This psalm is a personal song of praise of David’s that rises from the context of grief and woe. We spent a good portion of last year studying the life of David, and we know he had many occasions when he could say there were men who sought his life. It is very likely that he wrote this at the time of Absalom’s rebellion, given his reference to his iniquity and the fact that perhaps much of what he is suffering here is on account of God’s judgment of him. It was a time

of great trouble. On the other side, it is dedicated to the chief musician. It was designed for public singing. Sometimes we have the notion that in

a public service only praise and joy should be heard, but this song, meant

not only to vent David’s struggles but also to edify God’s people, speaks of dire difficulties as well. Significantly, Jeremiah’s complaints borrow from the language of this psalm, and Jesus Christ, Himself, in the last breath from His body on the cross, breathes out verse 5 of this psalm: "Into thy hand I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). So we know the experiences David gives here, while they may have certain trappings of his era, are nonetheless the experiences common to many of God’s saints. It tells me that prayer and praise should be honest, not just an escape from reality. We do well to face life for what it is, lest we drift into worshiping a God who heals only imaginary hurts and wins only fictional battles.

What is it then that keeps this psalm from being merely a dirge, lamenting the woes and troubles of life? I believe it is the same element that makes it suitable meditation for us who have entered a new year full of promise, but at the same time full of pain as well. The phrase that caught my eye was verse 15: "My times are in thy hand." You note the word "times" is in the plural. It speaks of the variety of circumstances and experiences of life with all its ups and downs. Our lives at times seem to be foundering on the rocks, but they are in fact held and directed by God’s hand. Twice in this psalm you have reference to committing ourselves to the hand of God: verse 15, "My times are in thy hand," and in verse 5, "Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou has redeemed me, O LORD God of truth."

I would like to talk to you this evening about "The Haven of God’s Hand." First, note with me, that it is a place of security. God’s hand is a place of security, and this is the dominant theme of this psalm. There is much that threatens the psalmist: his very life is at risk, and there are many that hate him. In verses 1 and 2: "In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defense to save me." And then in verse 4: "Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily (or secretly) for me: for thou art my strength." We have already read verses 9 through 16, now look at verse 22: "For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee." Finally, verse 24: "Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD."

With all of the troubles of life, and the trials that it may bring, the greatest struggle for us who believe in God is not the trouble itself or the pain it brings, but what my going through such a trial means as far as who God is and what His attitude to me is. The natural human response is found in verse 22: "I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes." That is exactly the way we feel whenever trouble comes our way. We ask ourselves, "How could God be so cruel?" and "If there is a God, would He allow such a thing?" or "If God is not cruel, and if there is a God, maybe there is something so wrong with me that He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore as He has allowed such a thing in my life." "I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes," but then the response of faith in God’s reliability: "nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee."

Prayer is the language of the soul who has found he has to trust in God and not in himself, who hope in God’s goodness and does not despair on account of dire circumstances. The circumstances may be insurmountable, but this soul sees a God who is omnipotent. "Be of good courage," verse 24 tells us. Why? "He shall strengthen your heart." What is the underlying prerequisite? "All ye that hope in the LORD." You fasten your hopes and your dreams, your goals, on God’s character, then you fasten them on God’s plan for you, and then you can take good courage, because then you have bedrock to base your life on, and from that courage God will continue to strengthen your heart.

Alexander Maclaren has well said, "The measure of your confidence is the measure of your tranquility." The more I learn to trust the Lord, the more at peace I am — no matter what is happening to me, no matter what may lie ahead. One of things about "new years" is that they offer us great promise and we are excited about the possibilities, but there is also this nagging doubt about what might happen that is bad. Every time your child gets sick, every time the bank account gets a little low, every time you get one of those late night phone calls and you wonder "am I going to lose one that I love or something that is valuable to me." Yet the more I trust in the Lord, the more courageous I can be. In the words of verse 5, "Into thy hand I commit my spirit." It is like turning over our life into God’s hand to be held in trust or deposit where it can be safely kept free from all danger and distress. It is a place of security: the haven of God’s hand.

