Bird's-eye view
Psalm 116 is a towering testimony to the grace of answered prayer. The psalmist has been brought to the very brink of death, entangled in the cords of Sheol, and in his distress, he called upon the name of the Lord. And the Lord, who is gracious and righteous, heard him and delivered him. These two verses, 10 and 11, sit in the heart of his response after that deliverance. They are a raw and honest reflection on the nature of faith in the midst of overwhelming trouble. The psalmist confesses his faith, a faith that spoke even when it felt like everything was falling apart. This is followed immediately by a confession of his frailty, a cry of desperation that indicts all of humanity. It is a striking juxtaposition: steadfast belief in God, and a profound disillusionment with man. Paul picks up on the first part of this in the New Testament, making it a motto for the Christian ministry: "I believed, and so I spoke." This passage, then, gives us a snapshot of the Christian life, a life of faith that speaks, even when surrounded by affliction and the universal wreckage of human unreliability.
Outline
- 1. The Testimony of Faith in Trial (v. 10)
- a. Faith That Speaks (v. 10a)
- b. Faith Amidst Affliction (v. 10b)
- 2. The Cry of Desperation (v. 11)
- a. A Hasty Declaration (v. 11a)
- b. A True Declaration (v. 11b)
Context In Psalms
This psalm is one of the "Egyptian Hallel" psalms (113-118), which were traditionally sung during the Passover feast. This context is monumentally significant. As Jesus and His disciples were observing the Passover on the night He was betrayed, it is almost certain that they sang this very psalm. This places the psalmist's words about affliction, death, and deliverance into the immediate context of Christ's own passion. The psalmist's deliverance from the cords of death becomes a type, a foreshadowing, of Christ's resurrection. The cup of salvation he vows to lift (v. 13) points to the cup of the new covenant. And the psalmist's cry here in verses 10 and 11 reflects the agony of a man surrounded by death, just as our Lord was in Gethsemane, surrounded by the unfaithfulness of even his closest friends.
Clause-by-Clause Commentary
v. 10 I believed when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.”
The psalmist begins with a declaration of faith. But notice the kind of faith it is. This is not a detached, academic belief. This is a faith that speaks. "I believed, therefore I have spoken," as the apostle Paul quotes it in 2 Corinthians 4:13. The speaking is the fruit of the believing. True faith is not a silent, internal affair; it must come out. It confesses, it cries out, it sings, it testifies. This is the very spirit of faith. When you believe God, you will talk like it.
And what did he say? "I am greatly afflicted." This is crucial. His faith did not manifest as a denial of his circumstances. He didn't say, "I believe, therefore I will pretend I am not in agony." No, his faith gave him the courage to speak the truth about his situation while still holding onto God. This is not the prosperity gospel. This is biblical realism. Faith is not a shield from affliction, but a shield in affliction. He believed God even when he was at the bottom of the barrel, and his belief was expressed in an honest cry to God from that place. He was not afflicted because his faith was weak; his faith was strong enough to be honest about his affliction.
v. 11 I said in my alarm, “All men are liars.”
Here we see the other side of the coin. In the midst of his great affliction, the psalmist makes a sweeping, desperate statement. The Hebrew indicates this was said "in his haste" or "in his alarm." He was panicked. He was at the end of his rope, and in that state, he looked around at the landscape of humanity and saw nothing but falsehood and failure. Perhaps men had made promises to him and had broken them. Perhaps he had looked for help and found none. In his distress, he concludes that the whole lot of them are unreliable.
Now, was this an overstatement born of panic? Yes, the text says it was spoken "in alarm." It was a cry of anguish, not a carefully formulated theological treatise. And yet, is it not, in another sense, profoundly true? Apart from the grace of God, what is man? Jeremiah tells us the heart is deceitful above all things. Paul, in Romans 3, quoting the Psalms, says "let God be true but every man a liar." So the psalmist, in his extremity, stumbles upon a foundational truth of human depravity. His hasty generalization contains a kernel of profound theological insight. Men will fail you. Systems will fail you. Your own heart will fail you. Everyone is a liar compared to the truthfulness of God.
And this is where the gospel shines brightest. In his affliction, the psalmist lashed out at men. But how did God deliver him? God sent a Man to save him. God's ultimate answer to the universal unfaithfulness of mankind was to send a Man who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The statement "All men are liars" finds its great exception in the man Christ Jesus. The psalmist's cry of despair becomes the backdrop for the glorious reliability of our Savior.
Application
There are two great lessons for us here. First, we must learn to have a faith that speaks honestly. Too many Christians think faith means putting on a plastic smile when their world is caving in. The psalmist teaches us otherwise. Faith speaks the truth. "Lord, I believe, and I am greatly afflicted. I am in a world of hurt." God is big enough to handle your honest prayers. He invites them. As Paul says, this is the "spirit of faith", we believe, and therefore we speak. We speak of our hope, and we speak of our hurts, laying it all before the one who is faithful.
Second, we must ground our ultimate hope in God alone. The psalmist's panic-induced cry that "all men are liars" is a necessary disillusionment for every believer. You will be let down by others. Pastors, friends, spouses, children, they are all finite and fallen. If your ultimate trust is in any human being, you are building your house on the sand. This is not a call to cynicism, but to realism. We are to love people, forgive people, and work with people. But our anchor must be cast in heaven. When you are greatly afflicted, you will discover, as the psalmist did, that every human support will eventually buckle. And that is a severe mercy, because it forces you to lean with all your weight on the only one who cannot fail, the Lord Jesus Christ, the truth incarnate.