THE PATH OF LIFE - PSALM 16
I think we have in this Psalm what answers to the Meat Offering. If led by the Spirit in your meditations, you get the “frankincense” here, this life was lived for God. It is the food of God, Lev 21: 17. All the frankincense was for God. The FOOD of God! Now He says, I am ready for the altar. You go on to the burnt offering (Ps 40), and we all understand that the sin offering is Psalm 22.
It is helpful to read the first three verses of Hebrews 12 in connection with this Psalm to get the sequel to it. The last of those verses takes in the Psalm 17, the “contradiction of sinners against Himself”, Heb 12: 3. Psalm 16 is the path of life; Psalm 17, the path of righteousness. The last verse of each Psalm is characteristic, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life”, Ps 16: 11. “As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness”, Ps 17: 15. We have the inner principle of His life here; the outside pressure is described in Psalm 17. In the 11th chapter of Hebrews you have God’s picture gallery of men of faith. You go from side to side in God’s picture gallery till at last you come to the bottom and see a Masterpiece - Jesus! “Looking unto Jesus” - not as a Saviour there, “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12: 2), the great exemplification of faith. We see the end of the pathway of faith in these verses, and it sets forth what we get in this Psalm.
Of course, you are on Jewish ground in the Psalms, but the principles of life are set before us, and they become illuminated if we bring the light of Christianity into them. “There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen. The lion’s whelps have not trodden it”, Job 28: 7, 8. The moment you think of a “path” you think of a way through somewhere. There was no path for innocent man in Eden, he had just to remain where God put him, and there will be no path in heaven. But now there is a path through this world, and that path was trodden by Jesus! It is a path of faith alone. Oh, if we got hold of it, “There is a path” outside the human ken, no vulture’s eye hath seen it; outside the energy of nature, “The lion’s whelps have not trodden it”. If we are Christians, we are called to tread it; it is set before us in this Psalm. We should be charmed with it; the new man delights in it. It is a great thing to see that the Lord has trodden it. We see the end of the pathway of faith here, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy, at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore”. We see in Hebrews 12 He has reached the “pleasures forevermore”, “is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (v 2), and we are told to look off unto Him. There is a path on which is shed heavenly joy and light, and if we have not that we are not pursuing this path. The “frankincense” is here - the object of this life is GOD - a life lived to God. God is the centre of this life. He never departed from His centre. It is the contrast to our life naturally, which has for its object man. The first note struck in this Psalm is so sweet. Oh, if we had hearts to rejoice in it! “Preserve me, O God”. Oh, how sweet that is! If we look round on the children of men, I have got the same thing in me naturally; it is not in that - it would rather trust anything than God! What this must have been to God. “Preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust”. “In thee”, “In thee”. Do we start our day like that? That is how He started all His days. Not a bit of independence here. He is the dependent Man. This marked the life of Jesus - all that a man should be for God, while He was ever “Over all, God blessed for ever”, Rom 9: 5. “In thee do I put my trust”. He is a confiding Man. The reason He is dependent, is He is confiding. He says, as it were, There is no question in My heart as to your love. There was never a question in His heart as to His Father’s love. That is the secret of the Lord’s sleeping in the storm. At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank thee, O Father”, Luke 10: 21. When the storm was raging, the darkest point in the Lord’s pathway, in that way, John the Baptist doubting Him, the cities where most of His mighty works were done rejecting Him, what does He say? “I thank thee, O Father ... so it seemed good in thy sight”. The pillow of Jesus is in Matthew 11. Which is best, to have the storm cease, or to sleep through it? We say, O Lord, just speak, make it to be a great calm, alter the circumstances. God cares for us. It is the finest thing that ever happened to a Christian to be shut up to God, where no creature can help you. You are going to have some spiritual promotion, going to see how God can bring you out of a strait, or sustain you in one.
