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Psalm 116 - A Thanksgiving Psalm · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

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  Welcome to Tabernacle talk. Tabernacle talk is a Bible study
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  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
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  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
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  you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
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  others. Let's dive right in.
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  Welcome back to Tabernacle talk. Today we are in Psalm 116, Psalm
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  116, and I love this Psalm. I preached a message on this.
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  It was actually the, I want to say the second to the last
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  sermon that I preached at my church in Washington.
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  And so I linked that in the show notes and I was really
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  encouraged just through listening to that message.
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  Again, such a rich portion of Scripture.
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  And so I hope that it's an encouragement to you even as we
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  walk through it today. So this is one of the halal
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  Psalms. This is one of the psalms that
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  would be sung during the Passover season.
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  So many people would sing them as they were on their way to
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  Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. You would also have this as the
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  time and the psalms that were sung during Jesus's last week
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  here on earth before his crucifixion.
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  And so it bears some special importance to us even as
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  Christians. And so we can remember both
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  Exodus, we can remember times of worship, regular worship for the
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  children of Israel and Jesus's habits and what he did and what
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  he was thinking about and even singing during his last week
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  before his crucifixion. So let's read through Psalm 116.
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  I'm going to read all the way through it.
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  I'm going to highlight a couple of things and then I'll actually
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  encourage you to go listen to that sermon.
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  I've linked it in the show notes and I believe it'll be an
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  encouragement to you and hopefully and kind of that
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  sermon format, if you're like, man, I just really want some
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  more of this song. You can find it there, but let's
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  read through together. I love Yahweh because He has
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  heard my appeal for mercy because He's turned His ear to
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  me. I'll call out to Him as long as
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  I live. The ropes of death were wrapped
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  around me and the torments of the grave overcame me.
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  I encountered trouble and sorrow.
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  Then I called on the name of Yahweh.
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  Yahweh save me. Yahweh is gracious and
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  righteous. Our God is compassionate.
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  Yahweh guards the inexperienced. I was hopeless and He saved me.
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  Return to your rest my soul, for Yahweh has been good to you, for
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  you. Yahweh rescued me from death, my
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  eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
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  I will walk before Yahweh in the land of the living.
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  I believed even when I said I am severely oppressed.
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  In my alarm I said everyone is a liar.
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  How can I repay Yahweh for all the good He has done for me?
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  I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of Yahweh.
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  I will fulfill my vows to Yahweh in the presence of all His
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  people. The death of His faithful ones
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  is valuable in Yahweh's sight. Yahweh, I am indeed your
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  servant. I am your servant, the son of
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  Your female Servant. You have loosened my bonds.
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  I will offer you a Thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name
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  of Yahweh. I will fulfill my vows to Yahweh
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  in the presence of all His people in the courts of Yahweh's
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  house within you, Jerusalem. Hallelujah.
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  I love, love, love, love this portion of scripture.
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  I'm going to walk through and and note a couple of things I
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  was also reading through today. Charles Spurgeon was a pastor in
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  London at the Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle in the, like,
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  late 1800s. And he wrote, he wrote a lot of
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  things. He has been nicknamed the Prince
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  of Preachers, but one of his writings was called The Treasury
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  of David. And so there were a couple of
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  quotes even as I was reading through his book on Psalms 111
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  through 119 that I'll highlight for us today.
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  And then I encourage you to listen to the sermon as well if
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  you have some extra time this morning.
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  So verses one and two, it starts off with the declaration of love
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  for God. And all of God's people should
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  say that they love the Lord. But let's not just say that we
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  love him, though certainly let's start there.
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  At the very least, let's tell other people that we love our
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  God, that we love Jesus, and then let us have that love
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  motivate us into action towards both God and others.
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  That we would treat others the way that God would have us to.
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  That we would be those images of God that we would show everyone
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  around us what God is like through how we live our lives.
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  So he says, I love Yahweh because he has heard my appeal
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  from mercy. Right here at the very
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  beginning, it starts off saying God is merciful to us.
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  I'm glad that God doesn't give us all of the punishment that we
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  deserve and instead He has poured out all of the
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  condemnation that we've justly earned.
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  He poured it out. He poured it all out on Christ
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  on the cross. And when we call on Him for
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  mercy, He will answer every time.
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  There's never a person that will ask for forgiveness from the
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  Lord that He will not freely grant it forever.
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  What a truth verse #2 Because he has turned his ear to me, I will
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  call out to him as long as I live.
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  He says because God listened when I prayed to him, when I
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  asked for mercy, when I asked for help, because he's heard me,
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  I'm going to keep on calling out to Him as long as I live.
