I count this a great honor and joy to speak to you about the man I was named after, even though I haven’t always loved it. David is a fairly common name in my generation; sometimes I wished for something more distinctive. But as I’ve aged, I’ve grown to appreciate that first David. He has his clear failures, and yet he is such a compelling and genuinely good king and man. And it’s his manhood we’ll focus on in this session — not humanity, but masculinity.

To encounter the life of David some three thousand years later can be a challenge for modern men. We might find in it a call to cultivate some reasonable Davidic strength of body and soul. Whether as king or father or husband or friend, our people don’t want men with limp wrists, but with strong arms. Yet not with strong arms alone, as we’ll see.

Expert at War?

Perhaps one reason I haven’t always thrilled at being named David is that I long misunderstood him. Maybe I didn’t realize that David and Goliath were not to scale on the felt boards and as pictured in children’s books. At least well into adulthood, I had a pretty one-dimensional and domesticated idea of David.

I thought of him as the shepherd who became king and “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Samuel 23:1). And so he was. Of course, we all know David killed Goliath as a youth, but I assumed that came from one lucky shot, rather than any skill in battle or as any reflection of his manhood. I didn’t think of David as particularly masculine. (It may also betray my mistaken idea of shepherds, who I thought to be more like mothers than warriors. Only later did I realize those guys carried a rod and staff, both to protect the sheep and to strike wolves. Ancient shepherds had to be fighters, not just feeders.)

But a specific scene near the end of David’s reign began to pop that bubble for me and give me a glimpse into the masculinity of David, and see him as more than just the singer-songwriter.

In 2 Samuel 17, when David’s son Absalom has rebelled against his father, marched on Jerusalem, and sent David retreating, David’s loyal friend Hushai pretends to have swapped sides to Absalom in order to defeat the rebel counsel. As Hushai makes his case, which ends up carrying the day, he characterizes David in terms that all the wise men of the day agreed with. Hushai says to Absalom,

You know that your father and his men are mighty men, and that they are enraged, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. Besides, your father is expert in war. (2 Samuel 17:8)

Not just his men, but David himself is mighty — and David in particular is expert in war.

Man of Valor, Man of War

In fact, the first time Scripture speaks of David, even before the Goliath account, he is introduced by one of Saul’s servants not only as “skillful in playing” but as “a man of valor, a man of war” and “a man of good presence.”

Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him. (1 Samuel 16:18)

In the following chapter, we learn that David, though still a youth, has already killed lions and bears (1 Samuel 17:34–36).1 And based on such preparation, and his faith in God’s help, David has the courage to step forward and face Goliath. Though he does not intend to fight Goliath hand to hand, he will engage him in personal battle as a projectile warrior, putting his own life at stake if he is unable to land the death blow.2 And once David has struck him, this youth is at least strong enough to draw Goliath’s massive sword from its sheath and cut through his giant neck to take off his head (1 Samuel 17:51).

Soon the imposing Saul, Israel’s lead warrior, who stood head and shoulders above the rest, hears women dancing in the streets, singing of the strength they see in David: “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7; 21:11; 29:5).

And this David does not stay a youth but grows up to be a fierce warrior. So, Saul sets David over the men of war. And to win Saul’s daughter as his bride, David brings the king two hundred Philistine foreskins. Later we hear of David leading thirty thousand warriors in battle (2 Samuel 6:1) and being victorious wherever he goes (2 Samuel 8:6). At the end of his life, the reason God gives for why David will not be the one to build the temple is that he is “a man of war” (1 Chronicles 28:3; also 22:8).3

What Made David Great?

Then comes Psalm 18, which appears in 2 Samuel 22 at the end of David’s life as a celebration of God’s deliverance from all his enemies. The psalm represents the physical strength and skill that God gave to David:

He “can run against a troop,” he says, and “leap over a wall” (verse 29).
He writes that God “equipped me with strength” (verse 32) and “made my feet like the feet of a deer” (verse 33).
God “[trained] my hands for war,” he adds, making his arms strong enough to “bend a bow of bronze” (verse 34).

David, it seems, is a physical specimen and all-around warrior: He runs with speed and agility. He can climb and leap. His arms are strong enough to wield weapons, and his hands have been trained, over long years, in the skills of battle.

Yet right here, in Psalm 18, as he celebrates God’s good provision of physical, manly prowess, David makes a striking claim in verse 35. This takes David’s manhood to a new level, and surpasses the glory of slaying a giant in his youth. He says to God in 2 Samuel 22:36 (and Psalm 18:35), “Your gentleness made me great.”

Physical strength and skill, with proven valor and combat experience, may have made David “expert at war,” but that’s not what made him great. These are good things: strong arms, quick feet, skilled hands, military triumph. But those physical manifestations of manliness are not what made him great, he says. It was God’s gentleness that made David great.

