I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. (Psalm 16:8)
When Peter, at Pentecost, quoted from Psalm 16, beginning with verse 8, he said that “David speaketh concerning him” (Acts 2:25), that is, concerning Jesus Christ. The Psalm, especially in verse 10, prophesies the historical fact of Christ’s resurrection. The sixteenth Psalm shows how God declares the crucified One, raised from the dead, to be Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). Peter used the sixteenth Psalm when he offered the “cream of the gospel” to “Jerusalem sinners,” as John Bunyan put it. He meant that the very same guilty hands, so heinously stained with the blood of the Son of God, were the ones to whom the saving benefits of that blood were first offered. Peter used Psalm 16 to call even the worst sinners to repentance and baptism in the name of the risen Lord. In that name came to them the promise of remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38). Has your heart been pricked as the crowds were that day? Has the Spirit of grace and of supplications brought you to mourn for the One whom you have pierced by your sins? (Zech. 12:10) Then believe on the same pierced-but-resurrected One for the forgiveness of your sins!
The sixteenth Psalm is a strong ally to a freely-offered gospel for the vilest sinner, and for that reason it should be precious to us. But are there any other riches in the Psalm? Indeed, there are. The Psalm records not only the historical fact of Christ’s resurrection, but it also records the exercise of our Lord’s soul leading up to his suffering and death. In the Psalm, the Lord Jesus speaks in the first person: “I have set the Lord always before me … thou shalt not leave my soul in hell.” Through David, the Spirit beforehand gave words that Christ in the days of his flesh would take upon his own lips as the sincere expression of the exercise of his soul. The sixteenth Psalm shows us how the Father wonderfully supported, upheld, and communed with Christ, as that true man undertook the work of our redemption.
As he approached his suffering and death it was communion with his Father that gave him succor and support. So too, if we would abide in him, must we enter the same exercises of soul, to press on through life through whatever portion of suffering our God has laid out for us. Through reading, meditating upon, and singing this psalm, we should seek to set the Lord always before us.
It may seem odd to speak of setting the Lord before us when, in other senses, he is the one who sets us and all that pertains to us before his own presence (Ps. 90:8; Isa. 49:6). Without fail, we are continually before the Lord as inferiors before our great superior. On our part, we must deliberately act to set him before us, that is, put him front and center in our thoughts. Another use of the Hebrew word for “before” occurs when Joshua sees a man with a drawn sword standing “over against” him (Josh. 5:13). You will remember how Joshua fell on his face and worshiped this captain of the Lord’s host! To set the Lord always before us is not to summon him into our presence, but to behold by faith that we are already in his presence, and to align our hearts and minds accordingly.
In what ways should we set the Lord always before us?
First, we should set the Lord always before us as a God who is in covenant with us. To speak of God by his name “the Lord,” or Jehovah, is to speak of him as the God of the covenant. Not all who are within the covenant outwardly experience its saving realities. Only think of how terrifying it would be had God not condescended, by a covenant, to grant that we might lay hold on him by faith! If we were to set the Almighty always before us apart from his promises, his provision of a mediator, and his condescension to be our God, it would fill us with continual dread. We would stand condemned and without excuse.
Even the demons, in some sense, have the Almighty before their consciousness – and they tremble (James 2:19)! But the believer sets Jehovah, his God, before him, and rejoices in the knowledge. The believer, by faith, enters to behold a mercy seat sprinkled with Jesus’ blood by which he might approach boldly as one accepted in the Beloved. The believer always rejoices and says (Ps. 56:9), “God is for me.”
But to set before us a God who is in covenant with us is also to set before us a God toward whom we have obligations. When the covenant-making God appeared to Abram, he said (Gen. 17:1), “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” At all times, the believer sets the Lord before him, and therefore seeks to do what will please his God. His first priority in each situation is to obey the Lord, in whose presence he always stands, whether or not friends or ministers or parents are watching. Indeed, Christ himself, when he considered the soul-troubling humiliation of his own approaching death, still set the Lord before him and aimed to honor his Father in life and in death, praying “Father, glorify thy name” (John 12:28).
Second, we should set the Lord always before us as a God who is at our right hand. Our text says, “I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” Clearly it is a condescension on the part of the God whom the heavens cannot contain that he teaches us to know him as a God who is at our right hand. The Lord is at my right hand. What a thought! A thought to keep continually before you.
If the Lord is at your right hand, he is in a place of intimate nearness. Your right hand is inseparable from you. You would not part with it for a large sum of money. It goes wherever you go. It bears the fingerprints that identify you, and pulses with the living warmth of your body. Believer, this is how close the Lord is to you!
How can it be that Jehovah, who is above the heavens, would be so intimately near to us in all our experience? It can be because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us! There is no conflict felt by the saints that the incarnate Son of God did not personally experience. In all your troubles, even your conflict with the last enemy, death, he is able to pity you with the heart of a man.