When Jesus left this world He left His pillow behind Him - the Father’s bosom! Often we find we have got our heads on hard pillows of our own making. The Lord says, “Come unto me … and I will give you rest”, Matt 11: 28. I think we must notice the standpoint from which this invitation is given. Where is the Lord at that moment? He is in the place of infinite rest! Oh, it is a place, too! He says, “Come unto me … and I will give you rest”. I will teach you that you are loved as I am loved, and therefore My pillow is yours! There it is, in the blessed repose of the Father’s affections, unbounded confidence in boundless love! He says, I am perfectly content with your appreciation, your knowledge of Me. “No man knoweth the son, but the Father” (Matt 11: 27), and I rest in your love, in your thought for me. He puts His head on the bosom of the Father. Then He says, “Come unto me, … and I will give you rest”. I’ll teach you what is in My Father’s heart. I’ll tell you that the love wherewith the Father loves Me is the love with which He loves you. Loved as He is loved! That is rest! The storm always found that blessed One at home. We are often driven home by the storm. I think as I read John’s gospel I hear Him saying, ‘I can wish you nothing better than what I enjoyed when I was down there on earth. I leave you the best of legacies, My peace, what I enjoyed in the Father’s bosom’.
If your will is silent you have unbounded confidence in boundless love. Then the Lord says, not only “Come unto me”, but keep company with Me. Where? In the Father’s bosom. You take His yoke, keep close to Him, and learn His love. Now you’ll bow. We’d be glad to take His yoke if we got His portion. What is His portion? The Father’s love. “For in thee do I put my trust”. He is dependent because He is confiding. There is so much pretension to piety in these days. You say your prayers in the morning and you say your prayers in the evening - it is not that, it is the constant sense of dependence.
Now we come to the first part of the second verse, a very important thing. “O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord”. He is an obedient Man. He was here to obey. “Thou art my Lord”. I am down here to do Thy will. Who “pleased not himself”, Rom 15: 3. Absolute subjection and obedience. The way to be happy is to be subject. What makes me subject is knowing His love. I believe He will do the very best thing for me. The reason we are not happy is because we are not subject. Turn to Psalm 8: 1, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth”. The Psalm begins and ends like that, and between those verses you get the millennium, and everybody is happy, because they are subject. The idea of the 8th Psalm is that everyone is happy because they are subject to Christ. This helps me to understand what a Christian household should be, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name” in all my house. You cannot have the millennium anywhere but in your house; you can have it in this way: our children should be subject to Christ. The husband is to be subject to Christ; the wife subject to the husband; the children subject to the parents; you cannot be happy unless you have this rule. Here is God’s idea: the millennial earth all under the Lord, and because His name is excellent, everything is happy, even the fishes of the sea. “Thou art my Lord”, the One who was absolutely subject, is the One to whom everything shall be subject! It is a very sweet thought.
Then the next clause you have His lowliness, He is a lowly Man, “my goodness extendeth not to thee”. That is rather a difficult passage, because we never forget that He was a divine Person, but as Man He says, “My goodness extendeth not unto Thee”, that was His perfection, to take that lowly place. Then He says to the saints, All my pleasure is in you - IN YOU! A very sweet thing to meditate on.
He says two things here, “my goodness extendeth not unto Thee”. He also says, I find my pleasure where you find yours, “To the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight”. This goes along with the lowliness. Lowliness is the mark of a spiritual person, as it says in Romans 12, “condescend to men of low estate” (v 16), or as it should read, “going along with the lowly”. Jesus was a most lowly Person and always went along with the lowly. It is the perfection of His manhood here; but we never forget as we contemplate it, that He is God. Truly a Man, as ever a man was, yet not ceasing to be God, and He abides a Man forever! “The Son also himself shall be subject… that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15: 28), Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all in all; but the Son is subject! There is no room for the activity of the human mind there, we can only adore. The Son Himself shall be subject! Subject all through - it belongs to Him as Man.