What does it mean that God’s gentleness made him great? We might understand this in two ways. One, God had been gentle with David. David had flaws, many failures and sins. God could have rejected him and cut him off from the throne at any point. Yet God was gentle with him; he was gracious with him. David did not deserve it, and God was not exacting with his anointed, but gentle with him.

While that’s true, I think David is saying even more here. Not only had the omnipotent God been gentle with David, but God’s own gentleness with David had changed David. God’s own gentleness had come to take root in David’s heart and characterize his own life and leadership. As he came to the throne and wielded the powers of kingship, he did so with gentleness. David has been gentle with others.4

But this is such a quick and passing statement in Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22. How might we increase our confidence that we’re reading David correctly? How might we confirm that his own self-understanding of what made him great was not his manly physique and martial abilities but his godly gentleness?

Several key episodes in the life of David accent his gentleness, tenderness, or grace as greatness, not tragic flaw.

Saul and Nabal

First, at the end of 1 Samuel, David exercises a form of Godlike gentleness even before becoming king.

The second half of 1 Samuel chronicles his journey into the wilderness to elude Saul’s desire to kill him. In chapter 24 and then again in chapter 26, David happens upon a vulnerable Saul and could have ended Saul’s life violently. Yet David (himself God’s anointed, 1 Samuel 16:12–13) chooses not to reach out his hand against God’s anointed to seize the kingdom (1 Samuel 24:6, 10; 26:9, 11, 23; 2 Samuel 1:14, 16). Rather, he waits for years on end for the kingship to fall to him. Trusting in God and his timing, in manly humility and the godly gentleness that flows from it, David lets Saul go.

Right in the middle of those two accounts, in chapter 25, David almost avenges himself. A fool named Nabal insults him. The warrior-prince reacts in a very natural way: he tells his men to strap on their swords. But then a wise woman, Nabal’s own wife, Abigail, intervenes, and pleads for David to be gentle — and be the bigger man. Rather than stretch out his own hand to avenge himself, David deals gently with the fool, whom God strikes down just ten days later.

“Gentleness is not the absence of strength but the addition of Christlike grace to cushion power to life-giving ends.”

Later, after Saul’s death, David takes initiative to show kindness to the house of Saul (2 Samuel 9:1, 9), which (similar to gentleness) he calls “the kindness of God” (verse 3). In time, he will show such kindness and gentleness to Amnon and to Shimei, and even to his ruthless and severe cousins Joab and Abishai. It’s a striking pattern in David’s life once you see it. David, for his flaws, is serious about his own sin, and he, wielding the power of the kingship, is gentle with others in their sin and failures.

So, we have some reason to see his godly gentleness as what made him great. But we haven’t yet mentioned the two clearest and most important places, both in David’s own words in 2 Samuel and both set in opposition to his cousin and commander of the army, Joab, who serves as a masculine foil for seeing the greatness of David.

Gentle with an Enemy

First, in chapter 3, after the death of Saul, Joab avenges in peacetime the death of his brother Asahel in wartime.

Saul’s commander Abner had struck down Asahel as he pursued Abner in battle. Abner warned him to turn aside, but Asahel would not, so Abner struck him through in the stomach. In time, Abner sought peace with David and delivered the rest of the kingdom to him. David and Abner feasted together, and David sent him away in peace.

However, Joab heard of it and drew Abner aside, under the pretense of peace, “to speak with him privately, and there he struck him in the stomach [revenge], so that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother” (2 Samuel 3:27).

Here a contrast begins to emerge between David and Joab. Both can be fearsome in battle. Both are strong, brave, experts at war, mighty men. But Joab, while an asset in war, is a liability in peace. It is great to have Joab on your side in the wilderness, and it could be terrible to have him nearby in the city.

Joab’s unrighteous slaughter of Abner, Saul’s former commander, now threatens the consolidation of the nation under David’s rule. So David takes public action in mourning the death of Abner, so that “all the people and all Israel understood that day that it had not been the king’s will to put to death Abner” (2 Samuel 3:37). David then speaks to his servants to make clear the difference between himself and Joab, the son of Zeruiah:

Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel? And I was gentle today, though anointed king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are more severe than I. The Lord repay the evildoer according to his wickedness! (2 Samuel 3:38–39)5

“Sons of Zeruiah” refers to Joab and his other brother, Abishai. They are manifestly manly men; they are men of war, oozing with testosterone. Second Samuel 10:11–12 shows us Joab and Abishai at their best. The Syrians and Ammonites have surrounded them in the front and the rear. So, Joab says to Abishai,

If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.

Glorious. What great assets in battle. But then, as we’ll continue to see, what great liabilities at home.

