Show Notes
2 Samuel 22
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Let's pray and ask God to bless the reading and preaching of his word.
[00:00:05] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that comes to us. We thank you that it is effective unto the salvation of your people. And we ask, Lord, that you would speak clearly to our hearts today.
[00:00:18] We ask, Lord, that you would humble us so that we might not sit atop our false righteousness, our filthy rags, but instead that we might be lifted up in you to the redemption that you have accomplished for us, to the inheritance that you have promised for us, to the hope that is guaranteed and the steadfast love that undergirds all of it.
[00:00:54] We ask, Lord, that you would help us to have a better understanding of King Jesus than when we came in this morning, not only for our minds, but that which affects our emotions, our will, our consciences, that we might serve him and love him and believe him in everything that we do.
[00:01:16] We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:20] Please be seated and turn your attention to Second Samuel, Chapter 22.
[00:01:56] As we come to the end of Samuel, we have David giving to us this great song of deliverance. A song of praise, a song of thanksgiving, a song like some of the ones we've sang already. A mighty fortress is our God.
[00:02:15] Psalm 130a.
[00:02:19] This song is very much almost the same as Psalm 18.
[00:02:24] It's a great and important passage of Scripture. Let's give our attention to it this morning.
[00:02:31] And David spoke to the Lord, the words of this song on the day when the Lord delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and from the house of Saul.
[00:02:40] He said, 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 and my refuge, My Savior, you save me from violence.
[00:03:00] I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
[00:03:08] For the waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction assailed me. The cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me.
[00:03:19] In my distress I called upon the Lord to my God. I called from his temple, he heard my voice, and my cry came to his ears.
[00:03:29] Then the earth reeled and rocked, the foundations of the heavens 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.
[00:03:45] He bowed the heavens and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet. He rode a cherub and flew. He was seen on the wings of the wind.
[00:03:55] He made darkness around him, His Canopy, thick clouds, a gathering water.
[00:04:02] Out of the brightness before him, coals of fire flamed forth. The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice. And he sent out arrows and scattered them, Lightning and routed them. The channels of the sea were seen. The foundations of the world were laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord. At the blast of the breath of his nostrils, he sent from on high.
[00:04:30] He took me.
[00:04:32] He drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy, 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.
[00:04:45] He brought me out into a broad place. He. He rescued me because he delighted in me.
[00:04:52] The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my heart or my hands. He rewarded me, for I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God.
[00:05:04] For all his rules were before me and from his statutes I did not turn aside.
[00:05:08] I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. And the Lord has rewarded me according to according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.
[00:05:21] With the merciful you show yourself merciful. With the blameless you show yourself blameless.
[00:05:27] With the purified you deal purely. And with the crooked you make yourself seem torturous.
[00:05:33] You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.
[00:05:40] For you are my lamp, O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness.
[00:05:46] For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.
[00:05:52] This God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
[00:06:02] For who is God but the Lord and who is a rock except our God?
[00:06:07] This God is my strong refuge and has made my way blameless.
[00:06:13] He has 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 gentleness has made me great.
[00:06:30] You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip.
[00:06:35] I pursued my enemies and destroyed them and did not turn back until they were consumed. I consumed them. I thrust them through so that they did not 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, those who hated me and I Destroyed them. They looked, but there was none to save. They cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them.
[00:07:02] I beat them fine as the dust of the earth. I crushed them and stamped them down like the mire of the streets. You delivered me from strife with my people.
[00:07:12] You kept me as the head of the nations. People whom I had not known served me. Foreigners came cringing to me.
[00:07:21] As soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me. Foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their fortresses.
[00:07:29] The Lord lives and blessed be my rock, and exalted be my God, the rock of my salvation, the God who gave me vengeance and brought down peoples under me, who brought me out from my enemies. You exalted me above those who rose against me. You delivered me from men of violence.
[00:07:51] For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations and and sing praises to your name.
[00:07:57] Great salvation he brings to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.
[00:08:09] Amen.
[00:08:13] An epic song, right?
[00:08:15] An epic song to end this epic narrative.
[00:08:22] All of the things that have happened throughout Samuel, the author, now bringing them to a close.
[00:08:29] And one of the things that he does is he gives for us this song from David, a song of deliverance, a song which recognizes many things about his history, about his life. As he reflects back on the past, he recognizes his relationship with the Lord. He recognizes the Lord's promises to him. He recognizes the things that have happened, the things that he has accomplished. And he has recognized that the Lord is the one who is working in and through him, both in training him to accomplish those things and in the accomplishments themselves. David's looking at his life, and he says, all praise and glory and honor to God.
