the jeweled sheath of grace to cover the believer.
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So when your personal brook is entirely dry, when you have
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exhausted all human effort and realize you contribute
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absolutely nothing to your salvation except the sin that
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made it necessary, God provides a rescue.
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A rescue based entirely on the merits of another.
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And when you realize you are holding a completely empty cup
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and God has filled it based on the merits of Christ, the
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response of your soul is documented in the 7th through
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9th verses. Let's read that, the text says.
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Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord have felt
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bountifully with thee. The psalmist points out that God
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has provided a triune deliverance here.
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Yes, He delivered the soul from death, the eyes from tears, and
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the feet from falling. This is a complete holistic
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rescue of the entire person, so the logical command the psalmist
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gives to himself is to return to rest.
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But right after saying rest, the ninth verse presents what looks
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like a glaring contradiction. It really does.
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It says I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
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How can you be at rest and walking at the exact same time?
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Motion and rest seem to be total opposites.
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I compare this to riding a bicycle.
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OK, walk us through that. Well, if you stop moving forward
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on a bicycle, you lose your balance and you crash into the
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pavement. Yeah, you fall over.
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You only find your balance, your stability, your actual rest on
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the bike when you are actively pedaling and moving forward.
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That's a brilliant way to picture it.
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The Walking and the resting are not enemies.
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They require each other to function.
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The soul rests completely in the finished objective work of
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justification, and out of that secure, immovable rest the
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believer walks forward in active obedience.
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Nathaniel Hardy, another brilliant commentator from the
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source material, clarifies this beautiful paradox perfectly.
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What does he say? He points out that spiritual
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rest makes no man idle, and spiritual walking makes no man
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weary. They are completely subservient
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to each other, yeah. Confidence in God's finished
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work is the very means to quicken our obedience, and our
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act of obedience strengthens our internal confidence.
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So when the psalmist says he will walk before the Lord in the
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land of the living, he is making a conscious resolution.
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A resolution to live his life under the constant, careful,
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scrutinizing eye of a loving father.
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Which contrasts sharply with living to seek the approval of
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the surrounding culture. Right.
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Walking in the land of the living means acknowledging that
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your life is preserved by God. And therefore for your daily
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actions, your mundane decisions and your literal steps are
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ordered by him and performed for an audience of 1.
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The rest is internal, secured entirely by the grace of
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justification. And the walk is external, the
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visible active fruit of sanctification flowing from that
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internal security. But let us be honest, that walk
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is not always a perfectly straight line.
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No, it is not. Which is what makes the 10th and
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11th verses so incredibly relatable for anyone trying to
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live this out. The Psalmist admits his own
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severe human frailty here. He does, he says I believed,
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therefore have I spoken. I was greatly afflicted.
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I said in my haste, All men are liars.
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There is a massive tension here between faithful speech and
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panicked speech. On trap notes that believers
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have their offs and ONS. They go through radically
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different frames of heart and tempers of soul.
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The psalmist spoke from a place of deep grounded faith when he
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prayed to God for deliverance. Yeah, but he spoke from a place
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of sheer, unadulterated panic when he judged human nature in
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the middle of his affliction. It forces us to ask a hard
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question. Was David actively sinning when
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he called all men liars? Was this just a total failure of
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his faith? How do you look at it?
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Well, I look at it this way. While the words were spoken in
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severe haste and perhaps lack charity towards specific
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individuals in the moment, they actually erred on the right side
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of the theological Ledger. They erred by just trusting the
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creature and falling back entirely on the creator.
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That is a fascinating. Point in a moment of absolute
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crushing crisis, realizing that human beings cannot save you is
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actually a theological necessity, even if the phrasing
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is born out of intense distress. That is a crucial distinction to
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make. We really have to look at how
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God uses affliction mechanically and the life of a believer.
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How does he use it? Affliction is designed by a
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sovereign God to act as a solvent assault.