Now we get a very important thing in the next verse, what I should call “the salt” of the meat offering. We must have the salt of the meat offering, Lev 2: 13. We are often lacking in salt. He was the separate Man; it is the salt of separation. There should be no honey in the offering, Lev 2: 11. This is what flows as our nice natural friends, our nice ‘human nature’, and we lose power. Here was One who says; No, I am separated to God. No salt lacking here. “Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god”. If you want multiplication of sorrows, turn away from God and you will have it. There is much bitter sorrow, the fruit of turning away from God. “He is the true God and eternal life. Children, keep yourselves from idols”, 1 John 5: 20, 21. Anything that comes between our souls and God is in the New Testament treated as an idol. “Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips”. I will not touch it, I will not take up their names into my lips. I will not think of them. Let us look at this verse, let it judge us. The measure of your separation is the measure of your blessing. I believe that it is here that so many of us fail. We do not keep separate, we mix with people, and come down to their level, and we miss our joy. You can’t have communion if you are not separate. It is intensely interesting; in the 6th of Numbers the Nazarite separates himself from everything here, he lets his hair grow long - he is subject. And what is appended to the law of the Nazarite? You could not read these verses without desiring to know something about it. “And the Lord spake unto Moses saying … On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel … The Lord bless thee and keep thee”, Num 6: 22-24. But you must not begin there; you must begin in the earlier part of the chapter, you cannot come in at the end if you do not. “The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them”. “And I will bless them”, and “I will BLESS THEM”. Why should these words come just there? It is the way God arranges His word for our instruction.
As I read these verses I say to myself, Who is it that enjoys this blessing that Jehovah proposes here? The man who answers to the earlier part of the chapter. Take the first book of Psalms and you will find who enjoys this blessing. Psalm 4, “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?” His glory was to be a Nazarite. They say, you have got nothing by being a Nazarite. “But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself … There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us”, that is it. “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased!” (v 2-7) “Who will shew us any good?” How many are saying that. Wherever you go you find people asking that question. They look it, if they do not ask it. Every unconverted person is saying it, and every carnally minded Christian. Who can give the answer? The separate man can. Why? He is in it; you cannot if you are not in it. Here is one in this scripture. He says, You want good, do you? Here it is, in the light of Jehovah’s countenance. There you are in the 6th of Numbers. They say, But you have no “corn”, and “no wine”. No, he says, but I have got something better. He has no corn, no wine - no earthly prosperity, but he has the light of Jehovah’s countenance, and he has “gladness … more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased”. The 4th Psalm sets before us Christ, really, and He is the separate man of Psalm 16. In the 16th Psalm He has got gladness in His heart. “Therefore My heart is glad”. He is not a creature of circumstances. We are such creatures of circumstances. Here is One who is not; He is so in Jehovah’s favour all the day long. Well, He is the separate Man, and the key to it all is, “Hear me … O God of my righteousness”, Ps 4: 1. Psalm 3 is the secret of rest, Psalm 4 is the secret of joy. In the 3rd Psalm they say, “There is no help for Him in God”. He says, Yes, there is, “But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of mine head… I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me”, v 3-5. Here we are in the 16th Psalm again, “Preserve Me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust”. The first verse of Psalm 16 answers to the 3rd Psalm, and the fourth verse of Psalm 16 answers to the 4th Psalm, therefore the separated Man is the satisfied Man. He is satisfied, to put it in Christian language, with the light of His Father’s countenance.
You may be converted and go to heaven, but that does not suffice for satisfaction. God proposes two things in the gospel, as far as my need is concerned. He proposes to make me happy in His presence - suitable to Himself, through the work of the Lamb - redemption, and He also proposes to make me happy in Himself - suitable to Him, and happy in Him. That is the 4th of John. The Lord proposes to give the woman “a well of water”, v 14. What a proposal! “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water” - a capacity to know and enjoy God, the Father, and the Son! That is satisfaction, and mind you, you cannot worship without satisfaction. The next thing here is, He worships.
“I will bless the Lord”. You cannot worship unless you are clean, that is Hebrews 10. As far as Hebrews 10 goes, we have boldness to enter into the holiest; but that is not enough; there must be that. The blood makes me fit for His presence, but there is something more needed to make me worship - a satisfied heart; an overflowing heart; that is the 4th of John. You must have the 4th of John and the 10th of Hebrews together in order to get worship. Jehovah is the relationship in the Psalms, but we have the Father in Christianity. “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup”. He is a satisfying portion. Very few of us know the secret of good. There are very few of us really satisfied Christians; it is evidenced by our worship meetings. I suppose most of us could say something about the Lord. You say, He has saved me, given me peace. Very good, but what more has He done? Has He satisfied you? In the 72nd Psalm we read, “The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended”, v 20. That is it; he says, I can ask for nothing more; I am satisfied. It is all Christ there, and he says, I have reached it. He had the gratification of presenting the King after God’s own heart. He says, God is going to have a King like that; that will do for me; I cannot ask for another thing. “The prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended”. We sometimes touch that. Do not misunderstand me, there is never a time when we can do without prayer, but there are times when you are so deeply satisfied that all you have to do is to praise.
