Rock of Ages

[00:00:01] Our Lord, we thank you that we can come to you not only as our great king, but as our Father, and that you desire to hear the prayers of your children and to answer them as we pray, according to your will. And through our mediator, the only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray also in the Spirit, having been united to him through the Spirit. It as those who know how to pray and be in our learning how to pray, and even when we don't. And we struggle with words, we struggle to express things as we want to or as we ought to. We thank you that you are interceding for us, that you know what we need before we ask, and that you give more than we even imagined to ask for. [00:00:49] You're so gracious, so faithful and so wonderful. [00:00:54] Please bless us now we pray in the reading and preaching of your words encourage our hearts and the knowledge of you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:01:07] Let's turn to Psalm 18. [00:01:15] Thank you. [00:01:34] Psalm 18 to the choir Master. A psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord. On the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul, he said, I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. [00:02:11] The cords of death encompassed me. The torrents of destruction assailed me. The cords of Sheol entangled me. The snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord to my God. I cried for help from his temple. He heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked the foundations. Also the mountain. The foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked. Because he was angry. Smoke went up from his nostrils and devouring fire from his mouth. Glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub and fleW. He came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering his canopy. Around him, thick clouds dark with water. Out of the brightness before him, hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the most high uttered his voice. Hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows and scattered them and flashed forth lightnings and routed them. Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare. At your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils he sent from on high, he took me, he drew me out of many waters, he rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. [00:03:53] He brought me out into a broad place, he rescued me because he delighted in me. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and I have not wet not, and I have not wickedly departed from my God, for all his rules were before me, his statutes I did not put away from me, I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. So the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. [00:04:27] With the merciful you show yourself merciful. With the blameless man you show yourself blameless, with the purified you show yourself pure, and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous, for you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down, for it is you who light my lamp, the Lord my God lightens my darkness, for by you I can run against any troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord proves true, he is a shield for all who take refuge in him. [00:05:05] But who is God but the Lord and who is a rock except our God? The God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless, he made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me and your gentleness made me great, you gave a wide place for my steps under me and my feet did not slip. I pursued my enemies and overtook them and did not turn back till they were consumed. I thrust them through so that they were not able to rise, they fell under my feet, for you equipped me with strength for the battle. You made those who rise against me sink under me, you made my enemies turn their backs to me, and those who hated me, I destroyed. They cried for help, but there was none to save. They cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them. I beat them fine as dust before the wind, I cast them out like the mire of the streets. You delivered me from strife with the people. You made me the head of nations, people whom I had not known served me. [00:06:21] And as soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me. Foreigners came cringing to me. Foreigners lost hard and came trembling out of their fortresses. The Lord lives and blessed be my rock and exalted be the God of my salvation, the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, who rescued me from my enemies. Yes, you exalted me above all those who rose against me. You delivered me from the man of violence. For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing to your name great salvation he brings to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever. [00:07:07] You may be seated it well. I will not have the pleasure, due to time, of rereading the whole psalm in the sermon as we go, as I've been doing. But we will have the opportunity to reflect on various verses here as we think about this psalm of David and consider the way in which he speaks, in the time in which he speaks. And my prayer is that it is a great encouragement to you, as you remember that this God of David is not just the God of David, but to his offspring, which includes us in this Psalm. We have the Lord presented to us in many strong ways. And what is not entirely apparent at the beginning of the Psalm becomes increasingly apparent throughout. And by the end, it's very clear who's talking. This is David who is announced at the beginning, but David the King, right? Not just David who was in trouble or David who had a problem, or David who needed deliverance, but David who understands his kingship and his life as being in the hands of the Lord. [00:08:39] It probably won't surprise you then to hear or remember that this Psalm is also found almost exactly in two Samuel 22, at the end of largely there, at the very end of the story of David. David speaks, and before his final words and speaks this psalm in that way. PSALM 18 is a commentary