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Yeah. It is designed to aggressively
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strip away our reliance on human institutions, on influential
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friends, on political leaders and on our own carefully
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constructed networks. Because when the real pressure
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hits, when the medical diagnosis comes or the financial ruin
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drops, human support structures almost always crumble.
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They do. They crumble either because
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people lack the moral will to help or because they simply lack
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the sovereign capacity to save us from real despair.
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So the hasty declaration that all men are liars is the painful
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bruising realization that absolute truth, absolute
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reliability and absolute salvation are not found in
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mankind. They are found only in God.
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The affliction dissolves our misplaced idolatrous trust in
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the horizontal world, and it violently forces our days
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vertically. Even in the middle of his panic,
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the psalmist is being driven by the Holy Spirit to the correct
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theological conclusion. God alone is true.
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God alone is the deliverer. Every human being who promises
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ultimate security is by definition lying because they do
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not the capacity to guarantee it.
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And when you reach that stark conclusion, when you realize God
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has delivered you from the brink and that all human help was
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utterly useless, you run head first into the problem presented
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in the 12th through 16th verses. Yes, the psalmist asks a
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question that seems impossible to answer.
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What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward
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me? This is the economics of grace,
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and it is a fascinating problem to try and solve.
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How do you repay an infinite debt?
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Right. If someone saves your life, your
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natural human instinct is to want to pay them back.
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You want to square the Ledger. But what if the person who saved
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you owns the entire universe and requires absolutely nothing from
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you? Sir Richard Baker, not something
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brilliant here about the mechanics of gratitude.
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What does he say? He says that rendering anything
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to God simply means taking more from Him, You.
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Cannot add to God's wealth, no. I compare this to being a
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starving beggar invited to a massive, opulent banquet by a
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phenomenally wealthy king. OK, set the scene for us.
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You arrive with holes in your shoes, dirty to your face, and
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absolutely no money in your pockets.
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The King feeds you the finest meal of your life.
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So how do you honor the host of the feast?
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Well, you do not honor him by walking into the royal kitchen,
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rolling up your sleeves and offering to wash the dishes to
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pay for the meal. No, that would be a massive
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insult to his staggering wealth and his boundless hospitality.
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The only way to truly honor the host is to eat the food, ask for
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a second helping, and praise the incredible quality of the meal
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to anyone who will listen. You render thanks by taking the
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cup of salvation and drinking intensely.
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Yes, and the imagery of the Cup of Salvation ties directly into
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the mechanics of Old Testament drink offerings.
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In the Levitical sacrificial system, right?
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Yeah. After a major deliverance or a
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vow was completed, a worshipper would pour out a drink offering
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as a tangible, visible sign of gratitude to God.
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But we have to look at how Christ fulfills this specific
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imagery to understand the Reformed view of grace.
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Because total depravity dictates that we have absolutely nothing
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of value to offer God. We are spiritually bankrupt, so
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how do we get a cup of salvation to drink from in the first
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place? Jesus drank the cup of God's
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wrath in Gethsemane and on the cross.
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He took the cup of judgment filled to the brim with divine
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justice against our sin, and he drained it completely dry.
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He drank the dregs. Because he emptied the cup of
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wrath, he could then refill it with his own righteous merits,
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turning it into the cup of salvation for his people.
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So when the justified believer takes that cup, they are simply
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receiving the benefits of his finished objective work.
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Furthermore, the response of the believer in the 16th verse is
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striking. What is their response?
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O Lord, truly I am thy servant. I am thy servant, servant in the
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son of mine Handmaid. Thou has loosed my bonds.
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This is the great paradox of grace in action.
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Being freed from the terrifying bonds of sin, death and hell
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does not lead to modern Western autonomy.
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No, it does not mean you get to do whatever you want with your
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life. It makes us willing, joyful bond
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slaves to Christ. The freedom He purchased for us
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with His own blood binds us entirely to His service.
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We dedicate our lives to laboring for God, obeying His
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commands, taking up His yoke, and acknowledging that they are
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absolutely His property. Bought with an infinite price.
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Which brings us to what is easily the most shocking,
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counterintuitive verse in the entire Psalm, the 15th verse.