Secondly, I want you to note it is a place of surrender. For you see to be in the hand of God, to be in someone’s hand, speaks of ownership and of control. When I place my life in God’s hand, it means self-will, self-reliance and self-determination all contradict that action of committing my soul and my times to God. In the second part of verse 3, we read, "for thy name’s sake lead me and guide me." For God’s name’s sake. God glorifies Himself by meeting the need of the one who yields to His guidance and care. It doesn’t make sense not to follow the guide. It doesn’t make sense not to follow the lead of the one who knows the path. In fact, to do otherwise suggests a certain arrogance and a certain foolishness that does not bode well for your future. "Lead me and guide me" and then it is up to God to come through. "For thy name’s sake."

It is interesting that David brings up his iniquity. Sometimes when difficult circumstances come our way, sometimes when we deal with certain kinds of suffering, we know that what we are suffering is the result of sin that we have committed against the Lord. Do you realize that God does not forsake you even then? In fact, His judgment on your life is evidence of His love for you. It is proof that you are a true child of God. I only spank the child that is mine, and I spank him because I love him and want him to learn to obey. God spanks His children; He disciplines them. If I have drifted out of God’s will and God sees it necessary to bring hard circumstances into my life, that is not evidence that He has abandoned me, that is evidence that He is taking special care. Yet so often in dealing with those going through difficult circumstances, they give up all hope because they say, "It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t committed this sin, if I hadn’t walked out of God’s path of duty for me, I would never be experiencing this." That may be so, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t care about you. That does not mean God does not consider it to His glory to rescue you and to bring you through it. "For thy name’s sake."

When you consider very accurately from a theological perspective how deeply ingrained sin is, there is never a point at which we are so removed from sin that God could not find some reason not to rescue us. It is when you "regard iniquity in your heart" that God will not hear your prayer, it is not when there is no iniquity there because we can never be totally purged from it — not until we have our resurrection bodies. For me to think that somehow my sin, my past sin, my weaknesses, my frailty, etc., is going to keep God from caring about me, is going back to a kind of "works/righteousness" salvation, and that is not the salvation that God deals in. "For thy name’s sake, lead me." "Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth" — words of Christ from the cross when He delivered His spirit up in death, and words that have become those of other saints of God as they lay upon their deathbeds.

It is interesting in study of this passage, I have found that Polycarp, Bernard of Clairvaux, John Huss, Jerome of Prague (who was a disciple of John Huss), Luther, Malancthon, and many others spoke these words at their death. In fact, Luther said: "Blessed are they who die, not only for the Lord as martyrs, not only in the Lord as all believers, but likewise with the Lord as breathing forth their lives in these words, ‘Into thine hand I commit my spirit.’" John Wesley said in his last words, "And best of all is that He is with us."

If you look at this psalm, you will find that the words "Into thine hand I commit my spirit" are spoken in their original context not at death, but in life. He is delivering up his spirit, his most valuable possession — that which is him — in life. In other words, the believer may meet both life and death — opposite extremes — with the same kind of attitude: "Into thine hand I commit my spirit." Whether I live, or whether I die, I am the Lord’s. It does not separate me from Him. It does not change the fact if I live for Him or die for Him: "Into thine hand I commit my spirit."

Peter says in 1 Peter 4:19: "let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." Here again is the surrender. When I place my soul into God’s hand, I not only place it there for safekeeping, I place it there for Him to guide me and lead me. I place it there in submission to His perfect will. Romans 12:1 and 2 gives us the same idea when it says we are to give ourselves as "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." What does that mean? It means you consecrate your entire life to Him just as a priest in the Old Testament would give his entire life to service of worship in the temple. He says, your service of worship, "your reasonable service" your liturgy before God, is to give your body — to give yourself — to God as a sacrifice, to consecrate twenty-four hours a day to Him. Waking, sleeping, talking, being silent, eating, drinking, when you rise up, when you lie down, when you live, or when you die, commit your spirit to the Lord "for thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth." Or the New Testament puts it this way, "You are bought with a price, you are not your own," or "You are a people of God’s own possession."