[00:09:17] There are moments in the song where you see David's strength, right? Bending a bow of bronze, trampling on his enemies, victorious, leaping over a wall, which probably has the idea of moving over a city wall, right? Like an army defeating a city, something like that.
[00:09:34] However you read that, it's very clear that we see David's strength, his righteousness, his heart, a good heart on display here.
[00:09:46] But in the middle here, where we see the things that are strong in David, that are admirable in David, they're always grounded, aren't they? Throughout the whole song and from the beginning to the end, they are grounded in the Lord.
[00:10:02] And this is not merely a memorial.
[00:10:05] Let me start again. It is not a memorial to David and his mighty deeds. It is a praise and a thanksgiving to God who has accomplished these things through his anointed One through his Messiah, through his Christ, his Anointed One.
[00:10:26] David's righteousness, though we know was imperfect.
[00:10:32] The author of Samuel in particular the Holy Spirit, knew this.
[00:10:37] He knew better than anyone what was going on in David's heart. When he committed sins with Bathsheba, when he sent Uriah to death, when he got hot tempered and unwise and tried to destroy Nabal, when he was weak and failed to uphold his duties.
[00:10:57] When he stepped back and wasn't active enough. When he stepped forward and was too active, when his pride got ahold of him. The Holy Spirit knows all of that and recorded it for us that we would know it too.
[00:11:12] We see in some ways David speaking here that deserve our attention, right?
[00:11:18] In what way was he blameless? In what way was he righteous?
[00:11:23] And how does all of this apply to us?
[00:11:25] Right? Are we just looking back on David's relationship with God or is there something here for us to understand about our relationship with God?
[00:11:34] These are some things I want to think about with you today.
[00:11:38] The answer to these questions is that we should sing praise to God.
[00:11:42] Our hearts should be filled with joy and thanksgiving for the work that God does as he upholds us in His Christ. In Jesus Christ, remember means Anointed one. Same with Messiah.
[00:11:58] These words are applied to David, but ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.
[00:12:03] It's in Jesus that we are uphold in way. Jesus is our king in a way that David was the Israelites king.
[00:12:13] And there's differences there of course, because as they were trusting in the Lord, they were also trusting in Jesus in this typical way.
[00:12:21] But here we have an opportunity to reflect on this song and think about the praises that we give to God in Christ, knowing that God upholds His Messiah and He upholds us in Him. It's a song of our King. It's a song of Jesus as we know and love him.
[00:12:41] Let's think about some reasons why and examine this psalm this morning.
[00:12:46] As we think about how it is God upholds us in Christ.
[00:12:51] How does God uphold us under his anointed king?
[00:12:57] One reason we see is that God rescues the king who cries out to him from out of the depths I cry. We sang from Psalm 130.
[00:13:06] That's what David is doing here.
[00:13:09] It's what Jesus did as well in his humiliation on the cross when he cried out to God. God rescues his king.
[00:13:18] He delivers him. He hears him.
[00:13:21] You see that in this passage, right? The king David, God's chosen servant, is overwhelmed by death.
[00:13:29] You see that in verse five, the waves of death, a striking image the waves of death encompassed me. The torrents of destruction assailed me. The cords of sheol. The grave entangled me. The snares of death confronted me.
[00:13:48] It's a similar.
[00:13:49] Similar language is used by Jonah when he describes his experience of drowning. Being cast into the sea and the seaweeds wrapping around him and pulling him down into the. Into the grave.
[00:14:05] This sort of overwhelm that happens.
[00:14:08] If you've ever experienced even a little bit of drowning, maybe even like you're drinking some water, it goes down the wrong pipe or whatever, you know, this sort of, like this terrifying. It's terrifying, right? It's a terrible feeling of overwhelm. Now imagine being right in a body of water and feeling that. Imagine feeling that in other circumstances. This is how David describes this. Waves of death encompassing him.
[00:14:38] It can be easy sometimes to think about the story of David. As you know, he's just sort of plodding along and things are hard, but he trusts the Lord. And then they go, all right.
[00:14:48] He means this when he says it.
[00:14:51] You face difficult things in your life.
[00:14:54] Waves of turmoil, waves of difficulty, waves of suffering times. When you think of, how am I going to make it out of this? How am I going to make it past tonight or this morning or this week or this season?
[00:15:10] David felt similarly here. And of course, no one felt this more than Jesus, who experienced not only death, but the judgment of God fully on him for our sins.