If the Lord is at your right hand, then he is with you in every good work that you undertake. The right hand (for most of us) is the hand of strength and skill, the hand with which we do our most important tasks. If the Lord is at your right hand, this means that he is standing at the ready to strengthen you in all that you undertake for him. Now, we often make too much of our right hand, which is only a hand of flesh and blood. Satan laughs at the feebleness of the hand that is not assisted by God. But when God strengthens a man’s hand, Satan trembles to think what that hand will perform. Believer, the Lord is at your right hand to make it the instrument by which he shall do his will on earth, as it is done in heaven!
Is there anything that is too great to undertake if the Lord is at your right hand? Stretch out your right hand in open-handed deeds of mercy. Stretch it out to guide your household. Stretch it out to write a letter of truth and encouragement and godly persuasion. Stretch it out to reclaim an erring brother. Stretch it out to plant and build and overcome, and say, despite the difficulties of your undertaking, “I shall not be moved.”
If the Lord is at your right hand, then he is also present to defend you from enemies and danger. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. He is a shield and buckler unto you. Does Satan stand at your right hand to resist you (Zech. 3:1)? Then set before you the one who is greater than Satan. See him standing at your right hand as your Advocate, and say, “I shall not be moved.”
Verse 9 describes the blessings that, in this life, flow from setting the Lord always before us. They are considerable blessings: “Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall dwell in hope.” This exercise of setting the Lord always before us transforms the whole man – heart, glory, and flesh.
Why is it that we do experience more of the gladness, rejoicing, and hope described in verse 9? Perhaps the answer lies in the word always, that is, continually. “I have set the Lord always before me … therefore my heart is glad.” In temptation, perhaps we set the Lord before us for a moment. We find the power of temptation is not immediately broken, so we give up and cave in to the temptation. In discouragement, we set the Lord before us for a moment, but the weight of the discouragement is not immediately lifted, so we give up and yield to the discouragement.
We should aim to set the Lord always before us. In any company, at all times, in every surprising change, we should set the Lord before us. We should go on setting before us his character, his promises, and his past faithfulness. We should keep doing so until our heart is glad and our glory rejoices. That is, set the Lord before you until your heart is so glad that your tongue, which is your glory, overflows in the exulting musical praise of our God (Ps. 30:12, 57:8). Then you will sing this Psalm with grace in your heart to the Lord!
Setting the Lord always before you will even yield blessings for your body, your flesh. “My flesh also shall rest in hope” (Ps. 16:9). As you set the Lord always before you, you will obtain victory over anxious thoughts as you lie down to sleep. As you set the Lord always before you, you will rest in hope even on a sickbed. And, yes, your flesh also shall rest in hope when you come to die. You shall lie down in your grave with hope as your funeral garment. You shall rest in hope, because if Christ, the Holy One of God, did not see corruption in the grave (Ps. 16:10), but rose again on the third day, you will rise with him. Your soul and body shall be reunited like two long-separated friends, to serve the Lord to all eternity.1John Boys, quoted in Spurgeon, Charles, “Psalm 16. Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings.” The Treasury of David, Kindle, OSNOVA, location 7198-7207. “Oh, what a happy meeting this will be, what a sweet greeting between the soul and body, the nearest and dearest acquaintance that ever were! What a welcome will that soul give to her beloved body! Blessed be thou (will she say), for thou hast aided me to the glory I have enjoyed since I parted with thee; blessed art thou that sufferedst thyself to be mortified, giving ‘thy members as weapons of righteousness unto God.’ Rom. 6:13. … [W]e two have walked together as friends in God’s house (Ps. 55:14), for when I prayed inwardly, thou didst attend my devotions with bowed knees and lifted-hands outwardly. We two have been fellow labourers in the works of the Lord, we two have suffered together, and now we two shall ever reign together.” And then, without any interruption or clouding of your vision, you shall have the Lord set before you. Those who have made it their joy in this life to set the Lord always before them shall know fulness of joy in the Lord’s presence.
Footnotes
- 1John Boys, quoted in Spurgeon, Charles, “Psalm 16. Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings.” The Treasury of David, Kindle, OSNOVA, location 7198-7207. “Oh, what a happy meeting this will be, what a sweet greeting between the soul and body, the nearest and dearest acquaintance that ever were! What a welcome will that soul give to her beloved body! Blessed be thou (will she say), for thou hast aided me to the glory I have enjoyed since I parted with thee; blessed art thou that sufferedst thyself to be mortified, giving ‘thy members as weapons of righteousness unto God.’ Rom. 6:13. … [W]e two have walked together as friends in God’s house (Ps. 55:14), for when I prayed inwardly, thou didst attend my devotions with bowed knees and lifted-hands outwardly. We two have been fellow labourers in the works of the Lord, we two have suffered together, and now we two shall ever reign together.” ↩︎
