I have set the LORD always before me;
Psalm 16:8-9
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope.
This Psalm is attributed to David, King of Israel. In a time of great distress, He cries out to God for safekeeping, expressing his utter confidence in God on the basis of his past experiences with Him.
As a man of deep faith, David could say, “I have set the LORD always before me.” This is an expression of his devotion to God, his dependence upon Him, and his constant awareness of His presence. Some people pray only when trouble strikes and then, when God has met their need, ignore Him until their next crisis. But not David. God was given the rightful place in his life and so he knew God was at his right hand and ready to help him resulting in gladness, joy and peace.
It is this last expression in verse 9 that we want to think about: “My flesh will rest in hope.” David is writing approximately one thousand years before the birth of Jesus yet has confidence that there is life after death. He knows that even if God doesn’t deliver him from his present crisis and he were to die, that God would not leave his soul in Sheol, that is, the grave (v. 10). He anticipated waking to everlasting life (Daniel 12:2-3) and being in the immediate presence of God where there is “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (v. 11).
Many people today lack such confidence. In fact, many seem to prefer the idea that when you’re dead you’re dead; they are convinced they can do whatever they want, and God will never judge them or hold them accountable (Psalm 10:4, 11, 13). They deny the resurrection of the just and the unjust (Acts 24:15) and are the ones guilty of wishful thinking, not those who claim the promises of a faithful God and rest their eternal destiny on the saving truth “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). It is the historic fact of the resurrection of Jesus that provides confident assurance of resurrection to life of all who put their faith in Him. Indeed, the apostle Peter considered these words from Psalm 16 to be a prophecy concerning the resurrection of the Christ (Acts 2:22-32) and insisted that he was an eyewitness to its reality.
DNW