You Sons of Zeruiah

For instance, when David is retreating from Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 16, a man named Shimei, from the extended family of Saul, comes out and curses David and throws stones at him and his mighty men as they walk. Abishai speaks up: “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head” (verse 9). To this David replies, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? . . . Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse” (verses 10–11).

Once Absalom is dead, and David returns to the city, Shimei comes cowering on his knees, begging,

Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. Do not let the king take it to heart. For your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore, behold, I have come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king. (2 Samuel 19:19–20)

Abishai speaks up again: “Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord’s anointed?” Again, David will be the bigger man. This is becoming a refrain: “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be as an adversary to me? Shall anyone be put to death in Israel this day?” (verses 21–22).

The refrain “you sons of Zeruiah” reflects David becoming exasperated with Joab’s and Abishai’s unbending severity and violence and inability to restrain their strength and aggression. They are great to have on your side in war, and they do not know how to control their strength.

Which leads to David’s other mention of gentleness, leading up to chapter 22.

Gentle with a Traitor

In chapter 18, Absalom has rebelled against him, Hushai has bought him time, and now David sends Joab and the army into battle. In keeping with his pattern of exercising strength and adding to it the virtue of gentleness, David orders Joab, in the presence of witnesses, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:5).

Some commentators see weakness and indiscretion in David at this point. However, others see the gentleness that made him great.6 Remember, David is sending out his army. Peter Leithart defends David’s directions to Joab:

These instructions were consistent with David’s treatment of all his enemies; he had treated Saul well, and just recently he had restrained Abishai from cutting down Shimei. He knew what Joab was capable of, and he wanted all his men to know that he treated enemies with kindness and compassion. David’s behavior again provided an Old Testament illustration of Jesus’s teaching about loving enemies.7

Joab, of course, defies David’s will and himself thrusts three javelins through the heart of Absalom, again accenting the difference between David and Joab. Both are strong, but only one is great. Both are warriors, but only one knows the moment when, and has the ability, to exercise gentleness.

Joab Versus David

Joab is the one-dimensional man of war — strong, tenacious, courageous in battle, willing to risk it all. Yet he is a caricature of mature masculinity, not the full expression. He can fight, but he is unable to curb his aggression when it is no longer called for. He is tough, but he is unable to cushion his strength or control his tenacity when wisdom calls for gentleness.

And a growing number in the manosphere today eagerly offer their counsel on how to be more like Joab. In many circles (some clearly unbelieving but others under the banner of Christ), voices advocate, in essence, for men to rebel against feminizing in our world, and the church, by being more like Joab: “Society has made you soft; now it’s time to man up” — and the vision ends up being little more than a caricature of manly strength and backbone. They seem to see the pendulum swing to Joab as the necessary reaction.

But brothers, Joab and effeminacy aren’t the only options. David, man of war and giant slayer that he is, offers us the more mature vision of manhood. And note well, David is not a mean between the two extremes, but one who is every bit as manly as Joab — and then, with added abilities, even more so.

In terms of strength, speed, skill with a weapon, and ability to strategize and conquer in battle, we should not assume that Joab has much, if anything, on David, the giant slayer. David is every bit the man of war Joab is, but David surpasses Joab as a man not by being more severe, but by adding to his manly strength the virtue of manly gentleness. David is the bigger man and better model. David had learned gentleness from God himself, and so David can thrive in all contexts, not just in battle. He does not have less strength than Joab, but more.

David’s abilities are multidimensional. Both strong and gentle, he can wield his strength when the moment calls for it, or with admirable restraint he can walk in gentleness. David can lead a nation, not just an army.

And David, not Joab, is the Lord’s anointed, and the man who is the type of the Anointed One to come.

High and Exalted, Gentle and Lowly

While Psalm 18 serves as a great tribute to God’s work in and through David, there is much in the psalm, writes John Calvin in his commentary, that “agrees better with Christ” than with David.

And when the apostle John, on the isle of Patmos, caught his glimpses of the glory of Christ, he too saw the exemplar of mature masculinity, strong and gentle, capable and compassionate. In Jesus he saw not only man but “the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). He turned to hear a voice “like the roar of many waters,” and “from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:15–16). Later John would see this Lion of a man, sitting on a white horse, as the one who “judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11).

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. (Revelation 19:15)

This is the one who is introduced in heaven with regal dignity and sovereign power: “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered” (Revelation 5:5).

Yet when the apostle looked between the angels and the throne of heaven, he “saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). A lamb-like Lion, and lion-like Lamb, awe-inspiring in his majestic strength, and seen to be truly great as the gentle and lowly, self-sacrificial, atoning Lamb of God.