“I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel, my reins also instruct me in the night seasons”. His reins - His thinkings. This is very important. What do you think about? I would say to young Christians, I will tell you why you get floored so often; you don’t judge your thoughts. I believe there is a great deal of sin committed in thought. If we were filled with Christ we should not have such foolish thoughts; the mind must be filled with something. The measure of your practical sanctification is the measure in which you control yourself there. You never did a thing that you did not think about first. You say, I was overtaken. You had that in your mind first, and you should have judged it there. People are talking about holiness all over the country, and it is the most shallow sort of thing - holiness begins inside. They tell you you must abstain from this and that. That is not holiness - holiness begins inside. Here, the Lord says, My thinkings instruct Me in the night season. The night season should be a very profitable season.
In the 8th verse, He is a devoted Man. “I have set Jehovah ALWAYS before me: because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved”. That is the 11th of John; there you get the unmovedness of Jesus; you get it all along through John. When He hears that Lazarus is sick He abides two days still in the same place. Quietness is always a sign of power. I don’t mean natural quietness, but a quietness of spirit, you can wait. “He abode two days still in the same place” (v 6), and when He did move, the disciples say, You will be stoned. “I have set the Lord always before me … he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved”. “If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not”, John 11: 9. His eye is single and His whole body is full of light in that sense. “I have set the Lord always before me”. He was the Object of His life. That is the “frankincense”. Look at the last verses of John 16; that sets it before us; verse 31, “Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone”. Every man TO HIS OWN; “and shall leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me”. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God”, 1 John 5: 5. That is how I understand this. “We believe that thou camest forth from God”, John 16: 30. He says, That will not do, that is quite true; but I will show you the value of that belief, when trial comes you will go to your own. He says, you will leave Me alone, but I have got a circle of My own. My Father is with Me. He is an overcomer, because He sets the Father before Him.
The right hand is quite a study. In the 109th Psalm you read in the last verse, “He shall stand at the right hand of the poor”. In the first verse of the next Psalm Jehovah is saying to that poor man, You come up to my right hand. “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies Thy footstool”, Ps 110: 1. He is sitting there now, as the Author and Finisher of our faith, and we look there and see the end of the path. He has reached the “pleasures for evermore”.
Then, verse 10, He goes right through, “thou wilt not leave my soul in hell”, in a disembodied state. As we know, He was raised up from among the dead. He trusted God right into death, and He says, I trust Thee for resurrection; and resurrection is the vindication of the path of faith. Resurrection is what I call the adjustment. “Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God”, 1 Pet 1: 21. He “shall raise up us also by Jesus”,. 1 Cor 6: 14. The path of faith may lead us to the stake. Here is the Lord going into death. We do not get atonement here, we must go to other scriptures for that; it is the same death by which atonement was made; but here He is going through death trusting God to raise Him up and give Him glory as the vindication of the path of faith. We shall all have joy in going to heaven, but who ever had joy in going to heaven as Jesus had! He has passed through all that sorrow and shame and gone into that place where He will sorrow no more, that our faith and hope might be in God. “If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father”, John 14: 28. I go into “the south country” where there are no clouds! I am going to my Father; if you thought about me you would rejoice. He will have joy there as none other will. I put a question to you: Are you ready to go to heaven? Would you like to go? I do not mean ready as washed in the blood, but ready in heart to go? What a test! You say, I am going to heaven when I die. Yes, because you cannot help yourself! The Lord always had it before Him, and He was pressing on to it. Are you going to heaven - pressing on to it?
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From ‘Words of Grace and Encouragement’, 1903