Thanksgiving for Deliverance from Death
“I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”
Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed, therefore I spoke, “I am greatly afflicted.” I said in my haste, “All men are liars.”
What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.
O Lord, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!”
“I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!” We don’t know who wrote this psalm or what he went through, but it’s obvious that this writer has suffered a great deal. At some point, the writer was so distressed that he expected to die at any moment and could only beg God for help. Miraculously, God answered, and now the psalmist is thanking God.
“Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed, therefore I spoke, “I am greatly afflicted.” I said in my haste, “All men are liars.” Suffering can cause us to become bitter and cynical. Too much suffering can leave us feeling that we are at the bottom of a deep pit so deep we can’t even see a way out. In such circumstances, we rapidly lose perspective until someone gives us a hand and helps us out of the pit.
“What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” While the psalmist was hurting, he made extravagant promises to God; now it’s time to act on those promises. But even if the psalmist had died, he asserts that God would have cared for him even in his death.
“O Lord, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!” It’s possible that the psalmist’s plight was common knowledge; now that he has been delivered, he needs to be as public with his gratitude as he was with his suffering.
APPLICATION: I love this particular psalm for a number of its verses, but particularly for the verse “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” My late mother and I had a very close emotional bond to the point that if something bad was happening to one of us, the other could sense it. In early 1980, I was in surgery residency in Charleston, WV, 700 miles away from my family; yet, I kept feeling that something terrible was going on. Little wonder then, that when one of my brothers and his wife called in mid-March describing my mother’s physical deterioration, I was in despair. I prayed all that night, and in the morning, I knew three things: I knew my mother had cancer, I knew she was going to die soon, but I also knew that somehow God was in this.
I called and made an appointment for Mom at my former medical school clinic and then I called Mom and informed her she was going. When the doctors saw Mom, they realized she was very sick and admitted her immediately for tests. Those were the days when patients remained in the hospital during testing. Nine days later, part of Mom’s right lung collapsed on the same day when they detected small cell lung cancer from her bone marrow.
That afternoon, I had gone to a dentist’s appointment and was entering my apartment when the phone began ringing. Dad was calling me to inform me the situation was deteriorating. I quickly made reservations to fly to Atlanta and on to Chicago and then called my brother in Athens, Georgia. My brother and his wife were just entering their home; because I was desperate, I let the phone continue to ring long enough for them to pick up and God allowed the phone to ring longer than it would have normally. We made plans to meet in Atlanta and to fly to Chicago.
My sister-in-law was from a Chicago suburb, and her parents met us at O’Hare Airport with a car stocked with coffee and sandwiches. We drove straight through from Chicago to Iowa City, where we stayed in the same motel as my dad and my brother and his wife. The following day, we all visited Mom in the hospital, but we couldn’t understand why she kept telling us she loved us. Mom sensed something we did not. By the day after that, Mom lapsed into coma, dying four days later without ever waking up again. Later we learned that Mom’s cancer had been making its own steroids, depressing her immune system and allowing her to develop brain abscesses from two different fungi commonly found on farms. Mom died quickly because of the brain abscesses. Mom entered the hospital on March 18th and died on April 3rd . We buried her on Easter Sunday.
There were so many ways this story could have gone very wrong. There were no cell phones in those days, and I might have missed Dad’s call or my brother might have missed my call. We might not have gotten plane reservations quickly or on the same flight. We don’t understand why Mom had to die at that time; however, we remain grateful to God for allowing us to see her while she was conscious. And there is one more part to the story, a part I can scarcely write about without weeping, even now.
I was with Mom the night she was dying. I was singing to Mom and telling her I loved her yet again. Suddenly, I had a vivid mental picture. I could see Mom walking away from me accompanied by a tall figure in a white robe, and her hair was the length and color it had been when she was young. In the distance, I could see a stream and beyond that stream, a lush valley surrounded by tall mountains. The air smelled and felt like a fragrant day in late May or early June when roses were blooming. Coming across the meadow toward the stream was Jesus. Jesus gathered the skirts of his robe up to wade across the stream, then he embraced my mother, and at that point, she took her last breath on earth.
A few months later, I described that scene to a Sunday School class in Charleston, WV. As I was completing my description, one lady began hopping up and down in excitement. “That’s exactly what I saw the night my husband died!” this lady exclaimed. Both this lady and I felt validated that we had not been making things up to comfort ourselves, but did we see reality? I believe that God in His infinite mercy allowed us to see something we could apprehend and that the reality was too wonderful for us to grasp. God communicated to both of us in vivid mental pictures how much He values the death of His saints.
Think about it: if you were a parent and your kids had been serving in the military for a long time, you would be thrilled when they finally returned and you knew you would never be separated from them again. You would never have to depend on long distance phone calls or the internet to talk with your kids. God longs for fellowship with us, but communications can be faulty or sporadic at best. For God, the death of one of His saints means His child is coming home to be with Him forever.
Each of us will die someday, but what happens after that? The Bible assures us that if we believe in God, if we trust Him, and if we serve Him, we will be with Him in heaven forever, not because we deserve it but because He is loving and gracious and merciful. The only reason we will not have to pay for our sins is because Jesus has already shed his blood on the cross at Calvary for our sins. But we must believe that Jesus has made that blood sacrifice for us.
God knows our hearts better than we do. Today is the only day we have; why not confess that we are sinners, accepting that blood sacrifice, and assuring a place in heaven forever?
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, we confess that we are sinners and nothing we can do will pay for our sins. Thank You for sending Jesus to die for our sins. We accept that blood sacrifice and we promise to trust You and to serve You for the rest of our lives. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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