To be clear, the risen Christ is not puny. He sits in power on the very throne of the universe, and all authority in heaven and on earth is his. He is not weak in the least. And in masculine glory, his gentleness cushions the application of his great power as he marshals it in the service of his weak people. Brothers and sisters, do not mistake his gentleness for weakness. Gentleness is not the absence of strength but the addition of Christlike grace to cushion power to life-giving ends.

The greatness of David is not that he slew the giant in his youth. The greatness of David is that as a man he slew the giants in his own warrior’s heart: arrogance and pride, selfishness, unrighteous anger, petty disputes, personal offenses, private comforts and preferences and luxuries.

David was the great king, and the type of the Anointed One to come, as a man who was not weak, but strong, brave, and more — he was kind, patient, and gentle. He did not reach out his hand to seize power, but he waited on his appointment and traveled the long path of self-humbling on the way to being exalted. Nor, once in power, did he always leverage his full force, but learning from God’s own gentleness with him, he learned how and when to be gentle with others.

David cries out in Psalm 16:1, “Preserve me, O God.” Save me. Keep me. Hold on to me. Don’t let go of me. I wonder if you pray that way. If you don’t pray that way, you are not thinking clearly. We need God to keep us every day, all day. You cannot do this without him. You can’t remain a believer without God’s preserving grace. Keep me. Hold me. Preserve me. Now, what is he asking God to preserve him from? That’s going to come. We’ll see it in just a moment.

Psalm 16:2: “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” You are my Lord, and you are my good. That is, as my Lord you govern all the good that comes to me, and you are the good that comes to me. I have other lords, I have other authorities in my life that I have to come to terms with, but none of those lords, none of those authorities, comes close to your authority. You are my Lord. You are the authority over all other authorities. If there’s another authority, it gets its authority from you. You are my Lord.

And you are my good. I have other goods in my life. But if I taste none of God in any good that this world offers, it’s not good. It is not good if there’s none of you as the Good in it. “I have no good apart from you.” If I taste nothing of you in any good that this world offers, it is not good. You are my Lord, and you are my good.

Psalm 16:3: “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” Lord, the reason I began with verse 2 by saying, “I have no good apart from you,” is so that when I say, “All my delight is in your holy people,” you would not think me an idolater. You alone are my greatest good, my greatest delight. And when I look around the world and see people who delight in you above all else, they are my delight because you are their delight. I’m not speaking double-talk between verses 2 and 3. I’m not contradicting myself. What delights me about your people is that you are their delight. You are my good, and I have no good apart from you. If there’s none of you in this people, I want nothing of this people.

Quest Over, Battle Begun

Psalm 16:4: “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.” What happens if we choose another god besides the true God — another ultimate good, another Lord, another delight, another treasure? What happens is multiplied sorrows. “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply.” David has already found his good; he’s already found his delight; he’s already found his treasure. He’s not on a search anymore. Are you? David’s quest is over. Is yours? It’s over. I have found him. I have found my Good. I have found my Lord. I have found my delight. I have found my treasure. It’s over. I’m not running anymore after anything else. There’s nothing but trouble there. “I have no good apart from you.” The Lord is my good. I’m not shopping around. My quest is over.

So, he responds to temptation — and you will have it this afternoon and tomorrow; you will have the temptation, “Here’s another god; here’s another good; here’s another delight; here’s another treasure.” David’s response is, “I won’t even drink it. I won’t even take their name on my lips.” “Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out. I will not even take their names on my lips.” These alternative gods, these alternative delights, these alternative goods — I’m not going to touch them. I’m not even going to get close or talk about them. I have found the all-satisfying treasure. Why would I choose multiplied sorrows?

I think verse 4 is what David was asking to be preserved from in verse 1. When he said, “Preserve me, O God,” what’s he asking to be preserved from? And the answer is verse 4. “Preserve me, O God.” I take refuge in you. I’m flying to you as my good. I’m flying to you as my treasure. I’m flying to you as my delight. I am flying to you. Preserve me from being drawn away to these other gods. Preserve me from failing to be satisfied in you this morning.

“This is the battle of the Christian life: to have God as our good, to have God as our delight.”

I wonder if you pray like that. I wonder if you fight like that. That is just about all I do. This is the battle of the Christian life: to have God as our good, to have God as our delight, to have God as our treasure. And the world is saying, “No, I’m better!” So what else is there to do but fight? Verse 4 is what he’s pleading. “Preserve me, O God.” Don’t let me be drawn away to these other gods.

Psalm 90:14 is on my lips just about every morning. “Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love!” Is that your steady prayer? “Your steadfast love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). Oh, don’t let me be more satisfied with anything else than with you. That’s the battle. Verse 1 cries out for preservation; verse 4 states the danger.