not just on a moment of David's life, but it is a commentary in a way of understanding all of David's life and his work and his ministry. [00:09:18] When we think of it that way, what do we learn? [00:09:23] Let's think about this as we walk through the Psalm. [00:09:27] We have in verse one the tone of the Psalm. This is a psalm of praise. He says, I love you, O Lord, my strength. And then at the end, that word you comes up again in verse 48, who rescued me from my enemies. Yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me. David begins and ends the psalm with the Lord in his sight. He's speaking to and praising the Lord. This is a psalm of praise, and one of the great applications of this Psalm is it should lead us to praise as well as we come to understand and trust in David's God. [00:10:10] The thesis, we could say, or his main point, is found in verses two and three. [00:10:17] He says, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge. He gives more descriptions. And then in verse three, he says, I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised. I am saved from my enemies. [00:10:34] So why does he praise the Lord? Well, he's already said it in part. Right. He said, the Lord is his strength. The Lord is his strength. For those of you who've been in our Sunday school classes for the past few months, in the adult Sunday school, we've been talking about the armor of God and what it means to put on the armor of God. And we've reminded ourselves over and over that when we put on the armor of God, we are putting on the armor of God. Right? This is God's armor, an armor and a protection of his making. [00:11:07] It's not our own design. It's not a backyard project that we hope will sort of work out and do well. No, this is God's equipping us and fitting us. We fight in the strength of his might. The Scriptures say, that's so significant, and that's just on full display in this psalm. So if you'd like, you can keep those two passages in Ephesians six, and then here in Psalm 18 in mind. [00:11:36] And what does he say? He says, the Lord is his strength. He describes him in all these strong ways. Rock, fortress, shield, horn, stronghold. And then he says, what is his response to this? He calls upon the Lord. Why? Because he needs salvation and because the Lord is worthy to be praised. [00:11:57] These are two good things to keep in mind separately and together. The Lord is worthy to be praised, even apart from his deliverance of us, even apart from answering this or that particular prayer. At prayer, the Lord is God, and there is none like him. As we see in this psalm, we praise things all the time in life, things that attract our attention. [00:12:22] A big tree. Wow, that's a big tree. A fast car, a well made bicycle, whatever else, a nice suit. We could say, that's good. That's awesome. And we praise these things. We praise character as well. Right? Employees, friends. So gentle, so compassionate. Right? We give compliments, these kind of things. [00:12:45] Well, who deserves more praise than God? [00:12:50] We'll consider that as we continue in this psalm. [00:12:54] But in addition to that, there's a particular reason to praise God, and it is that I am saved from my enemies. Right? Who doesn't want to be saved from their enemies? It is exactly what we want when it comes to our enemies. [00:13:10] In this world, we have temporal enemies from time to time. And we have these perpetual enemies of sin, of death, of the devil, the lies of the world, the temptations that exist, the evil one who's constantly pressing and prowling around like a roaring lion. We have enemies, and they come in different forms. We desire to be saved from them. And Psalm 18 tells us to look to the Lord. [00:13:44] Well, as we continue on, we have then in verse four and five a description of what happened. [00:13:52] David describes himself something like Jonah here, drowning down in death and in destruction, torrents of destruction, the cords of Sheol entangled around him. He's being pulled down, almost tied up and pulled down into death. He sees, he feels like it's all over. This is it. There's no more turning back or no more hope. And so, like Jonah did in that moment when he was drowning in the sea, he calls in his distress upon the Lord. And like Jonah, we have this line that from his temple he heard my voice. [00:14:36] The Lord promises to answer his people from this place of his presence, where he has marked himself and his presence with his people. He says, call to me and I will hear you. Now we remember that the temple itself is not a box that holds God in and contains him. In some way, the Ark of the covenant is just a footstool for God, who sits high above the heavens. Right? But God has marked this place as a place at this time for his people to look and to cry to. It is a reminder that God is present, and indeed he is. Because as we read at the end of verse six, my cry to him reached his ears. [00:15:23] We should never take this for granted or be unappreciative of this fact that when we pray, God hears. It's not just wishing or hoping or self talk or things, just all internal inside of us. [00:15:41] When we pray, when we pray to the Lord, we pray to the true and living God who hears and desires to hear your prayers. What a blessing that is. [00:15:55] That's a particular blessing, because in many times in life, when we find ourselves in points of distress, the resources that are immediately around us are not capable of getting us out of the predicament we're in. Maybe our physical bodies aren't strong enough. Our bank accounts aren't high enough. Maybe the people and the resources that are around us aren't present enough. And when we say, well, where can I turn when all of this around me is not enough, when I'm not enough, what an amazing thing it is to call on the Omnipresent Lord. Wherever we are, in any situation, we can call on him, and he hears us. [00:16:36] David continues on. Then when he tells us how, God responds. So first he talks about his distress and his call. And then in verse six with, we read that the Lord