[00:15:24] Well, David responds by saying to the situation. He says, in my distress, I called upon Yahweh. I called upon the Lord to my God. I called and from his temple heard my voice.
[00:15:37] My cry came to his ears.
[00:15:41] This is worth reflecting on. Beloved, when you pray to God, when you put your trust in him, you're not just rehearsing things in your own mind.
[00:15:54] It's not self talk, right? Talking to oneself, you are talking to God.
[00:16:00] And God who is infinite, who exists and is not constrained in time and space, who made you in all things, who knows you to the most intimate level.
[00:16:15] He hears you.
[00:16:18] It doesn't just go out into the void.
[00:16:23] A blog post, social media feed. You wonder if anybody ever read it.
[00:16:30] Right? God hears it.
[00:16:33] He hears your words.
[00:16:37] And this is how he responds to the distress of His Anointed One.
[00:16:43] We have this picture in 8 through 16. I'm tempted to just read it again. I'm not going to do that.
[00:16:50] But let's pick a few things. The overall image is one of.
[00:16:55] Of weakness, weak response or strong response?
[00:16:58] Strong response, very strong response. The earth, right? The earth Reeled and rocked. Right? Earthquake kind of things happening here. Everything shaking and moving. The foundations of the heavens to trembled. What's even that mean? I don't know.
[00:17:20] It's big, though. We could say that it quaked. And why? Because he was angry.
[00:17:27] The anger of the Lord. Why? He's not just angry because he's angry. You know, God gets angry. He's angry because his beloved son is under attack.
[00:17:40] Smoke goes up for his nostrils. And then you get these image of God from the heavens surrounding himself.
[00:17:47] He's unseen, but surrounding himself with darkness and clouds. And yet through the.
[00:17:54] Through this darkness, this cloudy, thick smoke, you can see light.
[00:18:02] There's light emanating out of it.
[00:18:07] And in addition to it emanating out of it, it's also shooting out of it.
[00:18:11] Lightning strikes like arrows.
[00:18:14] Boom, boom, boom. And not just one or two, but many, many.
[00:18:19] This whole picture is described with God riding on a cherub, which I don't even want to say that way because you think of a fat little baby in a painting, right? That is not a cherub. It's a cherub. It is a mighty angel is what this word means. It's a mighty angel that God is riding on. In Ezekiel, it's described not just as one angel, but hundreds of millions of angels functioning as his chariot. As he rides out as this divine warrior, God is angry, Righteously angry.
[00:18:56] Righteously angry. And he is on a mission to protect, to deliver, to lift up. And so he sends out these arrows, he scatters the enemies. The channels of the sea are seen at the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
[00:19:13] The result of this, in verse 17, he sent from on high. That's a summary of 8 through 16.
[00:19:22] And then he took me. He drew me out of these waters that he had described before these waves of death.
[00:19:29] He rescued me. This is verse 18. From my strong enemy, from those who hated me.
[00:19:35] This vision of God coming to rescue David, his anointed one, his reaching down from on high and taking hold is something we see over and over throughout the life of David. These impossible situations, certain death, armies hunting him.
[00:19:58] You remember some of those scenes we've talked about. Imagine being out even in our own desert, right? Being hunted by the armies of Saul, the very difficult spies, people watching out for you, trying to find you. The loneliness, the hunger, the difficulties. And all along the way, the Lord provided for him.
[00:20:21] Over and over and over, this language of the Lord's or of David's cry for deliverance. And the Lord's answering his cry is echoed for us in the relationship between the Father and the son. In Hebrews 5, 7, it speaks to this directly. It says, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.
[00:20:52] And he was heard because of his reverence.
[00:20:57] So, just like David here, except even greater and 100% perfectly. The Lord, our Lord cried out in the days of his flesh to the one who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence.
[00:21:14] So point one, God rescues the king who cries to him. This is why we can praise God. This is why we can know we are safe in King Jesus.
[00:21:24] God hears, God rescues. And he is not weak to save. He is very, very strong.
[00:21:34] Number two. God vindicates the king who trusts him. This is where we get into David's expression of his relationship with the Lord.
[00:21:46] God vindicates the king who trusts him.
[00:21:50] David describes himself as being righteous, as being clean, as being blameless.
[00:21:59] And we have to understand this in two ways. One, David knows, and as we said before, the Holy Spirit knows that this is that David is not perfectly righteous, perfectly blameless in the way that Christ is. So what does he mean by this? How is he describing this?
[00:22:19] Or what does he mean by this?