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  Here's one of the quotes from Spurgeon.
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  He says we would not think a beggar who informed us that
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  because we'd granted his request, he would never stop
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  begging from us. And yet doubtless it is
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  acceptable to God that his petitioners should form the
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  resolution to continue in prayer.
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  This shows the greatness of his goodness and the abundance of
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  his patients there. We wouldn't find it endearing if
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  we, you know, gave some money or we gave some food to a person
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  experiencing homelessness. And so then they told us, oh,
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  man, I'm going to keep begging from you for all the rest of my
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  life. We'd go, well, no, I, I don't
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  want you to do that. But that is what God invites us
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  to. He loves it and he loves it
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  because he can answer us. He can answer our requests over
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  and over and over again. And when we ask for mercy, it
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  thrills the heart of God to exercise His goodness and His
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  grace and His forgiveness towards us.
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  And so we can. We should never feel as though,
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  well, I've come to God one too many times asking for
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  forgiveness. No, my friend, come back to the
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  Well of Mercy over and over again and find that it will
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  never run dry. Verse #3 As this person is
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  recounting how God heard him, he he talks about the trouble that
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  he was in. He says the ropes of death were
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  wrapped around me and the torments of the grave overcame
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  me. Many translations here will have
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  the torments of Sheol. That's the Hebrew word for the
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  grave. Sometimes it's translated in
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  older translations like the King James as Hell.
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  I believe it's the new living translation translates it as the
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  grave, which is kind of more all-encompassing.
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  That's OK. If you believe in God and yet
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  you die, you're you're still going to the grave, but you're
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  not necessarily going to the place of eternal separation from
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  God, which we would know of as hell or the lake of fire.
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  And so I appreciate that the new living translation there
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  translates it as grave. If you're here with me reading
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  from the Christian Standard Bible, it says she'll.
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  But I'll often just instead of transliterating it from Hebrew
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  into English and just saying, OK, well, I'm not going to
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  translate it. I'm just going to transliterate
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  it. I much prefer let's just put in
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  a translation and grave works very well.
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  So here, this person, they're about to die.
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  If this is David that's writing this, this is something that he
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  would go through over and over and over again in his life.
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  Whether it was the Philistines attacking him, whether it was
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  Saul trying to get him, whether it was some other group, You
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  know, even at times in his life, other Israelites, his son
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  Absalom, There are so many times when it looked like the grave
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  was going to take David. And it says he encountered
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  trouble and sorrow, but he called on the name of Yahweh.
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  Yahweh, save me. And in our moments of trouble, I
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  think right now I've got friends that are fighting cancer even at
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  this moment. I have friends that have fought
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  cancer in the past. And God has seen fit to at this
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  particular time, say no. I'm going to have you here for a
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  little bit longer. And I'm thankful that even
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  though the grave is not ultimate, that if God doesn't
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  save me from dying, God is still good and I have all of eternity
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  that I will spend with my God. And so the grave isn't even
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  something that's necessarily the most important thing, but we can
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  ask for God to save us from the grave.
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  And he has done that. I know my friends Roger and
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  Kathy often listen to the podcast and Rogers told me
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  stories about how he almost got hit by, I can't remember right
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  now if it was a bus or a truck, but he was about to get hit and
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  the Lord saved him from physical death in that moment.
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  And he had called to God like God save me and the Lord was
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  right there for him. And I think that's so true very
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  often in our physical lives. But man, this is even more true
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  when we look at our spiritual lives that Satan and hell and
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  sin and the grave they were dragging us down and we were on
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  our way to hell. But for every person that is
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  called on the name of the Lord to save them.
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  He has been good and faithful to save them.
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  I I love the words of Jesus. I, I mention them often here and
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  I'm not going to apologize for that.
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  From John 6 says everyone that the Father has given to me will
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  come to me and those that come to me I will.
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  And no wise cast out. When you come to Jesus, when you
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  call on him, you can know emphatically that he will
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  forgive you and save you. Verse #5 through verse #11 then
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  there's this response of God, because you saved me, here's
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  going to be what I say about you and here's what I'm going to
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  recognize about the world around me says Yahweh, You are gracious
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  and righteous here. This graciousness, I'm looking
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  up the words here. This is to be merciful.
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  It's, it's the kind, it's to be kind.
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  It is someone who is compassionate.
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  It's goodwill resulting in a beneficial act.
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  And so here God, he is happy to do good to you, but he's not
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  just gracious, he's also righteous.