It is a strange thing that the God of Heaven would consider you and me a treasure, but the Bible says He does. It says He considers us "a peculiar people." (We say, "Yeah, I’ve met a lot of strange ducks in churches." No, that is not what it means; it means a rare people, a people to treasure.) God treasures you if you belong to Him. It is an amazing thought, but God says it is so. God has bought us out of the slave market of sin; He has redeemed us, and therefore it makes sense to surrender to Him. The fact is that anyone who sets himself against the will and the honor of God does so at certain peril to himself. To refuse to surrender to God’s hand, whether you are a believer or an unbeliever, is to lose the security that you find in His hand as well. Hebrews says, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God" (Hebrews 10:31). We run against the will of God to our own peril.

Daniel said to Belshazzar on the last night of the young desolate king’s life (Daniel 5:22, 23), "O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; (that is, the history regarding how God had humbled Nebuchadnezzar years before) but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified." Then there is record of the handwriting on the wall (verses 26 through 28): "MENE: God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES: Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." That very night he was slaughtered as the Medes and Persians took over the capital city. Thy breath is in His hand.

Man may think he has free rein of his life. He may jerk the reins of his life away from God. He may say, "I want to run my own life," but you can’t escape God that way — he will escape the blessing of God, but he won’t escape God. "For every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). Everyone has to deal with God at some point. The only wise thing, the only thing that makes any sense at all, is to find haven in His hand — to find security there and to surrender there as well. Otherwise, I am among those, as verse 6 describes,"that regard lying vanities." That is a description of idols, the gods of wood and stone, of silver and gold: men who make gods of their riches and their persons, their intellect and their wits — of themselves — anything but the true God. Those are "lying vanities." What does that mean? It means that anything that I consider more important than God, anything I serve more than God, I have devoted myself to something that is like the wind — something that can’t possibly produce the trust that I am putting into it. It is going to be dissatisfying. It is only in God, the Infinite One, that I am going to find the kind of payback that I want for yielding to Him. Your spirit is your true treasure. It is that which you take with you, and yet how much time and effort you and I will waste this year on what will burn up.

We have to spend time on a lot of things that are going to be burned up, don’t we? But it does us well at the beginning of a year to truly consider whether our time, our efforts and our interests, our focus and our aims in life are lined up with what will not burn up. Yes, there is much we have to do that will be gone with this life, but there is so much we can do if we put a premium on spiritual riches. Don’t let the temporal rob you of the eternal. Don’t let the trivial supplant the supremely important, and don’t let what is good leave no room for what is best. The haven of His hand is a place of surrender.

Finally, the haven of His hand is a place also of satisfaction. God gives us every reason to be satisfied in Him. Notice in verse one: "In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness." "Let me never be ashamed"— he repeats those words in verse 17: "Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for I have called upon thee." What is he saying there? Basically when you stake your life on someone’s reliability, and you do so in the face of those who mock you for doing so, then that someone in whom you have placed your trust has to come through or you are made the fool.

Let me ask you something tonight. Can you stake your life on God? Can you put all your marbles in His basket? Are you willing to stick your neck out for Him? There may be a day when you have to stick your neck out to the point of risking your very life. At this point, it probably means giving your life (not necessarily risking your life), but are you willing to do that? If you are not, the second question is: To what are you going to commit your life? For what will you risk your life that is a better investment, that is a safer plan? "Let me never be ashamed." It is a place of satisfaction because no matter how the years roll, no matter how far into eternity you may voyage, you will never be sorry for what you gave to God. Think about it! You will never be sorry for committing yourself to Him. You will "never be ashamed."

Look at verse 19: "Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!" Two things I want you to note, and they are opposite extremes: goodness laid up and goodness wrought. Goodness laid up: you cannot exhaust God’s blessing, there is always more stored up for you. Sometimes we get the feeling we have used up all of God’s blessing in our life. Have you ever had a good period of life and then entered a dark time and you say, "I wonder if I just used up all of God’s blessing." (Have you ever felt that way before? I have.) He has goodness stored up. He is not broke. He may decide to keep it in the bank a little longer, but it is stored up for you, and on the other hand there is also goodness wrought — that is goodness that has already been done, that has been proven. God never asks us to just conjecture that He is good; He has already worked good toward us. He is good by our experience, not just in theory.