[00:22:22] One of the things that is meant by this is David's general righteousness and character before the Lord.
[00:22:28] It's true that David made big mistakes and sinned very grievously, terribly before the Lord.
[00:22:40] But over the course of David's life, we see David acting as.
[00:22:45] As a Christian. We see David acting as one of the Lord's people. We see David acting as one, as the righteous do, as the blameless do.
[00:22:55] What do I mean by that?
[00:22:57] Well, David repented.
[00:23:02] David believed David struggled in ways that we all do, and struggled and sinned and fell.
[00:23:14] But he went to the Lord and he sought forgiveness and he received it.
[00:23:19] This is the behavior of a righteous person as opposed to a wicked person. The contrast that is made throughout the Psalms. Much in the Bible, a wicked person who separates not only does wicked deeds, but separates himself from the Lord is at war against God. And when his sins, when he is confronted with his sins, he does not turn from them.
[00:23:42] Instead, he doubles down on them or makes excuses for them.
[00:23:48] We see some of this with David, but ultimately, over the course of his life, we see that David was loyal to the Lord. And that's important.
[00:23:57] It's important in the way that it points us to the ultimate loyalty that is needed by the king.
[00:24:07] The loyalty and the obedience and the perfection that is given to us in Christ.
[00:24:12] So David, right, he had this measure of righteousness, this measure of loyalty which the Lord did reward in his life, but not in any kind of final way.
[00:24:26] He didn't give to David an eternal kingdom. He didn't make David the immortal king over all his people.
[00:24:33] David strug this kingdom passed away and indeed went into many, had many difficulties.
[00:24:40] This is not the case with Christ, whose perfect righteousness, unperfect righteousness, saves us perfectly from all our sins and establishes a perfect eternal kingdom forever.
[00:24:53] And so in this way, David is functioning kind of as a type, as a model of what Jesus would be in a final way.
[00:25:04] There's also something else to pay attention to when we think about David's not only as how David functioning according to God's unveiling of revelation, but also how David is thinking about himself, right? He does describe himself as righteous, as clean, as blameless, but also he describes himself as one who has received mercy.
[00:25:28] In this song, he describes himself as one who has been purified.
[00:25:33] He describes himself as one who has been lifted up by the Lord, as one who has been made humble.
[00:25:42] David sees himself as getting these things from God by his grace.
[00:25:49] David received these things from the Lord. This is the whole point of his song, right? It's not because of what he did, but because of what God did. How God upheld him, how God worked in his life.
[00:26:04] David's contrast between the righteous and the wicked is a contrast that we see throughout the narrative. The story of Samuel and the contrast between people who will continually fight against the Lord no matter what, and those who will humble themselves before him and trust him, put their faith in him for their salvation.
[00:26:30] The resolution to all of these things is in Christ.
[00:26:35] Christ is the one who gives us the perfect righteousness we need.
[00:26:42] And Christ is the one who earns for us the ground for the grace that we all trust in.
[00:26:50] It's ultimately God's character, God's work, God's promises that are the ground for his salvation, not David's mere merit.
[00:27:00] As David says in verse 31, his way is perfect. God's way is perfect. He is a shield.
[00:27:09] And when Jesus came into the world and lived his life perfectly and without sin, that perfect life was vindicated in his resurrection.
[00:27:21] And we need not fear that there is anything in the Lord's life which could come under judgment. It's only the only judgment that he took was a judgment for us.
[00:27:34] So God vindicates the King who trusts in him. This is seen most perfectly in Christ. Finally, God exalts the King who reigns for him.
[00:27:45] Throughout this song we see that God is equipping David for dominion over his people.
[00:27:52] Verses 34 through 35. He makes my feet like the feet of the deer. He strengthens his hands for war. He is a shield of salvation for David. And all the nations come under his rule.
[00:28:06] This is another way in which we see David pointing forward to Christ.
[00:28:11] This elevated, almost hyperbolic, we would say, language in which David speaks is truly fulfilled in Jesus.
[00:28:20] Paul quotes this verse in Romans 15:19. If Christ's own voice in gathering in the Gentiles.
[00:28:29] That's really important for us to think about when we think about ourselves here, worshiping in Arizona, Tucson, right so far away from where these events happened in David's time, so far away from Christ's ministry, the promise that the Gospel would go out to all the world, that people would be brought under the kingship of Jesus.
[00:28:56] You're right here confessing your faith, believing in the Lord.
[00:29:01] You're right here.
