Psalm 17, Part 2: Raise Me Up

David knew Jesus Christ as his Redeemer and had explicit faith in His ability to preserve and protect his life. Many in David’s time, and even today, find their sense of fulfillment in material possessions. “With respect to the object for which they live, the wicked are successful. They live only for this world, and are prosperous in the things of this world. The future life is not in their thinking. They have forfeited eternal satisfaction for merely temporal gratification. Herein lies a partial answer to one of the deepest questions of philosophy: ‘Why do the wicked prosper?’ Their prosperity is but for the moment of this fleeting life; it is therefore inconsequential compared with the eternal prosperity of the righteous.” David realized life was fleeting and that the things attained in this world are temporary.

Job learned this lesson when all his earthly wealth was removed, and he was left destitute of this world’s treasure. Yet Job and David knew where their treasure was stored up, and it was not here on earth. “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25, 26). David also believed in the resurrection of the righteous at the second coming of the Lord. “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Psalm 17:15). “Instead of envying the transient pleasures of the wicked, the psalmist longs for the joy of seeing God face to face.” “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). “Face to face with Christ my Savior, / Face to face, what will it be, / When with rapture I behold Him, / Jesus Christ, who died for me?”