This is one of the big problems I have with modern theology in that it seeks to separate matters of faith from matters of life. They say these things in the Bible are great stories; they never really happened in history, but they teach wonderful eternal truths. The problem is that I live, not in that fogbank of wonderful truths, I live in the grid and grit of now — I live in history, and I need a God that will meet my needs that are material and that are here and now, not just in some mystical high. I need a God who touches my life in history. God never asked us to believe that He is good, or that He is loving, or that He is wonderful, without proving it. Some people will say, after they have done you dirty, "Well, God knows my heart." In other words, "Don’t look at my life, don’t look at my actions, don’t listen to my words, God knows my heart. I’m basically a good person." God says that person is self-deceived, or he is a deceiver. God judges Himself by the same standard. God doesn’t just say, "Believe that I’m good and believe that I’m righteous and believe that I’m just and believe that I’m holy,"— He proves it; He demonstrates it. He doesn’t just say, "I love you, I love you very much," and then fail to demonstrate it. No, He has proved it. Goodness wrought. Our God has more goodness stored up, and He has wrought good in our own personal histories.

In verse 21, "Blessed be the LORD: for He hath showed me His marvelous kindness in a strong city." That word marvelous is one of the words for miracles — it speaks of the astonishing nature of miracles — and kindness is a special word God uses, often translated loving kindness or mercy— it speaks of the loving loyalty that God has for His people; it is based on His relationship to them, but it issues in kind deeds. He has shown me miraculous kindness, miraculous loving loyalty. He has demonstrated it. The haven of His hand is a place of satisfaction.

Finally, verse 23, "O love the LORD, all ye His saints (Love the Lord, because He first loved you): for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer." Therefore, love the Lord, all His saints. In the words of Spurgeon, "Believing love is not blind love. For God gives us every reason to love Him, and that love then breaks forth in adoration, and adoration is the very soul of worship." Be joyful in the Lord this year. Be satisfied in Him, for "the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10). Again from the prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, in commenting upon this psalm and the fact that our times are in His hands: "We are not waifs and strays upon the ocean of fate, but are steered by infinite wisdom towards our desired haven." Put yourself in the haven of God’s hand. It is the haven you will never have to leave if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.

We are not orphans; we are children of God; and if earthly fathers care for their children, how much more our heavenly father, as the psalmist tells us in Psalm 103:13, "pitieth them that fear Him." Last night I got my final illustration as my son was up coughing throughout the night, and usually Saturday nights I toss and turn wrestling with whatever the sermons are for the next morning and evening and my dreams intertwine with what is coming up for Sunday. I got to thinking of poor little Matthew coughing in there, and when children are ill or hurting, I can’t imagine a parent who would not gladly trade places with them; and I began to wonder if God really cares about us that much. You know what the answer is? The answer is absolutely yes! Because He did take our place when He died upon the cross for our sins. You can trust a God like that. You can love a God like that. You can surrender and be secure and satisfied with a God like that. You can find haven in His hand.

My question for you this evening is very simple: Have you put your soul in the hand in the One in whom your times are? God knows you. God created you. He knows your needs; He knows your potential; He knows the dangers to your soul; He knows the good things He has planned for you. The question is whether you have found haven in His hand — whether you have found your security in Him — whether you have surrendered to His control — whether you have ceased trying to find satisfaction somewhere else, and instead, have come to the living waters, have drunk deep, and have found the satisfaction that is found only in God. I wonder if this evening as we have looked at this psalm, and as you have thought about your own life and your relationship to God, whether you have realized in being absolutely honest that you do not really have that kind of relationship with God — you are not really sure where you stand with Him — you don’t really know that you have committed yourself to Him in this way, but you would like to. You would like to find this kind of haven. If you have a need that you would like to talk to someone about, there are those here who would be glad to talk to you, pray with you, and open the Word of God to you.