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  He's just, He does what is right by even by us, by his creation,
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  He does what is right. And there are many times in our
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  life now where we will not see that fully.
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  When we get to heaven, we will see that in its complete
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  fulfilled nature, we'll see God. Oh, I thought you weren't being
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  fair when you did this, but you were actually protecting me from
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  this taking place. God, I didn't realize in that
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  moment, yeah, I had been walking away from you.
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  I'd had this thing or this person or this situation or this
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  job as an idol in my life that I was worshipping more than you.
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  And so God, you taking that away out of my life, you were
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  actually good and righteous and just in what you did there.
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  He says also our God is compassionate.
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  That is, he actually cares about you.
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  And I think of Jesus when he looked out on the crowds, those
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  people that were flocking to him, and he realized that they
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  were like sheep that did not have a shepherd.
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  And it says he looked out with compassion on them.
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  And I'm thankful that we have a God like that.
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  He genuinely cares about you. And then the response from his
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  people should be that we are compassionate as well, that we
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  never look at anyone and we go, Oh well, you just deserve
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  whatever you got in life. And if you're going through hard
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  times, well, stinks to be you. No, May we have the compassion
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  and the mercy and the grace that our Heavenly Father has modeled
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  for US. Verse number six.
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  He always guards the inexperienced.
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  I was helpless and He saved me. That God will help you even if
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  you don't know what you should be doing.
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  He is constantly there for you. Then the psalmist reflects
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  inward. He says return your rest of my
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  soul, for Yahweh has been good to you.
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  The constant call of our heart ought to be God.
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  Would you help me return to rest to Sabbath within my soul?
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  I'm pretty sure that's Oh no. Oh, it's Manoa.
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  It's the word resting place. Manoah is in the book of Judges.
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  If I remember correctly, that's Samson's dad's name.
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  It's a resting place. It's a place of safety.
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  I apologize. I'm pulling this up even as I'm
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  going through. It's where one can rest and
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  recuperate from activity with the focus on the rest itself.
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  It's home. It's an abode as a place where
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  one lives and where one finds rest.
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  It's a place where you see you cease movement.
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  You're in a stationary state as a figurative extension of being
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  in a place as your home, he says.
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  You can set up a safe place at home.
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  The opposite of this would be, especially during this time
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  period, you'd have nomads and they would be those that would
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  pick up camp and they'd go from place to place to place.
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  And you would do that based on if there was grass available for
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  your flocks to eat, different things like that.
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  But here what the psalmist is saying is you can have a safe,
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  settled place where you have everything you need in your God.
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  He says for you, Yahweh rescued me from death, my eyes from
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  tears and my feet from stumbling.
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  That is, he experienced salvation from death.
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  He experienced joy that his eyes stopped their crying and his
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  feet didn't stumble, that he was walking in a right way.
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  That is salvation. Joy and holiness were given to
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  the psalmist here and here, Spurgeon writes, Salvation, joy
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  and holiness must go together and they are all provided for us
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  in the covenant of grace. Death is vanquished, tears are
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  dried and fears are banished when the Lord is near.
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  And I love that quote there says I'll walk before Yahweh in the
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  land of the living. I believed even when I said I'm
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  severely oppressed in my alarm I said everyone is a liar.
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  Here though we we recognize no person tells the truth 100% of
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  the time. And so in that instance, the
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  psalmist here is right, everyone is a liar.
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  Hear what he was saying was I can't trust any person.
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  Everyone is suspect under my estimation.
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  And here's Spurgeon writes, Under great affliction, our
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  temptation will be to form hasty judgments of our fellow humans.
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  And knowing this to be the case, we are carefully to watch our
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  spirit and to keep the door of our lips.
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  That is, we will tend to be distrusting and unkind with our
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  words towards other people when we're going through great
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  hardship here. That's what the psalmist says
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  that he was doing. He says, in my alarm, I said
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  this. This was not something that he's
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  saying. You guys should think about
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  other people in this way and reconciliation with God.
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  The rescue of God and his love and care should remind us of the
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  fact that other people are not inherently the enemy.
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  There might be some people that are enemies, but God has given
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  us other people so that we would have family relationships and
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  friendships and and close covenant membership with one
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  another within the local church that were connected through the
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  Holy Spirit. And a trusting attitude towards
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  other believers is a good and a right thing.
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  Verses 12 through 16 there he says, OK, So what now can I do
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  for God? How can I repay Yahweh for all
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  the good he's done for me? And he gives a couple of things
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  that I can do for God because of how good he's been.