Our Lord and Lot

Psalm 16:5: “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.” I think verse 5 is virtually identical to verse 2, which says, “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” I think “You hold my lot” (verse 5) corresponds to, “You are my Lord” (verse 2). And “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup” (verse 5) corresponds to, “I have no good apart from you” (verse 2). Think about it for a moment and see if you agree that those are similar.

What does it mean that the Lord holds David’s lot? In the next verse, David refers to his “inheritance.” “I have a beautiful inheritance” (verse 6). Inheritances were often distributed by lot among family members and among tribes (Numbers 26:56; 33:54; 36:2; Joshua 14:2). It’s like drawing straws. And David says, “God holds my lot.” Jeremiah 13:25 says, “This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, declares the Lord.” We still have the phrase “my lot in life.” When you say that, you don’t mean, “I have an acre.” You mean your situation, your circumstance.

That’s what God holds. “You decide my fortune. You set my circumstances. You decide my place, my times, my inheritance. You govern my life.” Which is the same as saying in verse 2, “You are my Lord.” That’s what it means to be Lord of my life. You govern my life. You hold my lot. You allot my inheritance. I’m in your hands. And “[You are] my chosen portion and my cup”(verse 5) corresponds to “You are my good” (verse 2).

Then Psalm 16:6 simply spells out the nature of David’s “lot.” What is his lot? “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” The lines, the borders of my life that God has given me, are beautiful. My future with God, my inheritance, is a beautiful inheritance.

Now let’s step back from verses 1–6 and ask, What’s the main thing David is saying in these verses? I think the answer is, in the words of verse 2: you are my Lord, and you are my good. Or, in the words of verse 5: God holds my lot, and God is my lot. God decides my fortune, and God is my fortune. God allots my inheritance, and God is my inheritance. God governs my life. God is my life.

He says it in verses 2 and 3: he’s my Lord; he’s my good. Verses 5 and 6 state it another way: he is my lot; he holds my cup and my portion. And in the middle is this: Don’t go after another god! How could you choose another god? That’s the way these verses are structured. So, “preserve me, O God.” Please preserve me from that insane choice of going after other gods when he’s my Lord and my good. He’s my lot-holder and my lot itself. So preserve me, O God. You have shown so much of yourself to me, don’t let me become insane. Sin is insane, you know. That’s the point of verse 4. Multiplied sorrows — why would you go there? And people go there every day.

Counsel in the Night

When he turns now in Psalm 16:7 and says, “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me,” I think he is saying, “God, by his counsel, is the one who has shown me all this about himself. I didn’t think this up. God has come to me by his counsel and made plain to me that he is my Lord, he is my good, he holds my lot, and he is my portion. God is the one who, night and day, has shown me these things.” I think that’s the point of verse 7. He’s the one who has shown me all this. And at night, as I am lying there, in my spirit, from deep inside of me, as if from my kidneys and my heart, there well up these truths: God holds my life. God is my life.

I wonder, Christian — child of God, son of God, daughter of God — what your heart says to you at night. And if you’re a child of God, one of the things that your heart says to you at three o’clock is, “God is my life. God holds my life.” I didn’t make my heart beat for the last three hours. You don’t make your heart beat. God does. He holds you in being. And if you have a mustard seed of faith at three o’clock in the morning, God gave it to you. God sustains you. God preserves you. That’s what the child of God says from his kidneys (kidneys is the Hebrew word behind heart) — meaning, it comes from deep inside of you. “God is my good. God is my life. God is my portion, God holds me in his hand while I’m sleeping.” That’s what the child of God says at night. And that’s from God. It is his counsel doing that. He does that for you.

And then he gives the positive counterpart to Psalm 16:1. In other words, verse 1 is the negative: “O God, don’t let anything take you away from me as my portion, my good, my lot, my beautiful inheritance. Don’t let anything replace you.” But the positive counterpart in Psalm 16:7 is, “Oh, I bless you that you are answering that prayer. Here I am at three o’clock, and I’m still a believer. I’m still loving you and trusting you and clinging to you with my fingernails. You have answered verse 1, and I’m blessing you that you’re still my God.” That’s what God makes known by his counsel.

Fullness of Joy, Forever

Now let’s jump out of order for a minute. While we’re on verse 7 (which is about God, by his counsel, informing David’s mind of these glorious things), let’s jump to the next verse about God “making known,” and that’s Psalm 16:11. Verse 11 continues the thought of what God makes known to David — that is, his “counsel.” And verse 11 is as good as it can get. “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

In verse 7, the Lord makes known by his counsel these things that we’ve been opening in verses 1–6. And in verse 11, that reaches its climax. This is as high as it gets, or as deep as it gets, or as wide as it gets. When you read Psalm 16:11, don’t you want to say, “Well, no wonder in Psalm 16:2 David says, ‘I have no good apart from you’? No wonder Psalm 16:3 says, ‘I delight in God’s people because they delight in you.’ No wonder in Psalm 16:5–6 he says, ‘God is my chosen portion and my cup.’” Where else could you find “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore”?

