448_Pleasures at His right hand Psalm 16 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. 2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” 3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. 4 The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. 5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. 6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. 7 I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. 8 I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. 10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. 11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Many years ago, the famous missionary Jim Elliot wrote in his journal, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” And he did. At the age of 28, Jim Elliot was killed by the very tribe he sought to reach with the gospel. But his story didn’t end in a jungle clearing in Ecuador. It lives on in the testimony of a man who found joy in doing the will of God. It lives on in the testimony of scores of people from that tribe who came to know and love the Lord that Jim Elliot obeyed. He looked forward, not to the highest offerings of this world, but to the pleasures of being in God’s presence forever. Psalm 16 is not the cry of a desperate man clinging to survival, but a joyful hymn of undiluted praise, from one who has tasted something better than life itself. David may have written this psalm in a time of difficulty—he opens with a plea, “Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge”—but his tone makes this a song of delight. For he knew, as Jim Elliot knew, that fullness of joy is in doing the will of God. David begins by saying, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” The NKJV puts it even more strikingly: “My goodness is nothing apart from You.” David, a king, a warrior, a poet, traces all that is good in his life and in his heart to the Divine presence. The Spirit’s fruit is goodness, originating not in our sinful decisions but in the fear of the Lord. Goodness is fruited as we turn away from loving our own will to delighting in His. This fact creates a deep bond between God's people. “As for the saints in the land,” he says, “they