[00:29:04] Your own lives are proof of the fact that of what Jesus has done and the extent and the power of his kingship, not only in this different place, but as you consider his work throughout time, sustaining this message, sustaining this gospel, sustaining his kingdom, his church, generation after generation after generation.
[00:29:27] An amazing thing which we see, the power of Christ's rule, in which we see the Lord upholding His king, God upholding his King who reigns for him.
[00:29:41] Our sins are what took Jesus to the cross. Our sins are why Jesus came into this world and died.
[00:29:50] It was because of our sins that Jesus did these things that we needed to be forgiven.
[00:29:55] And once he accomplished that, our sins are forgiven, the curse of death is removed.
[00:30:02] And those who belong to the Lord will belong to him who forever.
[00:30:07] Because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
[00:30:13] This great work of God in Christ is all amazing as we see this human being, this perfect human being, pictured in this life of David, but fulfilled in actual time and space. This perfect human being, our Lord, coming into power and glory to, to rule over all his people for all time and throughout every moment. God backing it, strengthening it, undergirding it, promising it, rescuing him when he cries to him, vindicating him when he trusts in him, exalting him so that he may reign through him.
[00:30:53] It's an amazing thing. Jesus is the King of men, the second Adam, the great ruler, the King of all kings.
[00:31:06] But we have to finish by saying this, that many of the titles that David gives to God, e.g. rock Fortress, Deliverer, Savior, are applied to Jesus.
[00:31:23] And not simply in the sense that he.
[00:31:27] He is helpful to those who are under him, but in the sense that he is the rock of the Old Testament.
[00:31:36] He is the fortress which David was trusting in. He was the deliverer who lifted him up.
[00:31:45] Acts 5:31 says of Jesus, God exalted him at his right hand as leader and Savior to give repentance to Israel and his people.
[00:31:54] Philippians 3:20. Jesus is described as our Savior, and he is described as our Lord and as our God.
[00:32:03] Which means that this same person who upholds us is also the upholder.
[00:32:14] This one who was upheld is the same as the one who is upholding, not in a way that denies the difference between the Son and the Father, but to describe and to express that we don't just have this amazing human king, but to say simply, this human king is our God, and not because his humanity was somehow elevated to divinity, but because God humbled himself and added human nature onto himself, that he might both be our God and our Redeemer, our substitute, our sacrifice.
[00:32:59] If there was anything more stable, more rock like, more sure, more trustworthy than that, well, there isn't.
[00:33:11] What possible salvation could be greater than God himself becoming human, taking on human nature to save us from our sins?
[00:33:25] There is no other foundation on which our salvation could be more secure, and there is no other foundation in which it is secure. And for that reason, when David, at the end of this song, takes hold of the promises that were given to him in the in God's covenant with him, he invites us, I think, in a way, to praise God with him for the same truths that God upholds his Anointed One and upholds us in him.
[00:33:56] So verse 50, he says, for this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to your name.
[00:34:03] Will we be silent as the Anointed One calls out to the praises of God for all of these amazing works of the Lord?
[00:34:14] No. We join our voices with his. And in the case of Jesus, we join our voices in. Or we sing to God in His name.
[00:34:23] And we can say verse 51, we can sing it, we can shout it. Great salvation he brings to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.
[00:34:36] Right there in that last verse, we have the promise that this isn't just David's relationship with the Lord, but God is stable and God is doing something through him which will culminate in Christ under whom we live, in whose kingdom we dwell and whose protection we have.
[00:34:59] And so, beloved, let us praise the Lord, for great is salvation. He is our rock. He is our Redeemer. He is our deliverer. And he hears all those who cry to him.
[00:35:13] Look to King Jesus. Look to what God has done through him. And put all your faith and trust in him.
[00:35:20] Let's pray.
[00:35:22] Our Heavenly Father, we confess the many ways in which we have not put our faith in you, the many ways in which we have walked away from you and sinned against you. But we come to you now asking that you would forgive our sins, that you would hear our cries for repentance, and that you would deliver us from. From the sins which cling so closely.
[00:35:43] Deliver us also, Lord, from the curse of death that comes upon us for our sins.
[00:35:49] Remove from us all of the enmity that is between you and us that we might dwell peaceably with you forever.
[00:35:58] We pray this, Lord, for those who do not yet know you, that you would do this mighty work of salvation in them. And for those of us who already have received these things and know you, O Lord, help us to walk in them. Help us to sing songs of salvation, to sing songs of faith and repentance, knowing that Jesus is our King and that we have in him no reason to fear and every reason to live.
[00:36:26] We pray this in his name. Amen.