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Let's read it. Precious in the sight of the
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Lord is the death of his Saints. Now that is a massive statement.
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We spent our entire lives fighting death tooth and nail.
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Doctors dedicate decades to fighting it.
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We diet and exercise obsessively to avoid.
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It we spend billions of dollars researching how to delay.
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And we grieve intensely when it finally arrives at our door.
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Death is the ultimate enemy. Yet the text says God views the
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physical death of his people as precious, honorable and highly
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valued. If God is the author of life,
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why would he find the death of his people precious?
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It is a difficult concept to grasp.
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If he loves them with an infinite love, why not just keep
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them alive forever on Earth, completely shielded from the
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physical pain of dying? It seems so violently opposed to
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everything we feel in our bones about losing someone we love.
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It is entirely opposed to the natural fallen human mind.
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Which is why Sir Richard Bakers analogy on this specific verse
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is so vital to grasp. What is his analogy?
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He suggests that God has a heavenly cabinet, and he
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decorates this cabinet with the deaths of his Saints.
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We really have to understand the mechanics of how a sovereign God
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repurposes the consequences of the fall.
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Right. Death entered the world as a
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penal judgement for sin. It was a curse.
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But for the justified believer, death is no longer a penal
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judgement. It is a defeated, defamed enemy.
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Christ completely removed the sting of death through His
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resurrection. Therefore, God now takes this
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defeated enemy and uses it as a a mere vehicle, a chariot to
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transition His people from a world of sorrow, sin and decay
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into a state of eternal, sinless glorification.
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God is completely, meticulously sovereign over the final breath
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of every single believer. He orchestrates the exact
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timing, the exact location and the exact method.
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Whether it is a quiet, peaceful passing in a warm bed surrounded
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by a weeping family or a brutal, violent martyr's end at the
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stake, God is in absolute control of it.
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Look at the historical account of John Philpott, one of the
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English reformers who was burned at the stake in Smithfield
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during the Marion persecutions. That is a staggering story.
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As he was being LED out to his execution, walking through the
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foul mud of the execution grounds, he kneeled down on the
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earth. And what?
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Did he say? He said I will pay my vows in
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the O Smithfield. He viewed his impending,
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violent, agonizing death as a precious offering to God.
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Because he knew his sovereign God viewed it as a precious,
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calculated victory. God takes what the watching
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world views as the ultimate final defeat and turns it into
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the crowning jewel of the believers redemption.
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I want to bring all these massive theological concepts
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right back down to the ground for.
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You let's summarize it. Think about the progression we
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have tracked today. You have a sovereign God who
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leans down from the absolute heights of the courts of heaven,
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bypassing all intermediaries to hear your faintest, most
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desperate whispers. He rescues you when the brook of
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your own personal resources is completely dried up to dust and
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the terrifying shadows of hell are arresting you.
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He gives you a secure, objective rest that actually empowers you
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to walk forward in obedience. And he graciously accepts your
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total dependence as the only acceptable repayment for his
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infinite benefits. And then, at the very end of it
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all, he carefully, meticulously orchestrates your final breath.
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Viewing your physical departure from this world not as a tragic
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loss, but as a precious, highly valued jewel in his cabinet.
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So how should you Live Today in light of that staggering
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reality? If your ultimate rest is
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permanently secured by Christ's finished work of active and
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passive obedience, and if even your physical death is deemed a
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precious orchestrated victory by God.
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Then the entire concept of earthly failure is completely
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dismantled. It falls apart on contact with
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this text. The worst possible thing that
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can happen to you in this life? Losing your life is simply the
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vehicle God uses to bring you into His immediate, glorified
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presence. That completely changes how you
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face tomorrow. Morning.
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It changes how you face medical news and how you face financial
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ruin. Yeah, we want to thank you for
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joining us for this deep dive into the source material.
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It has been an absolute joy to walk through these heavy,
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brilliant truths with you. Goodbye for now.
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Goodbye and thank you for listening.