“Nobody anywhere in the world can offer you anything better than Psalm 16:11.”

Is there anything fuller than full? No. Is anything longer than forever? No. This is no rocket science. This is just glory! Nobody anywhere in the world can offer you anything better than Psalm 16:11. Because nothing is even conceivably better than verse 11. Nothing is fuller than full or longer than forever. “Fullness” means completely satisfying. And “forevermore” means those pleasures never stop.

I remember when I was 9 years old. We had a spiral staircase that went up to our roof. And I would lie up there and look at the stars, and I would be scared of eternity because it seemed boring. It’s going to get old. It’s going to be boring. And then you grow up and you read verse 11, which says it’s not going to get boring. God is God!

When it says “pleasures forevermore,” it doesn’t mean they feel good for about a thousand years and then don’t feel good anymore. If you think that God is incapable of making you happy forever, you don’t know God. Infinite is infinite. He is infinitely full. That means there is no way to exhaust the kindness that he intends to show you. Verse 11 is as good as it gets. And that is part of the counsel that God has made known to David. “You make known to me the path of life.” God’s gift of life is the gift of himself. His presence, his right hand, his life — this is God. “At my right hand are pleasures forevermore” — joy that is full.

God Before and Beside

Now if that’s true, and it is, David does what any reasonable person would do. Psalm 16:8: “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken” — shaken from my delight in God, shaken from my faith, shaken from my cherishing God in all things.

“If you think that God is incapable of making you happy forever, you don’t know God.”

“Before” and “at [the] right hand.” What does that mean? God is non-spatial. He is spirit. He doesn’t have dimensions, so you can’t locate him in space. These are metaphors. So what are these metaphors trying to say? “Before” means he’s not behind, where I can’t see him. I keep him right out there as my good and my delight and my cup and my portion and my inheritance. That’s what he is all day long to me. Those other things aren’t my inheritance. You are. He is always visible, by his word, in your mind, preaching to you the reality of who God is. “At my right hand” means close. And it’s the right hand, not the left hand, which is the honored, close place. As you walk through the day, he’s before you. I see him. I’m keeping him conscious in my mind. And he’s honored and cherished and loved in the place of honor at my right hand.

That’s the way you go through your days. That’s the way you live the Christian life. You’re going to get up tomorrow morning, and you’re going to put him right there before you by his word. You’re going to reach out and take him and keep him right there in the treasured, cherished, honored position of your right hand, and you move through life. That’s the way you live if you know verse 11, if you know verses 1–6. And when you live like that, with God before you and at your right hand, it is the answer to the prayer, “Preserve me” (verse 1). If God starts to fade away and out there is a new car, or some relationship, or some treasure, something that is starting to be more precious to you than God, verse 1 is not being answered. The cry is, “Keep yourself ever before me, ever in view, ever cherished.”

Incorruptible Son

Now we come to Psalm 16:9. With this confidence that he’s never going to be shaken, he says, “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” So in this life, there is gladness, and there is rejoicing that is very great at times, and that’s a foretaste of the everlasting pleasures of verse 11.

Right now in this life, your joy is seldom full. You need to learn how to live with this. You need to learn how to fight for this. We live in an embattled state. Your body is going to die if Jesus doesn’t come back first, and your faith is going to be embattled to the last day. Just before he died, Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Right to the end, I don’t ever expect it to go away. I’m an old man, and I expect to fight on until I breathe no more. There will be no coasting. You coast, you die. So we will fight on. And yet, in this life, in verse 9, “My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” In other words, his confidence is building to the point where he says, “Not even death is going to interrupt my joy. My flesh will dwell secure.”

We want to say, “Come on, David, you’re not God. You will die. They will put you in a hole. You will rot. Your flesh will decay in the ground. What are you talking about?” Then David gives the jaw-dropping explanation in Psalm 16:10. Death is not going to have the last word here. “For you [O God] will not abandon my soul to Sheol [the place of the dead], or let your holy one see [not even see!] corruption.” But David, there’s a pit waiting for you. Every person who dies is thrown into this pit, and in that pit you decay. You see corruption.

And right at this point, the apostle Peter (in Acts 2) and the apostle Paul (in Acts 13) read verse 10, and they say, “This is the Messiah. This is Jesus Christ, whose flesh did not see corruption.” How did they see that? Listen to Peter in Acts 2:29–32. I’m going to take it in two stages. What Peter says is amazing. Because he doesn’t just say, “This is Jesus”; he says why he thinks this is Jesus. He has just quoted Psalm 16:8–10. Now he explains for the Jewish crowd whom he wants to persuade that Jesus is the Messiah:

Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne . . .

