ESCAPING DEATHS GRAPPLE TO A HAPPY ENDING

ESCAPING DEATHS GRAPPLE TO A HAPPY ENDING

"I have no good beyond Thee" Psa. 16:2

This is the first Psalm headed "Michtam." There are five others (56 to 60). The meaning is obscure. Thirtle says: "The term, Michtam, seems best explained by a personal or private prayer or meditation." This one is attributed to David, but nothing can be said decisively as to the time of its writing. As a whole it is a song of exultant confidence. In its opening petition the consciousness of danger is revealed, but this is the occasion for a glad confession of assurance in the deliverance of God. Whoever wrote it, and under whatever circumstances, its final value is that it is distinctly Messianic. Peter (Acts 2:25-31) and Paul (Acts 13:34-37) not only quote it in reference to our Lord, but argue its Messianic intention. The words we have emphasized reveal the deep secret of this holy confidence. The singer declared that he knew no well-being apart from God-Jehovah, as his SOVEREIGN LORD (John 13:13). Only of our Lord Jesus Christ, as an expression of unvarying experience, was this always true. The will of God was His delight, His meat, His one and only passion; and that as surely in His death as in His life. Therefore, to quote Peter: "It was not possible that He should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24) (that is, death). The measure in which, through His infinite grace, we are enabled to say in very truth, "We have no good beyond Thee," is the measure in which—whatever the perils opposing us, or the apparent calamities overtaking us—we may also be confident in the deliverance of God. In life, and all its experiences, through death itself, we shall be delivered and brought to His presence, in which is fullness of joy, and to His right hand, where are pleasures forevermore (Jude 24 and many more).