hears. [00:16:49] And then here comes the Lord in verses seven and following through 15, and perhaps a little further, we have this amazing description of God that comes to us in a few different ways. [00:17:05] First, it comes in expressions of what's going on in the earth itself. [00:17:11] When the Lord comes. When the Lord moves, the things that are strongest and most stable start reeling and rocking. Right. The earth reeled and rocked. The foundations also of the mountains trembled. This is how supreme our God is. This is how strong and capable he is when he comes into the earth. When he is angry, the earth quakes. [00:17:37] We have other descriptions of the earth and various natural events going on. Clouds, darkness, hailstones, coals of fire, flashes of lightning coming down the earth, just rocking and exploding with power, not randomly, not accidentally, but because of the powerful one who is coming. [00:18:02] And we hear not only the description of the seen world that we know and experience, but also the unseen world. As we read in verse ten, he rode on the cherub and flew and came swiftly on the wings of the wind of the Spirit. This reminds us of passages in revelation and Ezekiel where God is pictured as riding on this great chariot of angelic beings, going wherever he moves, totally obeying his word and his will. [00:18:41] These mighty hosts of creatures, this host of heaven, the angels, powerful to act, powerful to work, and he commands and controls them. [00:18:54] On the one hand, we see all of these things, and yet we don't ever see him. Another expression of his transcendence. [00:19:03] He rides on these things, but he's covered as well. VERSE ELEVEN. His darkness is his, covering his canopy. Around them, thick clouds, dark with water. And out of the brightness before him, hailstones and coal and fire break through the clouds. [00:19:23] The Voice of the LoRd is Mighty. The Lord is mighty. When he comes. No wonder David is Excited to call upon this Lord, upon this savior. [00:19:37] He calls and the Lord responds. The Lord actS. The LOrd who's great and victorious, who Rides on the clouds, he comes. [00:19:51] The personal effect on him right. So it's sort of this sort of zoomed out picture of Earth and space and all these things happening, and then it zooms in on David in verse 16. [00:20:05] He took me, he drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and those who hated me and those who were too mighty for me. This is an AmazIng thing about God. He has this infinite transCendence, infinitely Higher Than us and separate Than us in every way. And yet He Can CoMe so Close to us as to impact an IndiVidual persoN's life. [00:20:35] That kind of imminence and closeness and coupled with God's powerful transcendence is what David is putting his hope in, and it's what we put our hope in as well. We see these two things on display not only here, but even more so we can say in the life of our Savior, God himself, coming into this world, taking on human flesh like us, so close, so personal. Thomas, touch my side. Right. That the LoRd is with us, addresses our concerns, our SadnesSes, our Pains. [00:21:17] He rescues us, each with individual names, each written in the book of life. [00:21:25] This personal experience of salvation in verses 16 through 19 is then put into some theological categories in the next verses in 20 through 24. David's basic thesis is right there up on top. He dealt with me according to my righteousness. ThE LoRd is Acting and Saving him AcCording to David'S way and to David's walk. Now, we know, of course, that David was not perfect and that DAvid sinned in some very major Ways as well. And so this reward for righteousness, or the righteousness of David is a limited way of speaking. [00:22:08] David's character on the whole, especially compared with other kings and other men, was very good in many, many ways. [00:22:17] And the Lord promised to his people Israel, that as they obeyed him, as they followed him, he would bless them. There were particular blessings promised to David and to the kings, that as they followed and obeyed the Lord, their kingdom and their kingship would be blessed. And that was true of David in a limited sense. [00:22:40] But it points forward to what we read at the end, David and his offspring. [00:22:45] The covenant that God made with David was not just for David, was it? If we remember, when God made his promises to David, he made his promises for his offspring and promised a kingdom that would be forever based on the righteousness of the king's son. [00:23:05] Well, when David fulfilled these things in a sort of partial and shadowy way, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the son of David, the great king, fulfilled this perfectly, and in a way that not only secures earthly temporal blessings, for a short period of time, but in a way that secures eternal heavenly blessings, establishing for us an inheritance that is everlasting. [00:23:34] When we look to a great king in life, when we look to David in particular and say, that would be a good king to have, I could see how God would bring his blessing on him and for the things of this world, we ought to quickly look to the Lord to whom he points, and look to the Lord for his righteousness, his perfection. [00:23:57] Because when the Lord came into the world, he did not sin in any way. No slips, no falls, no accidents, no, that was a really bad day, but I'll do better tomorrow. Just perfect perfection all the time. [00:24:15] The Lord, our God, is a perfect king. And when we look to him for his salvation, we put our faith in Jesus, who is the God man, the one who rules over the kingdom of men as man, but yet is also divine, having come into this world, having in his person accomplished this obedience for us so that we can be sure that our king is solid, well, the strength and the reward for this righteousness, the salvation that comes, is then addressed in terms of the character of the Lord in verses 25 through 27. [00:25:03] Why does God do this? Why is that he acts this way? It's because he's a good God. [00:25:10] This