Stop there. What’s he saying? Why is he telling us this? What’s he referring to? How is this helping us grasp how he saw Jesus in verse 10? David knows something. What does he know? He knows God took an oath and swore something to him. He’s referring to 1 Chronicles 17:11–12, where God says to David, “When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, . . . and I will establish his throne forever.” David knows this. He knows he is not the Messiah. “I am David, and a son of David is coming. God told me this. And the difference between me and him is that he reigns forever. I don’t — I decay. He will not see corruption. He’s bigger, better, longer than I am.” So as David is writing Psalm 16:10, he’s conscious that all of his glorious experience of God is a prefiguration. He’s a forerunner who is pointing to the one who is going to be so much more. He’s aware of this, and as he writes he is being caught up into tremendous confidence.

It’s the Advent season. It’s Christmas. And you know the beautiful Christmas words of Gabriel to Mary: “[This child] will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). David knew this about his son. He didn’t know when; he didn’t know who; he didn’t know how. He just knew, “He’s coming, and he’s going to be infinitely greater than I am. And if I am to be rescued from death” — which verse 11 certainly signifies (my pleasures at God’s right hand are forever; death will not end my relationship with God) — “what could be greater?” What could be greater is he never even sees corruption.

That’s the second half of Psalm 16:10. And that’s what Peter and Paul saw. They saw David on the wings of the Spirit of prophecy reach the apex of his own hope and go beyond it. And they said, “That’s the Messiah.” And so, Peter finishes his explanation of Psalm 16:10 (in Acts 2:31–32), “[David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” David spoke about the Messiah when he said, “He won’t even see corruption.” Peter keeps going: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.”

So, Peter is not just saying, “It’s Jesus.” He’s explaining how he drew down that conviction from what he knows that David knows about the son of David from the promise God had made to him. David, like all true prophets, is being carried along by the Holy Spirit. His spirit is rising with the joyful confidence that God will preserve him. God is his Lord. God is his delight. God is his portion and his inheritance. God will give him pleasures forever. And death itself will not be the last word. God will not abandon him to Sheol. At this point, the Spirit of prophecy takes over and says, “And your son is going to be greater than all that. He will not even see corruption.”

Put Christ Before You

So dear South Cities Church, how are you going to embrace the reality of Psalm 16 in view of verse 10? This is my closing counsel to you and my prayer for you as an eleven-day-old church. Let me put it negatively. If David is wrong in verse 10, and he’s not a prefiguration, a forerunner, of a Son of David who would rise from the dead, then you can kiss Psalm 16 goodbye. You can close your Bibles and kiss everything I’ve said goodbye. Because every blessing — God my good, God my Lord, God my delight, God my portion, God my cup, God my inheritance, God my fullness of joy, God my pleasures forevermore — is promised to sinners. David was a sinner — an adulterer, a murderer. So how in the world can he claim these for himself? How can we?

And the answer is that this Son of David purchased them. He died for the sins of Old Testament saints and the sins of New Testaments saints (Romans 3:25–26). David’s sins are covered by the blood of Jesus. My sins and your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus if we trust in him. Therefore, there’s forgiveness in the blood, and there’s a future in the resurrection. And therefore, Psalm 16 is yours because of Christ. Verse 10 is true. He did die; he did rise; his flesh did not see corruption. And therefore, you can bank on these promises.

So what should you do? You should set him always before you. You should keep him at your right hand. And if you do, and if your good pastors do, and if your council of elders does — if they and you keep God in Christ clearly before them as their treasure and good and Lord and cup and inheritance and portion, and God cherished and loved and honored at their right hand, this church will not be moved away from Christ, away from salvation, away from the Bible. It will be strong until he comes.

Audio Transcript

Amusing Ourselves to Death — that was the great title to a book written by Neil Postman and published in 1985. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Maybe you’ve heard of it or even read it. It was a great title before the digital age. And it’s a great title for the digital age. And I’m borrowing it for this episode, with one change: amusing ourselves from death — today’s theme in a clip from a John Piper sermon preached in the summer of 1996.

Before we get into it, here’s a little context for the sermon, and why eternal realities were especially on the forefront of Pastor John’s mind at the time. Evangelist Billy Graham was in Minneapolis for a five-night rally. By then, Graham was 77 years old. He spoke for a week in the Metrodome, which was just steps away from Bethlehem Baptist Church. It was a huge gathering, well attended, and local reports put attendance for the final evening right around 100,000 people. All of that was happening the same week as this sermon from Pastor John. And that’s why he’ll mention the Dome in a little bit. With that, here’s Pastor John in June of 1996.