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  He says, I'll take the cup of salvation and call on the name
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  of the Lord. Even as this would have been
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  sung during Passover time, you can think about the cup that
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  they would drink. Even now as Christians, when we
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  observe the Lord's Supper, we take this cup of salvation and I
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  mentioned it in my sermon, but I'm going to say it again
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  because I love it so much. As we think about Jesus, He was
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  the one that drank the cup of suffering from the hand of God.
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  Think about the Garden of Gethsemane that he would have
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  been at shortly after singing this song, where he said, My
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  God, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me.
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  Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.
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  And because Jesus took the cup of suffering, we can take the
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  cup of salvation. Verse #14 Not only does he take
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  the cup of salvation, but he says, I'll fulfill my vows to
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  Yahweh in the presence of all His peoples.
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  He says, God, what I told you I was going to do, I'm actually
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  going to do it for you today. What have you told God that
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  you're going to do? Are you going to be in His word?
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  Are you going to pray? Are you going to do kind actions
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  to others? Are you going to say good things
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  to other people to build them up?
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  Are you, you know, going to give to the Lord?
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  Are you going to share your faith with other people?
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  Whatever you have told God that you're going to do, do it.
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  And if you've told God you are my Lord, like Jesus is my Savior
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  and my Lord, then whatever he has commanded you to do in his
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  word, then you should be faithful to fulfill that vow to
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  the Lord that he is actually the one that calls the shots in your
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  life. Verse 15, the death of his
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  faithful ones is valuable. And you always say, and I can't
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  read this verse without thinking of the death of Christ, the most
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  valuable death that there could ever be, the only truly faithful
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  one. And because of the valuable
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  death of Christ, we experience full and total forever permanent
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  forgiveness and reconciliation to God.
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  So verse 16, he says, Lord, I am indeed your servant.
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  I am your servant, the son of your female servant.
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  He says, God, whatever you tell me to do, that's what I'm doing.
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  I answer to you. And then I love the end of verse
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  16. He says you have loosened my
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  bonds, that even though I work for God, I'm his servant, I'm
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  his slave. It is still a voluntary love and
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  following. And it's because of the great
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  affection that I have for my Lord that I obey him.
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  It is not because I am chained. It's not because I'm being
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  whipped. I follow my God because of the
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  love that I have for Him. Verse 17, I will offer you a
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  Thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the Lord.
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  I'll fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His
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  people in the courts of the Lord's house within you,
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  Jerusalem. Hallelujah.
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  Here we are called to sacrifice to God, thanking Him for
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  everything that He has done. We've got Thanksgiving coming up
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  here very shortly at the time that I'm recording this.
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  And I think what a joy to live in Thanksgiving, to recognize
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  God, you have given me so much. You've saved me from death.
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  You have put me back into a path of joy.
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  You have given me purpose and mission.
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  You have enlisted me into your service.
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  And so, God, how in the world can I not say thank you?
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  How can I not look at the cross and say thank you?
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  How can I not look at the empty tomb with its promise that I too
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  will rise, and my loved ones who have died in Christ, they will
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  rise? And the fact that death is not
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  the end and the fact that heaven is where I'm headed?
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  How can I not say thank you to my God when I think about my
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  family, when I think about my church, when I think about my
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  work, when I think about my health or the good gifts that
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  God has given me? How can I not say thank you?
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  And so here the psalmist ends by saying, listen, I'm telling
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  everyone, I'm offering this sacrifice in the temple in front
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  of everyone in the courts of the Lord's house.
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  I'm going to fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all
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  of his people. Let your private faith result in
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  public action. That's what God calls us to.
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  And so I, I am just so encouraged through these verses
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  and I hope that you've been today as well.
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  Thank you for tuning in. Looking forward to Psalm 117.
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  It's just a two verse Psalm next week.
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  And so that might be a very, very short episode or it could
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  be a long episode, who knows? It's me and then we'll have
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  Psalm 118 and then we will be back to our weekday schedule of
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  Tabernacle talk as we walk through Psalm 119 and then all
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  the way through to the end of Book 5 of Psalms, which will
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  complete that, which is crazy to me.
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  I think we'll probably end up completing it the first quarter
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  of 2026 and so over, you know, 202425 and then the first half
• 22:37
  of 26, being able to complete all of Psalms and then all the
• 22:41
  other books that we've been through.
• 22:43
  I'm just so looking forward to it.
• 22:44
  It is such a privilege and a joy to be able to walk through
• 22:47
  Scripture with you. And thank you for tuning in.
• 22:49
  Have a wonderful day.