is important when we think about the gods of this world, the gods that we read of in stories and myths, the gods that people still worship today, false gods, are often, maybe we can say, always not good. They may be powerful. We may hear of their great strength for this or that, but we often read of their capriciousness, their foolishness, their sinful hatred and anger. But God, in all of his power and all of his actions, acts with goodness. He's merciful, he's blameless, he's pure. [00:25:48] He puts down those who are proud, and he lifts up those who are humble. And so that's why David and we can look to him. So we see in verses 28 and following it is you who light my lamp. The Lord, my God, likens my darkness. David's feeling really good when we come to verses 29 and 30. For by you I can run against any troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. [00:26:19] Remember, David was often on the run. He needed to be quick and fast and strong. He needed to have success in his fighting abilities. And the Lord was supplying that. He didn't see just his spiritual strengths as coming from the Lord, but his physical ones as well. David was looking to the Lord for everything that he needed, and the Lord was supplying it why? Because David was the anointed one, the chosen One, the promised one, and the one pointing forward to the greater Messiah to come. [00:26:58] Continuing on as we read, we have more wonderful expressions. This wonderful rhetorical question in verse 31 for who is God but the Lord? Right? After all that I've said, let's just sort of say that, ask that question. There's no one like him who is a rock except our God. [00:27:19] And then he gives more descriptions of the strength which God gives to him, the success that he has over his enemies. [00:27:29] On all of this we have the results. In verses 43 through 45, he is delivered. He has success and a kingdom. At the end of all the fighting after end of all of the work, we read in verse 43 that he has been delivered. You delivered me from strife with the people. You made me head of the nations, people whom I had not known served me. As soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me. Foreigners came cringing to me. Foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their fortresses. [00:28:03] Here we see not only the Davidic covenant, but also the Abrahamic covenant, a covenant being God's solemn promise. And the Abrahamic covenant is God's Solemn promise to Abraham, that God would not only bless Abraham and his offspring like David, but would bless all of the families of the earth through him. And so here is this great king who is found through the Lord his light, and is now a light to the world, people coming from around the world here, cringing and trembling. And as we learn later in Solomon, praising and seeking guidance and wisdom, the Lord's blessing extends not only to David, but through David, to the rest of the world. Again, as we think about David in comparison with David's greater son, what do we say about Jesus? Right. What do we say about Jesus? Did he bless all the families of the earth through his great deliverance and defeat over death? Absolutely. [00:29:10] By delivering us, by rescuing us. He comes not only for the Jew but also for the Gentile. And his word has gone out into all of the world. [00:29:22] In verses 46 as we come to the end, 46 and following, we are back where we began, but in some ways in a new place, with the Lord on our hearts, with the Lord in our minds. [00:29:37] We are perhaps more ready now than before to say with David, the Lord lives and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation. [00:29:48] In verses 49 and 50 we end with this. For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing to your name great salvation he brings to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forevEr. [00:30:08] Well, as we've been reflecting on, we can conclude by thinking simply this. What's true of David here in this limited sense, is supremely true of David's greater son. When Jesus came into the world, as I said, he established a kingdom that cannot be shaken. When we come to him, when we belong to him, we then participate and enjoy his victory. Colossians tells us that as those who have faith in Christ, we have been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the sun. [00:30:49] So, as we read these words and we think, well, if these are the words that are true for David and his kingship and his power and his rescue over enemies, how much more true, how much more secure are we in Christ's kingdom? A kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a kingdom that comes to us not according to our personal righteousness, but according to Christ's. We can rely fully on him and know that through his grace, we have strength, we have victory. We can fight in the armor of God. And because of all of that, beloved, let's praise him. Let's praise him. Let's remember our God, our rock, our deliverer, our refuge, our fortress, the horn of our salvation. Let's remember him in his goodness and his power over nature and angels. Let's remember him that he delivers us in our own personal struggles, even as he is transcendently glorious and mighty. Above all things, let's remember to praise him and extol his name among the nations. [00:32:03] Let's pray. [00:32:08] Almighty God, you, to whom belongs every rock and tree, every angel, every creature. [00:32:17] Lord, in our distress, teach us to call upon you. And when we forget to call upon you, we ask that you would give to us distress and trials and difficulties that we might learn not to trust in our strength, but in yours. [00:32:34] Lord, help us to know you in your goodness. Help us to know you in your power. Help us to know you in your grace as you come to us through the Messiah, through the anointed one, to establish a kingdom for us, your people. [00:32:52] Indeed, in you we can be safe, secure. You are our fortress. We can take ref in you. Teach us to call upon you, you who are worthy to be praised. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.