Death is sad — and death is terrifying if there’s a holy, just God who’s going to call everybody to account.

If you don’t believe in God — if there is no God, and death is simply the end of a long summer — it’s just sad. It’s sad. And the reason it’s sad is because life as we know it in this world is the basis of everything that makes us happy — family, friends, leisure, food, sex, job, work, meaning. If you don’t have life, you don’t have any of that. And to lose that feels sad, but it doesn’t feel terrifying. It’s not terrifying to fall asleep thinking you never wake up. It’s over — no consciousness ever again. That’s not terrifying. It’s sad to lose things that you know, but it’s not terrifying to go to sleep and never wake up again. Zero consciousness.

But if there’s a holy, just God of truth, who has a law, who has a glory, and we will one day give an account to that God for everything good or evil we’ve ever done, and he will render that to us, then death is terrifying if we’re not right with God.

Silent Slave Master

The existence of God in relationship to death is a terrifying thing. Hebrews 2:14–15 says it’s a slave master if you’re afraid of death. And it says in verse 15 that everybody has been held in bondage all their life long by the fear of death.

I thought about that. A lot of people would deny that. A lot of people who don’t believe in God would say, “We’re not afraid. We are not living a life of bondage. I mean, look at us: Do we look like we’re in bondage? We’re the freest of all people, doing what we want to do. What in the world do you mean that everybody is held in slavery and bondage by the fear of death? What are you talking about? Where’s this verse coming from?”

“Even people who don’t believe in God are subconsciously ruled by the fear of death, one way or the other.”

Here’s what I think it is implying. I think even people who don’t believe in God, and who on the surface are not feeling terrified, are subconsciously ruled by the fear of death, one way or the other. It’s a silent slave master. One of its main forms of slavery is by putting you in the dreamworld of denial. Now, you don’t experience it this way, but the way you can tell if you’re in it or not is by considering what you are willing to think much about. Denial of the death that terrifies manifests itself in all kinds of ways of escaping from having to think long or much about your mortality and about your death.

It’s one thing that Americans will not let themselves think long about, and therefore we surround ourselves with all kinds of distractions and narcotics to escape from what we know we’d be afraid of if we thought about it. And therefore, it is ruling us from underneath.

Cruising Toward Death

I thought of this analogy. It’s like the cruise control on our station wagon. It doesn’t work, but I know what cruise control is for. The fear of death is like a cruise control in the soul that is set roughly at 55 miles an hour of contentment and ease.

Now, if something begins to happen where your life begins to slow down to a pace of pensiveness and reflection and thoughtfulness, and big realities start to come into your consciousness so that you start to ask some big, significant questions, that cruise control is going to bump back up to 55 in a big hurry so that you don’t have to get into thinking about and dealing with those big thoughts that you can have when your life slows down to a restful pace. It’s late at night, it’s quiet, the stars are out, the kids are asleep — and you start to ask the big questions. The fear of death, not even consciously, says, “Quick — turn it on. Turn it on. Get the volume up. Get moving. Start doing something. You can’t deal with that.”

Then it works the other way. Sometimes God, in his common graces — and we’ve all experienced this — moves into your heart and begins to rev up your inquisitive motor, and you start to inquire and think, and it’s a kind of new day. You buy books, and you pursue, and you want to know how to solve mysteries. It’s not the same reflective atmosphere that I was talking about a minute ago. It’s energy, it’s inquiry, it’s pursuit, because you know there’s something vital out there, and at that 65 or 75 miles per hour you might in fact find it. And so, the cruise control takes the foot off the accelerator and brings you back down to the ease and comfort of 55. The TV is just right. The leisure is just right. The family is just right. The work is just right. You don’t need to ask any of those questions or make any of that pursuit.

Our Inner Law

This is what I think the writer here means when he says, “We are being held in bondage, all our life long, by the fear of death” (see Hebrews 2:15). There’s a slavery. Everybody who does not come to terms with reality — with God, with sin, with guilt, with punishment, with death, and with hell — if you don’t come to term with those realities, you must be in denial. You must be living a life governed subconsciously, or perhaps consciously, by the fear of death.

“If you’re not right with God, that law written on your heart is going to make you a slave to the fear of death.”

Some of you know what it’s like to live consciously in horrible anxieties all the time. So whether subconsciously or consciously, this is the case. Romans 2:15 says that the law of God is written on every human heart, your conscience bearing witness with that law, either condemning or affirming.

So I, on the authority of the Bible — the same Bible that Billy Graham holds up, and he seems to get a lot of approval — that same Bible says that everybody in this room, everybody that will go to the Dome tonight or has been there, has the law of God written across your heart, and it is damning you or affirming you, according to whether you are right with God. And if you’re not right with God, that law written there is going to make you a slave to the fear of death.