My soul is continually in my hand:
Yet do I not forget thy law.
The wicked have laid a snare for me:
Yet I erred not from thy precepts (Psa 119.109-110).
Since the beginning of the world, some of the greatest saints have been soldiers. The popular assumption that following Jesus requires pacifism is, in general, greatly mistaken. The military is an honorable calling, and there is such a thing as a just war. Greatly influencing Christian thought ever since, Augustine taught that “war should be fought to secure justice and to reestablish peace.”1 Military commanders are sometimes portrayed in Scripture as men of commendable religion and principle. John the Baptist counseled soldiers to do their jobs well with justice and integrity, and to be content with their wages—not to abandon their military service (Luke 3.14). The soldier is an extension of the state’s authority; like other government officials, he bears the sword for the good of the nation (Rom 13.4). Indeed, the Lord God himself is “a man of war” (Exod 15.3).
David was one of the most godly warriors who ever lived. From his youth he was so identified. Early in his life, he was recommended to King Saul as “a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters [speech, ESV], and a comely person [“a man of good presence,” ESV], and the LORD is with him” (1 Sam 16.18).
In this text, David speaks of his perennial danger in this life and his constant devotion to the Lord and his Word. In this he was a type of Jesus Christ and also an example for Christians.
MY PERIL
We have taken two verses together for this study because they so aptly illumine each other. There is a correspondence between the two first lines, and another between the two second lines. It is also important to note the relationship between the first and second line in each verse.
First, David says, “My soul is continually in my hand.” This is a biblical expression that means, “I am always risking my life,”2 and in David’s case, this risk was quite literal and at times very great. Recalling David’s great bravery in slaying the giant Goliath, Jonathan said, “He did put his life in his hand, and slew the Philistine, and the Lord wrought a great salvation for all Israel” (1 Sam 19.5). Likewise Jephthah testified of his valor in conflict, “And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand” (Judg 12.3).
“Soul” here is equivalent to “life,” as it stands for his survival in this world. To put one’s life in his hand is to make oneself vulnerable to having that life taken away, since things in the hand are less secure than in a locked box, for example, and one’s earthly life is indeed a treasure to be valued.
When I was a boy, my parents gave me a chameleon for a pet. Most of the time I kept it in a terrarium but one day I took it outside for fun. I have the clearest recollection of running beside my house with that lizard in my hand. I loved it so much but I did not realize the great risk to which I was subjecting it. Sure enough, it slipped out of my hand while I was bounding down the sidewalk, and try as I might, I could not avoid stepping on the little thing. Needless to say, that was the tragic end of that particular chameleon. My parents gave me another whose accidental fate was even worse, but I had learned not to run with a chameleon in my hand.
Why was David’s life so often at risk? He testifies, “The wicked have laid a snare [trap] for me.” David had literal, human enemies that would like nothing better than to kill him on the battlefield or to assassinate him. As an older man, David lacked the strength, skill, and speed that made warfare a responsible venture for him personally, and after he had to be saved by another soldier, his beloved fellow warriors urged his retirement from the front lines (2 Sam 21.15-17).
Brave young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan can relate directly to daily peril of their very lives, but most of us are spared such unnerving service. Still, all Christians are engaged in spiritual warfare with more dangerous enemies than mortal. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6.12). “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5.8).
I am afraid the average Christian does not take this reality nearly seriously enough, but it was deeply impressed on me lately by Calvin’s teaching.
In order that we may be aroused and exhorted all the more to carry this out, Scripture makes known that there are not one, not two, nor a few foes, but great armies, which wage war against us. For Mary Magdalene is said to have been freed from seven demons by which she was possessed, and Christ bears witness that usually after a demon has once been cast out, if you make room for him again, he will take with him seven spirits more wicked than he and return to his empty possession. Indeed, a whole legion is said to have assailed one man. We are therefore taught by these examples that we have to wage war against an infinite number of enemies, lest, despising their fewness, we should be too remiss to give battle, or, thinking that we are sometimes afforded some respite, we should yield to idleness.3
Spiritually if not physically, we are all constantly in peril, and we must act like principled soldiers to survive.
MY PERSEVERANCE
The second lines in each verse amount to the same thing in meaning. “Yet do I not forget thy law. . . . Yet I erred not from thy precepts.” In the first second line, forgetfulness in the Hebrew way of thinking is not merely intellectual, but includes the idea of acting in such a way as if the commandments were forgotten—that is, to live a lawless, immoral life. This connection between remembrance and obedience is clear in Proverbs 3.1, “My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments,” and God’s ancient warning to his people freed from Egyptian bondage and on the borders of the Promised Land, “Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day” (Deut 8.11).
The second second line implies the familiar biblical metaphor of God’s precepts being a straight and narrow pathway, and to “err” from them is to turn to one’s own way instead of complying in heart and conduct with God’s revealed will in Scripture. “I do not stray from your precepts” (ESV). This is David’s honest testimony of sincere faith and consistent obedience to God’s Word. It implies that initial faith in the Lord is not adequate for a life of principled obedience which requires fresh exercises of faith to be repeated daily, even moment by moment. Not all who seem to start well end well. Church history is littered with souls eternally ruined through their neglect to watch and pray.
And this is the very means God used to preserve David spiritually—his perseverance despite all hindrances and obstacles. His life was often at risk, but he kept close to his sword and to his religion. He never saw in the dangerous circumstances anything sufficient to justify any compromise of the righteousness required by God’s Word. Nor did their ridicule and threats and terrible example succeed in drawing that holy king from his general course of godly leadership according to Scripture. One scholar has paraphrased verse 110, “The wicked do their best to throw me off track, but I don’t swerve an inch from your course.”
What a sterling example and sober warning to us! Are we not easily lured from the highway of holiness? Do we not rationalize and excuse our disobedience to the plainest biblical standards by our supposedly special circumstances? I cannot tell you how many times in pastoral counseling I have heard this sentiment in one form or another: “Oh, but Pastor, you don’t understand what I am going through. Surely you cannot expect me to do that [i.e., follow biblical counsel] in my particular situation!” And this talk from professing Christians, many of whom are probably really saved. For the moment, I know they are quite out of their minds, and this is not their true and fundamentally-renewed character.
Notice the repetition of the word “yet” and what it implies. Even though my life is continually at risk, I do not forget your law. Even though the wicked set traps for me, I keep walking in the path you lay out before me in your Word.
Friends, if even battlefield exigencies, when life itself was vulnerably exposed, did not justify any compromise of God’s righteous law, how much less our daily and typically less threatening problems! Let us stop making any excuses for sin in our lives.You cannot be too scrupulous in your obedience to God. There is no possible situation when it is ever right to leave off your biblical duty, or to transgress the moral bounds established by God’s Word.
The irony of all this is that strict obedience to God is the soul’s safest path. As Bunyan’s Christian kept the the narrow, lighted pathway between two ferocious lions as he approached Interpreter’s house,4 so the believer will enter heavenly glory safest following our Lord Jesus the Man of War, and God’s perfectly obedient Soldier. Amen.
Notes:
1. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, “The Just War,” 1153.
2. “I am always ready to risk my life” (GNB) is a good paraphrase, if a little weakened by the insertion of “ready to,” but admittedly, all David’s days were not as perilous as when King Saul persecuted him, when he wrote, “There is but a step between me and death” (1 Sam 20.3).
3. Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.XIV.13.
4. The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part I, The Second Stage.